Nothing’s perfect, but fortress walls would most likely be several blocks high, have fences and even thralls placed on them.
I don’t think it would be to hard to create a better algorithm that takes volume into account when determining the decay time.
Today, the decay time bases a lot on connectivity between blocks, and even though that’s an improvement, it’s not good enough.
I think the default settings is if you have more than six blocks connected you get the normal decay time.
Six or less and you’re building will decay pretty fast.
If you add volume or mass, what tier the pieces are, and if it has placeables, you would get a better sense of the structure being a base or just some slabs of rock.
Granted, large clans can probably spit out t3 lanes with walls, thralls and whatnot in no time, but that’s another problem.
I’ve seen some worry that stronger purges would be hard for newcomers to the game.
This could be solved by have a minimum base mass requirement for the purge meter to start.
I mean, how big a threat are you in your hut on 6 foundations and no second floor?
This means you could stay low for a while, if you want to do so.
Sort of… It would require maintenance for foundation pieces that aren’t covered up with walls or fence foundations or other foundations. (Basically you’d have to repair it between every sandstorm and or cover it in fence foundations or something to keep it’s HP from dropping too much… Basically it would make sandstorms damage unprotected foundations a bit every time they hit and require repairs or better construction to keep them from eventually being destroyed… )