EVE New Citizens Q&A

How hard it will be for an Alpha Clone to explore Wormholes for Gas Cloud Harvesting?

Okay... let's go through the pre-flight checkoff:

1: I assume you are going to use a Venture for this. If not, I highly recommend using one.
It is cheap (always good!), has a bonus that gives resistance against Warp Disruption (it won't always save you, but it helps), and has ample space for storing gas.

2: Do you have gas miners and can you use them? Get them. I recommend getting the cheapest ones you can find (there is a reason for this)

3: Can you use a probe launcher? And the probes? Double check your skills. Again, keep it cheap for right now.

4: How good are you at probing? If it takes you more than a couple of minutes to probe down something, you may want to practice finding things in High-sec first. This can mean the difference between life and death.


Okay... now that you have those things taken care of, here is the lay of the land:

Wormhole space is basically like null-sec space (0.0 to -1.0 space).
There are no laws out there, no NPCs that will punish your attackers, and you will encounter certain bits of "OMGWTF" equipment that you will not find in High-sec or Low-sec... namely Area of Effect Bombs and Area of Effect Warp Disruption Bubbles.

As an added bonus... there are no stargates, stations (aside from player-made citadels), asteroid belts, or really anything that you can warp to outside of planets and the odd cosmic signature (that are usually crawling with Sleeper drones).
Oh yeah... and there is no Local Chat.
Okay well... there is... but no one will appear on it (imagine being locked in a dark, soundproof room... that may or may not have paranoid, shiv-wielding people in it).


When you probe down a wormhole, bookmark it on BOTH sides.

Let me repeat that; BOOKMARK IT ON BOTH SIDES.

Too often... people enter a wormhole, probe down what they are looking for, and then just warp off.
This creates a problem as the wormhole will need to be reprobed again. And unless you know exactly which area of the system it was in you run the risk of probing down the wrong wormhole and going deeper into wormhole space.
Or wind up in someone's territory in null-sec.

Yeeeeeaaaah... you'll have lots of fun figuring things out at that point.


Also take into account that wormholes have a lifespan and mass limits. You can check the info of a wormhole you are staring at and kinda guesstimate it (hint: if it looks kinda like jello in an intense earthquake then it probably won't last long).
So basically, don't plan on sticking around, much less logging off, in a wormhole. It may not be there when you want to go back home.


Finally... consider the residents of wormhole space... who can best be compared to the rural yokels in any country that don't like "outsiders" (kidding, kidding... but yeah... best to keep that ass of yours puckered up a bit).


To put all this in laymen's terms; wormhole space is basically Mad Max in space. Not the new one with the pretty ladies... we are talking about the old one... where everyone looks and acts like they have been beaten with a dusty frying pan that was used to cook methamphetamine (note: don't cook meth on a frying pan... bad things happen).

And you will be alone. On a Vespa. Where everyone is driving around in tricked out Chevy muscle cars of kludge-filled death. And the "wildlife" is armed with AK-47s and RPGs.


But it is not all bad. Your character is immortal after all. So what if your character's corpse was violated for its "purdy mouth?" That was a previous life. You have new, chaste body now.
After a few attempts at wormhole gas mining you will learn how to avoid danger.



Now go getim tiger!!!

This is some good advice right here to get you started. As someone who lives part time in a WH and will hunt you down and kill you, let me add a few things.

When you enter a WH:
1) Bookmark the exit. Do this before you even decloak or move.
2) Check Dscan and your overview for bubbles , probes, and ships. Dont assume core probes are not hostile. Assume any probes are from a hostile player.
3) THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Reapproach the WH so you are sitting at 0. This is the safest place in a WH to sit except for being in a POS shield or tethered to a citadel.
4) Keep an eye on Dscan while you scan. Look for activity in the WH. Every 30 seconds or so is enough for this part of your journey.
5) More importantly keep an eye on your overview. If anyone shows on your overview jump back through to high sec.
6)Once you have a site scanned down Bookmark it. This can be done off your probe scanner once you get the warp to icon (-->). You may want to scan down all the sites. Many systems will have multiple gas sites.
7) When you are ready, warp to the gas site. From this point on you will want to refresh dscan more often. Be prepared to warp away as soon as you land. Gas sites are guarded by sleepers. They will kill you if you hang out more than a few seconds.
8) If no one has warped to the site before( uncloaked) then their will be no NPCs( sleepers). They may of also killed the sleepers( i regularly kill sleepers at gas sites in my system for their loot not the gas).
9) Assuming that sleepers arent already present and no one cleared them you will have about 15 minutes( i think but just pay attention) before they spawn. Harvest fast.
10) You wont be able to kill sleepers in your ship. You can kill them in alpha friendly ships in lower class holes except for certain spawns that have sleeper towers( gun batteries). Those hit stupidly hard and you need a decent tank to clear them.

Notes:

1) Many people will tell you to make safe spots to scan from etc. While safe spots do work if you bounce between them, the safest place is on that WH exit to highsec( note that only ones that exit to high sec are safe). That is because i cant do anything to you if you jump through and you are already in range to jump through. Scramming you, webbing you, bubbling, all my tools to trap you so you cant get away wont work. The only thing i can do is alpha you before you jump.

2) When you go through a WH its polarized on that side for 5 minutes. You cannot jump through the same wormhole the same way twice in 5 minutes. You can jump in and jump out. But you cant jump in jump out and jump back until 5 minutes is up. Remember this or you may try to use a WH to escape and end up trapping yourself on the side you dont want to be on.

3) Outside of high sec, assume everyone wants to kill you. Even if they seem to be in a fairly harmless ship doesnt mean its harmless. Ive seen people get ganked by rookie ships, mining ships, exploration ships, etc. If they arent in a pod they are a threat, and if they are in a pod they may getting a warp in for a ship that will kill you.

4) If you do show info on a wormhole, it will give you details about the WH. Learn what they mean. For example i would stay out of WHs that say " near the end of its natural life time" and " about to dissipate into ether" . You have a very short amount of time before those close with the latter being literally any minute. You want ones that say " is starting to decay" or " has not yet begun to decay" these have a few hours to over a day left in them.

5) Whs you find in high trafffic busy systems are more likely to get other people to wander in them. You enter a WH in a system that has 30-40 people in it consistently, there is a good chance someone else is going to wander in that same hole while your in it. You want to find WHs in quiet systems. You will reduce your chances of getting killed by players coming in from high sec.

yes it is OK

The title of the thread is about a new player and the post is about an alpha clone. I just want to point out that those are two completely different things.

Most other MMOs that I've played are linear with a level cap and some type of "end game". Eve is a sandbox and you can participate in pretty much any activity from day one. Yes with skills things do become easier but your character is capable of doing a lot very early on.

That being said the game is very deep and much more about player knowledge and experience than character skills or gear or anything else for that matter.

So if you are willing to take your lumps and learn from each explosion then yes you will do fine in wormhole space. However I recommend that if you find yourself enjoying wormhole space that you find friends very early on. Even if it is just public chat channels for explorers.

Another note that I'd like to pass on is that trying to learn Eve in wormholes is kind of like jumping into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. It certainly can be done just know that you are going the expedited learning route rather than the slow comfortable path.

They want the OP to figure out the surprise ...

If you're truly a noob, and you're thinking isk/hour it's not worth it.
WH space works based on cloaking. Alpha's can't cloak.

If you're in for the thrill, learning about w-space and might one day play "for real" - jump right into it or find a newb friendly w-space corp.

Realize that once you land in a gas cloud, you have approximately 20 minutes before the sleepers show up...and a lot less than 20 minutes if the wormhole has residents.

But don't stop. Go out there and get what you can get. If you get killed, learn from that and do it again.

Another thing I forgot to mention about wormholes.

If you land in a wormhole, especially a C4 to C6 that is inhabited...warp to every anomaly and then bail. The residents will try to thank you in person for your dedication to their well-being.

And in your Venture, take some useless ammo with you. Land at the gas site at 0 and drop one ammo charge in a can and leave it there. Some WH residents might warp to the gas site at 0km cloaked and the can will decloak them. Saved my behind a few times when I did the ninja huffing.

As soon as you feel comfortable in 0.0/WH space, I'd suggest you to move yourself to Curse region, where you can find mining 4 lvl agents. Just take gas missions only, and it's really fast way to earn money. Like you'll earn enough to buy PLEX in a week or soo.

Here is the system. http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/G-G78S

Of course Curse is notorious for its PvP activity, but still very good money. And if you learn to survive in Curse, you'll survive anywhere. NPC stations help to survive, btw. Just don't forget to make a jumpclone in the highsec.