CAVCON

A graphical illustration of the CAVCON values.

The Cavern Condition (CAVCON) Meter is an indicator devised by RAWA and used by Cyan to keep the explorers informed about the financial health of MO:ULa, without giving explicit data about amounts. It is loosely based on the Defense Readiness Condition (DefCon) meter used by the United States Armed Forces.

Two values are given: the 'CAVCON' proper is the final value of the previous month, while the 'CAVCON Donation Meter' is the current value, which can fluctuate until the end of the month. The CAVCON was supplemented by monthly statistics about the number of accounts, logins, Age visits and unique users.

However, the CAVCON value has not been updated since May 2016, while the statistics have not been updated since June.

Level Definitions

CAVCON 5

The best state, it means that donations are exceeding expenses, there are a couple of months of expenses in reserve, and extra money can be put toward server upgrades, bug fixes, incorporating fan created content, etc.

CAVCON 4.x

This level means that donations are exceeding expenses, and a small reserve fund is building up for future slow periods.

CAVCON 3

Donations are roughly equal to expenses. Minimum monthly goal.

CAVCON 2.x

Donations are less than expenses and the reserve fund is being used to help pay for expenses.

CAVCON 1.x

The worst state: donations are less than expenses and the reserve fund is empty.

States 1, 2 and 4 also have a pseudo-decimal value to give a slightly better idea of how close the state is to the lower or upper bound:

• 4.7 - donations are exceeding expenses by about 70%, excess is added to the reserve. Note: a value above 4.9 can not lead automatically to CAVCON 5, which requires other factors; it has been suggested that excess above 100% would be represented by a double digit, e.g. 4.10, similarly to software versioning.
• 3.0 - donations are about equal to expenses. There are no decimal values for this value.
• 2.3 - donations are covered by about 30% of the month's expenses, reserve is covering the difference (70%).
• 1.8 - donations are covered by about 80% of the month's expenses, reserve is empty, Cyan is covering the difference (20%).