The long-anticipated Raid World is nearly here! To prepare for the launch of the Raid World with the new season, we will be running a playtest of the Raid World for most of the rest of the current season. The Raid World opens later tonight - get there with /raid in-game.
You can think of the Raid World as an extension of the Underworlds - your Underworld company carries over there, and by making a Raid World base, you can earn Raid Points to buy powerful company upgrades.
The in-game tutorial has all the info you need to get started, and below is an overview of some of the main features. But first, I'd like to give a huge thanks to AubsterLovesYou for doing a large part of the development for the Raid World, LittleTheDragon for helping with much of the building, and Herb503 for early testing and feedback.
Your company's Nexus Core is the heart of your Raid World base. Every company can establish their core anywhere in the Raid World, which will create an 11x11 chunk footprint: the core chunk, 2 layers of wall chunks, and 3 layers of buffer chunks. More info about these chunks types in the Siege Machine Raiding section below.
Your core must be defended at all times. If another company gets into your core chunk, your core is considered breached, and the other company gets to take a bunch of your Raid Points, nexus lab materials, lab compound inventory, and more.
To defend your core, you can build walls in the wall chunks. All walls are concrete and are generated using a special wall generator tool from /raidshop - they can't be placed by hand. Different walls have different stats and costs, and the full Raid World release will feature walls with special defense effects.
Fortunately, you don't need to defend a very large area - only the area within the bottom 16 blocks of the core chunk is considered the core. Above that, you don't need to defend. You may build anything you want above the bottom 16 blocks of your core chunk and wall chunks. Buffer chunks cannot be built in.
Raid Points are the core currency of the Raid World. As your company accumulates them, they can be spent on powerful company upgrades such as reducing or entirely cancelling Underworld upkeep, improving your nexus lab, and much more. They can also be used to buy Siege Machine upgrades and defenses, and certain wall types.
Your Nexus Core will start passively generating Raid Points once you activate it. The amount generated increases the longer you go without having your core breached and the higher your company is on the leaderboard. Understaffed companies get a slight bonus in Raid Point generation. Besides passive Raid Point generation, you can also get them actively, through special blocks in the Nexus Mines and by capturing Stockpiles in the Gank & Goon Zone. Or, if you want to be more aggressive, you can take another company's Raid Points for your own by breaching their Nexus Core in a raid.
Your company has two Raid Point balances - your total Raid Points, and your spent Raid Points. Earning Raid Points adds them to the total, and purchasing upgrades increases your spent amount. You can only spend Raid Points up to your total. If your Raid Points spent ever exceeds your total (such as after your core is breached and you lose some Raid Points), you'll have to sell upgrades until you're out of the red.
Since company upgrades now use Raid Points, the previous upgrades (farm boosts, fly speed, warps, etc.) have been removed. All companies will be refunded in full for any existing upgrades they had. Since Chunk Hoppers are no longer needed for automatic farms, farm rate upgrades are now specific to the chunk (/c chunk).
You want into another company's core, but they have two chunks of solid walls, how do you get in? With a Siege Machine. Siege Machines are an entirely custom mechanic for raiding that we've created from the ground up.
We previously had raiding with cannons. Cannons were stationary, difficult to learn how to build and use, and caused a ton of lag. Siege Machines are mobile, lag-free, and easy to use - simply place down a Siege Machine spawn egg, upgrade it with Raid Points, and start it up. Once spawned in the buffer chunk of another company and activated, they'll automatically path to that company's walls and start destroying a tunnel straight to their core.
But it's not just a matter of waiting for the Siege Machine to bust down their walls. The defending company can fight back. Killing an attacking Siege Machine will end the siege, and the defending company will earn some of the Raid Points spent on its upgrades. Attackers need to defend their Siege Machine by PvPing alongside it as it tunnels deeper towards the core. Special defender walls effects, IED traps, and potion auras will make this job more difficult.
We've reworked Nexus Lab Purity ingredients. The costs are the same, but they now have new names (Purity Flux, Purity Essence, etc.) and collection methods.
Currently, the methods for acquiring them are via spawners, the Nexus Mines, and from Stockpiles in the Gank & Goon Zone. Spawners in a Raid World base will passively generate Flux ingredients, based on the mob type. They'll also spawn short-lived Purity Artifacts, which you can left-click to collect for purity Flux and Essence ingredients. The Nexus Mines and Stockpiles are explained in more detail below.
There is now a placement limitation on spawners in the Raid World - there must be a 5-block gap between spawners.
Note: Starting next season, the regular (per-player) /lab will not be able to purify chems. The Nexus Lab will be the only way to create purified chems. This is not the case for the remainder of this season - /lab will continue to use the old resources (slimey stone, etc.) while the nexus lab will use these new ones.
The Raid World will feature four eras throughout each season of the server. Each era will last 3 months, have a distinct theme, and its own spawn area and Gank & Goon zone. The first era (for the playtest and first 3 months of next season) is the Gold Rush Era. Each era's Cycle Sector mine will have era-specific rewards. The Gold Rush Era Cycle Sector features Raid Gold - a special currency that can be used in place of money when generating walls. This should help you get established in the Raid World without having to spend much money.
With each new era, we will be doing a full wipe of the Raid World. This will allow us to launch major new Raid World features, and keep things balanced. However, not all is lost; the last couple weeks before this wipe will offer a chance to get a boost going into the next era: any Raid Points captured by breaching another company's core during this two week period will transfer to the next era.
The Nexus Mines are underground cave systems in which you can mine for various special blocks that reward purity ingredients, Raid Points, and more. The mechanics are similar to prison server mines, with each mine resetting regularly and regenerating randomly. Some mines have custom PvE mobs, and the deepest mine has PvP.
The mines can be accessed via the portals at the Raid World spawn, or with /mine tp <mine>. While only two mines are open for the playtest, there will be four mines open next season - the peaceful Safe Sector, the seasonal Cycle Sector, the PvE-enabled Containment Sector, and the PvP- and PvE-enabled Conflict Sector. The more dangerous the mine, the better the rates.
The Gank & Goon Zone is an action-packed PvP zone where companies can face off! Themed to the current era, area offers two unique Raid World mechanics: Raid Stockpiles and Raid Bounties, which you can read more about below.
You can enter the Gank & Goon Zone by jumping through the portal at /warp raid (once you have an active Nexus Core). You will be randomly teleported to one of many locations throughout the area, but be careful, as PvP is enabled everywhere!
Raid Bounties
Raid Bounties will keep everybody on their toes while in the Gank & Goon Zone! For the current Era, bounties are referred to as Outlaw Bounties, and you can find the Outlaw Board at the Raid World spawn to view the most-wanted players!Bounties are automatically placed on a player and scaled based on the amount of kills a player has, the amount of kills since their last death, and how long ago their last death was. To claim a player's bounty, all you have to do is kill them! Claiming a bounty can grant you Siege Fuel and Raid Points along with other seasonal rewards. The more a person is wanted, the larger their bounty will be!
You can interact with bounty board to view more about a specific player and bounty. You can click on any player to open a GUI showing their statistics, bounty rewards, and when they were last seen. You can also click on the bottom of the board to open an extended GUI version of the Outlaw Board (this can also be accessed with /outlawboard from anywhere).
Raid Stockpiles
Raid Stockpiles are a new feature similar to Prison Supply Drops. When captured, they reward Nexus energy and purity ingredients, Raid Points, Siege Fuel, and other seasonal rewards! They can spawn anywhere throughout the Gank & Goon Zone, and to begin claiming one, all you have to do is be near it and fend off any competition!Note that, unlike Prison Supply Drops, Raid Stockpiles can only be unlocked and claimed by a single company. Additionally, while the amount of resources given scales with the number of company members nearby, the amount per player does get diminished and the time to unlock a stockpile is increased with the more players around it.
