Participating in a fort event battle.

Introduction to Fort Event Battles
Fort event battles are timed events in which two teams of participants, called "forces," compete to take control of each other's fort. Each event area contains two forts; one belongs to each force. The two forces engage in a war, where participants attack opposing participants, vehicles, and structures, in order to gain Force Points. The Force Point system is a numeric representation of which force is outperforming the other in battle. The winner of a fort event battle is the force with more Force Points when time runs out. During the course of the event, weapons, armor, vehicles, healing tools, repair kits, and most MindForce chips will only decay 10% of the usual amount when used. Additionally, firing a gun only requires 10% of the usual amount of ammunition per shot.

If you are registered and located in the event area when a fort event battle starts, you will automatically be relocated to a Revival Point inside your own fort. You may then move freely around your fort and defend, or head for the opposing force's fort and attack. If all structures in the Main Control Room of one fort are destroyed, the round ends, all participants will be relocated to a Revival Point inside their own fort once again, and a new round begins. When this happens, the Structural Integrity of all fort structures will reset, and the game will essentially start over, with the exception of the score. There are as many rounds in a fort event battle as time allows. Recall that the winning force is the one with more Force Points when time expires, so the number of rounds each force wins does not directly determine the winner of the event as a whole. Rather, ending a round merely serves as a reset button, so that opposing structures may be destroyed again, yielding more Force Points.

The GUI and Its Pretty Colors
It is very important to be able to identify whether a unit belongs to your own force, or the opposing force. If you mouse over or target another colonist, vehicle, or structure (or its health bar), the force it belongs to will be shown alongside its name, and the text will be displayed in yellow if it belongs to your force, or red if it belongs to the opposing force. On your radar, opposing participants will appear as red dots instead of the usual green dots. Since mobs can also spawn in the event area, it will not necessarily be clear whether a red dot is a mob or an opposing participant. Opposing structures will appear on your radar as red dots as well, but the shade of red is darker and fuller for a structure. Your own structures will appear as yellow dots.

Green and red diamonds are placed on your screen at the locations of key structures belonging to your force and the opposing force, respectively. These may be seen even through solid walls, and can help you find the structure you are looking for, though it is still recommended that you develop an understanding of where things are located within the forts, as navigating to the diamonds blindly can be time consuming. A diamond will flash if the structure it represents is being attacked by an opposing participant.

The Force Chat Channel can be used to communicate only with colonists in your own force. Messages entered in the Force Chat Channel are displayed in yellow in the Main Chat. You can type "/f" or "/force" before a message to send it to the Force Chat Channel, or use the yellow button in the Main Chat interface.

Scoring
Earning Force Points is the primary objective of a fort event battle, as the sum total collected by each force determines the winner. Force Points are earned by destroying opposing participants, vehicles, and structures. This means inflicting the occurrence of damage that causes an opposing participant to die, or the Structural Integrity of an opposing vehicle or structure to become zero. Force Points are also earned by repairing your own destroyed structures, meaning those that had zero Structural Integrity before the repair. It is only necessary to repair such structures one time, so that their Structural Integrity is no longer zero, in order to gain the Force Points. While repairing the structure further is useful (because it then becomes more difficult for the opposing force to destroy it again), no additional Force Points will be rewarded for doing so.

The number of Force Points gained in a particular way is always a constant number. You will always receive 1 Force Point for killing an opposing participant, 10 Force Points for destroying the opposing Jamming Device structure, etc. It is also worth noting that the number of Force Points your force receives for repairing your own structure is always the same as the number the opposing force received for destroying it.

Participant Points are numeric values used to measure how well individual participants are performing. It allows individuals to be ranked within their force. The Participant Point system is entirely separate from the Force Point system. Participant Points are earned by inflicting damage to opposing participants, vehicles, and structures, as well as by healing avatars and repairing structures for your own force. It makes no difference whether the damage kills or destroys the target; Participant Points are awarded based on the damage itself.

The number of Participant Points gained in a particular way can be constant or variable, depending on the action. Repairing a Main Gate yields 1 Participant Point per use of the repair kit, while repairing a Revival Point yields a number of Participant Points proportional to the effectiveness of the repair.

The significance of measuring individual performance is that when prizes for the event must be split among the winning force, those who played a more active role killing, destroying, healing, and repairing deserve a greater reward than those who signed up to use the Force Chat Channel to sell Nova Fragments. An amount of PED equivalent to the TT value of all decay and ammunition spent is distributed to the winning force, and the more Participant Points one earns, the larger the piece of the pie he or she will be rewarded. If the event promoter offers additional prizes for participants who place in certain position(s), Participant Points for members of the winning force will also determine who receives these prizes.

Special Rules
Promoters may also set up fort event battles with special rules. The most dramatic change would an event where only physical items can be used, and not MindForce, or one where only MindForce can be used, and not physical items. These changes affect every item a participant may wish to use, whether to attack, to heal, or for any other purpose. Other parameters that can be changed include disabling the radar or Defense Turrets, or disallowing the use of healing tools, melee weapons, ranged weapons, MindForce teleportation, MindForce wormholes, vehicles (some or all of them), vehicle repair, or structure repair. It is also possible for an event to negate armor protection, in which case armor may still be worn, but it will not reduce damage and will not decay when hit.

Normally participants select which force they will belong to when signing up for an event. However, there is an auto-balancing option which redesigns each force before the event begins, so that both are approximately equal in size and ability. This option is active by default, so in most events, the force you select is not necessarily the force you will join. Once the event has started though, it is not possible for your force to be changed without the consent of you and the event promoter.

The Tukar Event Area
The event area north of Tukar is the first one to allow fort event battles. The Tukar event area is a large circular area of land, and appears on the map as a faded yellow circle, similar in size to PVP Zone 2. The two forces in a fort event battle at Tukar are the TRIANGLES and the STARS. The fort belonging to the TRIANGLES is on the west side of the event area, while the fort belonging to the STARS is on the east. The land itself contains many hills and is elevated in the center, making it impossible to see one fort while standing at the other.

The TRIANGLES and STARS forts each contain two Main Gates, which can be opened by members of the appropriate force. Each Main Gate has two Door Terminals used to open it from the outside, both of which are structures themselves. Inside of each fort, there are two main buildings. One of them is home to a large cluster of Point-to-point teleporters, which allow members of the fort's force to travel around the fort quickly. There are also two sets of Revival Points, Repair Terminals, Trade Terminals, and Storage Facilities in this building. The other building (the main building) is guarded by a Force Field which allows only members of the fort's force to pass. This building contains the inner structures of the fort, including those in the Main Control Room used to end rounds.

The Defense Turrets are located all around the edge of each fort. They are used mainly for defense. These are actual weapons, and their effectiveness is linked to the user's Grenadier Profession levels. They contain a built in scope, and require Explosive Projectiles to fire. The Power Generators supply energy to these Defense Turrets. The Jamming Device is located atop the main building. As long as it is not destroyed, participants who belong to the opposing force cannot teleport into the fort. The Main Control room is at the core of the fort.

Participating
Participating in a fort event battle can be quite entertaining. With only 10% decay and ammunition usage, these events can be a relatively cheap activity in the Entropia Universe, and provide hours of fun. Be sure to read the rules before participating, and perhaps visit the event area to study the geography. May the force be with you!