You heard right, no more building empires for free, people ;)
From now on, structures (Harvesters, Factories, Hoppers, Defensive Turrets) will require maintenance in order to operate. Time to start spending those hard-earned (or got them off the body of someone you killed) credits and putting them to use!
The rules are simple;
All structures which require maintenance now required maintenance based on a base amount depending on what type of structure they are, and then additionally based on the final quality determined during crafting. The more energy efficient and better quality your components and items, the lower the regular maintenance costs will be for you!
Maintenance is displayed on a per-hour basis, and maintenance "ticks" once per minute based on that amount.
Additionally, structures also have different costs based on whether they are online, or offline. When offline, structures will generally require only 10% of that which they require when online and in-use.
Once a structures maintenance pool hits zero, it can no longer be picked back up unless its maintenance pool is increased to at least 1000 credits. Additionally, when a structure's maintenance pool is zero, it will begin to take damage every minute at the rate of 2% of it's maximum health per hour. This gives you just over two days to bring it back into the positive before you lose it for good.
Friends and clanmates can also pay maintenance on your structures so long as you have them added to a structure's admin list.
There are extra rules to take into consideration regarding hoppers and their maintenance;
Hoppers require maintenance based on their online and offline states, but they also increase in maintenance costs based on both the number of it's they are responsible for containing, and also the amount of ferrocrete contained within. All-in-all, it is vastly more cost-effective to build walls and floors with ferrocrete because the rate most hoppers operate at is around 1 (one) credit per item per hour.
For instructional imagery, please see our facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/415812755276522/