Wormhole Speculations

After 974 posts and 33 pages, the vocal minority has had their say on the wormholes devblog along with a handful of good dev responses.

There appears to be two camps among the forum whores of the thread: those who think this new space will be occupied by large alliances with a POS on every valuable resource, and those who think logistics will be nigh impossible to be able to maintain more than one POS at a time.

(There are also two other camps on the topic of whether the new space is Carebear Heaven or Yet-Another-Pirate-Total-Hell-Death-Gate-Camp from Hell. Yes, I said Hell twice. Sue me.)

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First off, let's define some terms that the devs annouced in the thread for simplification.

K-Space = Known Space, the current High sec/Low sec/Null sec that we know and love in our regions with their constant stargates and borders. Approximately 5200 systems.

W-Space = Wormhole Space, the new null security space that is accessible only by a shifting network of wormholes that connect K-Space systems to W-Space systems and W-Space systems to other W-Space systems. Approximately 2500 systems.

K-W = K-space to W-Space wormhole jump. Wormholes are stable for a set time OR an amount of ship mass that passes through it. The inverse is W-K as all wormholes are bidirectional.

W-W = W-space to W-Space wormhole jump. Operate the same as K-W.

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We know that all W-space is null sec like current 0.0 space. We also know that jump drive capable ships cannot jump into or out of a W-space system, although a capital ship could use a big enough wormhole to enter W-Space.

We know that wormholes will be found anywhere in K-Space. We also know that the W-Space has "true security" values like 0.0 so that some of them will be more dangerous (and thus more lucrative) than others. For our purposes, assume the safest W-space systems are ranked -0.01 and the most dangerous ranked -1.00 just like in 0.0 K-Space.

We also know that the high sec K-W wormholes will lead to W-space on the -0.01 end of the scale, low sec K-W to the -0.50 part of the scale, and 0.0 to the -1.00 part of the scale. Most of the time. Sometimes, you might end up in total-hell-death W-Space from Jita.

What we don't know is the exact mechanics and associated probabilities involved. That's important so I bolded it. Let me say it again in another way: the devs have given us the high level view but not the nuts and bolts view and how this new space is exploited depends very much on the devils in the details.

Also, consider this: if each region is about 100 systems, they are adding the equivalent of 25 regions. In the past two years, they've added only 9 regions (Black Rise and the drone lands). There are all told 42 null sec regions in K-space so in effect the W-space increases the size of null sec space by about 60%.

Since we don't know how often W-space system Alpha will connect to give W-Space system Beta... not to mention we don't know if there is factors determining which part of K-space Alpha may connect to beyond security status probabilities (and we don't even know how much that weighs on the randomness)... its impossible to say right now how easy or difficult it is going to be for anyone, large or small, to maintain a POS presence in W-space.

Or it might be possible but require so much effort in terms of manpower and time that all K-space null sec holding entities don't bother. On the other hand, if some Dyprosium moons are found they might be worth the effort. Alternatively, if tech III farming is highly profitable compared to 0.0 ratting for bounties, it might lure an alliance or two in.

TL; DR - We don't know enough to speculate on how W-Space will be exploited in the long term. To say end game will be large alliances holding all valuables is vastly premature. Likewise to say no one can do it is equally foolhardy.

Regardless, I'm very exicted to try out this new content and I'm even considering setting up a client to get on the test server.