Structs Building

Builds and manages structures in Structs. Handles construction, activation, deactivation, movement, defense positioning, stealth, and generator infusion. Use when building a struct, activating or deactivating structs, moving structs between slots, setting defense assignments, enabling stealth, or infusing generators. Build times range from ~17 min (Command Ship) to ~6.4 hours (World Engine).

Important: Entity IDs containing dashes (like 1-42, 5-10) are misinterpreted as flags by the CLI parser. All transaction commands in this skill use -- before positional arguments to prevent this.

Safety

See SAFETY.md for the trust contract. In this skill:

• struct-build-initiate (Tier 0 for cheap structs; Tier 1 for long PoW like World Engine, Ore Bunker, PDC) — short builds (Command Ship, Starfighter, Ore Extractor, Refinery) are routine; anything > 1 hour to D=3 is a battle order.
• struct-build-compute (Tier 1 + expedition) — "The build hashes for up to ~6.4 hours and auto-activates on completion." Log the PID to memory/jobs/; recall with kill <pid> if needed. On reconnect, walk the four-state flow in awareness/async-operations before launching anything new.
• struct-generator-infuse (Tier 2 — irreversible) — "Alpha Matter is annihilated in the conversion. The energy is yours; the matter is gone. There is no defusion. And the generator is raidable — if it falls, the infused matter falls with it." Always escalate, regardless of autonomy. Confirm the generator's defense posture before infusing.
• struct-deactivate of revenue-bearing structs (Tier 1) — taking an Extractor or Refinery offline halts your resource pipeline.

Procedure

1. Check requirements — Player online, sufficient Alpha Matter, valid slot (0-3 per ambit), Command Ship online, fleet on station (for planet builds). Query player, planet, fleet.

2. Initiate build (CLI prompts for confirmation — review struct type, slot, ambit, and Alpha cost):

   text

   structsd tx structs struct-build-initiate --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [player-id] [struct-type-id] [operating-ambit] [slot]
   

   The [operating-ambit] argument must be a lowercase string: "space", "air", "land", or "water" (not a bitmask number).

3. Proof-of-work — Build compute is an expedition that auto-activates the struct when the proof lands (this is why -y is present below).

   Approval Block — confirm before launching, especially for long-PoW structs (Ore Bunker, PDC, World Engine):

   • struct-id matches the build you just initiated
   • You have power headroom for the struct to auto-activate (load + struct's power-draw < capacity)
   • You will tolerate the auto-activation landing 17 min – 6.4 hrs from now even if game state shifts

   Launch in a background terminal:

   text

   structsd tx structs struct-build-compute -D 3 --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -y -- [struct-id]
   

   This calculates the hash, auto-submits complete, and the struct auto-activates. No separate activation step needed.

4. Optional — Move, set defense, or activate stealth as needed.

Auto-activation: Structs automatically activate after build-complete. Use struct-activate only to re-activate a struct that was previously deactivated with struct-deactivate.

Compute vs Complete

struct-build-compute is a helper that performs proof-of-work and automatically submits struct-build-complete with the hash results. The struct then auto-activates. You only need struct-build-complete if you computed the hash through external tools and want to submit it manually.

The -D Flag

The -D flag (range 1-64) tells compute to wait until difficulty drops to the specified level before starting the hash. Difficulty decreases logarithmically as the struct ages. Use -D 3 — at D=3, the hash is trivially instant and zero CPU is wasted. Lower values wait longer but burn no compute on hard hashes.

Charge Costs

Every action consumes charge. Charge accumulates passively at 1 per block (~6 sec/block).

Action	Charge Cost	Wait Time
Build complete	8	~48 seconds
Move	8	~48 seconds
Activate (re-activation only)	1	~6 seconds
Defend change	1	~6 seconds
Primary weapon	1-20	Varies by struct

If you get a "required charge X but player had Y" error, wait for charge to accumulate. See knowledge/mechanics/building for the complete charge table.

Expected Build Times

Time from initiation until compute completes (assuming 6 sec/block, D=3):

Struct	Type ID	Build Difficulty	Wait to D=3
Command Ship	1	200	~17 min
Starfighter	3	250	~20 min
Ore Extractor	14	700	~57 min
Ore Refinery	15	700	~57 min
PDC	19	2,880	~3.7 hr
Ore Bunker	18	3,600	~4.6 hr
World Engine	22	5,000	~6.4 hr

Initiate early, compute later. The age clock starts at initiation. Batch-initiate all planned builds, then launch compute in background terminals. Do other things while waiting. See awareness/async-operations.

One key, one compute at a time. Never run two concurrent *-compute jobs with the same signing key. Both jobs may reach the target difficulty simultaneously and submit transactions with conflicting sequence numbers — one fails silently, leaving the struct stuck in build status. Use separate signing keys for separate players, and sequence compute jobs for the same player.

Commands Reference

Action	CLI Command
Initiate build	structsd tx structs struct-build-initiate --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [player-id] [struct-type-id] [operating-ambit] [slot] (operating-ambit = space/air/land/water, lowercase string)
Build compute (PoW + auto-complete + auto-activate)	structsd tx structs struct-build-compute -D 3 --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -y -- [struct-id] (documented -y exception — auto-submits later)
Build complete (manual, rarely needed)	structsd tx structs struct-build-complete --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id]
Build cancel	structsd tx structs struct-build-cancel --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id]
Re-activate (only after deactivation)	structsd tx structs struct-activate --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id]
Deactivate	structsd tx structs struct-deactivate --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id]
Move	structsd tx structs struct-move --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id] [new-ambit] [new-slot] [new-location]
Set defense	structsd tx structs struct-defense-set --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [defender-struct-id] [protected-struct-id]
Clear defense	structsd tx structs struct-defense-clear --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [defender-struct-id]
Stealth on	structsd tx structs struct-stealth-activate --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id]
Stealth off	structsd tx structs struct-stealth-deactivate --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id]
Generator infuse (Tier 2, irreversible)	structsd tx structs struct-generator-infuse --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5 -- [struct-id] [amount]

Limits: 1 PDC per player, 1 Command Ship per player. Command Ship must be in fleet. Generator infusion is IRREVERSIBLE.

TX_FLAGS (interactive — the CLI prompts you to confirm): --from [key-name] --gas auto --gas-adjustment 1.5

TX_FLAGS_APPROVED (only after commander approval; suppresses the prompt): TX_FLAGS plus -y. See SAFETY.md "The -y Rule." struct-build-compute is the documented -y exception — it auto-activates the struct when the proof lands, with no shell attached.

Requires: structsd on PATH and a configured signing key.

Verification

• structsd query structs struct [id] — status = Online (or Built/Offline if not activated)
• Struct appears in planet/fleet struct list

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Fix
"required charge X but player had Y"	Not enough charge accumulated	Wait ~48s (8 blocks) between build actions
"insufficient resources"	Not enough Alpha Matter	Mine and refine ore first; check balance with structsd query structs player [id]
"power overload"	Capacity too low for struct to go online	Deactivate non-essential structs or increase capacity (see structs-energy skill)
"fleet not on station"	Fleet is away from planet	Wait for fleet return or fleet-move back
"Command Ship required"	Command Ship offline or not built	Build or re-activate Command Ship first
"invalid slot"	Slot already occupied	Check existing structs on planet; slots are 0-3 per ambit
"invalid ambit"	Struct type doesn't support chosen ambit	Check possibleAmbit bit-flags for the struct type
Connection refused on port 26657	No local node; remote node not configured	Set node in ~/.structs/config/client.toml or use --node flag (see TOOLS.md)

See Also

• knowledge/mechanics/building — Build times, difficulty, charge costs
• knowledge/mechanics/power — Capacity, load, online status
• knowledge/entities/struct-types — All struct type IDs and properties
• knowledge/entities/entity-relationships — How entities connect
• awareness/async-operations — Background PoW, pipeline strategy