Advanced Features (for a long time in the future)

[Prezo]

This post is going to go over some of the questions and suggestions I had about the crafting/building system and its interaction with the world, I'm writing this from the point of view of someone who spends a lot of time crafting in games and loves in depth systems.
This'll probably end up a wall-o-text so here we go;

Buildings:
I assume that when you build something it is going to take a period of time to build, I'd suggest that the materials to build it are gradually used up throughout the construction process so if your stores get raided while you are building the construction halts until you can get your stuff back, also if the regular shipments of resources you are using to provide materials from an off site (and probably more secure) location get interrupted you once again have a pause in construction until you can sure up your supply chain.

NPCs:
A question that's been bouncing around in my mind for quite a while is if you start building a town will NPC characters move into your town or will it only be your hired hands. The more I thought about this the more I came to realize that if there were to be NPCs moving into the area they would need some reason to draw them there, so the question then became will you be able to hire NPCs to work your facilities (like your mines for instance) of course you could use the adventurers that make up part of your party but I'm thinking of this as an alternative. What I was thinking is that you provide work for some NPCs and then they settle in the area around your mine or factory or whatever, after you have provided employment and money to some people they'll want to spend it somewhere at which point either you or (if you don't capitalize on the chance) an NPC might start bringing caravans in to sell stuff to the NPCs and if the money is good you (or the NPC) might build a store and settle down. This is how towns are constructed in real life, and would provide a feeling of actual life to the world

Economy and Crafting:
Now here's the big one what I'd like to see is an actual economy, and by this I mean all the stuff that you find in the NPC shops is built somewhere by someone (either you or an NPC). This means that for that nice armor to show up in the inventory of the shop you like to go to in your favorite town that merchant needs to get it built (or build it) using materials mined or constructed by someone else (and the constructed materials need to use raw materials that are mined or whatever). This ultimately would add a lot of life to the world especially if the NPC guards and armies and whatnot bought their stuff from local retailers, this would result in caravans or self sufficiency being of paramount importance for NPC and player settlements alike, if bandits (or the player) interrupt the flow of resources by looting the caravans going to a settlement they would effectively starve the populace of food or materials which would in turn mean that the overall quality of available equipment and produce there would decrease which would eventually decrease the ability of the people to defend the place opening it up for a force to attack.

Now that's mostly just thinking from the point of view of a character interested mostly in fighting, from the point of view of a crafty or trading type this would provide a dynamic market for your goods to make money off find the people who make something and provide them with materials, for the more scheming type you could engineer a market for your goods by interrupting the supply chain and then when things get desperate enough selling the goods at a higher price.

Conclusion
(It's about here I realized that I wrote an essay ) Now I understand that each of these ideas are more complicated than the last and that it would make the game potential extremely complex, but Chris has already stated that he want the possibilities to be as wide as possible and if its already going to be a complex game why not go even further? for the general new player most of this won't even become apparent unless you look for it but for the players who love this kind of thing (me for example ) it would add a hell of a lot of depth to the game and give far more possibilities to players who don't want to play the game running around and beating people over the head with swords.
I suggest anyone who thinks my economy idea is far to complex or that it can't be done to go and have a look at Guild 2 as it has an actual operating economy (mind it is an Economic RPG so you'd want to hope it does)

Anyway enough from me, I might update this post later

[1337]

I like this ideas a lot, i always wanted kenshi to have an evolving economy like what you described in the game in some form.

I especially like the following,

for the general new player most of this won't even become apparent unless you look for it but for the players who love this kind of thing (me for example ) it would add a hell of a lot of depth to the game

the more you play, the more you learn about it and how it works and add a layer to your gameplay. I always thought that games that don't have tutorials, but where you learn something in each playthrough are the best. Think about net\hack, even pros nowadays can't say they've mastered the game completely

[toaster Assassin]

I believe that the building process would halt if the allocated resources were lost. One of the games that I believe simulated a good resource building process was the Cultures Series.( The fact that they physically dragged each resource to the site before/as construction was active).

As for economy,the Guild II instanly came to mind. Guild II's economy was extreamly enjoyable and would make an excellent addtion to Kenshi. I liked this because this economic system made you create alternating trade routes in order to obtain the highest profit.(A better reason to travel between towns). But remember, the more complex the Kenshi system becomes the more the issues become complex. (Guild II sync errors).

Your NPC idea is also very good. This idea would provide an means to operate your structure(s) without having to use your henchmen.Seeing as how these are NPC civs,I would assume that they would be paid. I still would like the NPC workers to be controlled by me, nothing is worse than watching your NPCs walk right past bandits while on thei way to collect goods. (i.e. guild II style).
A bad example of NPC workers would be the Stronghold Series. The workers were so stupid that they continued their basic tasks thoughtlessly even as people were fighting all around them.

[Prezo]

Some would say that they prefer their workers to keep working no matter whats happening, their job is to do their work you have soldiers there to do the fighting.

And yes did I forget to mention that you pay the NPCs? well you need a way to attract them and a paycheck is generally a good way to do that. on the control front I'd say that giving general orders to them via some sort of employees menu to say when there's danger run or whatever would be a good idea, mind if you wanted to go even more in depth you could have the NPCs use whatever moral stat that might be included to dictate if they drop everything and run or if they finish what they are doing first (weigh the threat against how much they are being payed)

now for an extra thought; Weapon and Armor degradation

after writing that little essay I realized that without these two things there won't really be much of a market for new weapons and armor in the world and while players might not like having to constantly repair or replace their stuff lets think about the consequences of everything staying in top condition (using the NPC economy) if the guards never have to replace their armor and weapons then the only people buying new equipment (assuming you buy it) will be the player, now at least in the beginning that means there will be a grand total of no profit to be had in that market, so there would (in a sane world) be almost no equipment shops around at all.

Anyway I find that the key to a successful degradation system is to make sure its not to difficult to maintain your gear, but you also need, for it to be effective, is to have a point where it becomes more cost effective to simply buy a new one than repair it.
Weapons or at least swords generally stay in fairly good nick if they are oiled and sharpened regularly now this would be as simple as having some oil and a whetstone on hand and using it every so often (like for example after that fight when you're all nursing your wounds/wounded) however weapons take battle damage, hitting another sword on the edge creates a notch, and you can't cut much with a notched blade so eventually even with care and maintenance you'd need to replace the thing, now what about my premium edge walkers katana that there is only one of in the world I hear you screaming, well there are two solutions to that; one, have higher quality weapons have more durability and two, allow weapons to be reforged at an applicable workshop, then provided you(or the npc) have the materials and the skill you can restore it to its original condition.

Most of what I've just said for weapons applies to armor too but armor generally takes more damage in battles (every time you get hit if you're lucky) and its a bit harder to fix that damage in the field other than just bolting plates of metal over the holes. I'd probably have armor have a high durability that can only be restored in a workshop but only have it get worn down when it is hit.

Hey look another wall of text.

[wolfwood296]

i think i might have a solution about the equipment stores closing. adventurers!!! they would go around the world and do jobs for empires and villiges (like we do) and so they would need to get armor and weapons as well, also since the guards would be attacked the guard captain would then have a list of armor and weapons they would need and then would go to the equipment store to buy the need items

[Prezo]

Yes I'd say that guards should keep a stockpile of equipment (if the town provides the armor) that or they should use some of their pay to buy their own equipment, the point is however if the equipment doesn't degrade then they will never need to buy new ones, which means there is no market for people to make more equipment

[wolfwood296]

true unless people get new recruits (cna they add that if they haven't) i know we can and that other factions start with some newbies but do they even recruit more of them?

and sorry about the earily thing, i thought you were thinking about how the equiments shops would get more customers

[txfirefighter]

i know there will be group assigning to your units, but to what degree?

[Prezo]

My point is more that I'd like to see NPCs having an actual life (as opposed to a simulacrum of one as presented in Skyrim) ie they work to get money they use the money to buy goods which gives the merchants money to buy stock which pays the people who make the goods who pay the peasants who buy goods ad infinatum

and then using that system extend the available employers to include the player so that if you want to start a village you can and it will actually grow, what I'd realy like to see is NPCs constructing buildings but only around existing settlements so the NPCs won't go founding settlements everywhere but a prosperous settlement will grow and if a player wants to found and run a settlement it will grow as they attract more people to live there

I'd like to see the possibility to have NPCs distinct from your henchmen groups that can work your facilities, this could be slightly changed to also accommodate slaves working your facilities by making them work without pay and posting guards to make sure they stay there

[Prezo]

Double posting instead of making a new thread, crucify me if you really want

This time it's a question, will there be support for weapon combinations other than the sword even if they aren't in the base game, for example shields and spears, while Chris may not want to have them in his vision for the game, once Kenshi is done it will be more than just Chris' vision, it'll also be the basis for many many mods who want to expand the weapons (I'll be making at least one western combat based mod) from what I can see of the mod tools the best solution would be tying animations to a weapon and letting us make new skills, tying the animations to a weapon (or the weapon to an animation on second thoughts, as long as a weapon can specify the animation it uses) would allow for more varieties of weapons and combat styles in the one game.

As long as an animation specified the attack vector (top, left, right, possibly high and low on each side) this would allow many different animation sets to be produced independently and have them all work in conflict with each other, simply have each animation set include a block for each vector and any attack moves used by that style and its done.

For all I know this has actually already been done, because as far as I can see there are only two animation sets and they already specify the attack vector in the files.The only admission to make spears viable would probably be the inclusion of a stab vector and a block to counter it (Usually done by swatting the tip of the spear away from the body while stepping aside from the blow when one is fighting without a shield)

[txfirefighter]

most of the animation is basic because of the level of skill that chris currently has (i believe that is correct.) and that is in no way an insult to chris.

he has said numerous times that once he gets an artist we will see loads of new content (whether this has anything to do with animations im not real sure.)

as for new weapons--yes. im pretty sure they are planned such as bows. i would love a spear class!

[Prezo]

I was in no way dissing the animations I was simply asking if there will be support for adding extra kinds of weapons and animations to match above and beyond what Chris may have in his vision for the game.

For example I was under the impression that this was going to be a primarily Japanese styled game this would mean that shields and axes are unlikely and that weapons such as the halberd and billhook are right out. Now this is quite fine, as Chris is the developer and if he doesn't want them in his game then they wont be, however if the animation system was made to be modular enough to let the community add in new weapon types it would be a major boon. One of the major things that annoys me about Oblivion and Skyrim is that they don't have a way of adding in new weapon types which means I can't restore the spears and crossbows and other interesting weaponry that existed in Morrowind back into the game.

The main drive behind this question is because when the game is closer to release I think I will be making an expansion mod of sorts that adds in a whole heap of western styled equipment and if the animation system was made to be not only modular between the categories of weapons but also the subcategories (longsword vs katana for example) I could have people who are using the western equipment and combat styles fighting quite differently to the Japanese style (Which would look cool btw)

EDIT: I should probably change the name of this thread to Prezo's ideas and rantspace =P

[txfirefighter]

i know you weren't. alot of requests and suggestions have been made that involve art work only to be said wait till an artist is hired.

as for the japanese style, this is all i can reference:

"Its set in Japan!"


It is not set in japan.

thats from the main website. i want western style weapons too

[Blxz]

Looking forward to see whats in the game first. I am looking forward to a staff fighting style mostly.

Although I do like your modular proposal. Knowing little about how the game code is set up though means I can't make a call on what chris might decide. But from my (limited) experience with other games and mods, I believe that a weapon is tied to an animation style/skeleton. If you could add in new skeletons then you could make new styles and new weapons. Unless chris has gone with a totally different way of design then you should be able to add something new.

[Prezo]

At the moment there are heavy strikes and normal ones which are from what I can see tied to the sabers/large weapons and katanas respectively.

the main thing I want to know essentially is if what I conclude from the setup he has is true and that what I was talking about above is how it works, if so excellent!

anyway I showed my modeler this game and he likes it, if we could get a hold of the skeleton he uses for his guys and how weapons should be set up he/we would be quite happy to donate anything we make if Chris wanted it.