Bastion
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| Mechanics |
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A Bastion is a mechanic and block which protects areas from players not on its group. A bastion can prevent block placement, reinforcement, ender pearling, and water movement. Bastions have health which is reduced when it blocks actions. Generally, they must be created in a factory.
Vault Bastions are a more expensive and powerful variant generally used in vaults, while City Bastions are a cheaper variant generally used to cover large areas.
Mechanics
Creation
Bastions are created in a bastion factory. Once you have the bastion block (typically a sponge block for vault bastions and a bone block for city bastions), place it and reinforce it to the desired Namelayer group. Any player on this namelayer group (TODO: with a certain nl group permission I think?) will be able to bypass the bastion's protection.
Note that due to the high creation cost of bastions, it makes little sense to reinforce them with anything other than diamond.
Protection
Bastions cover a square area from the y level where the bastion block is located up to the sky limit of the world. This means it makes little sense to place bastions anywhere except bedrock. The exact radius of the area depends on the type of bastion.
Breaking
Each time an action forbidden by a bastion is taken within its area of protection, its reinforcement takes one break worth of damage. Once the reinforcement of a bastion reaches 0, the block is destroyed and its protections removed.
: damage is also applied 1:1 to any bastions the bastion being broken is inside the field of, however this effect does not chain
Bastion Cap
A Bastion Cap a layer of blocks (normally one layer of diamond reinforced obsidian) placed around the bastion block itself. Without a bastion cap, it may be more efficient for attackers to mine the bastion block itself rather than break it via block placements.
Bastion Types
Quick Comparison
| Name | Break time | Maturation time | Size | Block placement | Block reinforcement | Ender pearls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vault | 1 hour | 2 days | 21 x 21 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| City | 30 min | 2 days | 101 x 101 | No | Yes | No |
City Bastions
City bastions prevent block reinforcement, but do not prevent block placement or ender pearls landing. City bastions generally have a radius of 50 blocks (so a 101x101 square, centered at the bastion block).
With a single player reinforcing blocks non-stop, city bastions take exactly 30 minutes to break.
50% of the damage dealt to city bastions will also be inflicted on all other bastions within a 25 blocks radius (center block + 25) from the city bastions which were not affected by the initial damage.[1]
Vault Bastions
Vault bastions prevent block placement, block reinforcement, ender pearls landing inside the bastion field, piston extensions causing blocks to enter the bastion field, and liquids from flowing into the bastion field. Vault bastions will not block entities (including falling entities), dragon eggs teleporting into the bastion field, or bonemeal usage inside the bastion field.
Note that ender pearls can still be thrown while inside an enemy bastion field, and they will work if they land outside the bastion. Bastions will block ender pearls which land inside their bastion field, regardless of where they originated from.
Vault bastions generally have a radius of 10 blocks (so a 21x21 square, centered at the bastion block).
With a single player placing blocks non-stop, vault bastions take exactly 1 hour to break.
50% of the damage dealt to vault bastions will also be inflicted on all other bastions within a 5 blocks radius (center block + 5) from the vault bastions which were not affected by the initial damage.[2]
Placement Tips
Overlapping Fields
While it is efficient to spread bastions out, defensive structures make use of overlapping bastion fields to ensure breaking a single bastion won't grant the breaker access to a full 21*21 area. In open spaces, blocks placed in the overlap would be a liability (since both bastions would take full damage) but vaults use walls and other physical barriers to prevent attackers from doing so. Immense subdivision and traps make ground assaults against such a structure difficult.
One other form of field overlap involves the vertical dimension. You can protect an area in the sky (typically at sky limit, but not always) by forcing attackers to break one bastion at a time. This is achieved by separating bastion layers by 8 blocks (to prevent mining) and moving each successive layer one block diagonally away from the center. Unless they can find a way to place bastions closer to the center (either on the outside of your structure or on top of it) they can only break a single bastion layer at a time.
Glitches
Block glitching
Although vault bastions remove block placements, placed blocks can be walked on for an amount of time equal to the greater of either the player's ping or one tick. This can be used, for example, to pillar out of holes inside vault bastion fields.
Mainline servers have been mixed on allowing block glitching.
Exile glitching
Exiled players are teleported outside of bastion fields. By aligning bastion fields in a contiguous line, players can use this to teleport large distances. This is generally against server rules.
Command Reference
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
/help bastion
|
Lists all Bastion commands. |
/bsl
|
Lists the bastions the player is on the NameLayer group of, including their type, location, and maturity. |
/bsi
|
Enters bastion info mode. Right clicking on a block displays whether bastion is present and if player on that bastion's group. If the bastion block itself is clicked, the bastions maturity is shown : e.g. "Bastion: Some Strength" if maturing and a percentage equal to however much health of the bastion remains. |