Jambe's Wormhole Primer

Wormhole Essentials:

all wormholes have a specific Type visible in space & on the overview. K162 is the generic "other side" of all wormholes
all wormholes have the following 3 characteristics, browsable here (see whtype.info for a nice visualization):
1. they disappear or "collapse" after EITHER their total throughput mass is met/exceeded OR their lifetime expires
2. they pass only certain hulls based PRECISELY on the Type's individual throughput mass & IMPRECISELY on its Size (Small, Medium, Large, or Very Large)
3. they always lead to 1 of 4 categories of space:
  1. Known Space i.e. KS - 5,201 stargate-connected systems of 3 categories: High-Security (HS), Low-Security (LS), and Null-Security (NS)
  2. J-Space i.e. JS - these are
    2603 systems beginning with "J" and only accessible via wormholes, further grouped into 3 categories: (click to show/hide them):
    1. Main JS - 2573 systems in six groups from Class 1 through C6
    2. Tripnulls - 25 small-ship systems
    3. Drifter space - 5 systems with unique & dangerous conditions at most of their wormholes (detailed at link)
  3. Pochven - a region of 27 systems with a unique blend of JS & NS characteristics
  4. Thera - a big system with many wormhole connections and stations with jump clone & home station functionality (its holes are publicly mapped by EVE-Scout)
    - note: Turnur, a KS system in Metropolis, became a mini-Thera in November of 2022 and is also mapped by EVE-Scout
all wormholes reveal the above 3 characteristics via their visual appearance and/or Show Info windows, so you can know these things before jumping, even at a K162
- KS region destinations can be identified before jumping, too, if you can recognize skyboxes (more on this in the Visual appearance ID guide)
you can jump a particular wormhole only twice every five minutes. you're polarized with respect to a hole you can't jump through due to recent transits
unlike stargates & Ansiblexes, you can jump wormholes with a weapons (combat) timer
wormhole jump range is 5km—double that of stargates & Ansiblexes
- since wormholes also have a 3 km radius, they can be entered from anywhere within a 16 km-wide sphere centered on their icons

visual appearance ID guide - note: the only thing you can't glean from visuals is whether a hole to Empire goes to HS or LS (gotta use Show Info or Type knowledge or simply jump in)

Show Info (text-based) ID guide (click to show/hide)

note: two things you can't do with Show Info alone:
1. differentiate C1/C2/C3 or C4/C5 (however, C1/C2/C3 has a partial tell from KS, as explained below)
2. discern the exact region of KS holes (gotta learn skybox visuals or just jump in)
right-click a wormhole and select Show Info. the top two sentences are irrelevant
1. the third sentence, beginning with, “This wormhole seems to lead", narrows down the hole's destination:
  - plain "unknown" space is class 1-3 JS, “dangerous unknown" is C4-5, and “deadly unknown" is C6
  - High/Low/Null Security is KS, "Triglavian" is Pochven and Thera is, yes, Thera
  - if you're not currently inside a C1, you can differentiate C1 from C2/3; if the last sentence says "up to medium ships" will fit, it's a C1
  - to suss C2 from C3 and C4 from C5 you must either discern their skyboxes visually or jump in and manually check the region
    - regions starting with "A-" are C1, B-C2, C-C3, D-C4, E-C5, F-C6, G-Thera, H-C13, K-Drifter
2. the fourth sentence indicates a hole's remaining life:
  - "This wormhole has not yet begun its natural cycle..." = max life ("fresh")
  - "This wormhole is beginning to decay..." = between four hours and max life (also "fresh")
  - "This wormhole is reaching the end of its natural lifetime." = 0-4 hours ("EOL" i.e. "end-of-life")
3. the fifth indicates its remaining mass:
  - "This wormhole has not yet had its stability reduced..." = over 50% of mass remaining ("stable" or "healthy")
  - "This wormhole has had its stability reduced..." = 10-50% of mass remaining (“destab", "shrunk" or “first shrink")
  - "This wormhole has had its stability critically disrupted..." = under 10% of mass remaining ("crit")
4. the last sentence indicates what Size the hole is:
  - "Only the smallest..." = S: destroyers, ZMPE'd HICs and smaller (these are often called “frigholes", somewhat confusingly)
  - "Up to medium..." = M: battlecruisers, industrials, Nestors with no onlined plates and smaller (no other battleships)
  - "Larger ships..." = L: all other battleships, Orcas, and smaller (one type of L—Pochven's C729 reverse-static—can also fit Bowheads)
  - "Very large..." = VL: either all ships ≤ freighters & jump freighters or all ships ≤ Rorquals/carriers/dreads/FAXes (the latter group includes the former)

Exploring/Scanning Best Practices (make these habitual):

ABC: Always Be Cloaked. if you don't need to be uncloaked, be cloaked
bookmark both sides of wormholes
understand and use DScan to reduce the likelihood of being caught unaware
- DScan is useful in all space, but especially in JS/Pochven/Thera where local chat only lists pilots if they send a message
recall your probes ASAP when done scanning (or move them far away from accessible parts of the solar system and Analyze to hide them)
- probes show up on DScan; they betray your presence

Supplemental Facts:

a few JS systems have 1 of 6 system-wide effects which alter the performance of ships & modules (you can filter for these with anoik.is/systems)
total and individual mass are not consistent within the four sizes. smalls are uniform in those stats; the other three sizes are not
C1, C2 and C3 are often referred to as lowclass whereas C5 and C6 are highclass. C4 is one of those two or neither, depending on who you ask
small holes have essentially infinite total mass; they only collapse when their life timers end
the mechanics of when & how the K162 of a freshly-respawned hole appears in its destination system are fairly-well understood
- see also my semi-speculative chart about destination selection mechancis
wormholes can be either static, wandering, or reverse static
- statics respawn in the same system (and usually lead elsewhere)
- wanderers respawn in a different system (and usually lead elsewhere)
- note: certain wormhole Types can include both static and wandering wormholes, but specific individual wormholes out in space are never both
  - e.g. a C5 system might have a static H296 and a wandering H296 simultaneously; those two wormholes are are distinct, unique entitites
    - the static H296 will respawn in the same system after collapsing whereas the wandering H296 will respawn in another C5
- reverse statics are covered here (they are all bound to either Pochven, Thera, or Turnur)

Mapping Tools:

the three popular & actively-maintained wormhole mapping tools as of March 2024 are:
1. GalaxyFinder (proprietary)
2. Pathfinder (open-source; repository)
3. Tripwire (open-source; repository)
I prefer Tripwire because it's what I learned on, but GalaxyFinder is very slick
I won't tutorialize these, although I do offter some AHK scripts which make TW a bit faster to use

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