"Lockable" projects

[Surly]

This idea should mainly be considered in the context of my item quality suggestion.

Mainly, this suggestion would give project initiators the chance to tick a box on the project screen to "lock" their project. This box is only displayed to the project initiator. Whilst this box is ticked only the project initiator can progress the project. This has two uses:

1) (If item quality is introduced), it would enable experts to ensure their projects are not "contaminated" by novice workers.
2) It would prevent someone finishing off your project if you leave the area for a few hours.

Other points to consider:
- only allow characters to "lock" one project at a time.
- "lock" should expire after 10 days.

Thoughts?

[Snickie]

I like this and think it'd be a good addition to consider in the project topic I started here.

I think somebody suggested something like that there, though definitely not with the logistics you're suggesting, but the concept is relatively the same, I think.

[Joshuamonkey]

I agree to the whole post.

[SumBum]

I really like this idea. I'd really like to be able to lock more than one project at a time, but I won't get greedy.

I do think the locked status should be visible to other chars so they don't waste time trying to work on a project. Or I suppose they could get an error message if they try to participate. Just seems like it would be fewer clicks and more user friendly to be able to see if it's locked on the project screen.

[Doug R.]

Locking a project only makes sense if you're there. If you're worried about someone messing with your project when you're gone, I'd prefer to see the option to taking your project with you. If it's just a matter of projects having a location ID, then we could make projects draggable.

[Ryaga]

If you don't want someone working on a project do it in a locked room. I've never seen someone painting something, and then put magical chains over the canvas that doesn't allow anyone else to paint on it.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Locking a project only makes sense if you're there. If you're worried about someone messing with your project when you're gone, I'd prefer to see the option to taking your project with you. If it's just a matter of projects having a location ID, then we could make projects draggable.

But then, couldn't a character, say...drag a weapon repair project into a locked building, in order to gain the weapon?

What about projects that require certain machinery in that location? An error message stating that the location you are trying to drag to does not have the necessary machinery?

[Snickie]

Locking a project only makes sense if you're there. If you're worried about someone messing with your project when you're gone, I'd prefer to see the option to taking your project with you. If it's just a matter of projects having a location ID, then we could make projects draggable.

I like this more than locking projects, and I believe I did mention it or something like it in this thread (which I linked above also).
http://forum.cantr.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20205

I think these two topics are mergeable, by the way.


However....I think it'd make some sense to be able to lock projects on certain machines, like harvesters or kilns or big things like that. Maybe an option could be added to large machines to add a lock which could be used to lock something on that machine by the holder of the key to that lock. Granted, it would give town leaders more power and less opportunity or power to the already-lowly newspawns, but it'd be a way for town officials to make sure nuisances can't block some machinery with ridiculously large projects that people would have to contact the staff to unblock.
Things like "manufacturing a bone knife" or tools or anything of the sort that don't require machines anyway should not be lockable.

[Joshuamonkey]

I agree that harvesters, drills, and the like should be lockable.

(and these two topics are related but still different suggestions)

[Surly]

This is most definitely not the same suggestion as moving projects, so should not be merged with it.

Ryaga, I'm fairly sure that if I was working on something I could stop someone else "helping" if I didn't want them to. In Cantr there isn't really that possibility. If we do eventually implement item quality, I don't think we should force the experts to work alone in a locked room. That's hardly a good feature for an interaction based game.

I suppose an ideal situation would be:
1) You can lock one project in your location (i.e. the masterpiece project your expert is working on)
2) You can move projects with you, to stop people working on that project if you need to move about.
3) Resource projects would produce results every tick, based on your ability, with only the length of time to gather being specified in the project, rather than the amount to gather.

However, this suggestion is just for lockable projects. Please don't get too far off onto other ideas.

[Jason W.]

What about having lockable hoppers attached to harvesters? Every tick that a harverster is being used, X amount of resources get put into the hopper. This would prevent people from monopolizing a harvester, since they wouldn't get the resources anyways.

I like the idea of lockable machinery, but not lockable projects. You could, perhaps, make lockable slots on the project. (0 slots mean nobody can help you with it), but if you put the project down, what's stopping someone else from picking it up? It would make sense that it be locked to you for a tick, though. In RP terms, so-and-so is manufacturing a stove. They take a break to use the washroom, etc (between ticks), but go back to it. As long as they make progress each tick, it's their project. As soon as they leave it for a tick, it becomes abandoned and anyone can complete it.