Vault: Difference between revisions
Part 1 of a huge re-write of the history of vaults, description of general vault characteristics, and the biographies for current standing and destroyed vaults, intended to correct a lot of misinformation, and expand upon existing information
(Reformatted how vaults are listed to include the name of the vault and country it is owned by, removed Anguish Vault from the destroyed list because it is no longer destroyed and is already listed as "Mir's Second Mega Vault" just not by name (see: Lysika's previous edit), fixed inaccurate information about The Crucible, moved Vault 76 and the Litter Box down to the destroyed vaults list because they are now destroyed. Also fixed inaccurate information about Sempiternal.) |
(Part 1 of a huge re-write of the history of vaults, description of general vault characteristics, and the biographies for current standing and destroyed vaults, intended to correct a lot of misinformation, and expand upon existing information) |
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[[File:VaultSeige.jpg|thumb|The former Lexington Vault, an example of a ringed "megavault".]]
A vault is a fortified, mostly obsidian structure used to store [[Comprehensive_Guide:Combat#Exile_Pearl|pearled players]]
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== History ==
Vaults have existed since [[Civcraft 1.0|CivCraft 1.0]] after the PrisonPearl plugin was added.
The first ringed vault to be tested in combat was Clone's vault which had only two rings, the outer being a conventional ring with reinforced web traps that did not follow bastion fields, and the inner being a lava ring designed to drown attackers. A short time later, the Titan Vault saw the logical progression of several features of Clone's vault on a larger scale. Reinforced web traps in the rings were devastating, and enabled the pearling of the person who went on to design the Titan Vault. Other increasingly antiquated concepts such as lava and water chambers were left behind as ring designs became more standardized across different schools of thought. Later on, more advanced vaults were pioneered by the World Police of the era during and after the fall of Titan. Some of those vault technicians included: Diet_Cola, TealNerd, and ShadedJon. The general bastion layout and ring shape designed by TealNerd around this time is also where the term "nerd rings" derives from.
Such large, advanced ringed vaults were thought to be unbreakable and became known as megavaults. This mindset would hold true for a long time, until the fall of the Nox Vault after a prolonged siege towards the end of the iteration.
During and after [[Civcraft 3.0|CivCraft 3.0]], there was a significant schism in vault design. Diet_Cola pioneered a unique design now known as "cola cubes," while most others took the pre-existing template of nerd rings and optimized them far beyond previous standards. Cola cube vaults function as an array of bastion squares, while nerd rings have overlapping bastions in an octagonal layout, leading to high degrees of staggering. The schism in ring design furthered as the nation of [[Mir]] continued to develop linear bastion layouts for their rings, which are space-optimized and respect the horizontal boundaries of bastion fields, while cola cubes refused to respect either the horizontal or in-depth boundaries of bastion fields. For more information on bastion science and ring styles, see the section specifically covering rings below.
Over the next several iterations following the end of the CivCraft series, vault bastions would most-often retain their original circular shape, and vault designers primarily focused on optimizing their vault bunkers and sky defenses as ring science became more set-in-stone. This is largely because of the evolution of skybridging during the [[Devoted]] series as a tactic to break a path of bastions to the center of a vault. As where previously vault attacks had been almost entirely focused in assaults against an enemy vault's rings at bedrock level, now defenders had to be concerned with the heightened possibility of an attacking force breaking their bastions from the relative safety of any Y-level in the sky. This led to the increased development of multi-layered archer positions spanning from bedrock level to build limit, sometimes referred to as "archer pods" or "archer rings" that served as positions for defenders to shoot attackers off of their skybridges, making it immensely unsafe to skybridge an actively-defended vault.
After the release of CivClassic, [[Devoted 3.0]] shut down, making CivClassic the new main iteration. In a rather atypical turn of events, the admin team of CivClassic decided to make both vault bastions and city bastions have a square shape. This led many vault designers like Frensin of [[Hjaltland]] to develop several different bastion layouts to fit square-shaped rings, while Mirian vault technicians like Lysika_Lantariel continued to perfect their linear layouts. Several other vault designers like those belonging to [[Lexington]], the spiritual successor of Nox from CivCraft 2.0, continued to use a take on TealNerd's nerd rings, adapting them to suit the new square shape of bastions and creating very wide, jagged rings. Many aspects of vault design, beyond the shape of rings, stayed fairly similar to previous ideas from CivCraft and Devoted for quite a while.
However, throughout the [[Somber War]] between the [[Western Alliance]] and Lexington's alliance, a new form of skybridge pioneered by Frensin took the stage. A primitive initial draft of this new skybridge was seen at the first attack on the Anguish Vault, and by the final attack on the Lexington Vault, it had been perfected. The fully-developed form of the "Frensin Skybridge" as it became known includes a multi-layered obsidian box fully encasing and protecting attacking bastion-breakers, who are able to break bastions from the front of the bridge by standing against a wall of closed trapdoors and placing blocks against the front of a set of ladders. This style of skybridge is still the main tactic employed in a sky attack against an enemy vault, largely because of the relative safety and ease of maneuverability it provides a group of attackers, and because it has had an excellent record of successfully breaking to the center of almost every vault it has been employed against.
Largely as a result of the new advances in skybridging technology during the Somber War, many vault designers expended a much greater amount of effort developing more sturdy and elaborate sky defenses, as well as more clever bastion fields specifically designed to cause problems for a typical skybridge. Some notable developments in sky defense theory included denser walls of archer positions sometimes referred to as "archer rings" or "electric fences," as well as towers designed to enable defenders to counter-skybridge an attacking skybridge. However, many groups of players have yet to fully catch on to such methods of countering skybridges.
As of now, beyond mostly small differences between different schools of design and a few more closely guarded secrets, the meta behind vault design has largely stagnated, with years of development leading to relatively idealized defenses and tactics being implemented across most surviving vaults.
== Notable Standing Vaults ==
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[[File:Mir Vault.png|thumb|Mir Vault (Early 2020)]]
[[File:Mir Vault Top.png|thumb|Mir Vault, seen from the skybunker]]
[[File:Mir Vault Side.png|thumb|A side photo of Mir Vault.]]
=== Wakanda (Mir
Wakanda is one of Mir's smaller outlying megavaults. Originally serving as the Anguish Vault in the Somber War, Wakanda was acquired and renamed by Mir after their annexation of the former nation of Anguish in 2018. It has been rebuilt and further fortified by Mir since then. Wakanda is located North of Sanctaphrax on the Eastern world border, is fully-entrenched, and currently boasts approximately 8-10 rings and sky defenses.
=== OGLand (Mir) ===
OGLand is one of Mir's smaller outlying megavaults. It was primarily built by TheOGFormula, a core member of the Mirian Council of Winners, sometime in 2019. It is fully-entrenched and currently boasts approximately 8-10 rings and sky defenses.
=== XPLand (Mir) ===
XPLand is not strictly a "vault" by most considerations. However, it is a fully-entrenched, densely-fortified, vault-bastioned complex on the Western perimeter of Sanctaphrax that often receives a sort of "honorable mention" level recognition as a vault in its own right. XPLand, as one could assume from its name, is chiefly used for the production of XP, accounting for the vast majority of Mir's industrial output of emerald blocks.
===Hjault/HjaltVault (Hjaltland)===
[[File:Hjaltvault.png|thumb|Hjaltvault (Early 2020)]]
=== Eternity (Hjaltland) ===
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