Which means yes, if you get a troll on your wood house while you are out picking nearby berries or fishing, you can come back to a pile of wood and little left of your home.
Stay close and defend it, or make it unreachable, or go far away. Those all work. Being a bit away but not far enough = busted.

The nasty raids won't happen if you are not home. Its the stupid stray guys that break things while you are out of earshot.

farming timers are not frozen. the crops will grow even if the player is not around

Originally posted by M.Red:

farming timers are not frozen. the crops will grow even if the player is not around

This is not what OP was asking about, as always Mr.Red has his own theories... if growing/regrowing plants were not frozen then the constant ticking would lower server performance significantly.

Originally posted by Sanki:

Originally posted by M.Red:

farming timers are not frozen. the crops will grow even if the player is not around

This is not what OP was asking about, as always Mr.Red has his own theories... if growing/regrowing plants were not frozen then the constant ticking would lower server performance significantly.

dont now what you are up to
but thats what the game does atm
if you dislike my comment then better ignore it

fact is that the timer continues and the crops will "pop" in the current growing stage if the player gets near them. so timer goes on

Anything more than about 100-200 meters from where a character physically is becomes frozen in time. Nothing spawns, nothing moves. Timers (such as for farming, bredding, or smelting) are paused, but most will "catch-up" once their zone is back to being active.

If there isn't anyone in the vicinity, a region isn't simulated, so nothing happens. There's a bit of fast-forward applied when someone turns up, but that generally doesn't include combat. So while there can be some damage while you travel from the edge of the zone to the base, it isn't much time for anything to get too bad. Its only something that is close enough to be simulated and far enough to be out of sight that would really suffer.