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Wormholes

A wormhole is a tunnel between two empty void coordinates in two different solar systems. A fleet that flies into one end leaves the other end at once, so a well-placed wormhole can cut a long interstellar trip down to two short hops inside the systems at either end. Wormholes are not free: every passage strains them, an unstable wormhole tears ships out of the fleets that pass, and every wormhole collapses sooner or later. Fleets still in flight when it collapses are lost.

Where wormholes appear

Each world keeps one open wormhole per 10 active players (players active in the last seven days, rounded up). A world with 1 to 10 active players has one wormhole, a world with 11 to 20 has two, and so on.
Both ends sit on empty void coordinates, never on planets, stars, asteroid belts or a Void Boss. The two ends are always in different solar systems.
Every wormhole has a technical name such as ERB-4821-KX. Both ends carry the same name.
When a wormhole collapses, a new one opens somewhere else within about an hour, as long as the world still has enough active players.

Find them in the Galaxy

In Galaxy, a wormhole end shows a spiral icon, its name and a small colored dot for its state:

Green: stable. Amber: flutter. Orange: the shear. Red: near rupture or collapsing.
Hover or focus the name to read its condition: state, instability, load against capacity, the share of a fleet it currently takes, and when it collapses.
The ⇄ link next to the name jumps to the other end in the galaxy view, so you can see where the tunnel leads.
In the 3D system view, wormholes appear as slowly turning swirls. Select one and use Jump to the other end in the detail panel.

Tag a wormhole

Before your fleets can use a wormhole, tag it:

Open the system with one of its ends in Galaxy.
Press the tag icon in the actions of that position. Tagging either end tags the whole wormhole.
A tag badge appears next to the name. Use the unlink icon to remove the tag again.

Tags are personal: your tags only affect your own fleets. A tag costs nothing and disappears with the wormhole.

Fly through a wormhole

Once you have tagged at least one wormhole, step 2 of Fleet shows a Route box:

Direct is the normal flight, with its flight time.
The wormhole option shows the name of your best tagged wormhole, its flight time, its condition and the share of the fleet it would take. It can only be chosen when it is faster than the direct flight; otherwise it stays greyed out with the hint "No tagged wormhole shortens this flight."

How the route is calculated:

The trip is two ordinary flights: from your colony to the nearest suitable end, then from the other end to the target. The jump between the ends takes no time.
Both directions are tried, and the fastest of your tagged wormholes is offered. Your engine speed, drive research and other speed bonuses apply to both flights as usual.
The best case is a wormhole with one end in your own system and the other in the target's system: the whole interstellar part of the trip disappears.
Fuel stays the same. A wormhole route costs exactly the SEM of the direct flight; it only saves time.
Only the outbound flight uses the wormhole. The fleet always flies home on the direct route.
The server checks the route again when you launch. If the wormhole collapsed or no longer helps, the launch is refused and you can fly direct instead.

Any fleet mission can use a wormhole route: attacks, transports, stationing, extraction, collection, excursions and boss fights. Spy probes, survey probes, rockets and colony ships always fly direct. Your own outbound fleets show Via wormhole and its name in their tooltip in Fleet movement.

Load, capacity and instability

Every wormhole has a capacity: the fleet mass it can carry before it is completely worn out. Each passage adds the passing fleet's full mass to the wormhole's load. Instability is the load as a share of the capacity. Every player's fleets add to the same load.

Recovery: the load falls by 10% of the capacity per day, so a wormhole slowly calms down when traffic stops. Once a collapse is scheduled (see below), it no longer recovers.
Capacity grows with the world: new wormholes get at least 2.5 times the median total fleet mass of the 10 strongest players, and never less than 5 to 15 million. As the strongest fleets grow, open wormholes grow with them. Capacity never shrinks.
A typical top player's whole fleet in one passage therefore pushes a fresh wormhole to about 40%, into the shear, but not to its collapse.

What a passage costs

When you launch through a wormhole, your fleet's mass is added to its load at once, and the share of the fleet the wormhole takes is decided by the instability after your passage:

State	Instability	Share of the fleet lost
Stable	below 20%	none
Flutter	20% to below 35%	0% to 3%
The shear	35% to below 45%	3% to 10%
Near rupture	45% and more	10% to 50%

The lost share applies to the ships and the cargo. It is taken when the fleet arrives, before its mission is resolved, and a fleet message tells you how many ships the wormhole took.
Fractions of ships are rounded up or down at random in proportion, so even a single ship can be lost.
If you recall the fleet after it passed the wormhole, it pays the loss at the moment of the recall. If you recall it before it reaches the wormhole, it pays nothing, but its mass still counts towards the load.

Collapse

A wormhole ends in one of two ways, whichever comes first:

Worn out by mass: when instability reaches 50%, a collapse is scheduled 3 to 6 days ahead. The state then reads Collapsing. Until the collapse it can still be used, at near-rupture losses.
Natural end: every wormhole collapses on its own 7 to 10 days after it opened, used or not.

The tooltip and the Route box always show the earlier of the two times.

A fleet whose wormhole collapses before it arrives is lost completely, with all its ships and cargo, and nothing flies home. The Route box warns you in red when the wormhole would collapse before your fleet arrives. You can still launch, at your own risk.

After the collapse the wormhole disappears from the galaxy, your tag goes with it, and its ends become ordinary void coordinates again.

Tips

Tag every wormhole near your colonies and your usual targets. The Route box then tells you on every launch whether one of them helps.
Check the condition before sending your main fleet. A big fleet through a busy wormhole can push it into the shear or beyond and pay for it itself.
Split very large fleets across several hours so the wormhole can recover in between, or accept the loss for the time you save.
Watch the collapse time on long flights. A slow fleet through an old wormhole may not make it.
Wormholes save time, not fuel. For trips inside one system, the direct route is always the better choice.

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