Wormholes

actually, the only thing you'd need from CCP is for frigate only WHs to ONLY connect to other systems via jump-mass limited wormholes.

everything else is already possible without new deployables and with the current mass limits. You had the right idea with the Phobos, try the EFT warrior'ing again, with a Devoter.

Brainstorming frigate holes right now. Tldr warning fyi.

Assuming these are here to stay, I want to list out the issues as I see them atm.

1) wolf rayet effect (has to be better options)
2) stuff to do in the frig hole?
3) living in a frig hole.
4) finding frig holes.
5) transport through frig holes.

1) wolf rayet effect. This needs to go and be replaced with something viable for frigates and destroyers. I would create a new effect. Inside the shattered frigate holes, has a White Dwarf Star with a similar effect to the wolf rayet, except buff hit points on shields, armor and hull, vs just a armor resist, and remove the Dps increase (maybe add in a 3rd effect). Fights should last longer, not be a alpha the field first race. This should also give the ships enough ehp to survive sleeper sites without being max skilled. This also returns shield frigates to this hole.

2) Stuff to do in the frig hole? people have been asking for pi, pos,s, etc. that isn't needed. You have sleepers, exploration sites, gas sites. Assuming frigates can do them all, that should be enough activity. I would consider increasing the isk per hour in these places. Easiest way is to add in c5 and c6 wormhole gasses (sleepers adjusted down in scale capable for a frigate to do), and put in micro escalations (keep it simple, in each site, spawn an extra wave of enemies for each extra person that shows up, maximum 1 extra wave. Meaning you aren't penalized if you bring a buddy, but you can't farm it endlessly. Isk bonus for a friend, isk negative for 3 or more friends. The other issue here is that to do combat sites, you would need a probing ship. The majority of the probers are exploration ships and bombers. Consider making the combat sites all warpable so at least it doesn't become mandatory to equip a depot, probe launcher and probes for a combat frigate.

3) living in a frig hole. Some people will do this. People forget that a secure container cannot be probed out (can store your fat Lewts in there). It can be dscanned out but that's a good deal of effort. With yurts and cans, living in one is possible, just highly difficult. At this point I think it's ok, least for now. See below for some ideas and concepts for this.

4) finding a frig hole. I do believe this is the more difficult part of these new holes. Ive had a few concepts of making these more accessible (everything from a single scanner sweep systemwide would make them show up, from just removing the probe part and make the signatures show up on overview automatically without needing to probe at all (very anti wormhole)). I do believe the main issue with these will be finding them. There are over 2500 wormhole systems. There are 25 of these. The possible rarity of finding one is somewhat redicilous, especially since they cannot be rolled for. It's not my decision but unless you want these used, they will have to be relatively easy to find. How and in what way I do not know.

5) transports through frigholes. There is a possible golden opportunity being missed here, and that is transit through these holes. Currently, only ships at or under 2 million mass will fit into these holes (to prevent larger ships from going in). I do believe some larger ships should be able to go in, but still non cruiser ships. You can increase its max mass to 9,000,000 and keep all cruisers out.

5a) ice mining. Unless you intend to introduce ice lasers, let the venture ice mine and reduce ice volume by 900, it's pretty pointless to put ice in here. But if you do want ice here, you'd have to allow at least a procurer in here, but it's mass is way too high. You would have to cut it's mass by at least 11,000,000.

5b). One of the transport ships should have access to this hole. The best option would probably be the deep space transport. It's tanky enough to survive without melting, and can't perma cloak (vulnerable to bubbles).

5c) a 3rd option is a combined pirate transport and static base ship. Think of it as a mini orca base station vessel. Call it "the whale". It's a small transport platform with no high slots, but a ton of sensor strength (think a yurt on steroids, highly resistant to combat probing". It would have a small Sma (enough to store 2 frigates and a destroyer, max at roughly 80,000m3) ,small storage bay, small fleet hanger (5,000 m3, you would have to change the repackage size of the strategic cruisers to 5,500), and possibly a ore gas storage bay for your scavenging needs. +2 warp resists, micro jump drive equipable, interdiction nullified (can fly through bubbles), align times a disaster (similar to the current dst), high resist profile like the dst. Something like this meant as a mobile base for people, cept the mobile base is a character (it's an idea, and that idea is to provide transit for people using dst's, and create a frigate capable mobile base for those nomads out there).

I'm trying to think of addresses to the multitude of issues these may have. It's a bit of a brainstorm on the possible future uses.

Taking a couple of points out of order, it would be nice if EVERY current frig hole opened up into shattered space (S-space), and therefore every access of a frig hole to k space went through S-space (directly if you are already in S- space). No j-space to J space connections via frig holes. This would make finding them easier and more active too.

Keep the 25 wolf rayett holes but if they prove popular add pheonix jones white dwarf effect to an additional group of S-space mass limited holes, but keep the same damage bonus to small weapons, these are needed for balanced PVE in frigates, Whilst we often forget to balance for PVE it is needed to be the base, and support of the food chain.

Regarding Ice.
There is room here for an ice mining version of the prospect, I imagine Fozzie already has thought of that. Can it mine and chop the ice Into smaller Blocks? Or mine part blocks?

I love the Narwal name. Perfect name if it could do that.

Remove Sentry guns from these holes (if they are planned to be in there at all) they are just not a suitable choice with frigates in mind.. Hopefully already done.

I would like to see a mobille depot with a short life force field, certainly less than 48 hours before refuelling or redeploying. If it is decided that it needs refuelling, Let it run directly on ice? Or some other product found in the same hole? A tool for active use, not for leaving alone long term unattended. Something to pick up before you logoff.

Do you live in a different w-space to the rest of us? Where are these inhabited wormholes and how do I find them?

I would avoid any type of force field around any type of deployable. What I would do is create a buffer zone around certain deployable a that would either remove the ship from dscan and increase the sensor strength to help it resist probing.

A shield of protection is bad for this small space. I'd defer to resistance to being probe over some pos shield.

Actually that is a much better idea. A mobile depot with this feature is a great idea.
It would need careful thought to prevent it becoming an overpowered object out of the wormhole in k space, maybe need the W-R system effect to function?
+1 to the amended deployable.

This is the beauty of the forums, one comes with an idea, and amongst all the garbage, somebody comes out with an idea from left field that makes it much better.

Thanks.

As a non-holer:

What's the purpose of these system going to be?

It can't be habitated, so why would you go there?

There's noone who will form a defense-fleet in those holes. There's noone who'll form an invasion fleet for those holes.
There's no shiny kills and glorious fights to be had in those holes.

It looks to me like they'll be damn empty all the time until there are so many sites that someone actually forms a AF fleet to run it.



Theoretically, could a single AF (Let's say, a Retribution) run a C3 site solo in there with all the system effects applied?

Try adding Force Fields to your overview

OK, good luck RFing a tower with sentry Asteros.

I like any ideas that can breathe more life into w-space. And opening up w-space to low sp pilots who can complete all the content with frigates would be a spawning ground for future w-space corps that would one day be milling around in hac's, t3's, and caps. And the whole haven and hearth meets eve aspect is pretty cool. But there are quite a few balance issues that need to be worked through. As many have mentioned, the first person in would be immovable.

Still, rolling into a hole where you could have a small fleet fight with newbros in af's and logi frigs would be a nice way to spice up a night.