Destruction of objects

[wietse]

Ok, I'll probably have everone against me, but I feel this will improve the game a lot:

Make all items, notes, machinery, vehicles, buildings and keys destructable (locks are already). Just like it takes a project to build them, you should be able to create a project to destroy them. It should be possible to cancel this project even if it has been worked on.

And get rid of all deterioration, which i still don't see the point of, other than a means of getting rid of to many bone clubs and such and giving people another points thing to do (repairing).

Destructions of things has the following benefits:

keeping the number of items/buildings in check by destroying them, if the characters feel things should be cleaned up.

Correcting accidently or wrongly build/named machines and buildings. (I have this melting furnace in a car! and you cant get rid of it)

It opens the way to a different kind of warfare/violence. You can raid a village and destroy things or steal things and then destroy them. Instead of only being able to attack or capture characters, you can now hurt their belongings! a good reason for coorporations in societys.

[SekoETC]

They say destroying items and getting back resources used to build them has been in the works for long. If there's a chance of breaking machinery, there should also be a chance for repairing them if the demolishion project hasn't finished yet. But if materials have been removed, it should also take some material to fix the thing.

Also using items such as swords should make them go dull. It wouldn't be destroyed by this, but eventually it would be no better than a heavy club, because it can't cut.

[Surly]

Also using items such as swords should make them go dull. It wouldn't be destroyed by this, but eventually it would be no better than a heavy club, because it can't cut.

This would be akin to having swords deteriorate through use, and having their effectiveness reduced with respect to the condition of the sword (how much it has deteriorated). Correct?

[SekoETC]

Right.

[wietse]

there is no need to get back materials when destroying items.
I also dont like any deterioration through use or any other reason. Just make a destruction project for any item possible (which can be stopped/reversed) any time before its done.

I think people will start destroying things without getting any materials back. It is just the same as with burying body's. There's no real reason to do it, but still it happens because people like to clean things up or keep them ordered. And of course it could be fun to destroy things )

[wichita]

Being able to demolish buildings will be a huge step forward in the game. It will add another method for social mayhem (which will keep Mykey happy ) and it will also remove the permanency issue of vacant/spam buildings. As soon as ProgD figures out how to handle the location issues associated with removing a building (i.e. what happens to the stuff/rooms inside), hopefully we can get it put to good use.

I believe tearing down machines is more important than removing buildings. My priestess character was always furious about the smelting furnace and anvil constructed inside of her temple. I also have a coinpress that I wish I would have gone ahead and put inside a secondary room.

I think that reclaiming resources from items is a fair and important thing to expect from the project. Recycling, especially of valuable resources, is an important economic concept to add to the simulation.

[Avathar]

here is an idea about the reclaiming of the resources:

Maybe after you demolish something (will it be a building, machine or something else) there will be left a heap of crap...this will disappear after a while (not very realistic but this way people don't have to do anything about it, otherwise nobody would demolisch their stuff for te reason to get rid of it)

If you want to get some of the original resources back from the demolished item you can start a project to clean the heap of left overs. It will take a while but after that you got some percent of resources back.

So, when in a war your enemies destroyed buildings of your town, you are now in a town with buildings destroyed but NOT gone...You have to clean it up to get maybe some stone and wood back. But also to get back the resources you had stored in them. of course some are ruined in the proces of destroying the building and while cleaing it up but you still would be able to reclaim your stuff.

If nobody starts to clean up the site where the building stood...well, then it takes a while until it is gone...some years. Maybe you could see a 'Ruined building' in the list of buildings and vehicles.

This is just an idea...this has to be discussed, before it is good for acceptation

[Chris Johnson]

This has been a long accepted suggestion to allow destruction of buildings and vehicles , we can consider other objects - but it;s unlikely that many if any resources will be recovered .This will not replace Decay , thats here to stay

Other issues discussed in this thread are really duplicates of project cancelation , again another accepted/planned idea

Because there is no specific public post about active building destruction I've moved this to accepted suggestions and changed the title

[Rusalka]

Is there any other tread where destruction and repair of buildings is discussed? I have some thoughts about it, just not sure on what stage this thing is.

[SekoETC]

Probably is but it would fit here well enough. I say when a building deteriorates, it should either turn into ruins that's like a building but if there's a lock, it doesn't work, or it could be like when someone dies and make the items end up in the parent location. I think ruins would be cooler. The ruins themselves could have a deterioration rate and when they in turn have deteriorated, stuff would fall to the parent location. Machinery that can't be build outdoors should start deteriorating rapidly but I think they should be usable at least up to a point. Actually rather than disallowing people from building machinery outdoors, why not just make stuff deteriorate and give people a warning that if you build this here, it will be destroyed in a few years? That way people who only need something for a short while might be ready to waste the resources for a momentary benefit.

[Rusalka]

I say when a building deteriorates, it should either turn into ruins that's like a building but if there's a lock, it doesn't work

That is exactly what I wanted to suggest! Good to know, that I'm not alone on this


Turning to a ruin would destroy the lock. It shouldn't harm anybody, at least not for now. I'ts much more easy to implement it this way. I assume machines should deteriorate the same way as buildings. When it rot completely, it's still there, but can't be fixed, only disassembled. So when building turns into a ruin, all machines automaticaly turn into deteriorated junk. I would leave all resources and movable items untouched.

When building falls down it can not be repaired anymore. Ruins shouldn't rot though. It's much easier to turn a new building into a ruin, then ruin into dust. Most of ancient greek temples are totally ruined, but these ruins are still there and I'm sure it will be like that for another millenium. Unless people won't touch them of course. So there should be a possibility to disassamble the ruin.


Turning stone building to a ruin should take no more then 100 game years, but it suppose to turn from a brand new to new rather quickly (5-10 years). Obviously wooden buildings should rot faster, not mentioning mud or grass huts. Marble building could stand for much longer.

By adding building deterioration we could introduce some more diveristy to buildings, more then size and material.

I wouldn't bother with resources needed for repairs. It should work the same way as repairing items.

[Rusalka]

Goals to achieve here:

1. If some rich communities want to have all their building nice and shiny they will have to take some effort in maintaining their buildings brand new.
2. Others could just keep their buildings in a fair condition, making General renovation once in 30-50 years.
3. Abandoned places will turn into ruins after many years.
4. Cities once great, but now much smaller won't be able to maintain their huge infrastructure anymore.

All these things happen in RL and can work in Cantr just as well.

[SekoETC]

Sounds great to me. It's often difficult to come up with work for newspawns and if you put them to repair buildings, you wouldn't have to worry about them stealing the outcome since buildings can't be stolen.

[Rusalka]

Just one question - should building be repaired form inside or outside? I prefer the first option. Then You wouldn't be able to repair it without a key if it's locked.

[Piscator]

I wouldn't bother with resources needed for repairs. It should work the same way as repairing items.

Interesting that you say that. The fact that items can be repaired indefinitely, without need for anything but time, is one reason why there's so little economic activity in the game world. This is likely to be changed in the near future.

See also this thread:
http://forum.cantr.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18121&start=30


If buildings would deteriorate, they also should need resources to be fixed. Since people usually build their buildings from the materials that are available on that location, this shouldn't be to much extra hassle.

edit: Inside would be more plausible.