Technology

[Sho]

I'm pretty sure there must have been a topic on this, but I can't find it. Anyway:

How about having "plans" for projects? Right now, anyone can build a helicopter engine as long as they have the tools and materials. This doesn't make much sense. So I think that plans should be required to make things. Certain basic projects should not require plans, such as (perhaps) trowels and hammers. However, things like bikes should require that the person starting the project (and maybe anyone working on it, I'm not sure) have the plan in his inventory. Plans would be like notes in that they require no resources and weigh nothing. Plans could be copied in a short period of time, maybe 1 day. To create a new plan, the inventor would need to have certain other plans in his inventory. For example, the plan for a car might require a bicycle plan. Then the inventor would select a new plan to work on from a list, and after a while he would have the new plan in his inventory. It might also be possible to make a new plan by looking at an object or project in progress.

[Solfius]

a new take on an old idea, similar topics have been mentioned.

I've suggested before where people have to learn/discover how to make new things. Perhaps build that and your idea together?

[nitefyre]

I don't like it. :C

[jeslange]

Perhaps chars who are birthed rather than spawned should have to learn like you guys are suggesting. When kids help on projects, they can make that item themselves in the future, because they've seen one being made.
The written plans sound cool too.

[Darth Tiberius]

I really don't like that idea. I'm still geting my head around this hemantite thing.

[Sho]

The advantage of this method is that a character doesn't actually have to see the object. He can just get a plan from someone else. People could sell plans.

[Camino]

Assuming characters actually being born and not spawned were to take off in a substantial way, then perhaps it would be a task for those who were spawned to create the plans so that future birth characters would know what to do. With the eventual act of spawning being largely phased out.

[Spectrus_Wolfus]

it sounds lke a great idea but a bit late now since most layer's already know what can be made but if and when cantr II comes out this could be a great idea to put into it so that people have to go exploring so as to find these plans or text's of ancient knowledge left over from some far off race kinda thing to get started.but yeah hammer's and basic building's should be a given that people all know.and having inventor's and plan seller's would give a new twist onto thing's that'd be good

[Sho]

I don't think it's late. If my plan was put into effect, it wouldn't matter that people knew a certain thing could be made. They simply wouldn't be able to make it.

[Spectrus_Wolfus]

yes but what about all those char's that have been building something for the last 5 years in cantr and now suddenly can't since they don't have the plan's for it this would be a very hard thing to put into effect fairly retro-actively

[Anthony Roberts]

Simple. All current players stay with the old system, and build what they want to their hearts content. All new players have to learn and use plans.

[David]

That's easy for us oldies to say... it is hardly in the interest of either game balance practically, or fairness at all.

[Anthony Roberts]

Then, perhaps when starting a new character, give the option to use the new or old technology tree?

[kroner]

i like the idea. putting it in operation just the way it is imediately wouldn't cause any more problems then when they change other stuff like the requirements for steel and things like that. someone in quill was making a car and half way through realized she needed something else to continue which she had never even heard of before and never needed before, but that's the way it goes with an evolving game like this one. so developed places would just have to proceed down the plan tree before they could continue their big projects. it would only be a temporary annoyance in the name of the betterment of cantr.

[David]

Even then there are ways to balance things some... decay of ALL weapons for instance.