EVE New Citizens Q&A

Wormholes are dangerous for a new player because there are several major points where a single mistake can strand you in them forever, most of them tied to forgetting to set a book-mark, and the only way to get out once you've made that mistake is to be podded.

It's not as big a deal for more experienced players because:

1. They're in the habit of setting bookmarks all the time, everywhere, on everything. If they screw up and can't find their exit it's usually less of a big deal to take another exit and just fly the bajillion jumps back to the system they came from in k-space (something that will quite frequently get a new player killed/podded even if they do have another k-space exit marked).

2. They tend to have the resources that getting podded is more of a "laugh at self because self is stupid, buy new implants, proceed" than the absolutely devastating hit to total resources that implants/clone update can be to someone in the age-range that this forum is pointed at.

3. They are much more used to the fact that everything in Eve is PvP, so w-space is just a minor jump in direct aggression, where for a 3-month character hopping in from high-sec it's a major change in mechanics (no free warp-to points, warp bubbles allowed, NPCs are legitimately dangerous, no local channel, no CONCORD, no sec-status factor in player decisions). And it's even worse if you're a player that went to the shallow end of the pool (Sov 0.0) pvp-wise early in your career and are used to a near-absolute level of safety everywhere but clearly defined areas and the ability to call for backup.

4. They actually have the SP-skills and out-of-game skills to field boats capable of extracting a meaningful profit from w-space (new players CAN run w-space sites, but this is one of the few situations where the difference between a IV and a V in a skill can actually be the difference between profit and ignominious death).

That said, if you are willing to take basically the PvP approach to wormholes (cheap clone, cheap ship, don't care) wormhole diving is pretty entertaining even if you can't usually do anything profitable in there. Give it a go, just pay extra attention to rule #1 in there.

One thing to note is that there is no entry-level PVE content in wormholes. The easiest sites are on par with or a little tougher than level 3 security missions - and that's just the NPCs. Hostile players are much more dangerous again.

Once you can afford to lose a battlecruiser, however, I highly recommend you jump clone into a cheap clone, fit out a battlecruiser with a standard probe, and scan down a wormhole and just explore. Accept that the clone and BC you are taking into the hole are lost, and just see what you can find.


Bonus points if you announce your presence in local in the WH in an annoying way, like typing the lyrics of "Call Me Maybe" into local.

Hey, I just got here
And this is cra-a-a-azy
But I'm in your wormhole
So fight me maybe?


(yes, I have done this once. Don't play EVE drunk.)

Wanna try out wormhole space?

Learn to scan.

Learn to scan.

LEARN TO SCAN.

And get a second monitor, slap your d-scanner on it, and USE IT.

Often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lm1FL7gWl4

I win.