Living/dying in WH-Space

New Citizens Q&A
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Hello,
a couple of weeks ago I was invited to a small WH corp and not knowing better I decided to accept. You may argue that WH space might not be the best place to start for a new character, but I figured I got nothing to lose and much to learn from this experience. I read tons of material regarding your typical daily WH routines, the ways to make isk and the dangers.

(if you don’t have time, you can skip this next part and go directly to the questions)

For now, I’m still an Alpha and I barely crossed the 1M SP mark, so by all means, I’m still a newbro. The first thing I had to learn was that my options to make money are severely limited as an alpha, when I got blown up by sleepers in my venture :confused: Then I had to learn that a Caracal is not really made to kill rats in a c2 combat site. Gas mining and exploring were the only actions I took and I got pretty far. On average I had an income of 20 mil per hour, including all the traveling, scanning and selling in Jita. However, PvE never stopped being interesting, so I bought the biggest ship I could fly which is the Gnosis and fitted it with a fit I saw on the Internet (5x HM, Invulnerability field, Shield Booster, etc.) The first thing I noticed was that my dps was about half of what was promised, but I decided to give it a shot. Long story short, I learned to value Warp core stabs when I got scrambled and blown up :frowning: . It seems that there is quite a lot of people that sit and wait til others run into sleeper sites, let the sleepers do most of the work and then jump in and finish the poor souls…
Curiously, that was the only time I lost a ship in “PvP” (that was rather a massacre ). My new Gnosis managed to survive some ganks with the stabilizers and I’m not really that engaged into PvE to spend lots of time doing it. Especially when I realized it took me 30 minutes for a c2 site.
Well, these were my observations from the couple of weeks I’ve been living in wormholes so far.

Now to the questions:
PvE: How fast can an Alpha-Gnosis do sites effectively? I feel like 30 minutes is riddiculously slow …

Exploring: Is it possible that some sites are just impossible to hack as an alpha? I’ve had it a couple of times that the first field I hit (which was the only one I could go for) was a virus supressor. (As an alpha my strength goes down to 10, so the supressor deals 75 damage to me, and I only have 70 coherence) Or should I use rigs?

General: From your experience, is it risky to venture far from home, and if yes, is it worth the risk?

General: Is there any reason to mine ore in WH-space when a full load of Arkonor is about 2mil and a load of C50 is 8mil (and a load of C320 about 60mil)?

General: Is it worth looking for nullsec entrances to do exploration? I’ve entered nullsec twice through wormholes and it was always crowded AF in that system.

thank you for taking your time :slight_smile:

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No idea, sorry. But don’t compare sleeper sites to the ones of normal pirat factions. Sleepers are much tougher.

Rigs, absolutely. And a scanning frigate of course. Some sites will still be very challenging. I takes skills and a dedicated fit to give you good chances for hacking succesfully. But even then it often is luck that decides.

Depends on what you are doing. If you are only out exploring it’s likely worth it. If you go for combat sites (considering it takes you that long) that would be probably a bad idea. In a frigate you are much more agile and also less of a target other wormhole dwellers would try to kill - at least not as much as e.g. your Gnosis.

The right gas clould would probably be worth your time, yes. When it comes to ore I think this makes only sense when you are planning to produce something in your home. The problem is the volumes you deal with.

Can be. I once found a NullSec system with a special drone site one can hack. Got some nice blueprints from it. There is a lot of uninhabited space in NullSec. You just need to be so lucky to find an entrance. You can see the average pilots in space with the right filter in the ingame map, btw.

o7

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Solo Alpha PVP in wormholes is pretty much limited to hunting exploration frigates and maybe lone miners/gas huffers. Gang Alpha PVP is better, but as you have no cloaks you have to find other ways to hide your numbers. (Hide in POS or citadel, hide outside of d-scan range or create log-in traps). When flying with omegas your best role is “bait”, maybe even out of corp to not spook people away.

About PVE: You already make more ISK than most highsec dwellers and it should be enough to buy some ships for gang PVP action. Your next step up in income would be to go Omega to clear sleeper sites faster and/or do some WH PI.

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Thank you both for your input!

@Nora: It seems that I’m always a target, no matter what I fly. I’ve been shot down in my heron in HiSec even. Lost a 600k ship when the attacker had a 30mil ship (that got dismantled by CONCORD obviously). So either that was a complete douche or people really don’t care about it being “worth”.

@Gregorius: What ship would you advise as “bait”? I did that once in a heron, but when my corpmates showed up in their Tengus, the other guys just warped off because we had no tackle :frowning:

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I got good results with cheap T1 haulers. There are various ways to tank them (use the big cargo hold for cap boosters) and they can fit (double) web and point. Ephital and Miasmos get attacked more frequently while Badger, Sigil, Nereus and Wrathe tank the most (and therefore are a bit more suspicious.)

EDIT: Like this: https://zkillboard.com/kill/64081956/ Look at the sigil sporting a web.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/64018509/… you get the idea…

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welcome to WHs. you will definitely struggle as an alpha player.

Look at this site for PvE numbers, stats, etc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17cNu8hxqJKqkkPnhDlIuJY-IT6ps7kTNCd3BEz0Bvqs/pubhtml#

The data/relic sites you can run in WHs are the same as nullsec, you’re actually running nullsec data/relic sites that happen to spawn in wormholes. The true WH data/relic sites have sleepers guarding them. There really isn’t a reason to mine ore in WHs, you can always find gas, and ore sites leave you as a sitting duck for someone to hunt. If you don’t want to deal with clearing the sleepers from gas sites, remember you have 15 minutes or so before they show up. Also, don’t orbit the gas cloud. Warp to the cloud you want to mine at 0, drop a bookmark in a can there, and orbit that can at 500. Orbiting the cloud itself at 500 makes you orbit the outside of the cloud at 500, meaning you’re easy for a cloaked ship to approach. If you orbit a can dropped at 0 inside the cloud, you’re still inside the gas cloud when mining it. This means a cloaked ship will run into the gas cloud before it gets too close to you, giving you a second or two to escape.

WHs are really not meant to fly solo. You and your corp mates should really scan down and scout every WH within 3 or so jumps (minimum) of your home system, make sure they are empty, and then start doing PvE. You shouldn’t be surprised by someone sneaking up on you.

Your main defense is going to be escaping before someone lands on the site with you, not surviving once you are attacked, to be honest. This is why you need to know who your neighbors are and have your WH chain scouted out before doing any PvE. Obviously hit d-scan every 5 seconds or so, and ideally have a corp-mate keep an alt sitting on every incoming WH to the system you’re PvE-ing in to listen for anyone coming or going.

You will definitely die a lot, but you will earn more, learn more, and have more fun than anyone staying in HS. It definitely gets easier if you decide to subscribe…doing it on an alpha account will be a bit slow, for better or worse.

Good luck!

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Oh, I know this sheet!
Thank you for the reply, and you’re right, scouting WHs should be something I’d do every time flying around. So far I only check for stations, look up the Killboard of the corp and check Dscan.

It might be only me, but “dying a lot” is not what I experienced so far. I definetely died a lot more in Nullsec and even in Hisec than in WH space.

Btw, I heard that orbiting is not a good idea in general, because it takes additional time to align to whatever point you warp to. Is that a factor?

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Speed clearing a site.
To many factors to consider to give you a really good answer. Never used a Genosis in a worm hole but comparing how they work in high and low compared to the ships I do fly in worm holes 30 minutes seems about right for an average site.

Exploring.
Ah the hacking mini-game. Most important thing with that is to accept that there is a large degree of luck involved in that activity and there is little you can do when your luck runs out.
On the other hand there is a lot that you might be able to do with skills ship and fit that would help. Never looked into how the alpha state limitation may affect this but the EvE University Hacking page would be a good place to start your quest for better results.

General.
Yes you can face significantly greater risks of death if you ventured into someone else hole but overall getting lost and not being able to get back seemed to be the the biggest problem the others in the group faced.

Mining.
The primary goal for our mining was not ISK it was to provide minerals needed to make stuff because making and selling stuff was far more profitable than selling ore or minerals. With that said we did have to do some mining strictly to sell minerals because that was always a faster way to ISK needed to buy something we wanted.

Nulsec.
All of the best paying exploration sites are located in nul sec.
Only you can decide if it is worth the time and risks to go after them.
I would suggest, at least for now that you include nul sec sites in the places you go and then make a decision over time based on your results.

Low sec.
Low sec can be a profitable place to search for sites as well, if you are comfortable living and working in worm holes and nul sec then working in low should be an easy adjustment to make since most of the dangers and ways of avoiding those dangers are the same as worm holes and nul, and in low you have the NPC stations as additional safe spots. Just be aware that getting camped into a station is a very real possibility in low so be prepared to have to wait them out.

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Thanks!

I always considered NullSec more dangerous than Wh space since it felt more crowded and as soon as there’s someone else in local, it’s getting tense. Plus when I want to go to other Nulsec systems there is always the possibility of a gatecamp with bubbles. Now, I know about setting up safes like 200km from the gate etc. to prevent from running into one, but that seems like measures that you do before someone comes into the system, not when there already are 5 people there.

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My first corp was a WH corp

They were based in a C4 Pulsar
When the majority of your possible connections are to other C4’s & C5 or lo-sec systems teamwork gets really important.

If you’ve joined a corp, there should be no need to rely or engage in solo gameplay, if you do there’s no point in being in a corp (just my opinion).

Gas mining is/was important when I WH’ed for T3 production
PI provided for most POS needs
Scanning was an essential daily activity, what are the connections, who lives in them etc.
Combat sites provided blue-loot … which the corp sold to npc’s in hi-sec (profits were shared between attendees)
T3 profits were also shared between members who contributed.

That was my experience of a WH corp. Group based activities that provided a shared income stream, and the only solo activities were Scanning & overwatch on occupied/active connections.

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you need to be moving if you’re aligned for it to make a difference. staying at 0 speed while aligned doesn’t help.

Personally, I orbit a can dropped at zero in the center of the gas cloud. I’ve never lost a venture or prospect.

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@Sonya_Corvinus: What do you mean by “it doesnt make a difference”?

@Kitty_Bear: We live in a c4 with a c2 and c5 static, so PvE is generally a thing (along with gas mining together), but as an alpha there is no point for me in participating in c4-5 PvE since I would get shredded. So far I am just learning stuff, exploring and slowly improving.

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Aligning to something and then stopping your ship does not make you warp faster than if you ship were stopped pointing in any other direction. It is faster than if your ship is actually moving in another direction though, and of course being aligned and moving at 75% or more of your max speed will make you warp instantly.

The idea that aligning then stopping makes you warp faster is one of the most believed myth in EVE. Makes me think we need a “10 things you are wrong about in EVE online” video. It would be there for sure.

Gas mining in a wormhole, especially if you can have friends clear off the sleepers, is a hugely profitable endeavour for alphas, most likely the best money you can make except maybe ratting in NS (which has the added convenience of giving you isk directly, instead of something you need to sell). If you can do that reliably, you should have no issue funding ships for other fun things and saving up for a plex month eventually.

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Cool, thanks for the clarification!

As far as gas mining goes, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m too picky, but I always look for the C320/C540 to get and as it’s hard to find, I don’t get as much as I probably could. Do you think it’s worth going for the c50?
So far exploration has been really worth it for me. I can make 50mil in an hour in a c1-3 or when venturing to nullsec. However, I was wondering: Data/relic sites have different scanning difficulties; does that indicate how much loot you can get from them? Also, it seems that you only find difficulty 1-3 in WH, while you can get up to 5 in k-space :confused:

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You can check the current amount the gas is traded in jita and decide situational: https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/ore/gas.html?region=10000002

If you are interested in how I did “ninja gas mining” as a younger pilot you can read that on my blog
Most of the stuff about navigation and so on will probably not so interesting for you anymore but maybe you will find something useful.


If you have feedback I would be happy if you let me now in this thread or directly on the blog.

Cheers.

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I used a Gila (imo an excellent ship for WH living).

As an Alpha you can use a Gnosis which is quite durable for a BC
It shield tanks, armour tanks … fits missiles, drones & turrets, so you have plenty of scope with it.

Yes, you will just need to receive remote reps for C5 content, but that shouldn’t be a problem for a WH based Corp.

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