“Adventure is a state of mind and spirit.” – Jacqueline Cochran, American Aviation Pioneer

10.4.yc118 J233630 < Constellation 262 < Region 26

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When I began my exploration of wormhole space just a little over three months ago, I had decided to base out of Thera. I felt it was a great place to start with random wormholes appearing daily. Being a member of Signal Cartel brings the benefit that most would be scouted already and taking advantage of that, I could quickly knockout several systems daily. Then I’d have to resort to scanning on my own which takes some time. With over 2,500 wormhole systems and assuming complete randomness with the connections, statistically, it should’ve been some time before I started finding systems that I’ve previously visited. At least that was the theory. But there’s something odd going on in wormhole space and it’s not the space affects that I’m talking about. The randomness of wormholes connections in each system doesn’t seem to be so random after all.

J102844 VI, Moon 1

On my tenth day into exploring W-Space while based in Thera, I encountered my first duplicate system. I had only previously explored a total of 17 systems, so my chances of finding a duplicate system should have been less than 1%. Yes, I hear you and understand, less than 1% chance is still a chance, so with a raised eyebrow, I continued to base from Thera. But here’s the thing, as I proceeded to explore, duplicate systems kept coming up, beating the odds of finding them until finally at the end of March with only 10% of W-Space explored, my odds of seeing duplicates seemed closer to 30%. I decided to forgo basing in Thera and have been wandering ever since.

Now with my supposedly random wandering it gets more interesting. This last week, just the last few days really, has convinced me of the not so randomness of W-Space, that there’s a pattern to the chaos. One day, I hit system after system that I had previous explored, until finally I found one I had not. It was around ten systems, making that day’s odds over 90% likely to find systems I’ve already been to. What? How? It gets more interesting. The next day, I found system after system I had NOT been to yet, making that day’s odds over 90% likely to find systems I’ve NOT already been to. Very odd.

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I don’t have an answer, so what am I proposing? I believe wormhole systems cluster together and connect more often than not to the same systems over and over again. Granted, I believe the clusters are rather large groups, maybe upwards to 600 or even 700 systems or so, but based on my experience so far, it would fit the odds I’ve been experiencing.

I’d be curious to hear from folks that actually have lived in a single wormhole system for a long period of time. Have you noticed or have you seen yourself connecting to the same systems over a period of several months? It’d be difficult to prove and take a lot of observation from multiple systems, but it is interesting never the less.

Fly Clever!
Katia

UPDATE: After some discussion on Twitter and further reflection, the more I’m beginning to think there may be a light year limit between systems and their ability to connect to each other via wormholes regardless if they’re K-Space or W-Space.

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