9.15 Cosmpiercers
Cosmpiercers are ancient, extremely powerful sensor stations built by the now-extinct Ta-deth, an Elder Race. They still function to this day, and the major factions of the Starmourn sector fight for control over them.
You can use the COSMPIERCER command for an overview of all commands related to Cosmpiercers.
Cosmpiercer Lifecycle
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Cosmpiercers not owned by Ishvana cannot be attacked while they have Immunity. COSMPIERCER LIST and COSMPIERCER INFO <cosmpiercer> will display the timing of their next Vulnerability window, which last for 4 RL hours.
While Vulnerable, a Cosmpiercer's shield generators can be killed. Killing the generators of a faction-owned Cosmpiercer will cause the Cosmpiercer to enter Lockdown for 24 hours. During Lockdown, the Cosmpiercer is once again immune and cannot be attacked. After Lockdown has ended, the Cosmpiercer will be Besieged automatically. This occurs right on the hour, thus if the generators were destroyed at 15:20 on Monday, Lockdown would end on 15:00 on Tuesday; if killed at 15:59, 15:00, or 15:45, Lockdown would likewise end on 15:00 the next day.
Ishvana-owned Cosmpiercers do not enter Immunity or Lockdown. Instead, they are besieged immediately after their generators are destroyed.
Besieging Cosmpiercers
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Capturing a Cosmpiercer is a matter of taking control of the control points on the Cosmpiercer or in space nearby it. Control points come in 3 varieties:
Hacking control points: Hack a terminal in the room to gain control.
Ground control points: Stand in the room and wait awhile to capture this control point. So long as the controlling faction is not in the room but at least one other faction is, the control point will eventual de-capture and can be captured again once one faction once again remains in sole control of the room.
Space control points: Spawns in space 30-50su away from the Cosmpiercer. Must enter a 5su radius of the capture point to start gaining control of it. Otherwise, it works like a ground control point.
Each participating organization (factions and/or the Ishvana) start with 500 Victory Points (VP) and lose 1 VP per second per Control Point other factions have more than them. For instance:
- Faction X has 2 control points, Faction Y has 1 Control Point, Faction Z has 0 Control Points. X loses no VP, Y loses 1 VP, Z loses 3 VP.
- Faction X has 1 control point, Faction Y has 1 Control Point, Faction Z has 0 Control Points. X loses no VP, Y loses no VP, Z loses 2 VP.
- Faction X has 3 control points, others 0. Faction X loses no VP, others lose 3 VP.
The winning faction is a) the faction with VP remaining after other factions have had their VP drained completely; b) the faction with the most VP after 40 minutes have elapsed, c) in the case of a tie where the defending faction is involved, the defender wins; d) if the defending faction is not involved in a tie, a random one of the tying factions.
After a siege concludes, players have 10 minutes to leave the vicinity or will be killed. Ships with no players on them will be rescued to their home stations, whereas ships with players on them will be launched into space.
Anyone can navigate to a Cosmpiercer while it is besieged using COSMPIERCER WARP <zone> to warp to a besieged Cosmpiercer. When dying on a Cosmpiercer, players will use the cloning room on it. After regeneration, players have 30 seconds to RECLONE should they wish to leave the fray and return to civilization. Otherwise, they will wait 2 minutes until they can move again and re-enter the battle, with 3 one-way exits into the Cosmpiercer available from the clone room.
Ships near a Cosmpiercer may use COSMPIERCER BLOCKADE to prevent the ships of other factions from docking at all, so long as Blockaders maintain a distance no greater than 10su from the Cosmpiercer.
Ishvana Cosmpiercers
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The Ishvana will show up to defend its Cosmpiercers. Ishvana Cosmpiercers are a PvE activity where the usual Open PK flag in Cosmpiercer Zones is disabled. When attacking Ishvana owned Cosmpiercers, the faction which strikes the final blow on the generators becomes the sieging faction, and no other factions get Victory Points this siege.
The Ishvana will send ships to assail and blockade the Cosmpiercer, and/or capture any space capture points near it. They will also send Troop Carriers which contain Operatives, an elite team of Ishvana adherents trained in group combat tactics. Troop carriers must be allowed to successfully dock in order to unleash the Operatives onto a Cosmpiercer. Troop carriers are able to circumvent COSMPIERCER BLOCKADE, but it will make their docking sequence take longer. Operatives will attempt to capture any control points on the ground. They also leave behind hacking bodies just like you do when you hack, which you can attack!
Any successive troop carriers docked will top up any dead Operatives, and additionally unleash roaming Vihana into the Cosmpiercer.
The overall strength of the Ishvana forces scales up the higher the rank of the Cosmpiercer.
Ishvana Assaults
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After a faction has owned a Cosmpiercer for 3 RL weeks with no opposition, the Ishvana will assault the Cosmpiercer. The faction will receive a notice 24 hours in advance. If, after 24 hours, the assault has not been triggered, the Ishvana will conduct a blitz invasion of the Cosmpiercer, claiming it unopposed.
Factions can trigger this Ishvana invasion at any time 24 hours after a Cosmpiercer siege resolves. Anyone with the 'cosmpiercers' power in the faction can fly to the Cosmpiercer zone and COSMPIERCER TRIGGER to begin the Ishvana Assault, which is defensible.
Cosmpiercer energy
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When a Cosmpiercer is under control of a faction, the energy that it generates can be processed and used to power up a variety of ancient inventions. To be able to do so, two things are required.
1. Cosmpiercer control - each cosmpiercer generates 70 energy multiplied by its rank (from 1 to 7).
2. Ta-Deth crystal charge. Each Cosmpiercer requires 200 Ta-Deth crystal charge per rank per RL day (for example, a Rank 7 Cosmpiercer requires 1400 Ta-Deth crystal charge every day).
The COSMPIERCER ENERGY command can be used to see the energy summary.
Generated energy goes towards unlocks, and unspent energy is also held in reserve locally on the Cosmpiercer and can be spent by faction members to purchase Cosmpiercer powers. More information below.
If a Cosmpiercer goes unmaintained at Sync due to insufficient Ta-Deth crystal charge, the Cosmpiercer does not generate any energy. It retains any energy reserves, but said energy is inaccessible for Cosmpiercer item purchases until the Cosmpiercer is maintained again (hopefully, next Sync!).
Cosmpiercer energy in local reserve at a Cosmpiercer is not lost upon change of ownership when one faction claims a Cosmpiercer from another. It is lost, however, if the Ishvana claims the Cosmpiercer.
Local Cosmpiercer energy is also inaccessible if a Cosmpiercer is currently in lockdown or under siege.
Ta-Deth crystals
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Periodically throughout an RL day, caches will appear at pre-scheduled times listed in COSMPIERCER CACHES. A notice is sent on the conflict channel, and anyone can, from the wilderness entry location, EXPLORE CACHE. This brings them to an OPEN PK area which contains Ta-Deth crystal deposits. You can HARVEST CRYSTAL to get them from the soil - this process takes 30 seconds of no interruption.
*** IMPORTANT *** THE ZONE WITH TA-DETH CRYSTALS IS CONSIDERED OPEN PK ! ***
After you successfully harvest some crystals, you can store them at your faction using COSMPIERCER STORE <crystal|ALL>. You must be at your homeworld or your factional station. A faction can store a maximum of 100,000 Ta-Deth crystal charge. If not stored, Ta-Deth crystals do not stay active for long.
Crystals contain differing amounts of Charge, used to power Cosmpiercers and Cosmpiercer abilities.
Rich Caches occur every 4 RL days and contain an abundance of available crystal charge.
A smaller number of crystals can also be obtained via facilities with the Crystalline mutation (see HELP FACILITIES). The amount of crystals found in such facilities is visible in FACILITY REPORTS, and increases once per RL day at a random hour.
Cosmpiercer abilities
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If your faction has captured some cosmpiercers, and also has sufficient Ta-Deth crystals stored, Cosmpiercer energy can be used to obtain and maintain access to the ability to power up various ancient items with varying powers. COSMPIERCER POWERS shows a list of these, and COSMPIERCER POWER <name> displays details about each of them.
Faction members with the 'cosmpiercers' privilege can use the COSMPIERCER UNLOCK ADD <power> to add a power to their unlock queue. This process can take several days, and uses cosmpiercer energy to do so. A percentage of newly generated energy at Sync will be applied to unlocks. This percentage can be set by those with the aforementioned power using COSMPIERCER UNLOCK PERCENT <0-100>. Additional energy will be stored on the Cosmpiercer. Use COSMPIERCER UNLOCK REMOVE <power> to remove an ability from the unlock queue. You can view the status of your unlock queue using COSMPIERCER UNLOCKS.
Obtaining the abilities
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To be able to actually use the cosmpiercer abilities, you need to obtain charged items from your faction. For this, use COSMPIERCER PURCHASE <ability>. The COSMPIERCER ABILITIES list tells you how much energy is required to craft the item, and how many charges the resulting item will have.
Individuals in a faction may have varying withdrawal limits, set by faction leadership (see "Energy Withdrawal Limits" below).
An alternative is to travel to v15156 on Iota Station and COSMPIERCER TRADEIN <crystal|ALL>, converting crystals into Ta-deth charge tradein credits. COSMPIERCER POWERS indicates how much of such credits are required to purchase an item of a given ability. You can view your current credit count using COSMPIERCER TRADEIN STATUS, and in the room above you simply COSMPIERCER TRADEIN PURCHASE <ability>.
Using the abilities
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If you have obtained a suitable item from your faction, simply use COSMPIERCER <ability> to use the ability. The syntax will appear on the COSMPIERCER output when you have access to the ability.
Cosmpiercer items are not player or faction-restricted in any way. If you manage to obtain an item from another player or faction, you are free to use it, even if your faction does not have the ability unlocked at the time. Similarly, if a faction loses access to an ability, existing items will continue to function until their power is depleted.
IMPORTANT - cosmpiercer items have a decay timer. If you don't use the item, it will be lost when the timer runs out. The item will also be destroyed when you use up its last charge.
Energy Withdrawal Limits
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Cosmpiercer energy is a limited resource, and factions have full control over how much energy individuals can withdraw. FACTION ENERGY STATUS will allow you to view your current withdrawal limit and energy used since last Sync.
For those with the 'Energy' power in a Faction, you have additional syntax:
- FACTION ENERGY STATUS <person> will allow you to view the status of another in the faction.
- FACTION ENERGY SUMMARY will show a summary of defined withdrawal limits.
- FACTION ENERGY DEFAULT <#|INFINITE|DELETE> will allow you to set the withdrawal limit available to everyone by default.
- FACTION ENERGY PERSON <person> <#|INFINITE|DELETE> allows you to set an override withdrawal limit on a particular individual.
- FACTION ENERGY POSITION <pos> <#|INFINITE|DELETE> allows you to set a withdrawal limit on a particular position (irrespective of leader or aides).
- FACTION ENERGY RANK <rank> <#|INFINITE|DELETE> for factions that have Faction Rank allows you to set a withdrawal limit for the rank.
Setting the above limits to 0 means the targeted rule will disallow them from withdrawing any energy at all.
When the system checks for a defined limit rule for an individual, it checks using the following priority:
1. If there is an individual-level rule, it applies.
2. Else if there is an applicable faction position rule for the individual, it applies.
3. Else if there is a faction rank rule applicable, it applies.
4. Else if a default is defined, the default limit applies.
5. If nothing applies, they cannot withdraw energy.
One exception to the above: faction leaders (the Lord Commander and the Guardian Prime) always have an infinite withdrawal limit.
DELETE can be used to remove a rule, returning it to the undefined state, possibly allowing lower level rules to apply in its stead.