This post starts a series about New Eden topology. That is a peculiar topic, one might say, but map of EVE universe has always fascinated me, especially the vast network of stargates. It has many interesting properties and some extremes ones might surprise even hardened veteran players.

Part I – Living on a graph

From mathematical point of view, EVE universe can be described as an undirected graph, where solar systems are vertices and stargate connections are edges. There are:

• 2498 solar systems in wormhole space,
• 3524 Null Sec solar systems (but only 3294 accessible to capsuleers – 230 are under Jove control),
• 695 Low Sec solar systems,
• 1212 High Sec solar systems.

This gives 7929 systems in total. If we rule out W-space systems with their ever changing conections and Jove space, we are left with 5201 solar systems and 6894 stargate pairs - EVE gate network.

Each graph can be described by various properties. One of them is diameter. It is the length of the longest shortest path, that is if you count shortest paths between all systems, then the length of longest of them is called diameter. In EVE, diameter has value of 99. There are 3 solar system pairs that are so far apart:

• 373Z-7 – SVB-RE
• 373Z-7 – BU-IU
• 373Z-7 – 3KNA-N

Other graph property, somewhat related to diameter, is radius. In contrast to circle radius, it does not have to be exactly half of diameter (but it is never lower than half). Radius is the length of the shortest longest shortest path. Ok, I understand that this description sounds weird (or even insane) but let’s try to work it out. So, “shortest path” is pretty obvious. For each pair of solar systems we find a “shortest path”. For each solar system, we look for the longest “shortest path” – the path to solar system that is most far away. Once we have all those “longest shortest paths” we take the shortest of them and its length is our radius. The radius for EVE network is 56. The system with the shortest longest shortest path is Lansez – let’s call it radial center of EVE. You can go to any other accessible solar system with 56 or less jumps.

There is also another way of determining a center of EVE. We can check which system has the lowest average distance to the rest. Let’s call it mean center of EVE. In this category, the winner is Kaaputenen with average of 26.3 jumps.

But some EVE players will never leave CONCORD protection, so for them, EVE gate network is limited to High Sec gate network. This subgraph consists of 1106 solar systems and 1597 stargate pairs (I’m not counting isolated High Sec pockets). Here are our metrics for such graph:

• Diameter: 51
• Diameter routes:
  • Jorus – Bashyam
  • Jorus – Chamemi
  • Jorus – Balanaz
• Radius: 27
• Radial center: Algogille
• Mean center: Kaaputenen again (12.5 jumps)

This concludes the first part of my topology ramblings. In the next part I will cover metrics for various EVE regions. Stay tuned.

Edit: as per Arch’s comments below, edited the above text to display the correct information

P.S. This blog series was inspired by  Make Some ISK, Expand Our Knoweldge post on My Loot, Your Tears blog.