Stargates are the gateways between the stars. Almost all the ships in New Eden travel from one solar system to another using these pathways, and are a vital apparatus for day to day activities. In high security and low security space, these gates are guarded by sentry guns.
Stargates cannot, however, be used by capital ships such as carriers, dreadnoughts, super carriers, and titans. These ships must travel by using their on-board jump drives, jump portals, or a sufficiently large wormhole.
Types
There are five different types of stargates in New Eden, designated by location and differentiated by size. They all share the same function of transporting sub-capital ships from one system to another, regardless of physical distance between them. Each empire has its own gate design.
Standard Gates
Regular Stargates are used for the solar systems within a given constellation.
Constellation Gates
Constellation Gates are slightly larger than Standard Gates, and mark the boundaries from one constellation within a region to the next.
Regional Gates
Regional gates are substantially larger than regular gates and constellation gates, and mark the boundaries between contiguous regions for the four empires; a regional gate only connects solar systems in different regions that belong to the same empire.
Border Gates
Border gates are the largest of all, and mark the boundaries between the Empires of New Eden.
Smuggler's Gate
Smuggler's gates are found exclusively in 0.0 space, these pirate faction gates create a link between two systems in adjacent spiral arms of the New Eden. These gates are the sole direct link between the two distant regions and cover such a range in light years that it is impossible for capital ships to leap between the endpoint systems. Unlike standard regional gates, they bear a distinctly different model to the racially themed gates in either endpoint system.
Ingame Mechanics
The mechanics that govern stargates are very important in Eve Online, and dictate the terms of many engagements and activities.
Session Change
Every Time a player jumps through a stargate, a session change is initiated. When a session change occurs, information about the new location is provided to the game client from the relevant cluster node through the proxy server the player is connected through. To prevent overload, a session change timer exists that limits the minimum time for initiating a session change to 10 seconds.
Session changes also take place when docking, undocking, traveling through a jump portal, and using wormholes.
After jumping through a stargate, the ship is cloaked for 60 seconds. Unless a command is given that will move the ship to a new location.
Aggression Timer
The aggression timers force players to commit to an engagement; once you have fired upon, warp scrambled, webbed, fired your ECM, or sent your drones on the attack against another player, an aggression timer is initiated. It is not possible to travel through a stargate after opening fire for 60 seconds since your last act of aggression. The stargate will not forbid you for traveling after shooting NPC pirate ships.