Up until today, all my knowledge and experience was that warp bubbles have a range of around 100-120km. This had been provided by what experienced bubble campers had told me, as well as the setups that I had participated in and observed in my travels around nullsec. Most importantly, the ‘offical Eve information‘ about warp bubbles said:
“…warp disruption fields attract all incoming vessels arriving at around 0-100km into the disruption bubble, your ship should be safe as long as the distance exceeds this limit.”
It’s easy to think that the official effects of the warp bubble extend out to about 100km or so, based on what information is out there. But one of my corp members (thanks Tanya 🙂 pointed out a very interesting forum conversation over here where bubbles actually affected you based on them being on the grid and aligned with your departure and arrival point instead of having to be within 100km of the arrival point.
This was news to me, completely outside of my knowledge. So rather than just accepting a forum discussion (who knows what kind of misinformation could be discussed?), I went to talk to someone that I knew would know everything there is to know about them. Bubble camper extraordinaire. Bren Genzan, current CEO of OUCH, who I’ve interviewed recently.
Bren Genzan > 100k is the standard distance of setting a drag or stop bubble on a gate.
Bren Genzan > when you warp to a celestial that has a bubble on it, the game makes a check
Bren Genzan > is there a bubble on the destination celestial and am I aligned to it?
Bren Genzan > if the answer is yes, you land in the bubble…
Bren Genzan > the distance that the bubble is from the gate is immaterial
Bren Genzan > the bubble just has to be on the grid
Bren Genzan > so you can honestly stretch a grid and get caught in a bubble 1000k from the gate… if it is aligned properly…
Bren Genzan > thats not easy by the way
Bren Genzan > people set up stop bubbles 100k off the gate because placing a stop bubble is easy, warp to gate at 100, anchor bubble.
Bren Genzan > drag bubbles require a little more skill
Bren Genzan > but typically you put a bubble down far enough from the gate so that people coming from the gate the camp is sitting on
Bren Genzan > cant jump in and warp right from the gate to the bubble, or burn up with MWDs… you want time to react
Bren Genzan > so 100K is pretty much the standard distance you set up a bubble from the gate, because it’s far enough to give you a buffer from your target gate
Bren Genzan > and the further you put a drag bubble up from the gate, the harder it is to align to the gate… and you dont want people to be able to warp from your bubble back to the gate, or from the gate to your bubble.
Bren Genzan > I think that’s about it.
Black Claw > great, thank you 🙂
So there you have it. A bubble only needs to be on grid with your arrival point and aligned with that point and your departure point, and you’ll get caught in it. The only reason people place a bubble around 100km from the arrival point is so that if you get out of the bubble you then can’t warp to the gate and get away.
Ya learn something new every day in New Eden!
