Bancheis wrote:If the weapons were made in factories, that would be true. This is not the case. They are made by hand with a hammer and anvil. This can be seen clearly on the Kenshi wiki image for the Weaponsmith II building. Anyone who has started a craft or profession and worked from the bottom up knows that it is damn near impossible to do the same work a seasoned professional can do without the same amount of time put into it. Just because a man has a 1/100th scale model of a house and detailed measurements doesn't mean he can build a real one with the same quality a carpenter who has been doing it for years can. Same goes for ice sculpting, just that is a little more unforgiving of mistakes :p
Maybe in the future, an upgrade will be added for a factory style craft station. Personally though, I prefer to think of the guys putting their sweat and blood into the making of the weapons. Adds to the feel of the game world, having to work hard for everything you manage to get.
Yes every smith could not produce stuff at an average quality but I do believe any trained smith could at least make or imitate the design and over time gained the mastery to make item of similar quality if not better. Historical fact does support this. The romans copied and massed produce Carthaginian ships, spanish design sword, even upgrade the javelin into their own unique pilum. Even in asia there are historical evidence where the Angkor empire copied the double bow arcuballista design by learning it from deserting enemy soldiers and succesfully used it against their enemy.
Like you said, I can't make the same house or ice sculpting like a master could but still could be able to build a house and sculpt something from ice (well maybe an ice-blended drink at least
). But I guess over time if I kept at I will level up to the same skill of the master themselves, they too start as clueless apprentice and study hard before becoming a master right? And to study they need a source of knowledge right?
Here's where the manual comes in, please don't narrow your mind thinking that a manual or blueprint should be in the form of writing. Manuals comes in many form, either in writing or through oral education--in the form of a mentor or master to teach you the skills. There are even genius who could learn by only looking and touching.
A weapon made in factory is similar to weapon made in blacksmith forge only the magnitude of the production is increased. That's why there are reject material at the factory because of unskilled worker made a mistake. Yes, even today in the age of high tech industry, only nowadays they use machines and computers instead of hammer and anvil as tools...but the concept is still the same. Standard operating procedures and quality management are only there to reduce the chance of making flaws.
So back to the main point putting into context of the game...this is where the character skill in kenshi makes the game great. Let me add something more to my previous suggestion to better fit it based on your opinion. Let us allow only units with the minimum level of weapon or armour skills to be able to produce the item. So even if your faction have acquired the blueprint to unlock the technology and fully researched it, without a unit with enough skill level, you still can't produce the item.
Then people will said then why not just have enough skill level for weapon smith, no need to level it up further by making more weapon than what you need. So let take it even further to provide incentive for levelling your skills. Make it so that having higher skill level will not only allow the unit able to make the item faster but have increased chance to add further enhancement.
So having a single unit focusing only at weapon making and over time with constant exp gained and levelling up the skill, you'll have a legendary blacksmith able to produce not only unique powerful weapons but also could make it faster than anyone else and even have high percentage to add further enhancement to it like extra cut damage, higher durability (I think weapon breaking will be implemented in game), bigger bleeding, maybe poison effect, etc--up to your own imagination. Sort of like a master putting his heart and soul into the weapon so you could add prefix or suffix to it like in diablo (eg Sharp katana, extra sharp katana, sharpest katana--sorry, I'm not really good at making names for weapons
).
But have a group of four or five doing smithwork and you'll have a sort of factory to produce weapons for your army. Maybe they are not so great at smithing skill but just enough to be able to produce the items that you need. Here comes the fine balance over quantity of quality, either to produce enough equips for your army in time or to produce that legendary equips that will make your friend envious.
Take this even further to add more replayability and surpise to the game and also to make it simpler to design, create multiple hidden tech trees including secret tech that could only be acquired by trade, quest or by accomplishing certain game requirements (eq kill 1000 bandits, acquired 50 bounty, bury 1000 dead body in graves, acquired 1,000,000 profits from trade, make 10 bread...etc). That way instead of programming the game to trigger the tech, you could simply acquire various stuff by playing the game differently.
Allow it to go both ways where the npc too could also unlock them by fullfilling the requirements and you'll add the dynamic and surprise effect to the game. For example, allow the holy order to win wars and kill thousands of enemy and they'll unlock secret deadly weapon...I guess if you kill enough people you'll soon learn to make better weapons at killing right?
LTPLegend wrote:Then you would have to make those blueprints yourself and not find them. Then you need a whole new engine to handle all those creations and there is no way to police if a pig shaped sword would or should even do any damage. That's unrealistic. Blades and weapons all over the world had the same functions the way they look mattered little if anything it was the material, weight, length and craftsmen ship that matter.
I do agree with this opinion. Apart from any exotic and cultural shape, a weapon geometry does effect the weapons ability. A sabre have better slicing motion then a straight blade. While broad blade have better chopping and a tapered sharp point is better at piercing. The ancient hittite used a straight bladed sword while ancient egyptian used a sickle sword. Both are good for stabbing where the hittite simple blade might make it easier to produce and simpler to wield but the sickle sword have extra shape to allow for chopping and hooking the enemy. But later no matter how good they fuctioned, they are superceded by steel weapons.
Whew! That's one lengthy post...not sure if anyone would want to read it...I just hope it'll help to contribute to the game design...
which would require the right blueprints to unlock. 
