Ownership and Capture

Ownership

Every siege engine belongs to a player. The owner is whoever places it with a deployment item, builds it from a blueprint or orders an engineer to build it. An engine without an owner, such as one spawned by a command, belongs to the first player who uses it; an engineer claims it for the player who commands them.

The owner stays the same while the player is offline. Whoever last crewed or fired the engine is its operator: the operator is credited with its damage and broken blocks, but never becomes its owner.

Who may use an engine

The owner, members of the owner's scoreboard team and, with Villager Recruits, factions allied through diplomacy may crew, load, tow, aim, fire, repair and dismantle the engine. Recruits act for the player who commands them. Anyone else can only damage or destroy it, or capture it.

Server operators with permission level 2 bypass these rules. Friendly-fire protection follows the same sides.

Capture

An enemy can take an engine left without its crew. Right-click it with an empty hand, without sneaking:

• engines with a seat for a player, such as ballistas, cannons, the hwacha, the onager, the battering ram and the mantlet, are captured from that seat;
• the siege tower is captured from the driver's position;
• the trebuchet has no seat for a player, so the capturer stands within reach of its frame instead.

While the capture runs, the engine cannot be aimed, driven or fired. Any damage to the capturer restarts it, and leaving the seat or stepping away cancels it. A bar at the top of the screen shows the progress to both sides within 48 blocks, and the owner is told when a capture starts and when the engine is lost.

Capture time grows with the engine's size, from 8 seconds for the smallest engines to 45 seconds for the siege tower.

An engine cannot be captured:

• while anyone from the owner's side is aboard;
• while neither the owner nor anyone on their team is online;
• when the capturing side has already reached its deployment limit for that engine;
• if it is a siege ladder.

A captured engine belongs to the capturer, or to the player commanding a capturing engineer, and counts toward their deployment limit.

Abandoned engines

When neither the owner nor anyone on their team has been online for 14 real-world days, the engine loses its owner and belongs to the next player who uses it. This is elapsed calendar time, separate from the in-game days used for weathering.

All of these rules can be changed or disabled; see Server Configuration.