What stops Magnagora from repeatedly trying to tear down Celest's construct? You can still engage in nexus battles without constructs of your own. I understand why it isn't happening so much -now-. It's just too hard. Now if one could destroy a construct in one or two weakenings, I think nexus battles would increase.

I fully expect Celest would take a look at Magnagora's lack of Constructs, the minimal benefits of their own, the drain of their own, and the fact that rebuilding them just gives power to Magnagora with no counter, and then say "Well, we don't feel like feeding the Taint power for no purpose. We're just not going to rebuild them." Of course, this would only really happen if Magnagora was attacking consistently, say every other Weakening, but for the chance of a fair bit of power for little work? I can see it happening.

That would be a pretty effective stop.

Well, this thread is about that. Addressing the issues with Celest and Glomdoring's major construct. If they were on par with the others, I imagine both orgs would be more likely to rebuild, if they're taken down. Also the power gains could be decreased, not that I want that. But as it stands, no one will bother when it takes 4-6 weakenings, if not more, to destroy one. Celest has every reason to want to destroy the Crypt but it's proven way too difficult after all the changes. Mag hasn't disabled a Celestian construct yet, even with their solid fleet of op superships.

There are two different schools of thought so far, one of which is nerfing the big constructs down to be more like Glom's and Celest's, the other being buffing those up to be like Mag's and Seren's. My argument is, admittedly, based on saying why the first one isn't a great option if this is desired to be a long-term conflict solution (while you may not have been agreeing with it, I suppose I took it that way as it was the direction Catarin seems to be thinking about as well as "your" suggested change to the crypt).

As Catarin said in her first post I think the key is:

Powerful global benefit -> Big penalty for losing -> Push to making losing harder -> Conflict dies as it requires too much effort to win
Weak benefit -> Small incentive to attack, and small incentive to build -> If no one attacks there is no conflict, if no one builds there is no conflict

I think the focus on what power a construct should or should not have is missing the point. I think instead you should be thinking about a system that allows an attacker to win, but gives the loser a reason to keep trying.

Isn't that exactly what discussing whether Constructs should have minimal benefits or good benefits is? If it's only giving minimal benefits, there's no reason to "keep trying" as you put it.

Thus, this decision is essential.

And you left out the other half, if it only gives good benefits there becomes a push to make winning harder, thus killing conflict (something we have empirical proof of, while the weak power killing conflict is only in theory).

Thus just talking about if things should be weak or strong is missing any idea to address how you can build a robust system of continual conflict that all sides have incentives to participate in. The powers are clearly a key part of the incentive process, but they are a dead end in and of themselves. If you just get bogged down in weak vrs strong I do not think you will get anywhere.

It's certainly not only in theory. Glomdoring didn't even build its big construct for a long time, because it just Was Not Worth It.

It's also obviously not the only part of it, but in order to even *consider* balancing the rest of it you have to know which direction you want to take the Constructs in. Other aspects will be very different if the Constructs give weak benefits versus strong-- such as cost, rewards for destroying it, etc. Thus, the construct's power is still the essential component.

If your suppositions are true Xenthos, and they may very well be, then the system itself is fatally flawed.

If you have a construct like the crypt, you feel obliged to build it. If it keeps getting torn down because you are incapable of defending it, then you have huge morale hits, big expenditures to keep rebuilding it, and you end up with one of two things. Either you campaign to get the system changed so it becomes near impossible to tear down a construct so no one actually attacks (what we have now) or you stop building the construct.

If you have a construct without as much incentive to build it, then the situation is pretty much the same excepting the huge morale hits and big expenditures to keep rebuilding it. If you cannot defend it, you're much less likely to keep putting it up.

In the end, it's all the same. The result will always be that there are no nexus battles. The nest and font getting upgraded to crypt/altar levels is not going to change this dynamic. Now instead of having a kind of useful construct that costs too much, you'll have a super useful construct. People still won't be able to tear it down as nexus battles currently stand. And if that changes and they CAN tear it down? Well now you've lost your super useful construct.

I guess I just do not fully understand why you're arguing for the boost if your concern is lack of nexus battles. The problem will still be the same. We just all will have OP constructs.

Constructs are already designed to be huge morale hits when whacked. That's just how they're made, and it's part of the system. Yes, it's quite possible that the entire concept is just fatally flawed. However, without the "obligation to build it," it's just not likely going to be built at all if it's made a lot easier to destroy the things. There's little reason to keep rebuilding the DarkNest as-is, for example, if it dies every week (or even every other week), feeding Serenwilde our power. But keep in mind that Glomdoring has played the "not building big Constructs" part of the game, so we do have some experience with it and reasons for it.

Celest did not build the Angelfont for quite some time and in the end it was only built for a very specific reason unrelated to the benefits it gave. And it has served that purpose well.

I guess I just disagree totally with the idea that the only way people will build constructs is if they give them ridiculous amounts of benefits. I'm not even particularly talking about the DarkNest or any super constructs. As things stand now, no, there would be no reason to keep rebuilding it or the Angelfont. But that is because they are designed poorly. Boosting them to crypt/altar levels will not fix the problem. Would you rather feel obligated to keep rebuilding them? If your constructs are getting torn down every week, how is it remotely better for that construct to be of the crypt/altar variety? So you feel like you HAVE to keep rebuilding it even though you can't defend it?

Again, I point to the planar constructs. You wouldn't rebuild those? If you were losing them every week, well, it's quite possible you shouldn't rebuild them until you were capable of defending them. But not being capable of defending them isn't going to significantly weaken you against other orgs because it's not a super construct. It would actually be...optional.

Hmm. Catarin. A rough idea:
1) Constructs don't take power to keep up each month.
2) Constructs aren't destroyed during Major Weakenings, but they are disabled until they draw enough power to reactivate (which could take 5-7 RL days, depending on what's preferred).
3) This power is drawn monthly. An example with some random numbers drawn from nowhere: The DarkNest draws 1,000 power per RL day while it's disabled in this way for 7 days, meaning that 'destroying' it is a loss of 7,000 power for the Glomdoring, just not all at once.
4) The total amount of power lost, is also gained by the other organization. Thus, if it takes 7,000 power to reactivate the Construct, 'destroying' it is an immediate 7,000 power for an hour's work.
5) Auronispheres can be used to shorten the time disabled. Inserting an auronisphere into the Construct will shorten the disabled time by 1 RL day, but also immediately drain 1 day's worth of power for that repair work.

This encourages people to do mini-Weakenings to repair their Constructs, lowers the power gain/loss involved in Constructs, and would (hopefully) work to alleviate some of the morale-hit as it's not "Agh, we just lost *everything* for a week, plus all that power!" when the Construct goes down.

Numbers would, of course, be subject to change depending on the quality of the Constructs.

As orgs are now extremely concious of power, 1 isn't a bad idea. The power cost to maintain is a big disincentive to building constructs. But at the same time, the power costs are also a pretty big incentive to participate in weakenings as well since only by participating can you acquire particles which you can then acquire spheres with. Even if participating is as minor as just being ready to defend and focusing positivitely on your own constructs. You can pre-power constructs for a long time with spheres. Hmm, in the end I'd guess I'd disagree with 1. Yes the power cost is a concern but it's a concern that can be mitigated by participation so it's not as much a concern if an org is active in mitigating it.

Two would be fine as long as 1 wasn't implemented. Having the construct costs essentially only be what you spend to initially build it and anything you might have to pay if anyone manages to disable it would be a bad idea. But if you're still paying your upkeep it wouldn't hurt to not have to pay those rebuilding costs. 3 and 4 also good.

5, makes sense in a way but would be extremely easy to do as acquiring a good number of spheres is not difficult if you are active in weakenings. So it would tie back into why is the attacker attacking? Are they attacking just for the power gain? Or are they attacking to try to neutralize the construct for awhile? People feel a much greater need to neutralize super constructs.

If it was made easy to take it out in 1 attack, and had a 7-day downtime between reconstruction still... no, I don't think I'd be constantly dumping the power into it just to end up giving it to Serenwilde. We'd be spending more power on rebuilding than we save on discretionary powers, not to mention comms.

It could also be made so it can't be reduced below a total of 2-3 RL days deactivated, which would still be beneficial (2-7 days deactivated, depending on whether the other org goes and gathers spheres).

Auronispheres can -already- be used to get rid of power cost for 1 RL day, stackable with more. Serenwilde hasn't paid power for the Moon altar for about a month or so now, and a few weeks at least for the other two constructs we have. Instead of selling auronispheres, orgs could actually...oh, use them? The only thing with auronispheres though is I'd like for them to be insertable even when it isn't a weakening. As it is right now, we just stockpile until someone who can insert is awake for the weakening.

EDIT: Misread it at first, but point still stands. I hear Synl all the time about power cost of constructs and he didn't even consider auronispheres.

You have been able to insert any time for a couple of weeks now

Oh? Will have to remember that then.

Yes, that point stands-- but as you noted, that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking more about changing the system in a pretty significant manner so it's not as damaging to an organization on the "losing" side, while still providing benefits/incentives to participate. Having the entire thing destroyed, and not being able to re-raise it for 7 days is a pretty hefty hit (if it's an important construct), which Catarin pointed out. If the whole system is flawed... then it's probably worth trying to come up with some fixes for it.

That's not bad, but I would disagree with number one. A surged warrior for one example could experience troubles as far as catching full mana on prompt. I don't know exactly what it's designed to keep you from doing anyways. If I walk into your room, I'll be able to cast release them before you can hit me anyways. It seems more annoying than preventing any form of abuse.