Introduction: Even on a day to day basis, factions deal with a huge number of problems that pilots and even teams normally don’t. While pilots and teams get their transports and bases built instantly as long as they have the money or a written-up description, factions have to do more than buy -- they have to build. Be it transports, warships, military bases, or other certain special orders, factions have to devote a resource beyond money -- and sometimes beyond time and space -- to construct and repair their most valuable of resources. The purpose of this section is to describe the processes and costs involved in factional construction and repairs.

The Small Stuff: For factions, it’s easy enough to buy new Zoids. As many might be aware, factions get new budgets at the end of the real year (as well a certain number of new Zoids they are allotted) and then they simply buy whatever Zoids they like with that money. Conventional Level 1-5 Zoids are essentially instantly purchased -- the factional assembly lines working at full power actually add new Zoids to the factional pool almost immediately. Deployment is a different issue -- and is dealt with on the article on movement, rather than the article on construction. Requisitioning Zoids for use in a mission is also a far cry from building them -- the wait you have there is simply the time it takes for your faction to get their hands on such a Zoid and put it at your disposal. Interestingly, though you wait for small Zoids and the faction doesn’t, the faction will wait for certain large Zoids while you don’t.

The Big Stuff: Buying transports and warships is exceedingly simple for a faction. You fork over the listed amount of cash, and you wait a number of months equal to the price of the transport divided by $100,000. Note that this only applies to the so-called Big Three transports -- the Hammer Kaiser, the Whale King, and the Great Whale King. The humble Gustav, the Hover Cargo, and the Dragoon’s Nest are all readily available on the open market, so the factions can get them in relatively short order.

So why don't teams have to wait when they buy their Big Three transports, as it is most certainly legal for them to do? Well, because imagine if your team purchased a Great Whale King and I told you that your wait time would be a little over four months. It probably wouldn’t go over very well.with the team. For sheer, raw convenience, I don’t make teams wait. But factions do wait.

Repairs: So, what about repairs? Now, we know that on CAZ, there’s a poll tax on repairs -- you pay a flat cost based on the level of damage and that’s that. In the world of factions, the nation takes care of your personal repairs and it’s all paid for on a higher budgetary level. However, the usual CAZ rules don’t take into account the possibility of transport damage (indeed, damaging the transport is illegal in sanctioned battling). So, what are the rules on repairing such giant hulking machines (as it would be pretty unreasonable if we just asked you for $1,100 and a day and half wait to get your transport back). Well, the answer is that the transport must be moved back to a major city or military installation (or a shipyard, in the case of a warship). Transports are damaged in the same manner as regular Zoids: they are rated on the usual damage scale. However, the cost and the time to wait for a repaired Transport are a little different.

When I say cost of transport, I mean cost of transport OR warship. Round cost to the nearest $1,000 and wait time to the day. As usual, this only applies to the Big Three Transports and Warships -- Gustavs, Hover Cargos, and Dragoon’s Nest have the same COST to repair as the other transports and warships but it takes the normal amount of TIME for a Zoid.

With Respect to Warships: Warships are a little special inside this little group of ours in that you don’t only need to pay in time and money to build them. You also need something a bit different: a Shipyard. Shipyards are unique and powerful resources. Above and beyond the normal naval base, a shipyard can lay down the keel of the most powerful Zoids on Zi (short of those that the carry the label “Banned”). A Shipyard can build OR repair up to $1,000,000 of warships at a time (IE: the total production cost of all of the ships being built and repaired cannot exceed $1,000,000). Coincidentally, that means that any one shipyard can only build one Battle King at one time. If, for example, a Battle King was being built at a faction’s only shipyard and a battered Sea Lancer arrived to be repaired, the Battle King would have to be put on hold while the Sea Lancer was shortly repaired and sent on its way. If instead three White Cruisers were being built at the same Shipyard, only one would have to be put on hold while the Sea Lancer was repaired.

Military Installations: Now, that may seem all well and good, but what about all of these buildings I’ve been talking about? How long does it take to build one of those shipyard thingamabobs, and how much does that cost? Well, CAZ has a very simple system for dealing with military installations. Pick a point on the map where you want to build your installations. Below is a chart of the installations you can build, and the time it takes to build them.

Pay that amount, and wait that long, and as long as the area you’ve been building it in stays under your control, you’re done. If you wish to upgrade one installation to a higher level, (a camp to a fort, a fort to a base, or a camp to a base -- no upgrading to shipyards) you pay the difference in costs but wait the total time to construct the upgraded structure (ie: pay $1,000,000 to upgrade from a fort to a base but wait three months) or pay the total cost of the upgraded structure but only wait the difference in times (ie: pay $3,000,000 to upgrade from a fort to a base but wait only one month).

Special Expenditures: The astute observer may note that this doesn’t seem to cover all of the things you could possibly build. What about a special custom flagship? What about a minefield? What about a research lab? As a general rule of thumb, simply ask an admin (me, probably). Ask, and ye shall receive.