I’m not sure if this is the right place, but I hope someone can help…
I’m in tears right now…
I started playing online yesterday for the first time in official server 3513, PVE. I played a few hours in single before that so I am pretty new to the game.
I logged in about 20 minutes ago after having been offline for 3-4 hours and my whole base was gone. I still had everything from my inventory and all the torches that I had around my base were still there. I learned about decay while trying to look up this problem (I had no idea about it from the little you learn in game about how things work) and saw in my logs that my stuff had decayed. But from what I have read, my stuff shouldn’t decay if I am near it right? I always went to my house to log out and I was never away for more than an hour in game. When I got on, I was still near where by base should have been, within my torch line.
Is that how this is supposed to happen? How are you supposed to keep your stuff safe if being in the building doesn’t count as close enough to prevent decay?
That sucks. The thing about decay is that smaller structures don’t benefit from the full decay timer. I’m not sure what the exact limit is but if you inspect your building with a repair hammer you’ll see what I mean. You might need a minimum of something like 8 foundations, walled in with ceilings or roofing. I’ve also noticed crafting stations plopped on the ground away from buildings will get a very short decay timer. If you had a walled in building with 8+ foundations and it still decayed that fast, you might have been the victim of a bug of some kind.
Thanks for replying, I wasn’t sure I would get any.
I had around 15 pieces of foundation, walls, doors, and roof, it was a complete house. It was my only structure and everything was inside it (boxes, bed, crafting stations), except for about 10 standing torches that are still there.
I didn’t know anything about decay until I tried looking this up, so I never used a hammer on my house to see the timer. At what point do you actually get to learn about the decay stuff for buildings? It seems like that should be brought up pretty early so you don’t waste so many hours…
Is there any way for me to get my stuff back?
**edit: Also, I was in my house when I logged off (and I had been logged off for more than 3-4 hours before that session), shouldn’t that have stopped the decay?
The amount of time is proportional to the size of your base. A small base will have a small count down timer; a large base will have a larger timer. The max decay timer I believe is 168 hours (about a week) on official PVE servers.
The decay timer starts to count down when you go OFFLINE. When you log back into the game, the timer will reset back to the max amount depending on the size of your base and begin to count down when you log off again. Where you are located in the game when you log out is irrelevant.
Each structure that you make can have a separate timer unless you connect them together. For example, you built a base on top of a waterfall and you want to build a new building at the bottom of the falls. Your main base has a 168 hour decay timer, but your new building only has 36 hours. If you connect the buildings in some way (with foundations, ceilings, fences, pillars, etc.) you can then make it part of the larger base and thus get the full 168 hours for the new building instead of 36 hours.
Where you are in game is relevant. Your decay time ticks down when ever you are out of render distance from your base. You can’t just log in anywhere and have everything reset.
Reading what some others said, I’m still confused because I was only out for 3-4 hours between 3rd and 4th session. I was off for about 15 hours between my first two sessions.
Thank you for explaining the decay timer. I appreciate it for general knowledge (if I decide to continue playing).
But it doesn’t seem any of these should have caused my base to be gone. It was a small base, about 15 foundation pieces with walls, doors, stairs, two floors, a roof, and a balcony. All my crafting stations and boxes were inside it. I can see that having a small countdown, but 3-4 hours doesn’t seem fair, and I had been off for longer than that the night previous.
^^^ You might want to read who I was replying to before you go off with the sarcasm. Mind you the original post was edited and it said that it didnt matter where you were on the map, as long as you logged in it would refresh your decay. But its cool. Just take your frustration out on people helping you and absorb all the incorrect information you can. Im sure it will help.
I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic, it was a legitimate question, since I have received conflicting information on where I have to be. Is the distance to refresh my timer based on the walls of the house? My bedroll? The center of house?
So is being inside the house close enough? Do I have to be closer to my bed? Do I have to interact with my bed? Is there some logging out ritual I have to perform to please Yog before I am allowed to go do non-Conan activities (this one is sarcasm… I hope)?
But yes, I am frustrated. I know you guys are trying to help but so far all the information provided has not provided a real reason this could have happened, besides someone saying it could have been a bug. But then if it was a bug, is there anything that can be done? Or am I just to expect to have to possibly restart my game every two days like some barbarian themed 50 First Dates game.
In regards to your remark about taking in wrong information, it seems that the right information, so far, isn’t getting me very far either…
The only topics I can find about bases going away are from last year or it really is someone saying they have been logged out for a few days. Granted, I don’t often go to Internet forums, so I could be navigating them incorrectly.
Not sure what happened to your base from your description you should’ve had a week before your place decayed but it’s officially a base if you build a 6x6 always check when you done building with repair hammer also if you build outpost let’s say 5 on different parts of the map you will have 5 separate decay timers for each outpost so pick a day of the week and go to each of your outposts to reset decay timers and always check with repair hammer before you leave each outpost to make sure it reset sometimes it resets when you get close to structure sometimes it doesn’t and you have to open door and walk in so always check with repair hammer before you leave to go to your next outpost … always carry a repair hammer just like sandstone mask never leave home without these items
As a 345 hour player, I do agree that what you describe doesn’t sound right. Any base should survive to the next day comfortably regardless of anything else.
Could it have been the purge? Purge is a PVE mechanic where after you have played “enough” (there is a purge meter at the center bottom of of your inventory screen) PVE mobs will attack your base. The purge strength depends on the biome where you are at, whether you are in a clan, and your level. Almost everything you do will add to the purge meter, and once it crosses the first threshold, there is a chance of purge happening. Purge on official servers can happen only during the “primetime”, you can check the hours from server settings. It can happen while you are offline. Purge will pick random foundations and attack them. It can level your base if you have no defenses.
To defend against the purge I recommend getting some warrior thralls around your base. Also worth noting is that if your base is in an otherwise inaccessible location (top of a rocky needle etc) the purge mobs can spawn inside your base.
ps. other things I can think about:
Is decay timer on your server abnormally short? You can check it from server settings
Was there a server wipe?
Is it a PVE conflict server? On these servers there is a certain time during the day when pvp is allowed, other times it isn’t. Although I fail to understand why someone would go thru trouble of destroying a newbie base.
He said official PvE server so no server wipes but a purge happening that’s possible purges start 5-9pm central time and 1 purge every hour they are suppose to last for 30 mins but a friend had a purge lasted for 50 mins
I don’t think it was a purge, my purge bar only barely had a visible line. I did look at the logs and everything said it became unstable or something like that, so I assumed it was decay.
I didn’t look at server settings, I will take a look if I get back on, but I didn’t think an official server would have weird stuff like that.
Thanks again to everyone trying to help me figure this out!
That’s good to know, thanks. I had a hammer, but I had no idea what it was for, not sure how I got it either. And I don’t know what a sandstone mask is, but I’ll look it up for next time.
Oh your base was unstable that happened to my Trebuchets I had 2 both were on a towers and they read that it was unstable not sure why but when I got near them the instability would go away but then return afterwards one disappeared the next day the second 2 days later … I’m still not sure why they both were unstable but now I know what would happen if anything I build say it’s unstable so make sure to avoid that and fix the instability maybe you built something a wrong way to cause it to read that way
Its a armor headpiece that protects you from sandstorm. Steel is required to build it. Sandstorm’s innermost part will kill you without a mask. Sandstorms happen in the desert biome. Other way to survive sandstorm is simply to find shelter. You can tell a sandstorm is coming when it looks like there is dirt flying in the air and wind picks up.
Are you sure you checked before your base vanished? Because after a purge happens the meter will reset to zero…