BATTLE MINES

The ultimate goal of Tech Levelling is the ability to construct Diabolical Machines. As long as you are Tech Level 14, you can work on these abominations of the natural order at will, no Academy required. There are two Diabolical Machines: The Scrambler, and the Doomsday Device (DDD for short).

Progress on Diabolical Machines is made on the Construction page, but unfortunately they are so enormous there is no way to build one all at once; Instead it must be done in installments of 5%.

Each 5% of the machine that you build costs 15 Refined Materials (payable with base materials). The first 5% is of Diamond, the second Aluminum, followed by Steel, Glass, and finally Enriched Uranium. The costs then repeat. In total therefore, you will pay 60 of each Refined Material to complete your Diabolical Machine. Your troubles have only just begun, however.

Any fraction of a Diabolical Machine and the completed machine itself are invulnerable to normal warfare. However, since the machinery is a part of the land, you will lose control of whatever portion you have completed thus far if you are Land Exchanged. Worse, the enormity of the project cannot be concealed, and the percentage of whichever Diabolical Machine you have completed the most of will be displayed to your contacts on all maps.

Diabolical Machines cannot be activated on official holidays.

The Doomsday Device is a large and terrifying contraption of devastating power. It wipes the entire map clean of anything smaller than a Battle Mine. The air surrounding the hyper-irradiated blast of a detonating device is eerily quiet, outside the dying crackles of research computers and the screams of diplomats swept away along with sections of hull.

Should you succeed in constructing a Doomsday Device, you are at liberty to activate it on the Warfare page. Activating a Doomsday Device has the following effects:

• Your Doomsday Device is destroyed.
• Progress on all semicomplete Diabolical Machinery in the world is reduced by a full 50% (multiplying), rounding down to the nearest 5%.
• All buildings, Outposts, Spies and Diamond Drills in the world are destroyed (without leaving scrap).
• You lose 10 Tech Levels.
• All players within one square of you are vassalized, and lose three Tech Levels.
• Players two squares away lose one Tech Level.
• All Battle Mines lose one intrinsic hull point.
• Roamers are slain without leaving items behind, unless they have eaten 50 times.
• Pollution on all map tiles is raised by 20.
• Fallout on all map tiles is raised by 10.
• The world descends into Anarchy.

A Technocracy Shield will cause players exposed to a Doomsday blast to lose one less Tech Level.

The Scrambler is a complex assembly of nanomachines, with enough power to rearrange the entire world. No-one understands quite how or why something like this might be done, but there's a title in it for you.

Scramblers are activated on the Academy page, with the following effects:

• Your Scrambler is destroyed.
• Progress on all semicomplete Scramblers in the world is reduced by a full 50% (multiplying), rounding down to the nearest 5%.
• The map is emptied and reformed circularly at the center of the world using all map tiles, wherever they might be. Position in the circle is random.
• All Outposts are destroyed.
• All tiles are randomly terraformed.
• You (alone) have your Land Bonus set to +5.

• December 16, 2008 Doomsday Device launched by xade.
• December 19, 2007 “Christmas at Ground Zero” Scrambler / Doomsday Device combo, launched by InanimateJ and LynxShaman, respectively.
• October 18, 2007 Doomsday Device launched by Freesoul.
• August 15, 2007 “Big Red” Scrambler launched by Hay (and followed by Iuewen marching across the map. And back.)
• May 16, 2007 “666” Doomsday Device launched by xade.
• March 26, 2007 “Fraggle Rock” Doomsday Device launched by LynxShaman.
• February 16, 2007 Scrambler launched by Severian.
• December 22, 2006 Scrambler launched by Robulus.

I think it's the other way around ~Psiweapon

• — 2006 Ninja Doomsday Device launched by
• September 12, 2006 Doomsday Device launched by xade.
• July 19, 2006 Doomsday Device launched by Cirdan.
• May 9, 2006 Doomsday Device launched by xade.
• Mar 14, 2006 Doomsday Device launched by Rasteroid(? I think).