A Guide for the Hardy Traveler, this explains Atlas Nations, Towns, and Plots. 

If you want to know more about nation permissions and zones, read Permissions Groups and Zones Help

Creating your own empire is not an easy task, Atlas is very political, other nations may feel threatened if you settle too close to them.
If you are new to Atlas we recommend you join an existing nation first, at least until you are more familiar with how things work.

Most nations will have some info about joining on the forums

Be advised that it is against the rules to betray your nation, for example: stealing all the diamonds and leaving the nation.

Towns

A town is a physical location made up of Plots where you can build and is block protected from non nation members

Some nations do not have any towns, like pirate nations. Some nations have lots of towns.

Key points about towns:

1. A town is just a physical place in the world that has block protections.
2. Players do not join towns, they join nations.
3. A nation can have more than one town.
4. All players in a nation have build access to all of the towns inside the nation.
5. You can found a town by purchasing a town hall block from one of the NPC towns

Place the town hall block where you would like to setup your town and right click it for futher instruction.

The town hall will include an enderchest which you can use to access the nations coffers.

We recommend using the /plot command to see how expensive it will be to setup a town at your location.

If a nation wishes to give a town to another nation, both leaders need to agree and contact the Elders to arrange the transfer.

Important note: A town that is in a nation with more than one town will only gain plot protections if the town is above level 10.
You are not able to create a second town until the first town is at level 10.

Plots

Plots are 16x16 blocks wide and reaches from bedrock to the skylimit. A town can buy as many plots as it wants

Every plot in the world has a value, which is made up of two parts:

• Town expansion fee - A fee that increases as you town grows, calculated by 10 + [number of plots] x 3
• Proximity Tax - A fee that is calculated based on how close you are to existing towns. 
• Buying a plot just outside of a big town is ridiculously expensive.
• The cost drops very fast the further you move away.
• The ‘proximity tax’ is there to protect YOU from random people creating towns right next to you and to keep NPC towns clear of pesky player towns.
• Proximity tax reduces to very small ~400 blocks away from a town.

plotdistance.jpg

You can use the /plot command to see what the value of a plot is. Use /plot buy to buy a plot, or /plot sell to sell a plot.
Plots can also be purchased using the Atlas website nation manager shown above, do /website in game to get an account for the website

The Proximity Tax is designed to encourage people to spread out, setting up right outside massive towns like Telaria would have extremely high taxes

One interesting thing about this system is that your plots can increase in value because another town buys a nearby plot. You can sell you plots back if you want to, possibly for more money than you paid for them!

When you found a town, the town found price includes 9 plots (see /plot )

The top section shows how much this single plot will cost my town (named 'memes')
The lower section shows how much it is for someone else to found a new town on this plot (note that a new town includes 9 plots)

Block Protection

A town will recieve plot protection which will prevent non nation members doing certain tasks inside your claimed plots

• Players who are not in your nation CANNOT do the following inside your claimed plots:
• Break or place blocks.
• Use doors or trapdoors.
• Damage crops.
• Place boats.
• Pistons are physically unable to push blocks into or pull blocks out of plot protection.
• Players who are not in your nation CAN do the following inside your claimed plots:
• Attack you or your animals.
• Open chests, furacnes etc.

You can also use the zones & groups system to grant/restrict access to specific areas inside your towns to specific players.

Citizenship

When a player is invited to a nation and they accept the player is now a citizen of that nation.

A player can only be a citizen of one nation at a time.

It is agains the ruile of Atlas to betray your nation. This includes but is not limited too:

• Stealing items from your nation.

• Allowing foriegn players to steal from the nation.

Players who have access to a town using the zone system but are not citizens of that town's nation are not bound by these rules.
See Groups Permissions and Zones help for more infomation.

Any player who is a member of the leader group of a nation must:

• Act in good faith in the best interests of the nation and for a proper purpose
• Exercise care and diligence
• Avoid conflicts between the interests of the nation and your personal interests
• Prevent the nation trading while insolvent (i.e. while it is unable to pay its debts as and when they fall due)

If the sole leader of your nation gets banned or goes inactive please contact the Elders.

Biome Claims

Some nations have decided to "claim" an entire biome.

There is no technical system in place for enforcing biome claims. The Machinations plugin has no concept of a biome claim.

You are free to ignore biome claims.
But be prepared that other nations may attack you for ignoring their claims.

You should consider making an agreement with the existig nations befire you settle if you want to avoid conflict.

Coffers

The coffers are a bank balance for the nation.

You can view the coffers using the /nation command.

To access the coffers you can use an ender chest that is inside your town, or you can use one that in an NPC town.

Taxes

Every 24 hours, the server will deduct taxes from your nation coffers, the amount of tax is calculated as a percent of your nation's total plot value.
The current tax rate is 1% of all your nation's plot prices. It is important that your nation have enough money in the coffers to cover the taxes.
If you are unable to pay the taxes, the server will block you from your own town and slowly sell your plots until all debts are paid off.

Note that even nations with no towns will still have a small amount of tax.

Use /nation tax to see what your tax info is.

How do I make a nation and town??

Once you and your friends are ready to make a Nation, follow the steps below:

1. Talk to Captain Nemo in Nauru to found your nation, pay him with gems and he will found your nation and provide you with a town hall block.
2. Use the /nation invite command to invite your friends to join your new nation.
3. Find a sutable location for your town, you can check the plot price using the /plot command.
4. Place the town hall block, it will confirm the price of the plots.
5. The town hall will be created before you, please note that this does not offically create the town.
6. The town hall will contain an ender chest, you can use this to add or remove money from the nations coffers.
7. Once you have enough money in your coffers to buy the plots, right click the town hall and input your town name.
8. This will offically create the town and give you block protections.
9. Use the /nation banner command to set the banner for your nation, this will appear on the website.

Alliances

The alliance system is simple to allow for realistic politics.
A nation can mark another nation as either: Friendly, Hostile or Neural. This will change the color of their name tags in the tab list.
If two nations both set each other to friendly, they have a 'two way alliance' which has some implications for Sieges.

Alliance status has implications for Guards and Sieges, you can read more in the Siege Help Guide