2008 words / 12 min
Preface
HydCraft encourages free building, free communication, and free cooperation. But freedom does not mean disregarding the creations of others, nor does it mean bringing private emotions into public spaces. Players should coexist over the long term on the basis of respecting boundaries and jointly maintain this world on the basis of mutual trust.
Fundamental Principles
Players shall comply with the relevant laws and regulations of mainland China, public order and good customs, and the server charter. They must not publish unlawful or non-compliant content in the server, group chats, forums, websites, voice channels, or any other public spaces related to HydCraft.
HydCraft is not a space for real-world political discussion, nor does it serve the function of accommodating real-world political expression. Content involving ideological confrontation, regional disputes, political slogans, or sensitive real-world social controversies that may cause serious division, damage community unity, or affect normal server operations must not appear in HydCraft.
Players shall respect other people's normal gameplay, builds, space for expression, and real-life boundaries. They must not attack other players through insults, ridicule, passive-aggressive remarks, rumors, public shaming, harassment, threats, doxxing, or malicious dissemination of screenshots.
Players may have different views, aesthetics, and building habits. However, discussion should focus on specific facts, behaviors, and issues. Ordinary disagreements must not be escalated into long-term hostility, nor should private conflicts be repackaged as public issues for continued spread.
Building and Gameplay
Players may freely build on unoccupied land within the server, or on land that is clearly reserved for future settlement, provided that doing so does not conflict with other people's existing builds, public planning, or prior agreements.
HydCraft has no unified construction goal imposed by management, nor does it set official mainline projects or mandatory tasks. Buildings, railways, machinery, cities, landscapes, and other projects shall in principle be initiated, built, discussed, and advanced voluntarily by players themselves.
The premise of free building is that it must not infringe upon other people's existing builds. Without permission, players must not demolish, damage, block, encircle, occupy, or maliciously alter other people's buildings, roads, railways, stations, mechanical structures, landscapes, reserved spaces, or any other built structures or projects.
Matters involving public facilities, public areas, or the scope of other people's construction should be communicated to the relevant parties in advance. This includes but is not limited to trunk railways, public stations, arterial roads, city access, line reconstruction, public landscapes, interregional projects, and public mechanical facilities. In principle, such matters should only be implemented after a basic consensus is reached.
When players undertake large-scale projects, interregional projects, or projects that may affect the surrounding environment, they should explain the approximate scope, purpose, and access plan in advance as much as possible. If a project makes no progress for a long time, occupies public space for a long time, or clearly affects other people's construction, the Management Committee may intervene to coordinate, require an adjustment of scope, or recycle and replan the area after sufficient communication.
If other people's builds are damaged due to misoperation, version issues, machine failure, or misunderstanding, the responsible player should explain the situation in a timely manner and try to restore the original state. Those who actively communicate and repair are generally not treated as malicious destruction. If someone conceals the issue, shirks responsibility, or continues to expand the impact, the Management Committee may handle the matter as appropriate.
Public Facilities and Public Areas
Public facilities include, but are not limited to, trunk railways, public stations, arterial roads, transport hubs, public warehouses, public machinery, public landscapes, spawn points, and other content that is jointly used by multiple people or clearly has a public nature.
The construction, reconstruction, relocation, removal, connection, and naming of public facilities should, as far as possible, be publicly explained in advance, and opinions should be solicited from the relevant builders, nearby players, and the Management Committee. Matters with a broad scope or many disputes should be coordinated by the Management Committee.
No player may arbitrarily damage, occupy, block, or privatize public facilities. Personal projects must not be used as a reason to obstruct public transport, occupy public passages, or force other players to detour, relocate, or alter existing builds.
Public facilities do not mean that nobody is responsible for them. Public content that has long been maintained by specific players should still respect the opinions of the original builders and maintainers before any changes are made. If the original builders have long been inactive and public needs have genuinely changed, adjustments may be made after discussion organized by the Management Committee.
Communication and Public Discussion
Players may normally chat, discuss, complain, joke, and share daily life in spaces related to the server, but should avoid continuous spam, maliciously steering the atmosphere, deliberately provoking disputes, repeated provocation, or damaging the order of public discussion.
Public discussion should, as far as possible, focus on the issue itself. When offering opinions on construction plans, management decisions, server planning, or player behavior, players should state concrete facts and concrete reasons, and must not create opposition through labeling, passive-aggressive remarks, reopening old grudges, or rallying others to take sides.
Negative evaluations aimed at a specific player must not be spread in public spaces over the long term, nor should players repeatedly insinuate, mock, or induce others to isolate a particular player. If someone has objections to another player, they should prioritize direct communication, third-party coordination, or reporting the matter to the Management Committee.
Without permission, no one may publicly spread other people's real names, schools, addresses, contact information, chat records, photos, voice messages, social accounts, or other personal privacy information. When evidence is needed for a dispute, it should as far as possible be submitted to the Management Committee for handling rather than being widely disseminated in public spaces.
Cliques and Group Pressure
HydCraft allows players to form friendships, building teams, city teams, railway teams, long-term partnerships, and other normal cooperative relationships. Normal familiar relationships, joint construction, and private communication should not simply be treated as clique problems.
The term "clique" in this article mainly refers to abnormal combinations of members whose purpose is to exclude, besiege, isolate, pressure, manipulate public opinion, monopolize resources, interfere with public discussion, or influence management judgment, or that in fact produce such effects.
Any player or member group is prohibited from excluding, attacking, isolating, or pressuring other players in the form of a clique. This includes but is not limited to organizing multiple people to collectively target a specific player with ridicule, complaints, reports, provocation, or public-opinion pressure; spreading negative evaluations of a particular player for a long time through private group chats; inducing others to choose sides; or using familiar relationships to prevent others from participating in construction, discussion, or public affairs.
No one may use seniority, position, contribution, familiar relationships, or management relationships to suppress normal opinions. Players may respect the experience of veteran members, builders, and managers, but no member may turn experience and relationships into tools for oppressing others.
Managers, members of the Management Committee, members of the Council of Elders Secretariat, and other members with public influence must not participate in, tolerate, or shelter clique-based pressure. If such members are involved in a dispute, they should proactively recuse themselves from the handling and voting of the corresponding matter.
HydCraft has zero tolerance for clique behavior, group pressure, and organized exclusion. If someone organizes, leads, or continuously participates in such behavior and causes serious community impact, or still does not stop after being reminded, the Management Committee may, depending on the circumstances, take disciplinary measures such as removing the person from relevant community spaces or permanently prohibiting re-entry into the community.
Dispute Resolution
When disputes arise between players, communication should first focus on concrete facts, concrete behaviors, and concrete harm. Matters that can be resolved privately should not be proactively escalated into public spaces. Once a matter has entered public spaces, emotional escalation should be avoided as much as possible.
If a dispute cannot be resolved independently, players may report it to the Management Committee, the Server Owner, Deputy Server Owners, or members of the Management Committee. When reporting, they should provide verifiable materials such as time, place, relevant people, specific behavior, screenshots, logs, or other evidence as much as possible.
When the Management Committee handles a dispute, it should first clarify the factual boundaries and distinguish between ordinary misunderstanding, emotional conflict, construction disputes, malicious destruction, and organized pressure. For matters where evidence is insufficient, responsibility boundaries are unclear, or the impact has not yet expanded, reminder, de-escalation, isolation, observation, or coordination plans should be prioritized.
For construction disputes, the Management Committee should first promote negotiation among the relevant players. If no agreement can be reached, it may make a comprehensive judgment according to the rights of prior builders, public interest, actual impact, historical agreements, project value, and long-term maintenance costs.
For social conflicts, the Management Committee should first prevent the conflict from expanding. Where necessary, it may require the relevant players to stop public arguments, suspend contact, withdraw from related discussion spaces, or arrange coordination by a third party.
Disciplinary Measures
When a player violates this covenant, the Management Committee may handle the matter according to factors such as the nature of the behavior, the scope of impact, subjective malice, whether the player actively repaired the harm, and whether the behavior has been repeated.
Possible measures include but are not limited to reminders, warnings, requests to delete content, requests to provide public or private explanations, requests to restore buildings to their original state, restriction of certain permissions, removal from relevant discussion spaces, temporary muting, temporary bans, dismissal from positions, removal from the Council of Elders, and permanent bans.
For misoperations, first-time minor violations, or behavior with limited impact that can be actively repaired, the general principle is to focus on reminders, communication, and restoration. For malicious destruction, serious harassment, privacy leaks, real-world attacks, dissemination of politically sensitive content, organized exclusion, repeated provocation, or behavior that seriously affects server stability, stronger disciplinary measures may be taken directly.
Disciplinary action should, as far as possible, be based on clear facts, explicit reasons, and relatively consistent standards. Matters involving major discipline, permanent bans, adjustments to core members' positions, or issues that may affect community relationships should in principle be submitted to the Management Committee for discussion, and the Council of Elders' opinions should be solicited where appropriate.
Appeal and Review
Players who disagree with the handling result may apply to the Management Committee for review. Appeals should focus on facts, evidence, proportionality of the handling, and subsequent corrective plans, and should not continue to expand the dispute or organize pressure from others.
After receiving an appeal, the Management Committee may, depending on the circumstances, uphold, adjust, revoke, or require supplementary explanations regarding the original handling. For major disputes, it may solicit the opinions of the Council of Elders as a reference.
During the appeal period, the original handling decision shall in principle remain effective. If the Management Committee believes the original handling may involve an obvious error, insufficient evidence, or excessively severe consequences, it may temporarily suspend part of the measures.
If someone files malicious appeals, repeatedly harasses the process, fabricates evidence, threatens administrators, or uses the appeal to continue provoking disputes, the Management Committee may refuse to continue accepting the case and may impose additional handling depending on the circumstances.
Supplementary Provisions
This covenant is a supporting document to the server charter and is used to supplement daily player conduct, construction boundaries, public discussion, dispute resolution, and principles of discipline.
Matters not covered by this covenant shall be interpreted and handled by the Management Committee according to the server charter, actual community conditions, and the principle of long-term stability.
This covenant may be revised according to the server's operational circumstances, changes in player composition, and actual governance experience. Major revisions should in principle solicit the opinions of the Council of Elders and take effect after confirmation by the Management Committee.
Approved by the Management Committee on June 26, 2026
Updated 6/26/2026, 16:18
2008 words / 12 min