It has been years since I've jumped back into wormholes in Eve Online. In fact, at one point, I used to live in one. I was kind of missing that feeling for them, so I thought I'd take a short day trip into some.

Wormholes are quite a dangerous space. Not only are there no things like police or gate guns to protect you. There are no gates at all. You have to scan your way from one system to the next. On top of that, people can use bubbles and all sorts of tactics in them as well.

What makes them even more tricky is that no one shows up on local unless they talk in chat. You have no idea if you are all alone in one or if there are a hundred people in there. Unless they show up on D-Scan, and then it’s more than likely not going to end well.

As such, like most things in Eve Online. I treat it like this is going to be a one-way trip. Running into the wrong ship or situation for me is just going to be death. On top of losing my ship, I also expect to lose my pod. As a result, I jumped clones into an empty one, leaving the implants I was using safe in high sec.

I’m also just taking my standard Anathema fit. Not the best for something like this. It, however, has everything I'm going to need to hopefully not die. Along with some stuff like relics and data analyzers. I, however, doubt I'll be running any sites today.

The nice thing is that this ship is cheap enough to replace without it being an issue. While I could bring in something far more fancy. I just don’t need to. I’m also willing to admit I'm way too rusty when dealing with wormhole space, so I'll be slow and an easy target till I get back into the swing of things. As such, this meets any needs I'll have, and if it dies, I don’t care much.

The first step is just flying around normal space, scanning any signatures I can with probes. Since I was just looking for wormholes, once the type of what I was scanning was displayed. I skipped over finishing the scan if it was not what I wanted.

Not all wormholes will lead to where I want to go, either. I’m looking for ones that will lead to unknown parts of space. You could also find ones that take you to low security and elsewhere as well.

There are also some rather critical things to take note of before jumping into one of these. While those who have spent some time in wormhole space can just look at a wormhole and tell things like how long they might last and their stability. You can also just click on them, and the game will show.

The first wormhole I found fit everything I wanted. I also noticed it could only fit medium-sized ships. That gives me an insight into what I'm about to find on the other side. This one ended up being quite a small class 1 wormhole. I was not expecting anything exciting to be found inside. I did not mind it being the first one I'd jump into.

Another important thing to be doing is making some good bookmarks. You want to bookmark what something is and the signature ID. Along with any notes you feel might be needed later on for yourself.

Usually, in the bookmark name, I'll start with rather generic details. Then I'll edit it to include further information like the class of wormhole, a numbered path back out to High sec, and so on.

I also make sure these bookmarks are in a folder that others in my corporation can see. That way, in case there is a situation where others are needed for whatever reason. They can quickly get to that spot.

The moment I land inside. I check D-Scan for ships, and I create a bookmark so I know which wormhole is my way back out. I’ll end up making a mistake later on, not making a bookmark, and naturally, I did that in quite an active system where people were out looking for me.

Once that was done, I warped off to a random object in the solar system and clocaked up. From there, I made a couple more jumps while creating some bookmarks. I wanted a little spot that I could sit in, cloaked up, and probe down signatures in.

With it being a class one wormhole, I was not expecting much. Once I knew I was somewhat safe, I went and checked out a killboard for the system. It looked to be rather quiet, with only a couple of people a month getting killed, if that in there.

I then checked my probe scanner, and I knew there was not going to be much of anything to do in this one. There are a couple of sites you don’t need to scan down. I’d never go near any of them. There were, however, three somewhat unknowns.

I already know one of those unknown signatures is going to be my wormhole out of this place. I zoomed in where I made my first bookmark, and sure enough, there was only one signature near it. So I quickly updated that bookmark to reflect its ID and went to scan the other two.

While I was hoping perhaps I'd find another wormhole into unknown space, it ended up being too low sec. It also kind of made me feel a little safer, since unless someone is already in there or comes from high sec. There's not going to be much expected traffic into here. As people in low sec usually don’t waste their time.

The other site ended up being a barren perimeter gas site. Someone had already been to it, as the sleepers were spawned at it. While I warped in at 100km, you have to be careful when dealing with gas sites. As they can declock you, and that would even end up happening to me in a different wormhole.

Before leaving, I decide to warp to the mining belt. Sure enough, it had rats sitting in it as well. While it might look a little barren. There were all kinds of ores I'd love to mine. Some of them are also so massive that it takes forever to mine them out before the belt despawns if you are solo.

Sitting in a mining belt in wormhole space is also a great way to get ganked. If it were not for the rats, I'd have gone and gotten a cheap venture to quickly go mine some stuff I want for manufacturing purposes.

This first wormhole, however, got me thinking about and going about how I used to back in wormholes so many years ago. It was also quite fun finding such a rare system to have a black hole effect in it.

Screenshot from Wanderer maping tool

There was also another benefit. I was testing out using the Wanderer mapping tool. The mapping tool I wanted to use is no longer a thing, like so many classic tools I used to love using.

So far Wanderer mapping tool has been easy to use. It auto-adds in wormhole systems and some connection information. While I did not go into the more advanced things you can do on the free version, like copying and pasting in signatures and other stuff. For a small corporation, this looks like it fits my needs perfectly for any future use.

You can also see I went and explored a few other womrholes other than J160334. I flew back into high sec and found another wormhole not long after. J52044 ended up being loaded with quite a few wormholes and other stuff to explore.

After setting it up like the first one. I opened up my probe scanner to see quite a lot going on. This was a better place, being a class 3. Sadly, it ended up being five other wormholes. This ended up creating a bit of an issue with many individuals coming in and out of this place.

There were at least some relic sites up as well. I, however, can not clear those out with my current ship. So many juice cans I so wanted to break into. I, however, knew I was not going to be getting anywhere near them.

On top of that, I noticed probes showed up on D-Class after I warped in clocaked. Mine, I had moved far off elsewhere. So I knew they could not have been mine.

After doing a bit of scanning, it was time to jump into another wormhole. This ended up reminding me how dangerous this space can be. Right away, I noticed on D-Scan a lot of POS, a mining drill, and even citiaduls that were set up.

It was far too big an operation for a solo or even tiny corporation as well. It might only have been a class 3 wormhole. After checking the killboards, I noticed there had been some massive fights in there as well, from a carrier getting killed to mining fleets. This place has seen some stuff go down.

I then had a pacifier land on the wormhole I was just checking out. On top of that, there was also a saber on D-Scan a couple of scans back. This place was not silent.

I had that feeling now was the time to get out. Expect I forgot to bookmark my way out. So I went out and scanned. I ended up warping to another wormhole, and I thought it was the exit due to it being next to some player structures. It was, however, not, and took me deeper in.

Final Thoughts

It took a couple of attempts, but I ended up finding my way back out into high sec the way I went in. I was also still alive for the time being. It was a fun adventure of sightseeing and a little danger mixed in as well.

Information

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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Eve Online.