9 Your Battle Mine

Your eponymous battle mine is the heart of your empire, your mobile headquarters, self-sufficient and nigh-indestructible. It is also home to the people of your empire. Everything that is "yours" in Battle Mines falls into two camps: Things that are part of the battle mine, and things that are part of the land. While nothing save death itself can take away your battle mine, the land you are in is another story: See Land Exchange for more details.

Here's a brief rundown on what belongs where:

Part of the battle mine	Part of the land
Objects	Buildings
Intrinsics	Base resource
Technology	Pollution
Government	Fallout
Industry	Outposts
Borders	Diabolical machines
Hunger	Monuments
Hosted spies

Hosted field agents are unique in that they hide in the buildings of your land (and are vulnerable to damage there), but along with diplomats are considered part of your battle mine and will follow you on land exchange. See Espionage for more details.

Most of these game concepts are important enough to have their own chapter, and won't be discussed here. What we will go over are your battle mine's intrinsics, the transitory n00b shield, and how to lose the game.

9.1 Intrinsics

Intrinsics are facilities which are built-in to your battle mine. Each of them acts like one of the four basic buildings: The mine, refinery, warehouse, and cannon. Unlike buildings, which come and go, intrinsics tend to stick around.

9.1.1 Perma-Mines

Your battle mine is able to perform automatic mining operations with the enormous drills affixed to its chassis. Every 2 hours (on average) you will receive, free of charge, one mine's worth of base materials from your land. For uranium ore miners, the duration is 6 hours.

This perma-mining is affected by production modifier in the same way as regular mining, giving the extra output of positive PM and being shut off in the event of a strike. Keep in mind that perma-mining cannot be disabled, you will have to log in and manage your materials to avoid the steady seep of pollution.

9.1.2 Perma-Refinery

As well as perma-mining, once you research the refining technology your battle mine will be able to produce one refined material per day, corresponding to your land's base material.

Like perma-mines, the perma-refinery is affected by strikes, and cannot be disabled. When enriched uranium is produced from perma-refining, there is a 25% chance one fallout will be added to the land.

9.1.3 Hull

Hull (instead of perma-warehouses) is the name of your battle mine's outer shell. It both adds plentiful space to hold objects, and constitutes the very essence of your being. Hull level may go up and down, if you lose all your hull you will be obliterated.

Your battle mine starts the game with 20 units of space, contained in its 10 hull levels (1 hull = 2 space). More hull can be manufactured in a factory, each unit adding 2 more space. The cost to manufacture hull increases linearly:

First hull upgrade: 1 DMND + 1 ALU + 1 STEEL
Second hull upgrade: 2 DMND + 2 ALU + 2 STEEL
Third hull upgrade: 3 DMND + 3 ALU + 3 STEEL
...

There is no limit to the amount of hull you can add; your 100th unit of hull will cost 100 diamonds, 100 aluminum, and 100 steel.

Unfortunately there are ways to lose hull. These include:

Because of these terrors, your hull may drop below the original amount. When you are low on hull (ie. below your original amount), the cost of manufacturing new hull remains constant: 1 diamond, 1 aluminum, and 1 steel.

Be warned: If your hull is worn completely away, your battle mine will be obliterated and your empire lost. See Obliteration for more details.

9.1.4 Perma-Cannon

A perma-cannon is what it sounds like: A permanent cannon which is part of your battle mine, functioning exactly the same as a regular cannon, except it cannot be destroyed in battle. You do not start with the perma-cannon technology, it must be researched in the academy.

In determining victory by the cannon count heuristic, perma-cannons do not contribute.

9.2 N00b Shield

The n00b shield is simple protection for newcomers in the Battle Mines universe. New players cannot be attacked during their first four days, unless they attack someone first, which will cancel the shield. The n00b shield also negates acid rain from the pale horseman.

While in place, the shield will appear in green on the map screen. Players get an event when their n00b shield dissipates naturally.

9.3 Obliteration

Lots of things in Battle Mines get destroyed. Outposts, buildings, spies. Unfortunately there are times when even the battle mines themselves can be destroyed.

Battle mines that lose all their hull are obliterated. The consequence of obliteration is the loss of all progress: The player must start the game over again next time they log in.

Hull can be lost in the following ways:

Acid rain from the pale horseman
The blast of a doomsday device
The detonation of a landmine during land exchange

Hull can be regenerated and augmented in a factory, see Hull for more details.

Battle mines that go unused for extended periods of time start to rust over, they are also in danger. If a player does not log in and play for longer than their battle mine has existed, they will be obliterated for excessive idleness. The minimum idle-death duration is 2 weeks, the maximum is 6 months.

Players that purchase gold automatically get their inner hull reinforced with unobtanium, any damage that would reduce them to zero or less hull reduces them instead to one level of hull. They are also immune to idle death, and can never be obliterated.

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