EVE Evolved: Untangling the mystery of the Sleepers, part 2
How wormholes work (continued):
Each Sleeper system generates one outgoing wormhole of a specific type going to a specific class of system. No matter what else is in the system, a wormhole of this type will always exist. We refer to this on our expeditions as our "daily wormhole" but we've also heard it described with terms like "static wormhole". These wormholes in class 4, 5 and 6 systems tend to link to lower class systems. In class 3 systems, they tend to link to normal empire systems in high, low or null security space. Class 1 and 2 systems tended to link to high security space. Any additional wormholes found in a Sleeper system will be incoming, though there have been a few reports of systems with more than one static or outgoing wormhole. This means that the best place to set up is not in the class of system you want to farm but in one that opens daily wormholes to the class you wish to farm.
New Thelan was an absolute haven in that respect, opening a wormhole to class 3s with a huge two billion kilogram mass allowance. This allowed the easy use of battleship gangs to farm those systems. We've since struggled to find a system that good and currently live in one whose daily wormhole has half the mass allowance of New Thelan's. When choosing a system to settle in, make sure the daily wormhole is big enough for comfortable use by the typical team you'll be sending through it.
Types of Sleeper site:
The sites you can find in Sleeper space range from cosmic anomalies full of Sleepers to radar and magnetometric sites with components required to reverse engineer tech 3 hulls and subsystems. Other important sites are ladar sites with gas clouds you can mine and react together into hybrid polymers and gravimetric sites full of high grade ore to mine. These sites will never disappear if left undiscovered, leading to some incredibly profitable systems where dozens of them accumulate. Once found with probes and warped to, however, any site has approximately 3-4 days before it will disappear. This means that if you plan on setting up a POS as part of your expedition, your system will soon become empty as sites that had been slowly accumulating there begin to more quickly despawn. This is part of the reason that setting up a POS in a system with the intention of farming it isn't the best option. It's also why farming neighbouring systems is the best idea – each new wormhole opens to a new system that may have been slowly accumulating sites for months.
As a general guide, the difficulty of a site is indicated in its name. "Perimeter" sites are easy and most commonly occur in class 1 and 2 Sleeper systems. Perimeter cosmic anomalies can usually be easily tackled solo in a Drake or more quickly with a small gang of other battlecruisers. "Frontier" sites are more difficult and tend to spawn in class 3 and 4 systems. Frontier cosmic anomalies, radar and magnetometric sites can be tough, usually requiring a gang of battleships, drakes or command ships to tank successfully. Some of the Sleeper frigates will also warp scramble you in frontier magnetometric and radar sites. "Core" sites are the most difficult and tend to spawn in class 5 and 6 systems. On the one occasion we attempted a core radar site, we required a gang of around a dozen battleships all fit with remote armour repairers in a spider tank formation. All NPCs in core sites will warp scramble, so plan your battle strategy well before entering the fray.
Read on to part 3 for a complete breakdown of each of the five different types of sleeper site, from their difficulty to what valuable loot can be found there.