An Overview of Eve Online Wormhole Space

Written by: sinisterporpoise • Edited by: Michael Hartman
Updated May 23, 2011 • Related Guides: Eve Online | Auction House

The Apocrypha Expansion introduced unstable wormholes into the universe of Eve Online. Players can enter into these unstable region of space to rediscover long forgotten technology or to occasionally engage in random player versus player battles.

Find Relics in Wormhole Systems

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The Apocrypha expansion introduced wormhole space into Eve Online universe. Wormholes allow players to take shortcuts through various systems and find long forgotten relics. These relics help build certain ships, and there are tech level three components that can be found only in the systems on the other side.

Relics found in these areas let players reverse engineer technologies that had been forgotten or abandoned. Some of the newer ships require relics found in wormhole space. The author would like to thank Kalith Blackhand, a Caldari Pilot, for providing information for this article.

Wormhole space offers Eve Online pilots a number of advantages and disadvantages. A pilot should be prepared to defend himself before he enters such a system. Wormhole systems in unknown do not belong to any PC or NPC faction and no player faction can claim them.

What You Should Know Before Entering a Wormhole

Wormholes are a staple of the science fiction genre. Where a wormhole will develop is unpredictable, and a pilot will not know where one of these unstable regions of space will take him until he makes it to the other side. A wormhole may lead to established space, or it may lead to an unknown region of space. They only last for a few days in real-time. It is possible for a ship to enter a wormhole and not be able to get back to the section of space he entered it from.

Where These Unstable Regions of Space Might Lead

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The sensors of most Eve Online ships let a player know if a wormhole leads into unexplored space or an area of known space. The sensors also tell the pilot about the security level on the other side of the wormhole. It is a good idea to make sure your ship's weapons and shields are fully charged before deciding to enter a wormhole.

A wormhole may collapse while players are inside these regions. Probes may be able locate an exit for him, which at least gets the pilot back to known space, but there is also way for pilots to get out of wormhole space in emergencies. A pilot can activate his ship’s self-destruct mechanism and wake up at a starbase in a known system.

Wormhole Impact on the Eve Online Storyline

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Any person who has sat through Eve Online's introduction knows that the people of Earth became when they found a stable wormhole. The new colonies were healthy and happy for centuries. For a while, all was well. When the New Eden wormhole collapsed, the new colonies found themselves cut off from their mother world.

The original pilots who went to the worlds of New Eden knew that most wormholes were unstable. Perhaps they should have applied the same logic to the wormhole that led them to New Eden. They often lead into long forgotten areas of space. Discoveries in these long forgotten regions of space have led to the redevelopment of forgotten technology. Characters can reverse engineer these relics and place them into newer ships.

Using Starbases and Miners in Wormhole Systems

Starbases can be placed inside of a system in wormhole space. Eve Online players can obtain the normal benefits from them, but they may lose access to the base when the entrance to the wormhole collapses.The moons inside these systems contain no minerals. Many such systems also allow for open player versus player combat. Wormhole space cannot be claimed by any faction.

The Advantages of Using Wormholes

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Materials needed for tech level three ships can be found only in wormhole space. A player can mine them and sell them on the auction house or use them to bolster the status of his own fleet. It is possible for a player to travel through a wormhole and end up in a system of known space that is openly hostile to him. A pilot should always send a probe into the wormhole first before deciding whether or not to enter one of these unstable regions of space.

Wormholes add an element to Eve Online that should have been in the game from the first place. This is even more disappointing because the game starts millennia after the spatial anomaly that led humanity to new regions of space collapsed.