Anybody have any idea how the decay timers actually work?
I have a village full of small houses that sometimes shares decay timers and sometimes doesn’t. I would like to know how the decay timers actually work to keep them synced all of the time if anybody knows.
Based on experience, I know that touching structures don’t always share decay timers. I also know that proximity is very hit or miss even if they are almost touching.
When you lay down a foundation or pillar unconnected to any other building, then that starts a new structure that has its own decay timer.
The decay time a specific structure can have is determined by how many and the types of pieces from which it is made. T1 pieces require a much larger number to reach the maximum decay as set in the server setting than T3 pieces.
No matter how close you put two different structures, they will never share the same decay timer. If they are both large enough to have maximum decay, then they can sync up, but they are still using their own timers.
If you want all of your buildings on the same timer, then they all have to be built off from the same original foundation. You can lay down a line of foundations away from one building and then build off those into another building, then delete the line in order to have two separate buildings that are actually the same structure on the same timer.
That is a good idea to build them all off of the same foundation piece.
However, I have some separately built buildings that are line of site and update decay timers simultaneously, even past my line of site. I had someone in another clan observe for me when we made a stupidly large test village once. So how are they connected when they don’t share foundation pieces, never did share foundation pieces, and are barely within render distance of each other?
I also have buildings that are line of sight that don’t share a decay timer. I just want to get them to share a decay timer. I wish I could make the village I am thinking of look right and also connect everything by foundations but nothing would line up with the terrain.
If a building is in render range, then its timer will be refreshed. If it is not in render range, its timer will not refresh.
Right but in our test, one building was a basic sandstone foundation, 4 walls, and a ceiling. It has a full 10 day decay timer just like the other building across the water from it. That little building never was any bigger than that.
No building that small should have a decay timer that large. Unless it is considered part of the larger structure. So how do those buildings share a decay timer? That’s what I wanna know.
I know of no way a tiny sandstone shack that was built independently could have that large of a timer.
Me either. I just know its possible somehow.
And I know you are 100% correct that they will share decay timers if they are/were connected by foundations. That’s normally how I build. I just couldn’t in this case.
I appreciate the effort Tephra.
@Lyle the decay timers should work like @Tephra said but they don’t always work properly.
Although it’s not necessary to connect your builds since render works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes again on a server restart something may loose stability and loose a lot.
Or sometimes on a server restart you may find a whole building decay even if you were playing just yesterday.
Unfortunately you may loose in times even if you’ve done everything by the book.
Not to mention the tremendous bug on single player that you log in on absolutely nothing. A building you may worked a full week, may simply dissappear like you never started it.
Yes, I recently experienced that single player bug.
I wish it worked more consistently to my eyes. It has to work in a consistent logical manner since its a computer program. I just don’t know what that logic is yet. And I would prefer my decay timers for a structure not to fluctuate between 2 days and 10 days randomly. I always assume the short decay timer but I would prefer the longer one consistently.
Maybe I need to look more into how the game calculates line of sight from building pieces. My answers could be there. I am starting to think that some building pieces calculate line of site while others don’t. If I think a little bit I may be able to conduct a few quick tests to figure out how it works (fingers crossed for no inconsistent results).
Thanks for the effort stelagel. And thanks again Tephra.
I didn’t think of it until just now, but I bet some building pieces block line of sight as well. I never even considered that. Off the top of my head, I am betting money the taverns and maprooms block line of site.
So … as @Tephra said , when you place down your first fundation for a building it will get a " base_id # " anything you build connected/snapped to this fundation will share the same Id , so as said previously , if you want all your buildings to share the same timmer , you will have to ( no exceptions ) make sure that you build them snapped/connected to your first fundation. You can as said previously, build a line of fundations to get to where you want your other buildings to be , and delete the fundation line to leave only the fundation that you’ll build your other building with. you can use any building piece to make it face the way you want and higher or lower the fundations in the ground to adapt to terrain , but you need to have them snapped together to not create a new "base_id # " and not have different base decay timmer.
also what you are experiencing with the building not connected but that they share the same timmer , there is 2 possibility : or you don’t remember that at one time they were snaped together … or your 2nd base is close enough to get the “area of effect of timmer” .
The “area of effect of timmer” means that while placing decorations/fundations near a fundation/base ( not on a building piece but directly on the ground ) the decoration will get the timmer of the base. and the area of effect can be tested by placing a standing torch ( or any other decoration ) further and further from the base untill you see it doesn’t share the timmer with the base anymore . Now the unfun part about this is that you may think that it is ok then for your building piece as they share the timmer with the base … unfortunately it doesn’t work the same as the decorations because your building pieces will have a different "base_id # " , meaning that if you are out of render range of said building pieces it will not count as a decoration in the range of the main base , and therefore will not be refreshed as long as you aren’t in render range of it … I lost my clans arena this way and had to rebuild it entirely and connected ( and it had litteraly a 1 cm gap between it’s (not) connecting fundations from the main base… not even enough space for a fence fundation between them ) while it was showing the same timmer as main base like your 1X1 shack in your example !
so I repeat , the only way to make sure they share the same timmer is to build everything connected to each other ( and delete the connecting lines of fundation between them after you don’t need them anymore )
and at last , “line of sight” ( not line of site 
) is something that only exist for npc’s and player characters , building pieces don’t have this notion since line of sight means something that can see you or breaking line of sight , having something between you and the npc that hides you from their sight ( vision )
I guarantee my test was on an official server and that little building was never connected to the original. Of course I know that my testing got different results from what many of us have been told about how decay timers work. That also tells me that when you say “( no exceptions )” my test results say that there are obviously some exceptions. If you don’t believe me, go test it for yourself and then we can discuss your results.
I also know that after building a few of these buildings in a very very long row (each one at the edge of render distance), I was able to refresh building pieces that were way outside of my render distance (over a grid away).
Maybe these buildings have different IDs but my test results say that they share decay timers whether they are all in render distance to me or whether they share the same base ID. I just wanna know how it works so I can benefit from it. Or what is stopping it from working in one singular case.
Look, normally I do exactly what you say because it works. But this build is an outdoor bar built into the terrain. That type of uniform building just won’t work since I can’t adjust the terrain. I literally have two buildings that almost touch and don’t share a decay timer. I am just looking for something that helps me in my particular situation and to learn about the game.
Funny thing is that I just deleted one of the taverns. The decay timers on the foundations below the other two taverns got higher. Not sure if that’s line of sight or not. But it is some screwy behavior that doesn’t work the way I was told decay timers should work.
And I do appreciate the effort on your part Kanza1.
you can adjust , use the triangle fundations and the fence fundation helps you “lower” fundation if you snap a fundation and place the fence fundation on it but in the lower position then the next fundation can be place lower than the previous one , just increment untill you reached the height you want , and use triangle fundation to make it face the way you want
but unfortunately if you have 2 buildings with different decay timmers , your only solution is to demolish one to rebuild it connected to the other one , if you want to be sure it won’t randomly decay one day not knowing why this particular time because maybe you were not in the render range or other bug that can happen , lag spike in the server while you are refreshing can make things not refresh while you think you did , or the server crashed just after you refreshed and didn’t have the time to save your refresh or other cause unknown …
It may be the fermentation barrels beside the taverns. Removed them and all of the decay timers went up to 10 days. Not sure why but knowing this may be good enough, lol. Problem solving is definitely something I like about Conan.
Yes I learned the hard way one day that when the decay timer ends in double zeroes that the decay timer is in the process of refreshing but it isn’t done refreshing. So I need to give it another minute to finish refreshing (not teleport away).
And updates can drastically alter decay timers (up to 60 hours based on my experiences alone), so I reset them as soon as I log in with every update.
that a decoration piece might be bugged and lower the decay timmer for bug reason , doesn’t surprise me in how many bugs I encountered in the game , and maybe this is part of your issues , notheless to avoid any bug regarding decay timmer on several bases near each other their is only one solution and apparently you know what it is so I won’t make more responses on that subject , sorry if I was a bit vindicative , it’s only that in order to avoid any bugs , there is only one solution , other ways will result in unexpected decay behaviors yet you have all the rights to trial and error yourself. unfortunately I think you’ll end up having more issues than results . since I “know/think” it will not act in a recognizable pattern that you can get data out from .
