Wormholes

it is 5 minutes. How has this not killed me by now I'll never know.

**** yeah I was right, it's an 8 bit counter giving you 4m26s (rounding down instead of up) for the timer. Just need to add the session change timer to it

EDIT:
ooh pity I just noticed the last picture has 4m28s . Pretty stupid amount for the timer if they don't use an 8bit counter.

no way, how?

Seriously though, for optimization purposes, with that timer (~258 seconds) it would be wise for them to use an 8 bit counter (e.g. unsigned char = 8 bit counter -> 0-255) because it reduces their data foot print for WH timers to be 2-4 times smaller (on 32 bit software a short = 16 bit and an int = 32 bit). For the amount of data that the servers need to handle I would consider that every bit of data reduction would be a nice thing to have, but that of course doesn't mean CCP thinks of such things.

If you would check each of the pictures in Nathan Jamesons post above you would see that every picture has a timer at 4m26s, 4m23s, 4m24s, 4m28s

Add 20 seconds for 2 session change timers and some delay's between clicking jump, that comes pretty damn close to 5 minutes ;). I simply stated earlier that it looked interesting to me and that it looks like they use an 8 bit counter, but I can't say for sure if that is what CCP does or not.


Your keyboard doesn't run the most advanced gaming universe, it barely does anything so it's not very difficult to run a timer on it. For heavy duty servers on the other hand it pay's off if you can use simple systems to reduce every data usage and a decent programmer should never have an issue using something like a 8 bit counter for a timer (let alone coming up with it).

But to make it clear to all of you that are aggressively set to the 5 minute timer, I'm not stating that CCP uses an 8 bit counter to give you a timer of ~4m26s + 2*10s + couple of seconds delay. To me it merely looks like it, but without seeing some code or having CCP state that's how they do it I can never state it as fact. For all I care they use an 64 bit long and throw around unnecessary data.

AFAIK They use python for much of the server game logic, the size of data stored in types only restricted for compatibility reasons.

It would potentially be a fair resource saving if the jump timers could be stored in only 8bits but I'd have thought for reliability reasons they'd need to store the actual event time tho could explain why sometimes it seems a bit unreliable how long the timer actually is - I have definitely managed in some cases to rejump a direction only 4 minutes after the first pass in that direction.

im about 98.3% sure this is wrong.
will check when I get home though.

EDIT:
it actually only makes a difference if you can get into the same WH through a different entry within 5min which is fairly difficult.
If youre just jumping back and forth through a single hole your timers will be the same either way.

if you have a c2 with 2 HS exits that happen to be 1 jump apart.
jump out HSa
reenter c2 through HSb
go to jump out HSa again

do you now have a timer?
id be willing to bet you do.
but if youre right about it being a twice in 5 min per wh timer then you would not have a timer.

The simplest way to state it is:

You cannot pass through the same wormhole connection more than two times in the same five minute period.

That's it. Every time you successfully jump a wormhole, that five minute period starts recounting from the new next-to-last jump that you made.

THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ HAS SPOKEN

It's 5 indeed to what most are telling.

When cycling a sh!thole I jump, wait timer and jump back and re-jump after 4 minutes as my times are always correct on that..

Start calculating: Add in the time you first jump (2-3'ish seconds), few secs loading, 20 secs wait timer, approach-unloak 2~5 secs, and jump 2~3 secs few secs loading and warp off and return on the wh 4 mins later you can clearly start jumping forth and back.

Don't ask me what the exact times but counting all up, you're clearly on 5 minutes and so a Orca can cycle a 2bn WH in exactly 20mins. During those 20minutes it's the most fun part of the game. Thinking who'll be tackling and dropping that Orca