I really like the idea of the downtime of the construct being an extended period that only will cost the org if they choose to invest resources to speed up its regeneration. It adds in more options for the defenders to mitigate loss while still allowing a meaningful victory for the attackers.

I'm not certain a grace period is needed as if you can control when your construct comes back online, you can always just do it right after a weakening. They're every week or so, Refugree. So if they want a one weakening grace period, they can choose to do that.

I would still rather the reasons people attack be because there is solid benefit for them attacking outside just wanting to hurt the other side but I suppose it really doesn't matter in the long run. With spheres and possible power gain as well as disabling the construct, there is enough reason to attack. IF attacking is feasible.

Well, they could control it in as much as you can put in resources to hasten it's restoration.

How about when the construct takes it's full month to regenerate, you have to enter a command at it to make it a fully operational construct?

That way even if you don't put any resources into bringing it back, you can still have your 1-week virtual grace period.

Alternatively, the regeneration time for the construct could be measured in weakenings; so that no matter what, you're going to get your 1 week.

This would mean that you could only slough off time from the construct in weakening-sized increments, which might make smaller, questing sort of construct repair needlessly complicated, so I'm more in favor of the first solution.

By the way, you misspelt my name. I'm hurt.



Well, how do you define attacking as being feasible?

I remember in Achaea's icon wars the tactical attacker was the strategic defender, and thus the instigator of an icon raid had a pretty significant advantage. Of course, their icon could always be counter-raided, but the tactical attacker still had the advantage since the icon they were destroying would go down first.

Do you mean feasible as in, "Doable within a short enough timeframe?"

Also, how easy is it for an org to renovate or repair their construct in between weakenings? Does it sort of automatically regenerate it's parts?

Okay here is a general scenario with an org that is completely outclassed by their opponents who ride roughshod over them and can destroy constructs at will.

You build your construct. If you are smart, you time it right after your last major weakening so you get a week before another weakening. That weakening comes. You're attacked, decimated. Your construct is still up as the design is intended to not be able to ever destroy a construct in one weakening. So you have another week. Next week comes, your construct is blown up.

This holds true every time you construct/activate your construct. So you're always going to get some benefit out of it. Though obviously if you are incapable of defending it, you will get less benefit than those who are.

So in reactivation, there should be a measure of control, i.e. the resources spent. How many resources it costs to reactivate should decrease as time passes. So near the end, the org could spend a nominal amount of resources and have it reactivated at a time of their choosing. Or it could just be a command is necessary to reactivate.



Feasible is there is a point to attacking. Right now it is not feasible. You would have to have extremely overwhelming offense for at least 3 (more like 4 to 5) weakenings in a row in order to destroy a construct. Putting that into perspective, you need to be on your A game for four random times in a RL month in order to take down a construct. This involves at least one colossus each time, and colossi are not cheap.

Repair between weakenings is extremely easy and just involves inserting a keg into the construct once every RL day. Making it so basically, you could do extremely well in a weakening , kind of poorly in the next weakening (against better defense) and you will lose all progress from the first weakening. So you are starting over. If you miss a weakening because it's at a bad time of day for your org and no one is there, you might as well have not gone to that first weakening as your effort will be completely healed.

Defenders also have large advantages in terms of access to their nexus world and the fact that constructs are far more powerful at this point than colossi. Indeed, a construct can get up and run around to avoid its attackers.

To make attacking something anyone bothers to do again, it would need to be changed so that there was a kind of baseline. For example, you base things off of an org having two ships bombarding and one colossus attacking on the ground. The construct cannot get up and run. All the various things that make constructs much more powerful that colossus are reversed. In this scenario, an org with no resistance could do, let's say, 70% damage to the construct. Healing kegs should only be able to bring a construct up 25% or so. So a construct could be up to 55% by the time the next battle rolls around. If defense is poor again it will be destroyed but if a solid defense is mounted, it can be fought off. If it has to be a hard limit on ships bombarding then that should be done. Something about too many bombarding ships in the area causing disastrous space-time ruptures or something.

Anyway I'm rambling, but that's what I mean by feasible. The attackers actually having a reasonable opportunity to destroy the construct.

Right, the only amendment I was making to my previous plan is that if we add a command that will let people reactivate their construct when the time's up, they can give up the time between the construct being ready to go and the next weakening in return for having the ability to get their 1 week free without having to give even 1 resource; though the difference between free and nominal is small enough to mean that it's a moot point.

Instead of a one-time cost to reactivate, what I had in mind instead was a set amount which decreased both with time and resource investment; if we just have a single-payment cost to reactivate then the org would be forced to pay in a lump sum instead of being able to finance it over time without dipping into it's reserve of resources if it didn't have to. It's a small distinction, but still one that would give greater flexibility in payment options.



You aren't rambling, you're giving my noobish self much needed context.

The attacking side of the equation is well out of my area of expertise (well, so is everything else about constructs, but this more so). If the regeneration system is implemented, then of course attacking would also have to be changed to become faster.

I'll leave the details of that to those more acquainted with the system, though your example rates look good to me. And of course, these rates of loss and gain could be changed by our ever-loving admins.

By the by Estarra, how difficult would this proposition (regeneration augmented by resource investment, faster attacking) to code, on a scale of one to ten 'ing admins?

If the crypt is changed to not give lichdom (contructs giving lichdom is excessive), everyone in Magnagora without trans planar or trans necromancy goes back to praying whenever they an enemy decides to destroy their body. This happens with regularity during raids and events. Liches will pray too, if someone drops eye sigils (You die, can't run as ghost, come back off eq, die again.) Eye sigils get dropped alot.

Every other org has a way to ress people. A contruct that allowed Magnagora to ress people would get raised and defended. I, personally, think having some sort of ress ability aside from trans skills that only effect yourself is perfectly balanced. It is balanced everywhere else. Why not Magnagora?



A titan would be ressable with a wight.

You mean in addition to immolate which everyone has access to?

Yes. Immolate requires a corpse, which raiders are very unlikely to leave behind.

The only way I could see Mag ever getting something that rezzes people is if it costs a terrible amount. 10p and their first born child.

You know, I just can't see it working out at all. I've been thinking about it all day and work. Mag already has some pretty OP **** going on, and they don't need soul rezzes to make it worse. Mag has had it on a nice easy ride for the last year, so maybe it's time for the Admin to let them start playing with the big dogs and not be so spoiled with such a convenient construct. You guys would never use sacrifice to raise other people (it is so very rarely ever used in Celest), and you don't need it because it is common sense that if you want to fight, you need to get trans planar and earning credits ICly is not that hard. You are going to have to pray sometime like everyone else. There is also immolation via the Pool, which is -free- because of constructs. I know that sometimes corpses are not always left behind, but most of the time Celest does give them back (when the courtesy is shared by the other side).

Now I'd like to hear some ideas from Mags that don't involve rezzing and try to get these constructs on even ground.

Sorry if this has allreayd been discussed, I havn't read the past 4 pages but what I think you really need is the following.

One level headed "designer" to head up the comittee.
One level headed "combatant" who has been in the game long enough to know how the systems work
One level headed "pacisfist" who can be used to determine if the idea is exciting sounding or interesting from an RP point of view. (i.e. makes sense in the world, and not just makes sense mechanically)

That should give you enough balance and not have the other problems.

I see Magnagorans pray every bit as much as Serens do (which is more than none). Neither are 100% failsafe, though they do add a nice big safety net.

PS: Your "we don't sacrifice, so you wouldn't either!" holds absolutely no water, as the other org with sacrifice (Seren) does it frequently.

What OP ****? Lich? Ninjakari?


Easy ride you say? Politics disagrees.
2 villages, compared to Serenwilde's 4 and Celest's 3. Effectively 7 to 2, given current politics. Used to be 10 to 1.



I recall sacrifice being used alot before it was changed so that it prevented conglute.

How often do Celestians pray, on average? Magnagora gets about 3-4 people praying 2-3 times every time there is a big raid.


Lol at this statement. The only people that I have ever seen order corpses thrown back are Forren and Malicia, and they hardly ever raid now days.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but during a long raid, I find myself praying more than that most of the time. I think I've gotten up to like six or seven times in a single raid before.

Hahaha.


Hahahahahahahahaha.








HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Uh, without the crypt giving lich wouldn't it make Mag the only org that doesn't have a way to rezz it's citizens, besides immolation?

Yes.

What does Glomdoring have?

Not that it matters. Mag's construct gives a free trans skill, and the thread is about making other constructs on par with it, so you suggest that your construct be made better? Uh huh...

Glomdoring has the egg-thing-- really just need the egg mechanics themselves fixed (as posted above), and then it'll be like a version of Lich with its own positives/negatives.

Wait, didn't they suggest taking away giving lichseed? I personally would rather lich over some soul rezz.

Soul rez is a LOT better in some situations (well, long-range is), lich is a LOT better in others.

I'd just like to point out that the main reason a lot of people make Mags pray is that they have lich, so don't lose experience any other time. In all my raids (or just Faethorn skirmishes) against Glom, I've tried to return any corpses I can get (such as Lyora and someone else who was praying last time I raided Etherglom). If Gloms start to use the egg on a regular basis, like the Mags, I'd feel inclined to let them pray too.