How-To: Establishing Your Outpost

This is not yet defined. It will be less than 1500 though most likely, since you have to be 3000 from another base, which also gets it's half of the space. I'm guessing 200-500 and the ability to expand through more R and questing. The important part is a teleport to your base, and since anyone will be able to earn a teleport, they won't need to setup shop next to you.

Are you guessing on a 1500 radius or diameter?

Is there a policy to resolved claimed outposts that are abandoned (No signs of activity and owner has been derelict for 6 months)?

3000 diameter, 1500 radius at the very most, so if there is something really important to you over 1000 blocks from your original claim chest, consider starting a new outpost claim for it. Remember, this is a guess, the "established outpost" idea is just something to carry us until empires comes out. It's mostly just a guide for common sense claim resolution.
(Name change completion > 1.8 > Dragon Tombs > Empires)

We don't know that establishing an outpost will give us anything when "Empires" expansion comes out, it sounds like you'll do a new process to secure land. You'll also be able to secure additional sections of land over time, this is why I would expect 500x500 tops for your first "Empire".. They've mentioned nothing about size yet though.

Just incase mod doesn't answer this, I would say no, there isn't. This is part of why people est outposts, it's a way to get around normal derelict policy and build things that can last forever (or at least a year till they return). After all, the wilds are virtually infinite, there's no reason, especially once Empires teleports comes for people to fight over land. There are people with bases over 500k blocks out right now, no need to fight over to 10k-20k spots.

Ok, thanks for your given time to respond, although I'd feel a lot more comfortable receiving a response from someone who does actually know. I don't want to establish an outpost without anything built and be told I have a 20x20 area (or something) that's actually protected because I had nothing prior built in a larger area to have it be protected =P

It would also mean that you can't expand, or have limits to that. Say you have an outpost established 3k away from another established outpost. If you expand yours then it could be less than 3k and breaking the rule.

I personally think there should not be a system for this. Everyone deserves to have theirs established regardless of how near it is to other outposts. A first come first serve system to it seems unfair. It makes people have to travel further away, taking longer and being a bother just to have this established. It is also unfair to newer people. As long as the two places cannot be seen by each other i don't see an issue at all.

There are areas that are very ideal for people, such as big ocean areas. People could of already claimed it and established an outpost, i don't feel its fair that i have to go 3k more away just because someone got there first. Maybe reduce the amount, so some spaces can be utilized more.

There is no way to get back to town other than going back to the spawn towers. To have to come back from a very large distance just puts people off from making stuff in either the town or frontier. It comes down to one or the other.
Thats my opinion on the whole system you have going on here.

I can't even have an outpost but sharing my opinion anyway. I would like to see a way to establish mine even though its within 5k of the spawn, and have all my things protected in the future update. If i can show the mods that it doesn't get in the way i see no reason to be excluded from such benefits.

I like town and frontier, but i do not want to spend 30 minutes to get to my outpost hence why i built near spawn. And also why i suggest reducing the 3k radius. You won't be able to see other outposts after like 100 blocks in the distance, 3000 seems a bit much.

No one is in the know right now, Empires is not designed, it's just concepts living in Aikar's head right now. Even devs, have not decided all the details as it's coming after dragon tombs, which is after 1.8.... which is after name change completion.... so we're months and months away before they'll have it all planned out, let alone finalized.

There is 3 good links in this earlier conversation if they reassure you any about future of empires

Last radius answer with Mrsocks

The outposts are only required to be 3k distant from each other at the time of establishment, staff will inform players if their outposts are close to each other, and will advise against expanding too much in that particular direction. Staff look into each and every establishment claim closely (which is why it takes them so damn long ) and will communicate with all surrounding base owners to come to an arrangement which is reasonable for all involved.

First come first serve is a just a standard practice in life unfortunately, new players to a server are always going to be at a disadvantage compared to every player who has come before them, if life were that fair every player would have their rupees reset every time a new player joins a server.
The 3k limit allows every player outpost a reasonable amount of space for future development and outpost expansion. It is of no real consequence if the two opposing bases slowly grow towards each other after being established as they have been allocated ample distance to do so.

The Wilderness was never intended to be a larger version of Town, which is one of the primary reasons for the 5k limit around the main Wilderness spawn areas. We don't want to have the entire boundary of each spawn area filled up with noob creations and dirt pillars, that's what the wasteland is for.
The further you are away from a main Wilderness spawn the less likely it is to run into any of these issues. With many player outposts being at least 50k+ blocks from spawn, this is really not as big an issue as the restriction makes it seem, especially with minecraft being infinite and with NESW compass points available to voyage from.
A common practice is to establish a base on a different SMP server, that way you can stay a very long way out in the Wilderness and still have the town experience also.

Things may change of course when the Empires feature is formally released, and the numbers may be revised down to something which may leave you in an appropriate range. These initial numbers were just the ballpark figures which were required when the ownership/establishment procedure was implemented.

In regards to the actual size of protected land when the Empires feature is implemented, i've always imagined it would be a smallish number of chunks based around a central claimed chunk, which could then be expanded using some form of payment yet to be determined.

How far can the rules extend? For example, if an established leader wanted someone to not enter the area of the outpost, could they have staff punish that person if they did enter the outpost?

Establishment guidelines do not prohibit where someone travels as long as they can do it without causing any greif to the area. Even spawners and farms are considered public domain (grrrrrrrrrr).

General rules though will let you get a staff member involved as a mediator and they can ask the person to leave to keep the peace. If they are going into that area to cause you mental grief, they can be warned and banned for that. Just as if they were harassing you in any other way. The cool thing is that mods are empowered to resolve conflicts and keep the game fun, if someone is making the game not fun for you, get a mod involved and they will usually fix it.

The 3k radius is a way to ensure bases are not piled on top of each other. The size of claimed land once that feature comes out will be set by factors that have yet to be fully determined by the admin team.

Edit: adding this here as I have been asked this several times as of late.

So, situation, a long long time ago some mates and I make a double blaze grinder. They stop playing and I'm the sole owner of the facility. If course I have chests and everything for my stuff. The thing is it's under 5k out and in the nether. So what happens if after 2+ years of using this place someone comes out and locks one of my chests then goes derilect? Do I have any grounds here or am I kinda... at the mercy of all

Senior Staff can remove the lock. I think.

I had a Conversation with KrysyyJane not too long ago to try and clarify some similar issues I was wondering about. Your question is a little bit different and they judge things on a per case basis but I think some of her answers could apply to your situation.

Regarding asking people to leave/not use something you built in general:
If you build a house/grinder in the wild, people are allowed to be there IF you are not. If you are present and ask them to leave, then they must leave. In town you can remove their move perms, so it works like that. If they don't leave, feel free to message a staff member.

Regarding asking people to leave an established outpost. This seems kind of ambiguous given the other rule, but I have faith that Staff will work with us as individual problems arise:
"If the base is established, then yes you can remove a member at any time. Any decisions should be made by the outpost owner and any notifications should be made via forums with an invite to me so that the conversation is not falsely reported to be rude, etc. You can ask them to leave an area, but enforcing a 3000 radius is going to be near impossible. The Nether is not able to be claimed."

Her Nether statement worries me since an area of the Nether is inherently linked to corresponding areas of the Frontier. I asked again using a scenario where I ask someone to leave an Outpost area and they just lurk about outside of the outpost or in the Nether waiting for me to leave. Her answer referred back to the first one regarding builds in general:
If you built it, you can still tell them to leave if you are online and using the grinder. **You just can't destroy anything they build without staff intervention.**

Note the part I highlighted. It makes your job as builder/owner more difficult and complex if you are concerned with possibly having your ownership of an area put into question or losing control of who accesses it since someone can find it then bring their friends(and their freind's friends...). It makes it your responsibility to periodically check to see if someone's started homesteading on your build. If you let them improve the area you could regret it later. I've had those situations turn out both good and bad. Either way it doesn't hurt to document it as soon as you are aware of it if you are concerned.

Regarding removing derelict/unwanted structures and Chests. In your case I would document the Chest location(s) and start a PM to see what can be done:
As the outpost owner you can remove derelict builds, then save the materials in a chest for them. If they are derelict, Senior Staff can remove locked chests and transfer the contents to their vault should they return.

Transferring ownership of an Outpost:
Yes you can transfer ownership of an outpost. Include me(Krysyy) and the new owner in a convo and have them place a locked chest like you did to establish. We can discuss it in that convo with regards to necessary things to be changed (like forums posts) etc.

Thanks that helped a fair bit. I was able to get the lock removed since it was my chest to begin with and I keep at least 1 sign there stating that it is my facility with an updated date. since it is under 5k out and in the nether I won't be able to officially claim the land but people still should not be allowed to greif right? I would assume that includes placing locked chests in someone else's build?

Locking a Chest is altering your build so I'd say it is technically griefing. Also, if you have some sort of enclosure I don't think they should do it for sure. I think GoodbyeForever has successfully gotten people to not Lock them at his public builds. Maybe one of the staff can give us something more specific.

quick Q is it possible to claim part of the nether with the outpost

Do we have to 'establish' our outpost before it is officially allowed?

No. You cannot claim in the nether. Sorry.