Rolling Holes

I recently received a great period of instruction from DART’s CEO about rolling holes, and I’d like to pass along that info.

The first step in this process is gathering some information about the hole. As an example, I’ll use our C3 static.

Let’s dissect this information page first. On top, you’ll see the wormhole’s tag, which in this case is M267. You’ll use this number to look up more detailed information in this handy wormhole database. Moving down to the first important flavor text, it says “This wormhole seems to lead to unknown parts of space.” This means that it will lead to a C1, C2, or C3 wormhole. If it says “dangerous unknown,” it will be a C4 or C5, and “deadly unknown” means a C6. It can also say null, low, or high security space, which means it leads to that particular K-Space.

The next flavor text is “This wormhole is beginning to decay, and probably won’t last another day.” This means the wormhole has between 4 and 24 hours of life remaining. If it says “This wormhole is reaching the end of it’s natural lifetime,” it has between 0 and 4 hours remaining. It’s uncommon, but sometimes it will say “This wormhole is on the verge of dissipating into the ether.” This means it will collapse any second.

Moving down, it says “This wormhole has not yet had it’s stability significantly disrupted by ships passing through it.” This flavor text denotes the approximate Max Stable Mass remaining for the wormhole (we’ll get more into this in a minute), and this particular one means that it has more than 1/2 of it’s Max remaining. It can also say “This wormhole has had its stability reduced by ships passing through it, but not to a critical degree yet,” which means it has less than a 1/2 but more than 1/10th. The last flavor text is “This wormhole has had its stability critically disrupted by the mass of numerous ships passing through and is on the verge of collapse,” and that means it has less than 0.1 of it’s Max Stable Mass Remaining.

The last flavor text tells you the size of ships that are able to jump through the hole, or the Mass Jump Mass. Our M267 says “Larger ships can pass through this hole,” which means ships with 300,000,000 kg of mass or less can use it (for more information, refer to the wormhole database).

So, back to our M267 hole. We know it leads to a C1-C3, it has between 4 and 24 hours remaining, it has somewhere between 500 million and 1 billion kg of Max Stable Mass remaining, and ships with a mass of 300 million kg or less can travel through it. Let’s assume this is a new hole and you just don’t like your neighbors. You can safely assume that the Max Stable Mass is still around 1 billion kg, so the goal is to bring a ship through it that can reduce that number to zero in as few a jumps as feasibly possible, while landing you on your home hole’s side on the last jump. For our C3 static, I use an Armageddon. Here’s the fit:

[Armageddon, Unholy Roller]
1600mm Steel Plates I
1600mm Steel Plates I
1600mm Steel Plates I
1600mm Steel Plates I
1600mm Steel Plates I
1600mm Steel Plates I
1600mm Steel Plates I

500MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive
Large Cap Battery II
Burst Jammer II
Large Micro Jump Drive

Core Probe Launcher I
Improved Cloaking Device II
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer
Heavy Gremlin Compact Energy Neutralizer

Large Higgs Anchor I
Large Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Large Targeting System Subcontroller I

Hammerhead II x5
Praetor EV-900 x4
Vespa EC-600 x5

Couple notes about this; you can go with T2 Steel Plates, I just did T1 to skimp on the cost. It has a Micro Jump Drive in case you get into trouble as this thing is unbearably slow,  it has neuts and ECM if you get scrammed, and a probe launcher in case you make a miscalculation and the hole collapses while you’re on the wrong side. You can play around with this fit, just not the steel plates; that’s what adds the mass you need.

Now, when I go through a hole “light,” which means without my prop mod on, my total mass is 259 million. Going in “heavy,” my total mass would be 359 million. Since our hole has a Max Stable Mass of 1 billion, that would mean after 4 “light” trips through this hole, it will collapse behind me and a new static will appear. To clarify, that’s 2 round trips; once through, once back, once through, once back, then it collapses behind you as you jump back into your home hole.

Even though 4 light trips will do the trick, you’ll normally want to make the last trip heavy. However, my total heavy mass is 359 million and the Max Jump Mass of the hole is 300 million right? If you activate your prop mod then click Enter Wormhole, it will give you an error message saying your ship can’t jump through. The trick to this is activating your prop mod after clicking Enter Wormhole. This essentially tricks the wormhole into allowing you to jump through with a ship that is over the Max Jump Mass, and ensures the hole will collapse behind you.

This works for any wormhole. You just need to find out what your hole’s Max Jump Mass is, then fit a ship with enough mass to collapse it in the fewest round trips possible. Sooner or later, you will inevitably get caught on the wrong side of a collapsing hole. Stay calm and get safe, you remembered to fit a probe launcher right?

As always, feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below.

Fly safe,

Griff