TnT Cannons

[X_Cavator]

Hello,

I have been talking with lokans about raiding lately and the majority have told me that they find it too hard to raid. Most towns are encased in some sort of wall so the only way of entry is through tunnels. If the town has smart members they can make it virtually unraidable. Because of this, I propose the suggestion that we add tnt cannons to Loka.

The number 1 problem with this idea is people griefing each other. I have found a way to end this problem. When a town would like to cannon into another town, the raiders must alert a guardian that they are about to siege. The guardian will then activate the siege on the town being raided. This will allow tnt to explode in that towns land ONLY. Therefore, tnt will not be used around the map to grief builds outside a claim. Once the guardians deem the cannon to have done it's work, they can stop the siege. The guardians will stop it once they judge that there is enough room for entry.

Obsidian walls would also be another problem with this suggestion. There is a mod used on most faction servers that makes obsidian break after it is hit 6 times with tnt. If we use this in the siege it would end that problem. Obsidian would go back to being unbreakable by tnt outside the siege.

This whole idea is a lot of work on Crypt so I don't expect it to be put into place soon if at all. However I would love to hear feedback by the community.

Thanks.

 

[Magpieman]

This isn't a faction server and we are moving away from raiding as it promotes a toxic community. Two major problems with the system you proposed are that it requires a lot of admin time and attention and this would not be feasible once population numbers grow. Also the town itself ends up getting griefed which is something we want to avoid.

We are looking at adding a town siege system but this is not at the top of our priority list atm so please don't expect it any time soon. However we do welcome all ideas on how attacks on towns should work, but simply enabling tnt cannons is not going to solve the problem and will end up creating 10 more.

 

[X_Cavator]

The griefing would be very small because it would only be for the bare minimum for entry. If the system does prove to be extremely tiring on the admins you can make things like this happens once a week. We could have Saturday be siege day or something. Other option is to add more guardians.

 

[EastBowmen]

Honestly, every single town I know of is raid-able in one or more ways without using tnt. I'd tell you how, but then that'd ruin the secret

 

[MasterAegon]

We spent years with TNT cannons and the decision to remove them was for many reasons.

Griefing is not minimal with cannons like these. I've used them enough to know. They've been used on me enough to know. From unskilled 'cannoneers' to the need for extensive damage to breech well made walls, the issues are just too many.

Assuming the rules returned to the way they were, pearls would be disabled and cannons permissible. The only thing you could do against my wall is grief the hell out of it because it was designed initially to mitigate cannons; two layers of lava with slabs to stop hybrids, three solid layers alternating the lava complete with an obsidian ring designed to disallow swimming or erasing source blocks of the lava.

All that being said, for people to have a fighting chance against raiders, they have to do what I have. It's ridiculously time consuming and resource heavy. It's simply unfair for towns as opposed to favoring the raider.

There's not really any middle ground. Even with pearls it takes either fugly walls and/or a dome. To 'make it pretty' it takes an insane amount of time and effort to mitigate.

tl;dr--> Cannons are a bad idea as we've come to realize over the years.

 

[Artagan]

There are a variety of reasons that cannons were banned, but the one that stands out to me was how they impacted defenses/builds. People who knew their shit were forced to make monstrously huge and ugly walls, as well as take all sorts of defensive precautions within their own towns which took an inordinate amount of time and energy that might otherwise have been spent enjoying the server. People who didn't take these precautions could be completely robbed at any time, regardless of how active or skilled their town members were. We decided a long time ago that there should be a degree of security and peace of mind that comes with living in a decent town, as opposed to the risk that comes with living in the unprotected wilderness.

I have been talking with lokans about raiding lately and the majority have told me that they find it too hard to raid.

We've all heard the whining from raiders on this server pleading for Crypt to make it easier for them to fuck with people they don't like. Sorry.

I have found a way to end this problem. When a town would like to cannon into another town, the raiders must alert a guardian that they are about to siege. The guardian will then activate the siege on the town being raided. This will allow tnt to explode in that towns land ONLY. Therefore, tnt will not be used around the map to grief builds outside a claim. Once the guardians deem the cannon to have done it's work, they can stop the siege. The guardians will stop it once they judge that there is enough room for entry

There are so many things wrong with this idea. First off, it would be a massive pain in the ass for Guardians to have to actively verify every single use of a cannon to gain access to a town. Second, why would they enable to TNT to explode only within the town you're attacking? To prevent the TNT from damaging... what, the surrounding landscape? Cannons causing damage to builds inside towns has been a much more frequent and worrisome problem than damage to anything outside protection.

Obsidian walls would also be another problem with this suggestion. There is a mod used on most faction servers that makes obsidian break after it is hit 6 times with tnt. If we use this in the siege it would end that problem. Obsidian would go back to being unbreakable by tnt outside the siege

It was at this point that I laughed out loud while reading this suggestion. If you made cannons legal again AND made obsidian destructible by TNT, you'd all but end all semblance of security for towns and tip the scales in favor of raiders by a ridiculous margin. Obsidian vaults have been a staple among established towns on this server for around three years now, and without them virtually everyone on the server would lose all their shit. This isn't an anarchy server.

 

[X_Cavator]

You misunderstand my arguments.

There are so many things wrong with this idea. First off, it would be a massive pain in the ass for Guardians to have to actively verify every single use of a cannon to gain access to a town. Second, why would they enable to TNT to explode only within the town you're attacking? To prevent the TNT from damaging... what, the surrounding landscape? Cannons causing damage to builds inside towns has been a much more frequent and worrisome problem than damage to anything outside protection.

The reason TNT would only be allowed in that town for that time is so people don't run around loka blowing stuff up. As for the guradians, it would literally take 5 minutes to watch the cannon do its job, they don't have to sit there and watch them every second. The guardians presence would only be needed for the actual explosions. The reason for the obsidian being breakable is so that people don't make obby boxes as their town defenses. You also say people would be robbed at any time, how about hide your stuff?! If you keep all your stuff locked away what is there to steal?

It was at this point that I laughed out loud while reading this suggestion.

There are far more people that laugh at things YOU say than me my friend. Not sure why you are choosing to lash out at me, the profanity is uncalled for.

 

[MrAlchemy]

Why are we kicking this dead horse again?

TNT Cannons will never return, for many -MANY- reasons.

I shall defer you to one of my favorite songs, take a listen and understand:

 

[MrAlchemy]

And if that gets you down, just remember how we all feel sometimes...

 

[Ronshaud]

Saturday be siege day or something.

If you think the population will go down due to TNT cannons. Why not just make it like a Special? Like have it once a week.

TNT tuesdays

Lol we've had this discussion before.

 

[Ronshaud]

http://loka.minecraftarium.com/foru...s-and-upcoming-slime-block-planes.1265/page-3

Had a poll and everything.

 

[X_Cavator]

Despite the refutations I am receiving, I am still not convinced that cannons are a bad idea. People build giant walls and domes anyway, cannons wouldn't change that. Also if griefing would be a huge problem we could have regenerating blocks like we have in claimed territory. I am just not understanding why instead of fixing the problems cannons cause, cannons were banned all together.

 

[MasterAegon]

Unfortunately it has been explained why cannons are no longer permissible and why they likely will never be reinstated. I can't explain it any differently. You are entitled to disagree but that's different than not understanding the reasons we've explained.

Honestly, I'd lock the thread if I were able, to avoid what's happened in the past and the conversation continuing past a point that is necessary. I'm sorry that you do not agree. To put it concisely and ensuring no mistake is made about tone, opinions have been presented and explained. The reasons for the rule in place have been explained.

 

[adderman500]

Just wanna butt in here and say we must not make a habit of locking threads that we feel don't require further discussion... I think most people don't wanna see them come back, myself included. Xcav, I'd refer you to the thread that Ron linked as it has a good discussion - though I'd start from the beginning or look at the closing statements because page 3 seems particularly pro-cannon

 

[Cryptite]

Despite the refutations I am receiving, I am still not convinced that cannons are a bad idea. People build giant walls and domes anyway, cannons wouldn't change that. Also if griefing would be a huge problem we could have regenerating blocks like we have in claimed territory. I am just not understanding why instead of fixing the problems cannons cause, cannons were banned all together.

People (who know the history of Loka) have historically built giant walls and domes because they're aware of what Loka used to be. This is not, however, something want people to feel required to do. Yes, you should build walls to keep people from waltzing right in, but there's a huge difference between basic walls to keep people out and walls/domes that keep TnT, Pearls, etc out.

The argument of "well they do it anyway" doesn't really have any bearing here. The simple point is that the amount of rules, systems, admin-tasks, and the like that would be required to bring back cannons is a lot of work for the benefit of quite a small percentage of players.

Cannons also bring a huge imbalance factor to the server since a majority of players on Loka are either unfamiliar with cannons or are hard-pressed to have the resources required to try to defend against them. If I joined a server and wanted to make a town, I can assure you that I'd rather not spend the first month on the server doing nothing but grinding obsidian, building a glass ceiling, or be forced to build at bedrock level, etc.

Additionally it's a tough thing to build a pretty town that's also secure. One of the biggest results of when we had cannons in the past is that almost every town had an insanely ugly, massively tall flat wall with patches of obsidian, water, lava, etc on it. Of course not all towns will be pretty, but they were practically required to be ugly when we had cannons. This is also why we implemented locking doors. Granted they're abusable, they give people at least an attempt at actual security of their things without being required to have all entrances be dirt, cobble, or whatever crap-block you have on your inventory at the time.

On Loka we make our own rules and just because we have elements of raiding doesn't mean we conform to a standard raiding server's rules. Loka is unique and we constantly tune things to benefit the Lokan experience, not the experience you might find on most other servers. TnT has only ever caused people to leave, build ugly things, grief, and complain in the time that we've had them and we decided that for the health of the community and the server, that raiding tactics like that (and other things) needed to be removed.

We always welcome suggestion threads like these and I do love a good debate; however, it does still boil down to a final decision by head admins and in the end, we may disagree. It's not our job to convince you that something's a good idea, but we at least like to be informative about why we do the things we do.

We'll find other ways to make Loka fun. I think most everyone would agree that we succeed on that note. TnT Cannons, however, just won't be one of those things.

-Crypt

 

[Artagan]

This is also why we implemented locking doors. Granted they're abusable, they give people at least an attempt at actual security of their things without being required to have all entrances be dirt, cobble, or whatever crap-block you have on your inventory at the time.

I'm partial to pumpkin doors.

 

[X_Cavator]

Thank you so much for the lengthy reply crypt, I was not 100% sure what the admins stance was but now I do know. Thanks for taking the time to clear it up, you can lock this thread now. I still believe cannons would be a good idea but your arguments make sense and I can see why certain members are on board with what you have said. Thanks.

 

[Artagan]

People (who know the history of Loka) have historically built giant walls and domes because they're aware of what Loka used to be

And because not everyone is 100% confident that you won't one day change the rules on us again.