Or, an alternate title, Why towns are impregnable.
On 3/14 (Pie day) an independent effort was made by myself, @SoHighFive, @cat_8898, @Air_Restraint and a few others to lay siege to Lenor using the in-game mechanics. This is an analysis of what transpired, solutions to fix the problems we encountered with the mechanic, and a conclusion as to why towns are impregnable.
Early in the afternoon we were able to make a platform at level y-64 beside Lenor, which is the minimum Y for the siege cannons. Sohighfive was able to successfully unlock and build a command tent (cost 200 to unlock, 250 to build), the outpost region type (800 to unlock, 400 to build), two Siege cannons (1000 to unlock, 500 each to build) and two ammo dumps (600 to unlock, 400 each to build). Total cost: 5050 souls (worth every penny if this actually worked.)
Chronology:
The Outpost region was successfully created as "welcomebackluke" and regions appeared to work as they were supposed to. Non members were unable to break blocks.
We started by constructing two Siege cannons. The first one we tried to build, we had a heck of a time with. The cannon kept detecting a block above it, even tho there was no block above it. Lo and behold, the glowstone ring which is created when the region was made was being detected as above the center chest preventing us from making the cannon. A minor fix, but still annoying to move 12 or so blocks of obsidian.
The second siege cannon went up without a hitch, we made sure not to build it under the glowstone ring.
Solution: Please remove the glowstone ring for outposts or, as we had in Haven, make it an optional added cost to have the ring and doable through a PE.
We armed the cannons and started firing. All seemed well, Lenor's power started going down, but then we realized our power wasn't sustainable.
We rushed construction of two ammo dumps, and dumped diamonds in the command tent center chest for emergency power generation. This is where things wend bad. None of the power generation structures were generating power. Ammo dumps weren't generating power from gravel, and the diamonds were not generating power at the central command tent. We ceased fire and waited. The command tent did eventually generate power based on it's normal tick, but the ammo dumps continued to fail.
Due to the fact that we were not able to generate power, Lenor was able to make a defense turret which easily took down the outposts power.
Solution: ensure ammo dumps and the command tent generate the power they are supposed to generate.
Lenor was at 595 power and was losing 5 power an hour due to whatever structures the town has, such as mines or what not. The town generated 105 power a day naturally, we calculated it would have taken over 70 hours to take down the first tier region of the town. Now here's the rub: In the rules if the aggressors leave the outpost the siege ends. We would have had to not only stay logged on, but stay at that Outpost for the entire 70 + hours.
Solution: Allow Outposts to stay there (not be deleted) if the aggressors log out, but disable the cannons. Allow those regions to be attacked while the aggressors are logged out (from defense turrets), but make all turrets only operate when region members are online (including defense turrets, if they want to protect their town they should have the same requirements the aggressors do).
Conclusion: Because the in-game mechanic for laying siege to towns doesn't work properly, any town PVP or PVE is essentially impregnable to any attack. Classic raiding obviously works, walk in and hope they have unsecured chests, but to do it properly with the mechanics put in place the system is broken. A town which can generate power, or has power generating structures, will be able to defeat any outpost due to the outposts inability to generate power via ammo dumps. Even at the standard generation, if someone were to attack a town that town could simply shut down their mines/quarries and other power draining structures to avoid defeat. A town with even one active member could construct a single defense turret which would wreck the outpost. Even an idle outpost not firing cannons can't withstand the drain from a defensive turret.
Additionally, and this is pure theory, if multiple outposts were built to lay siege to a town a single defense turret from that town would take down all outposts within 50 blocks of that turret giving the defending town a major advantage in the power game (this is pertinent for the situation below)
The only way to successfully siege a town, and this is a remote possibility, would be to find a town who's members are all inactive (A few do come to mind). You would have to set up multiple outposts days ahead of time, let it generate power on their own until full, then construct two cannons in each one. I believe it would take 4 or so outposts to do this. This would cost a person about 8K to achieve, and even at that we're not sure it would work properly (since we never got that far).
If anyone else has something to add which is constructive and conducive to finding a fix for this mechanic please comment.
On 3/14 (Pie day) an independent effort was made by myself, @SoHighFive, @cat_8898, @Air_Restraint and a few others to lay siege to Lenor using the in-game mechanics. This is an analysis of what transpired, solutions to fix the problems we encountered with the mechanic, and a conclusion as to why towns are impregnable.
Early in the afternoon we were able to make a platform at level y-64 beside Lenor, which is the minimum Y for the siege cannons. Sohighfive was able to successfully unlock and build a command tent (cost 200 to unlock, 250 to build), the outpost region type (800 to unlock, 400 to build), two Siege cannons (1000 to unlock, 500 each to build) and two ammo dumps (600 to unlock, 400 each to build). Total cost: 5050 souls (worth every penny if this actually worked.)
Chronology:
The Outpost region was successfully created as "welcomebackluke" and regions appeared to work as they were supposed to. Non members were unable to break blocks.
We started by constructing two Siege cannons. The first one we tried to build, we had a heck of a time with. The cannon kept detecting a block above it, even tho there was no block above it. Lo and behold, the glowstone ring which is created when the region was made was being detected as above the center chest preventing us from making the cannon. A minor fix, but still annoying to move 12 or so blocks of obsidian.
The second siege cannon went up without a hitch, we made sure not to build it under the glowstone ring.
Solution: Please remove the glowstone ring for outposts or, as we had in Haven, make it an optional added cost to have the ring and doable through a PE.
We armed the cannons and started firing. All seemed well, Lenor's power started going down, but then we realized our power wasn't sustainable.
We rushed construction of two ammo dumps, and dumped diamonds in the command tent center chest for emergency power generation. This is where things wend bad. None of the power generation structures were generating power. Ammo dumps weren't generating power from gravel, and the diamonds were not generating power at the central command tent. We ceased fire and waited. The command tent did eventually generate power based on it's normal tick, but the ammo dumps continued to fail.
Due to the fact that we were not able to generate power, Lenor was able to make a defense turret which easily took down the outposts power.
Solution: ensure ammo dumps and the command tent generate the power they are supposed to generate.
Lenor was at 595 power and was losing 5 power an hour due to whatever structures the town has, such as mines or what not. The town generated 105 power a day naturally, we calculated it would have taken over 70 hours to take down the first tier region of the town. Now here's the rub: In the rules if the aggressors leave the outpost the siege ends. We would have had to not only stay logged on, but stay at that Outpost for the entire 70 + hours.
Solution: Allow Outposts to stay there (not be deleted) if the aggressors log out, but disable the cannons. Allow those regions to be attacked while the aggressors are logged out (from defense turrets), but make all turrets only operate when region members are online (including defense turrets, if they want to protect their town they should have the same requirements the aggressors do).
Conclusion: Because the in-game mechanic for laying siege to towns doesn't work properly, any town PVP or PVE is essentially impregnable to any attack. Classic raiding obviously works, walk in and hope they have unsecured chests, but to do it properly with the mechanics put in place the system is broken. A town which can generate power, or has power generating structures, will be able to defeat any outpost due to the outposts inability to generate power via ammo dumps. Even at the standard generation, if someone were to attack a town that town could simply shut down their mines/quarries and other power draining structures to avoid defeat. A town with even one active member could construct a single defense turret which would wreck the outpost. Even an idle outpost not firing cannons can't withstand the drain from a defensive turret.
Additionally, and this is pure theory, if multiple outposts were built to lay siege to a town a single defense turret from that town would take down all outposts within 50 blocks of that turret giving the defending town a major advantage in the power game (this is pertinent for the situation below)
The only way to successfully siege a town, and this is a remote possibility, would be to find a town who's members are all inactive (A few do come to mind). You would have to set up multiple outposts days ahead of time, let it generate power on their own until full, then construct two cannons in each one. I believe it would take 4 or so outposts to do this. This would cost a person about 8K to achieve, and even at that we're not sure it would work properly (since we never got that far).
If anyone else has something to add which is constructive and conducive to finding a fix for this mechanic please comment.
