Demon Invasion in Blood Magic...

[GreenZombie]

So, playing on a server running direwolf20, I want to fire off a demon invasion.

Now I know that lots of players prefer to create a demon invasion in a mystcraft or RF Tools dimension, but I prefer to build (and destroy) the overworld. Theres quite a lot of it

And, I would like the demon invasion to continue to grow when I am not there - it grows (apparently) up to 1000m x 1000m.

So, given that my base is already underground, I was wondering if the Demon Invasion, triggered on the surface, would negatively effect my underground facility. In a demon invasion what spawns the demons - do they spawn in the surface structures or can they spawn at any y-level in occupied territory? Can the invasion structures appear underground and destroy my things? Or are they confined to the surface?

 

[mathchamp]

So, playing on a server running direwolf20, I want to fire off a demon invasion.

Now I know that lots of players prefer to create a demon invasion in a mystcraft or RF Tools dimension, but I prefer to build (and destroy) the overworld. Theres quite a lot of it

And, I would like the demon invasion to continue to grow when I am not there - it grows (apparently) up to 1000m x 1000m.

So, given that my base is already underground, I was wondering if the Demon Invasion, triggered on the surface, would negatively effect my underground facility. In a demon invasion what spawns the demons - do they spawn in the surface structures or can they spawn at any y-level in occupied territory? Can the invasion structures appear underground and destroy my things? Or are they confined to the surface?

I fired one off in a Mystcraft world, although it's not too big so far. I've noticed the following:

• The structures and roads spawn on the surface, in a similar manner to Vanilla villages except that they grow over time rather than on worldgen. I don't know if there are any hidden structures underground since I haven't bothered checking.
• Some structures can extend underground, as in a basement, but if you're more than a few blocks down they shouldn't interfere, as far as I know.
• The demons spawn even if you have a Magnum torch placed down. They seem to spawn anywhere in the territory of the demon village. I don't know whether they would spawn underground or not, so you'll probably want to test that on a creative world or see if anyone else knows.

So it probably won't destroy your facility, but the demons might try to take it over and occupy it.

 

[Type1Ninja]

o it probably won't destroy your facility, but the demons might try to take it over and occupy it.

That's what point defenses are for.
Do they spawn in regular light levels? If not, RFTools' force fields would probably work great for defense. Otherwise, I myself can't think of any other defenses.

 

[GreenZombie]

Other questions (not that the first is fully answered ):
* What is driving the growth?
I would have thought that the master ritual stone would be responsible for "driving" the on-going invasion, but it would seem odd that a demon invasion could be paused as desired by applying a redstone signal to a block - also the ritual that kicks it off seems to be destroyed by the altar that is generated for each phase of the invasion.
It would be convienient if there was a single block that could be broken to stop the whole event in the case that I miscalculate and things go wrong.
* Is the demon invasion chunkloaded? Its documented as growing to 1000x1000m, but that is (much) larger than a players view radius. Does it continue to grow if players are not near?
* Does the invasion replace player placed blocks? Even on mystcraft worlds it must be difficult to place the exit link book sufficiently far from the invasion. Is there a good chance that a "Teleport station" built a few hundred meters from the invasion site will be destroyed by its growth.
* How well does it deal with the actual terrain found in the overworld (as against the flat worlds Ive seen used in the Mystcraft worlds used in Lets Plays).

 

[mathchamp]

Other questions (not that the first is fully answered ):
* What is driving the growth?
I would have thought that the master ritual stone would be responsible for "driving" the on-going invasion, but it would seem odd that a demon invasion could be paused as desired by applying a redstone signal to a block - also the ritual that kicks it off seems to be destroyed by the altar that is generated for each phase of the invasion.
It would be convienient if there was a single block that could be broken to stop the whole event in the case that I miscalculate and things go wrong.
* Is the demon invasion chunkloaded? Its documented as growing to 1000x1000m, but that is (much) larger than a players view radius. Does it continue to grow if players are not near?
* Does the invasion replace player placed blocks? Even on mystcraft worlds it must be difficult to place the exit link book sufficiently far from the invasion. Is there a good chance that a "Teleport station" built a few hundred meters from the invasion site will be destroyed by its growth.
* How well does it deal with the actual terrain found in the overworld (as against the flat worlds Ive seen used in the Mystcraft worlds used in Lets Plays).

• On the top of the altar that is generated, there is a "Demon Portal" block. To stop the invasion, destroy this block. If you want to start a new demon invasion, you'll have to collect all the resources from scratch, though (ritual stones, reagents, LP, demon sacrifice).
• I don't think the demon invasion is chunk loaded. I could be wrong, but my experience is leaning towards it not being chunk loaded.
• It would probably replace player placed blocks if they are there, since there isn't really a way to discern a player placed block from a worldgen block.
• Non-flat terrain is dealt with similarly to vanilla village generation, with roads following the hills. Note that some blocks like plants and cacti also mess with the generation a bit.

 

[GreenZombie]

So, I have kicked off a demon invasion in a SSP game to test things out.
The process (for those unfamiliar) is this:
1. Build the ritual "Convocation of the Damned" and trigger it with an awakened ritual stone.
2. At your own leasure, "enhance" the ongoing ritual by feeding the master ritual stone 16000 units of 8 specific alchemy reagents - typically from crystal bell jars. DO NOT feed the master ritual stone any more than 16000 units as excess reagents will fill the (3) internal tanks, blocking the insertion of other reagents, and there seems to be no way short of breaking the block (resetting the ritual) to clear stuffed tanks.
3. Again, at your own leasure, sacrifice a demon ona blood altar near the active, enhanced, convocation of the damned. The blood altar, placed within range of the active convocation, will respond to the sacrifice by becoming the phase 0 demon summoning portal.

At this point I do not believe the convocation of the damned is necessary and I think you can dismantle it to recover the master ritual stone and ritual stones. You need to be quick tho, because:

4. After a brief period of explosions, the demon portal block will resculpt the area around itself into a mossy stone blood magic altar kind of thing, moving itself up several blocks. Roads and buildings start to appear around it. This will destroy most of the blocks in the convocation of the damned ritual.

5. After a few hours realtime, the demon portal will again resculpt the surrounding area, this time into a large gold block decorated netherbrick structure, again moving itself further up the structure.

Notes:
* While the invasion building is confined mostly to the surface, when it encounters caves and cliffs it can build into the cliffs a bit, and the basements do extend into a ground a bit.
* The demons that spawn are "Wind Demon Grunts", have 200 life, and a ranged attack that throws you high enough into the air so you take fall damage. They appear in journeymap as neutral mobs with no icon. If you attack one, all the nearby ones will try and swarm you. This is the only demon type ive seen.
* They appear to spawn on the surface only and in daylight. Caves under the invasion spawn regular monsters the regular way.
* The building process does an "ok" job of dealing with terrain and trees
* It seems safe to build within the bounds of an invasion - except the 15x15 area around the demon portal it seems that once the invasion has populated an area with buildings it doesn't revisit it.
* The buildings that are created typically spawn with chests that contain typical dungeon loot. Triggering an invasion is a great source of Iridium, Portal Guns, Factorization thingies etc.

Q: Is it possible to prevent the spawning of demons on the surface in the middle of the invasion? i.e. do they only spawn on mossy brick blocks. If they do require sky los, then the simple act of roofing structures could keep them out.

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Thanks for the step by step!

 

[Someone Else 37]

I should add that, according to WayOfTime's MCF post, the invasion can spawn one of four types of demons, being Ice, Wind, Water, or Fire. Which type it spawns is determined sometime between when you activate the Convocation of the Damned and when the demons start spawning; once you start seeing demons associated with a particular element, they're the only type you'll see. However, if you start a new invasion somewhere else, you might get a different type there.

Also, I should add that killing the demons spawned by this ritual is the only way to acquire the Life and Soul Shards needed for tier 6 Blood Magic stuff. Looting on your weapon increases the chances of the demons dropping these shards.