Hello all. I am a relatively new player. I have a few characters on different official servers. I fought off the first purge I experienced with relatively little damage. HOWEVER. I was away on a trip recently. Only gone for a week… To find my two compounds (shelters) completely devastated along with all of my gathered resources. Hours upon hours upon hours of effort. My question is simple - why? I don’t get it. I can understand an attack while online perhaps or some limited damage… but complete devastation? I had tier two edifices in a tier two areas. It is a PvE server so it had to be a purge. Right?
I understand this component to some degree. However, I am an older adult that enjoys the game but do not have the time to spend hours fixing this. I put in some time here or there but have a full life and career. So this kind of experience certainly tempts one to say forget this game and move on. Certainly seems like a discouragement instead of an encouragement to continue.
Of well, just some thoughts. Interested in any respectful feedback.
My question to you, how long have you not been on the server?
After 7 days everything expires and other players can easily tear it off.
A purge can only take place when your purge bar is full.
Do any other clans have a base within “bow-shot” distance of you? If you do have an uncomfortably close "neighbor (and I use the term loosely), it’s possible that they could have gotten purged and the enemies attacked your base instead. This can happen quite easily and without provocation if your base was along their purge’s path of approach.
Case-in-point: one of my bases suffered damage from just this sort of thing earlier this week. A new clan on the Official PvE I play on spammed a ton of buildings surrounding one of my bases and my T3 base suffered minor damage. Ironically, on my purge at that same base last night, my purge tore thru their T1 structures like a wet paper bag. A perfect example of purges spawning at a distance and then attacking whatever is in the way.
Remember, Just because your base is built of T2 materials in a T2 Purge zone doesn’t mean its invulnerable. Even a T1 purge like Imps can eventually destroy T3 materials if given enough time. For now, I’d check to see if any else has built close by and also inspect the Event Log to see if there are any meaningful entries. Considering how quickly the purge meter depletes when your clan is offline, my guess is that it had to either be someone else’s purge, or meteors (if you’re far enough north).
thanks for the response. I was gone for 8 days. I did not know about protection expiring. So others can damage your buildings and open your boxes after 7 days?
You might try asking in global chat and seeing if they know what happened. A lot of new players don’t know about things such as decay or purges, so it could have been accidental rather than intentional trolling. It’s not uncommon to see folks want to build near people they perceive as friends, not realizing the jeopardy that places them both in.
Thanks. Maybe I will do that. It is an interesting game since it has so many (at least hundreds) dynamics that you have to find out by either chance or online discussions. Especially since there are no manuals or tutorials. I can’t even repair my tools and weapons without almost starting over. Oh well, I appreciate your response and help.
At least on PC there is an in-game text chat that you can open by pressing Enter. You can then change what chat channel you are in by prefixing your message with the following:
/c for Clan Chat
/s for Local Chat
/g for Global Chat (the default when you’ve just logged in)
If you’re playing on a console though, then someone else will have to provide more specifics.
If you were gone for 8 days, your base most likely decayed. The decay system, while it may seem unfair, is a vital system that keeps the game running smoothly. If we didn’t have it, all of the structures from players who don’t play the game anymore would still be standing and would make the game really run slow and choppy. It is disabled in single player and enabled on official servers. Private servers can choose to enable it or not.
On official PVE you have up to 168 hours to log back in to your game and reset the decay timer by having your base load onto your screen as you run near it. If the decay timer runs out then any PVE player can demolish part or all of your base. I don’t think they can take your belongings in PVE; they just decay normally as if you dropped them from your inventory. If no PVE player demolishes your base after a few more hours the game automatically deletes the entire thing. Any pets/thralls also decay as well (I think they always decay at 168 hours).
You can see your decay timer at any time by equipping a repair hammer, drawing it, and hovering it over your buildings/belongings. It is a count down timer and its duration is dependent on building size where smaller structures have a lower duration and larger buildings max out at 168 hours (1 week).
Check your log and you can see if some one dismantled your base or if it just naturally decayed over time. Also Funcom will occasionally (usually in the summer) increase the decay timer to two weeks for people on vacation. They recently reverted it back to one week from two back in September.
Couple of handy tips:
-Always carry a repair hammer to check your base before logging off to make sure the decay timer
is reset to maximum duration
-You can use the hammer on other clan’s bases to see if they are decayed, damaged, the owner, etc.
-Build out your base to maximize the timer incase real life stuff gets in the way and prevents you from
refreshing the decay timer on a smaller base.
Currently, thralls and pets take 15 days to decay (I believe) and are not tied to the buildings’ decay timer. So it’s not uncommon to see small armies of thralls and pets from long-gone bases persisting (especially if the player moved rather than stopped playing).
Side note: You can also use the TAB-key (on PC) and whateverequivalent on console to see the current decay timer without having a repair hammer equipped.
Just a couple points to add to the good advice @Mikey and @Gr0gnak have mentioned…
Once the 168-hour (7 day) decay timer on a base runs down, that “Grace Period” lasts for an additional 24-hours after which the self-destruct takes place.
Pets take 15 days to expire, but they merely take someone from the clan logging into the server (anywhere on the server) to refresh them whereas bases must actually be visited in-person.
Aw. Too bad, but I suppose buttons do come at a premium when using a controller so wasting one on such a fringe feature would be… well, wasteful. Thanks for the info (yet another reason to stick with my PC ‘till it melts I guess).