21 May 2015

A light in the dark

As I've previously mentioned there is currently something amiss with the display of wormhole states. I had a little excursion with my Orca due to an unexpected early collapse of a wormhole it eventually died looking for a quiet way home. Alcohol and impatience my have been involved as I decided to try and shoot out via a wormhole to nullsec not thinking for one minute that the locals would already know the location of their only sig. The result was I picked up a new Orca and flew it home, only to roll some more holes and get stuck outside yet another hole which collapsed with no warning.

(Hole rolling maths say a 3 bn mass hole with variance is 2.7 to 3.3 bn. For a hole which is in a reduced state the minimum mass required to collapse the hole is 271 million kgs. My Orca is 250 million, therefore it is impossible to collapse our C5 static with the Orca unless it is already critical or I am running a 100MN prop mod.)
Unfortunately I made a horrible discovery when I went to launch probes to start scanning; I had not fitted a probe launcher. Oh poop!


Given I had only just gotten myself back into our home system I was feeling rather annoyed. Annoyed that I'd forgotten to put the all important launcher on but also annoyed that the game wasn't following the well understood mechanics of wormhole life-cycles. I also knew that others on the forums have been reporting unexpected variances in hole rolling and a rumour that this was a known issue. Before initiating the self destruct sequence it was time to raise a support ticket. Without going into exact details, CCP told me the hole lifecycle completed normally, that there are no known issues with this, and there was nothing they would do about my predicament. Well shit, time to explode myself and claim the insurance.

Wait a moment, I could always appeal to the local corp for assistance. Worst case they lead me into a trap and kill me. The end result is a dead Orca which is no different to the current result. I had nothing to lose. Using an alt to at least give myself a little protection (and not expose myself to watch lists) I threw myself on the mercy of the local CEO offering to sell the Orca cheaply. I didn't expect a reply.

My low expectation was put to shame as the CEO replied that he had no use for an Orca but was willing to scan me out for less than I was trying to sell him the Orca for. This still had me in the land of uncertain death but I couldn't lose more than I was already guaranteed to lose. I spent the weekend with my alt logged on as much as possible so I would know right away if my potential saviour found a route. I was updated in the morning and a night for two days that there was no useful route to be found. By this point I was convinced I was getting out of this in good shape. My corp were not so sure but I made the point that the guy would have just lied about having a route to get me in fleet and tell me to warp to him. He, of course, would be sitting in his POS ready to laugh as I bounced off the shields.

Just before heading offline after a long weekend of waiting for good fortune my saviour convo'd me. He had a hisec route and I should get on. Now we would find out how honourable he really was. Logging in my Orca I was invited to fleet and told to warp to him. Dropping out of warp I found myself at a wormhole. I jumped in and was webbed into warp to the next hole and the next. Jumping out I was in hisec. I had really made it out alive. My corp were stunned into silence and refused to believe I had ever been trapped at all. I told them it was my karma payback for the time we helped a stranded Tengu out to safety when we were camping a hisec hole (for which I got no end of grief over). I sent all the ISK my Orca pilot had, which was about half the value of buying a new Orca after insurance was taken into account. It was a well deserved payment. It didn't matter that I was in a hisec pocket (one heavily gatecamped lowsec to get through). I was in known space and people could get to me. A route was scanned to contiguous K-space and I flew the Orca home.

I would like to give a massive shout-out to Snowtie, the CEO of Snowlodoto for being wonderfully helpful and definitely honourable. You sir are a Gentleman and a Scholar.

6 comments:

  1. I call these fun little impromptu no-probes romps, "Adventures in Wormholes"... =]

    Back in June of '12 we had one where my sons were raiding sites in a connecting hole inna Kronos and a Mach while I was boofing around our POS... here is the post, and for them as dunt wanna read that below is the upshot...

    "So I get a message from AI today that he had been in contact with the CEO of the C2 corp and that put him in contact with a corpie in the C2 and 100M ISK later, AI was allowed to warp out to Empire space unmolested… OMG! Schweet! AND he says they were OK guys and we may have just found a corp worth knowing… This good news was somewhat tainted by Strigon’s impatience… you see he self destructed his Mach rather than mess about trying to get out… he just couldn’t wait... =O "

    This was not the first... and I am sure it will not be the last! Gos I love this game and my beloved Anoikis!!

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    1. Everything is an adventure for sure. Most times the Orca gets locked out rolling I get back okay. I've even gone 17 jumps through k-space during a wardec with no worries. Main issue I have with recent lock outs is them happening with no warning. I accept the Orca can take a 2 bn mass hole from reduced to gone in a single jump but it cannot take a 3 bn mass hole out like that. This assumes CCP haven't changed the mechanics. If they have increased the variance then great, just let us know wormhole mechanics are in flux. I've said before I fully welcome greater randomness in these things, I'd just like to know a switch was thrown to turn that on.

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  3. Uh uh uh... "I fully welcome greater randomness in these things, I'd jst like to know a switch was thrown to turn that on." it aint random if yer told about it... Come on man! Yes not telling us makes the verse itself a moar dangerous place... so? I LOVE the idea they are letting us DISCOVER small changes and mebbe throwing us a few unfortold curves in the verse... make it all the moar real to me.

    Asking CCP to let you know in advance that the ‘natural laws’ of EVE are changing is like asking God to give you advance notice of an earthquake or a hurricane... but nature doesn't warn us... it just changes and we have to scramble to keep up... and I for one love it!

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    1. "Asking CCP to let you know in advance that the ‘natural laws’ of EVE are changing is like asking God to give you advance notice of an earthquake or a hurricane... but nature doesn't warn us... it just changes and we have to scramble to keep up... and I for one love it!"

      Too much, my friend. Too much. Its a game. Made by humans, not by God. As far as I know, the current changes in the jump mass are not a new feature, they are a bug, straight and simple.

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  4. I am not saying tell us what the change is, just that it *has* changed. Changing the rules in the middle of a game without telling anyone is also known as cheating.

    What I fully support is CCP saying 'wormholes now decide total passable mass at creation time' or 'state change is now with an addition variance i.e. reduced can be between 40%-60% total mass'. Even a patch note of 'Arek’Jaalan scientists are reporting wormholes are not following previously accurate life-cycle models' would be welcome.

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