New Building: Keep.

[Vazalco]

I did a forum search for "keep," "fortress," "parapet," and "battlements," but I didn't find anything similar to my particular idea. I'll describe it.

What I suggest is a defensive structure that can be built in towns. It's singular purpose is to give a town a structure which can resist a siege by an invading force. It has the following features:

- It is made mainly out of stone. An enormous amount of stone. There is also a small bit of iron and wood required (for the gate).
- It takes an extremely long time to build.
- Unlike normal buildings, it cannot be broken into by simply breaking a lock. You must break down the gate (takes more time/effort than normal).
- The gate must be lowered or raised (from inside, of course) in order to allow traffic. Raising or lowering the gate takes one turn.
- A well can be built inside (only if thirst is implemented in the future).
- When built, it automatically contains an "exit" called "[Building Name] Battlements" (described below).
- Stone extensions can be added to it.

Here is the key feature of the Keep: it contains an exit called "Battlements." The battlements is similar to a vehicle's method of functioning, except that it cannot move: when a character "enters" the battlements, they are outside -- they can see other characters outside, and other characters can see them in the battlements. The characters can also attack each other -- but only with ranged weapons.

In short, this building allows a town to repel a sieging force without exposing the defenders to being dragged away, though venturing out onto the battlements will of course cause the defenders to come under the hazard of enemy fire.

Edit: Sorry, I don't have the time to sit around and check every single post on the suggestions forum to make sure it hasn't been posted before.

[Doug R.]

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14020

[joo]

It sounds like a good idea, but any of the features you suggested will require some modification to the game engline, which I don't think is very feasible right now.

[NaruShadow]

It's ironic, so many people suggest such similar things, but none of the suggestions get moved to accepted from what I've seen. We outta just merge them all in to one sub topic or something.

[formerly known as hf]

It's ironic, so many people suggest such similar things, but none of the suggestions get moved to accepted from what I've seen. We outta just merge them all in to one sub topic or something.

I used to do the merge (which was a sophisticated as copy pasta quoting the duplicate thread into the original and locking the duplicate). But it's far too time consuming. Now, duplicate suggestions get moved over to rejected and locked. Sometimes. This is a different spin, slightly, at least. Though, really, this should be appended to the original suggestion...

[Doug R.]

It's ironic, so many people suggest such similar things, but none of the suggestions get moved to accepted from what I've seen.

There is no formal process for accepting suggestions, which is why the vast majority just sit here.

[NaruShadow]

I think we should create some sort of formal process. For example if a suggestion receives enough posts it goes up for a vote. The results of the vote determine whether it gets accepted or rejected.

[Doug R.]

The first qualification is that a staff member has to really like the idea. If no one in a position to implement it likes it, it'll never be implemented. That's just a fact. If you ignore that basic premise and base it on a vote, then things will just get moved to accepted and sit there forever instead of here. Plus, there's always the fact that players sometimes don't know what's in the game's best interests. Some of the most reviled features were heavily supported at the time of their implementation by the players.

So, really, the true process is someone on staff liking it, bringing it up in their staff forum, and things roll or die from there.

(If your suggestion is liked at the highest level, it can skip all that - I had a suggestion implemented by Jos in twenty minutes from when I suggested it - no lie)

[rklenseth]

Perhaps we can make such a thing work but I'm thinking in more terms of a wall. Perhaps a little bit of a modification where a project to build a building can be created to be built around a fixed object and with the addition of a lock would essentially be a defensible wall. And you could pick or choose which buildings or fixed objects would be contained within this 'wall'.

[Gran]

I don't get it, is it so hard to add up some strings or tweak some buildings? Add special requirements to buildings for instance?

[NaruShadow]

When you have to create coding from scratch for it, it's actually quite challenging. Not to mention the fact that the Programming Dept. is quite void of life at the moment.

[Doug R.]

Rejected - duplicate

(attached suggestion to the original thread - moved off-topic test server discussion to staff forum)