As it stands, constructs have some issues as all things do. Population matters alot, a single demesne can easily be unbreakable, and quality of combatants at any time can make it unfair. Also you can use multiple colossi, if one is damage you can move it and call for another one, constructs cant chase.. but enough of my notes...

Here is the point.. let's hear what is wrong, what is right, and how to fix it!

I'm suggesting weakenings happen by turns. That way no one can just storm after the last weakening to completely destroy the construct giving it enough time to heal itself thus taking it probably 3-4 weakenings at this rate to destroy said construct.

Another suggestion is have a discretionary power for nexus worlds, something that'll benefit allied constructs/colossus and hinder enemy ones.

Other than that, that's all I can think about.

Hm.

We're currently being screwed on because of the population difference.

There's nothing we can do about that, but things would be a whole lot more pleasant for Mag if we had somewhere defensible to hide on plane... and it's difficult coordinating things with the aethercontact thing.

The fact is, it's far harder to defend than it is to attack. And that's not great.

The Glomdoring's primary concern about constructs is, surprise-surprise, morale. It's a pretty hefty loss to say that your construct is completely destroyed, no matter what it actually takes to build it. In the case of something like the Black Crypt, however, it's a very high investment. Losing it means redoing the entire investment, from scratch. Everything you put into it is gone.

A "simple" (I'm not sure how easy it would actually be to code) change would be to remove any way of actually destroying a construct once built. Instead, the Power Minister's power, as well as the result of a successful Colossus battle, would deactivate the construct. Once deactivated, it would take a number of days before it could be reactivated (the current rebuild time is 7 days, so could stick with that). Reactivating could cost, say, a quarter of the initial investment (power, gold, and commodities). While deactivated, the construct would provide no benefits and have no maintenance costs. The power minister would NOT be able to deactivate during the Window of Opportunity, when the constructs can be attacked.

Should a construct be forcefully deactivated, the winning side would still get a power surge-- perhaps the same amount that it would take to reactivate the construct, ie, 1/4 of its initial value. It could stay at 1/2 if you want the winning side to still have somewhat of a reason to put in the time and investment, beyond deactivating the enemy's construct.

The overall idea is that it is nowhere near as much of a loss. "Celest destroyed our construct, we'll have to rebuild it in 7 months." versus "Celest deactivated the construct, and we can reactivate it in 7 months." The overall impact, mechanically, is nearly the same. There is a smaller activation fee than a rebuilding fee... and that is essentially the only mechanical difference.

In terms of morale, though, not having something you invested so much in completely destroyed can only make it better for the defenders. There was a concern that it would make the attackers less likely to want to attack, but really-- the mechanical advantages are nearly the same. The only difference is that it will not cause as much OOC frustration-- at least, I believe the OOC frustration would be greatly lessened by this change.

I've been trying to get Visaeris to actually post his comments, but I'll put them up just so they're heard before he gets around to it.

My idea is more mitigating the actual defeat, while he's more concerned about the morale issue with the fight itself. To get the construct close to destruction, it requires a pretty crushing military action, like the one today where it was (from the deathsights at least) very one-sided. As I wasn't involved, I can't really comment any further.

(Really, though, Daevos/Visaeris/Malarious-- you've all got comments on it, please make 'em!)

I've avoided posting because I hate bringing up problems that I have no solutions to...

The problem, in my eyes, is not so much the loss of the crypt. Xenthos is arguing for a semantics change that really results in no difference except a cheaper rebuild cost. The morale hit is not about the los of the crypt, it's about the overwhelming and crippling military loss. For an hour you are losing and dying over and over and you have no chance whatsoever to fight back or win if you're on the losing team.

As it stands, it's a losing proposition for the militarily weak orgs (Mag and Glomdoring). They will lose, and they won't lose by a little. You don't have situations where you can say "that was a close fight but gosh darnit we just barely lost." It was "wow we jjust spent 45 mitnutes getting our asses beat over and over again.. that sucked."

The problem is very basic: there's population and fighting power imbalances. Mechanically you can't fix that, and I don't know of a solution. Constructs magnify the problem because now you've actually got something to lose. The death of a demon lord or a supernal is really nothing.. Losing a construct is a BIG loss.

Unfortunately Magnagora is sort of forced by its RP to keep the Crypt up, as much as I'd like to get rid of it.

Say a construct is "in ruins" for the moral thing... but deactivating it so it can't be attacked sounds like a very boring route to take.

Interesting...I thought that the whole point of this was to make conflict optional, so people could choose not to have the constructs if they don't want them.

Is this the case of the RP desires turning what should be a game/entertainment into a chore. Should the RP significance be "turned down" in the construct designs then?

Going to have to agree with Jello here.

Constructs are optional. I don't see why there's an issue, aside from the fact that certain orgs simply have more front page appeal. The loss is the loss of the benefits, not a loss above and beyond the initial cost. It's an outlet for large scale conflict without the potential for griefing.

Defense being harder than attack is something that's always been the case in raiding. Momentum will, always and forever, be on the side of the offense. There is no mechanical fix to that without extending org defenses to the bubbles, and the org defense has to actually be pretty potent (read: OP like free discretionary powers ) to slow down the more talented offensive players.

EDIT: Fixed improper word order, should make more sense now.

I've only been at one weakening and on that occasion a single sealing aethership, crewed and well handled, saw off a small raiding party. I would think that 5 well trained and alert crew, with a minefield, could play Horatio at the gate fairly well. In aetherspace, numbers beyond the minimum almost don't matter.

Not without altering the nature of the construct. As it stands it is a shrine to Urlach and a representation of all that Magnagora, in theory, aspires to. Undeath and immortality and all that stuff.

Edit: Also, we do want the construct. Most of Mag wants it and likes it. I don't want it, personally, because I realise that we're at a huge disadvantage in terms of trying to keep it up. I also realise that there's no mechnical change that would mitigate that disadvantage without being completely unfair to Celest. Hence why I suspect there's no real solution.



The initial cost is immense, at least in the case of the city-unique ones. 60 thousand power.



Momentum is not the problem. Momentum means nothing when their deaths mean they can't get back easily (as it does right now). If anything, momentum is very much on the defender side in a construct battle.

The problem is simple numbers and simple military might. Forren and Narsrim can singlehandedly decimate most of our populace. Catarin+Malicia+Talkan is a hugely destructive force in any small scale skirmish. Lots of people means lots of support, and sure we can off them and easily come back while they can't, but the big boys have the advantage when the top-tier fighters greatly outnumber our top-tier fighters.

It's a simple numbers game, and being on the losing end of the numbers game means you're most likely going to lose. Glomdoring will witness this in the event that they are foolish enough to build their construct.

You're right, Glomdoring isn't likely to build a construct any time soon, and that's largely because we know that our defensive capabilities are kinda meh.

As for the momentum thing, death really doesn't have all that much to do with it. Attackers control the timing and scenario of the attack; defenders must respond. Attackers are nearly always prepared. Defenders are hit-and-miss. Consider this: Krellan alone could not defend a territory against a raid by Xavius. Xavius alone could not defend a territory against a raid by Krellan (and Xavius even has a demesne). It took Tael, Nejii, Dylara, Gehn, and Krellan to get the job done yesterday. Would I stand a chance trying to repel all of them alone? Definitely not. That's just the way things work, since the attacker has so much less liability, and thus more mobility, than the defender.

Magnagora successfully defended their construct a few weakenings in a row. They blocked the dock off blew up aetherships, what have you and Celest was unable to inflict much damage.

However in the long run for any organization it's going to be a losing proposition because you are going to get a weakening where your enemy has a lot of people and you don't have many and you're going to get your hat handed to you. Now, it's difficult to completely destroy a construct in one raid but that just means you just have to be unlucky in terms of numbers in two battles in a row which is entirely possible.

It seems a given that at some point, an organization WILL lose any construct it builds, regardless of how hard it tries to defend them or even how powerful it is. It seems a consensus that Celest is stronger militarily than Magnagora yet Magnagora was still able to recently take down three Supernals. It's not just a matter of strength, it's a matter of the timing of the weakenings. So it becomes a matter of "Do we think we can keep it long enough in order for it to be worth the cost?"

And this just seems completely off. Because eventually the answer for everyone is likely to be "no". Celest isn't just reluctant to build an expensive construct because of it's utility but also because they have seen first hand that while it is difficult to take down a construct, eventually you're going to get numbers on your side and do huge damage. The morale hit for just failing to attack successfully is pretty big. Actually losing a construct is huge and morale is something you don't want to mess with too much.

I really don't know the solution though. Making the constructs cheaper seems a bad idea since some of them offer really, really, really nice benefits that shouldn't be cheap. Maybe some sort of credit the longer you manage to keep a construct up towards the construction of your next one? Maybe if the ratio of attackers to defenders is too high on the nexus world then the defenders get some sort of additional help. But at the same time you don't to make attacking so difficult that no one bothers to do it. It's certainly not easy now and the return on investment isn't exactly stellar most of the time.

Also, it seems the weakenings are happening too frequently. Every two days is going to lead to burnout. Maybe every three days or four. Or no more than twice a week. I dunno.

What would be the problem with making it so that you can only attack a construct if your organization has at least one construct built? This would at least give the other org something to retaliate on, rather than just constantly rebuilding + losing their construct (due to whatever reasons).

It wouldn't make any difference with the addition of the elemental/cosmic constructs.

Luck is a factor in pretty much anything, especially in war. :spartan:

I think what might be a good idea though would be to have the cost of making a construct be based off a set value + a percentile of max nexus power, like pretty much everything else in the IRE games is... because that's just a really good system.

If contructs were to have a ruinous state, perhaps depending on how they were taken down, maybe it could be easier to rebuild one that was destroyed due to sheer numbers or something to help decrease the luck factor without attempting to remove it, which would probably just be a mistake as it seems impossible.

i wasn't there but I heard about the earlier weakening Celest domination. I heard a problem was that just going up there you'd die like right after caressing the megalith. What making that room like a nexus room have any effect? Can't be forced to and from that room and it's the one room you can have guards at? not sure if that would help or not. But I definately agree numbers is a problem you can't control. Maybe the only real way to avoid this would be if the people leading the raids didn't do them? But that would be hard cause the Seren night avatar raid was like that and it was the only time people actually wanted to raid. wow this is a tough one.

i have too second Krellan. that one room at least should be allowed to have guards and all the other benefits a nexus room gets. It is really going to deter raiding if you can be killed just because you entered the room and you need to recover.

I can use forums again. I do agree it should be a nexus room, and placing guards... yes they should be callable.

I have asked to place some other things here as well..

1) Should weakenings occur less? Right now they are every 2 days. And as Lysandus said should we make it 'turn' based

2) Construct combat is one sided easily.. if one side can gears then scroll the other one.. you can usually start hitting rapidly and causing major damage while the slowed one cant really prevent it.

3) Should you be able to erect a second colossus? As it stands a colossi can walk away if damaged and cant be stopped (it ignores blockers, walls, and even barrier), do they really need to be able to make another one?

4) Perhaps another way to heal a construct? Cooks can give back a chunk but what about a skill in rituals or arts? Rituals came to mind because of puella, but arts makes sense for constructs too. Right now we have focusconstruct in discipline which gives small amounts of karma and experience.. perhaps could do the same for it.. but we could heal 50 per use of the skill (also on a second timer) so long as you dont leave the room you continue your building... this would mean to heal from 2000 to 10000 you would need 160 uses, and it would be every 30 seconds.. no one person would want to sit and do this.. so would need groups or leave it be

Yes they should happen less, but then it should be kept in mind they shouldn't be able to fully heal in the period between weakenings (current ratio probably shouldn't be held though)

You should be able to place as many colossus as there are constructs on a nexus world, if an org had the people to attack 2 or 3 constructs and you had 3 , then this should be possible


50 heal per would, from what I was told yesterday, totally outheal a bombard, thus the skill should be as tedious and dangerous as bombard, maybe an empath ability for a ship to send a curing wave. A ship would only be able to bombard or cure, not do both.

(not related to the quote)
Now as to communication, how is the agressor having an easier time communicating then the defenders? we have the same restrictions, main communication for Celest happened by order channel. You have that available to yourself too. Indeed the raider obviously planned beforehand, but so can defenders.

military might: I don't know if Celest has more fighters, but indeed we are more..active in this

Giving RP for a forced reason to keep the crypt is a bit... odd, you can easily find RP reasons as to why you will not build it. Celest would in theory have to build theirs because angelaura would bring the light closer to prime, but hey we don't.