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Tell Me About: Bubbles

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Misan:
Bubble Mechanics

To begin, the basics of bubbles. Warp disruption bubbles can only be deployed in null-sec and wormhole space. There are three kinds of bubbles. Anchored bubbles (Mobile Warp Disruptor is the proper name), Interdictor warp disruption probes, and Heavy Interdictor warp disruption field generator bubbles.

Anchored Bubbles

These bubbles come in three sizes (small, medium, large) and have tech 1, tech2, and faction variations. They vary in the size of the warp disruption field, anchoring times, and their shield/armor/structure hit points. Each one also takes much more space than the next, 65m3, 195m3, and 585m3 for small/medium/large respectively.



As you can see the general rule is T2 gets the largest scram ranges, T2/faction have the short anchoring times, and the faction bubbles are mid-range between T1 and T2 in all but HP which is far superior. All of them operate like any other anchorable structure or can.

(Light) Interdictor Bubbles

These are deployed by the Destroyer class hull Interdictors using the Interdiction Sphere Launcher (high slot) module. You can find them on the market as Warp Disrupt Probe. When a probe is launched it is deployed at 0 from the Interdictor. The bubble deployed has a 20km radius and lasts for 3 minutes before disappearing. The launcher can only fire once every 118s, which makes getting the positioning of the bubble right essential. It's also why you sometimes see double bubble fit Interdictors, so they have two independent bubble timers to use.

Heavy Interdictor Bubbles

Like the Interdictor, HICtors use a high slot module to deploy their bubbles, the Warp Disruption Field Generator. It doesn't use ammo like the Interdictors, instead it is a toggle on/off based module which creates a bubble around the ship (yes it follows the ship as it moves). The base radius is 16km, but the Heavy Interdictor skill increases it by 15% each level up to 20km at Level V.

Two things to keep in mind about a HICtor running a bubble: 1) An active bubble greatly reduces max speed on AB/MWD (from 1500 to 394 on a Broadsword) and 2) The ship cannot receive remote beneficial effects (remote repair, remote sensor boosting, etc). These penalties ONLY apply with the bubble active, if the Focused Warp Disruption script is in use these penalties are not applied (infinite point instead of bubble).

What does a bubble do?

Warp disruption bubbles, as their name implies, prevent warp while your ship is inside the sphere. Only T3 ships fitted with the Interdiction Nullifier system can warp while inside a bubble, all other ships have to leave the radius in order to warp. As a note, only bubbles and HICtor infinite points can tackle super capitals. Conventional warp disruptors and scramblers don't work on them.

There are a couple of basic rules governing warp bubbles when you are warping on to grid with one, instead of already being inside it. The first and most important thing to keep in mind is: A ship will only hit the bubble if it was already in-place BEFORE "Warp" was clicked. This is when the servers calculate the landing location for your ship, if the bubble is setup after this was done you'll land inside the bubble instead of at the edge. The sign that you have been caught in a bubble from a warp is landing at the edge of it.

When caught by a bubble, as I said you land at very edge of it. You need to move about 500m to escape the field and then initiate warp to leave. This is why you need tacklers and/or decloakers on the bubble to catch people.

What governs if I'm caught by a bubble or not from warp?

To get caught out of a warp by a bubble from one celestial to another two things need to be true. The bubble needs to be set up in a straight line between the point of warp (original celestial) and the destination celestial. The bubble also must be located on grid with the warp destination, within 100km from the actual object. The position of the bubble relative to the only matters within these criteria. It can be placed on, in front of, or behind the gate and it will still catch the ship. This leads into the fun part about bubbles:

Sling or Drag Bubbles

A bubble of this kind is setup usually between 20-100km off the gate/station or other celestial body. They can, as hinted at before, be positioned either in front or behind the object. When a ship is caught by one of these sling bubbles, instead of landing at 0 (or whatever range you picked) it lands in the bubble. This works even if the bubble is behind the celestial because the server only cares if it's a straight line from one to the other. The end result? You're sucked into the bubble away from the gate. It's a common tactic and all sizes of gate camps will use these to catch people. Be wary of warping directly from one gate to another in populated systems because of this.

That should cover the basics of how they work. Let me know if I forgot anything.

[Mod note, perhaps this should go in Guides? ...yay hindsight]

Havohej:
It used to be that if you were already in warp before a bubble went 'live', it wouldn't drag/stop you.

In this way, light dictors used to hit warp, drop bubble and still warp out safely (because they'd already initiated warp before dropping their bubble).  Goons had an instructional video on it on youtube, in fact.

Is this still the case?

Misan:
I asked before posting and it sounded like it didn't work like that. If you haven't actually gone into warp you'll be stopped just as you would if someone tackled you.

I'm going to fit my spare Sabre out and test this shortly, will let you know.

Update: Doesn't work anymore, it broke the warp process the moment I dropped the bubble.

Nascent:

--- Quote from: Misan on 18 Apr 2010, 13:12 ---Update: Doesn't work anymore, it broke the warp process the moment I dropped the bubble.
--- End quote ---
When the bubble stops warp like this it also stops the ship's engine.  This can be used to catch warp-cloakers by deploying the bubble right after they break their gate cloak, thus giving you a few extra seconds to catch those who are either unfamiliar with the mechanic or slow on their reaction.

Havohej:
Good to know, thanks for the update Misan, and you too for the tip, Rayth.

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