A week ago there was someone’s build not far from us that had reached village status. This week, that place was entirely gone; the shine of gleam in the distance gone from the view of our meager outpost. I understand that it was most likely a player that had decided to move on long ago, but the loss of all they had worked on seems too abrupt.
I’d like to propose the following:
- When a beacon runs out of fuel, it and the plots associated with it do not immediately become reclaimable by the world. Both the beacons and the plots take on the state of being “ruinous”.
- Ruinous plots that are going to be reclaimed go through a process of decay; blocks devolve into what the world expects in their place. For example: Decorative Rock->Refined Rock->Stone->Rock->(Original block type).
- Make it such that off-world blocks decay faster? The world disagreeing with their presence on its surface?
- Spark cores lose some proportion of spark while decaying before the block itself decays.
- Container-type blocks lose some portion of their material-type contents while decaying before the block itself decays.
- Items with durability lose some portion of their durability before they fully decay.
- Which block gets decayed next is chosen randomly, but weighted such that blocks towards the top of a plot are weighted higher (a ceiling giving way before a floor).
- Blocks within ruinous plots furthest from a ruinous beacon are weighted higher for chance of decay.
- Having players nearby does not pause the decay process/rate.
- Once all blocks in the ruinous plot have reverted to their natural state, the plot is reclaimed by the world.
- I don’t have an opinion on how long this decay process takes, only that it take longer than it does for wilderness to be reverted. It would be nice if large builds could take a few weeks to fully be reclaimed.
- Ruinous beacons may be fueled by outsiders, but burn through fuel much faster; perhaps the fuel cost increases over time since the beacon became ruinous.
- Fueling a ruinous beacon will prevent any further decay (until the beacon becomes unfueled again).
- Ruinous beacons may be turned back into regular beacons by being fueled by players with fueling permissions. All remaining ruinous plots revert to plots. All decay remains resident (you don’t get your blocks back).
- I don’t think someone should be able to claim ownership of, or take over, a ruinous beacon. This would make it too easy for someone to go into an area and strip out valuable blocks/items.
My hope is that this would allow a few things:
- Anyone interested in preserving the build could keep it up at an increased cost. Making the cost go up over time would allow someone to question the value of the preservation; whether to finally let the world have it back because it costs too much upkeep.
- If someone wanted to get the build area under their control after a player has decided to move on, this could allow them time to fuel the ruinous beacon enough to get screenshots of various portions for restoration. For example, a portion of a street, including a building, that is falling into decay, but had previously provided ambiance to a town.
- The scene of coming across ruins can be quite intriguing.
- Imagine a time-lapse video of watching a build decaying and being reclaimed by the world, thus why I don’t think the decay process should be paused if someone is simply nearby.