Wormholes

For years, WH corp leaders have complained that few line members go out to scan, most players sit in their citadels or keep busy with activities close to home. Noobman (CSM12) wrote in his WH CSM meeting notes: "Make scanning less time consuming." Though scanning chains in j-space is clearly critical, few residents have any enthusiasm for probing.

Recently I got an earful from my ex-corpies who firmly believed that bookmarks' (BMs) good looks and adherence to an old BM'ing scheme based on a now obsolete mapping tool is best. Though it clearly wastes scanners' time and effort, they insisted their corp BM'ing scheme / WH map tool combo TRUMPS pro-scanner friendliness offered by alternatives.

As a probably rare player who fully enjoys scanning, I wondered, am I too idealistic when it comes to pro-scanner friendly corps? Does the “lazy position” in Jack Milton's reply to “make probing easier” demands commonly beat simply adopting easier, faster, and more fun mapping/BM'ing innovations?

Or is it because I'm like a frog in a well... with a narrow perspective focused too much on the Vippy mapper paired with its 'Auto-name systems: numbers (by static)' bookmarking scheme? It seems to me now, that this combo is probably rare in WH corps, that I'm limiting my career as a pro-scanner to stick with it...

So I wonder, what corp BM'ing scheme / WH map tool combo is most scanner friendly? What combinations are commonly used in j-space that does not make scanning, time consuming, tedious work?

That sounds like an awful lot of work you do. All I can do, or anyone else willing to share such "massive corp secrets" such as this would only tell you what they do, what they use, and how it has benefited them. Then maybe you can use some or none of everyone's replies to make your own best system? Again, it's all personal preference and what works for one person won't necessarily work for another; so there's no "best" just "mine and thine."

I think my 'new system procedure' is only 4 steps long if you exclude jumping through wormholes.

• Jump in,
• Bookmark return,
• Look for locals,
• Scan,
• Update pathfinder,
• Move on.

Updating pathfinder requires a single double click on the new automatically populated system, generally 3-7 characters to name it, a single click to open the signatures input box, Ctrl-A from game Ctrl-V into the input box, and a single click on the accept button (and maybe another click to 'Delete Old Signatures' if necessary).

Every corporation does what they have found works best for them. I've been a part of several different 'managements' and each used a different method of bookmarking. So, when I became 'the leader' I sat down and typed up a 3 page document outlining how we share information, proper bookmark names, and so on. It takes a little bit to get used to, but it works great for my group and we rarely have to do any additional work (reading or saving).

We use Pathfinder and it works pretty great (it's also quite pretty too, although still in development). We have a hand crafted system in place for knowing what a wormhole's name is when we find it. The only three things we track in its name are what chain it is part of, what type of hole it is, and when it was found.

The first system in a chain, starting from home, is it's own folder. They're generally C#T (T meaning home). So we have folders for C1T, C2T, C3T, C4T, C5T, C6T, Frigate Holes (which are cancer to us!), HST, LST, NST, and our static.

Bookmarks leading to a particular non-home system are named the same as the system is on Pathfinder, bookmarks leading home (up chain) are preceded with a splat (*) and bookmarks leading away (down chain) are preceded by a period (.). If we're doing something in a specific chain we'll leave breadcrumbs after the period so people only have to follow them to get to the destination (usually an exclamation point after the period).

Then we name systems based on what they are and when we found them. So the first Low-Sec we find is LSA, the second is LSB, the third is LSC, and so on. Generally we stop diving long before we reach 'T' on the alphabet, so T is a good option for our 'origin systems' for any particular chain.

At the end of a name we may attach additional information if we feel we need it. Such as a % if we haven't gone through it, -EOL, -S2/S3 for massed holes, -SIG if we haven't warped to it, or any other number of short descriptors. Of course Pathfinder is a nice repository for all of this information and can graphically display all of it at a casual glance, but should it go down for whatever reason our in game system will allow us to navigate without looking at the chain. It'll even sometimes save that info if you ever run into that system again. For example we've named a wormhole 'The Capital Wasteland' because it as an Astrahus named Rivet City in it that we've come across 8 times in the past month alone.

We don't really think scanning is all that time consuming, but we wouldn't complain if it were made easier too. Scanning our chain out usually takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 60 minutes depending on how many holes we have and how deep we go. We can have our static rolled and scanned out every 20-40 minutes if we're looking for content. Generally we only go 2 holes deep before returning home unless we're actively hunting.

So, yeah; I hope that helps. Just my 3,921 ISK.

The numbering system you're used to is the best i've seen so far. If only because when i'm scanning a system, i don't need to know what the rest of the chain looks like. If i find a wormhole, all i need to know is where I am right now. I dont need to know if it goes to a c4 or c5, and how many of those we already have to in order to give it the correct letter/number. I can just scan my current system without constantly having to double check on the map for every sig i scan. I can just, scan :D

If you're 'giving someone bookmarks' by making them scan them, you're not doing it right.

This is what I do as well, and personally I think it's the best method. All my signatures are bookmarked as
ABC Wormhole D382 to J123456 EOL
DEF Unsecured Perimeter Comms Relay
etc...

Advantage is that this scheme is quick: right click, save location, press left arrow so the cursor starts before the site name, and type in the three letters of the sig and a space. Ideally, my signature list, my bookmarks folder, and tripwire look identical (assuming all three are sorted by ID.) This way you can tell at a glance whether new sigs have (de)spawned, saving you the ctrl-a, ctrl-c, switch to browser, ctrl-v needed to paste them to tripwire.

I think perhaps I wasn't clear.

In the scenario I raised earlier: someone without corp bookmark access needs to know how to get into your wormhole. I'm assuming that they are in an industrial ship fit for wormhole travel, which means a cloak and an unbonused probe launcher.

There are two ways of getting that guy into the wormhole. I can either drop what I'm doing, fly out there, and physically give them the bookmarks, or I can simply let him know which sigs he needs to scan down in order to get in. Having the sig ID in the bookmark name makes it really easy to find that information.

And hey, better his time than mine, right?

Obviously, it comes down to personal preference, but I don't think that adding three characters to the start of each bookmark is a high price to pay to the numerous benefits that seem to flow from that.

Well recently it's been because the chain mappers have been as buggy as all hell. :D

Yea, I'm pretty sure scanning in Wh's is easier than NullSec for sure. Not sure about highsec/low.