Moving Projects?

[Snickie]

I have searched the forums for something like this and came up empty. If such a topic exists already, then please disregard this post. If not, then please feel free to read and comment.

But anyways...


I would like to be able to have the option to move projects that don't require machinery. For example, when repairing a tool, especially a bone one (although who would waste the time repairing bone tools when bones are generally so readily available?), the project tends to take forever. Sometimes things happen when you must go inside a building or out of town for whatever reason, especially on the more developed islands. If we were able to carry these projects with our chars to those other locations, the job could be finished sooner than if your char left for whatever town or room for awhile, then came back to finish it (even though I am fully aware that other people can work on it if the project is in a public location). I would ask similar of the manufacturing of products that don't require machines.

I suggest this because I had a problem with this with one of my characters previously. She was in somebody's car and repairing a tool of some sort (don't remember what exactly), and that character happens to be awkward at manufacturing tools, so it took much longer than I anticipated. Anyways, the character who owned the car was in a hurry to get somewhere, but they couldn't because my char was in there and apparently there was some problem with my char going, but my char still had two hours left on the project (determined by math, not the project requirements; I'd set it up for three because we were travelling at the time I set up the project, but being awkward at it meant it took about three times longer) and couldn't leave because that tool was town property and whatnot. If my char had been able to carry the tool/repair project back into the town, the other char would've been able to leave sooner to get wherever they were going.

I imagine, though, that this would be rather difficult to implement, especially if the project required holdable tools (ex. a knife, a peen hammer, chisel, etcetera).


Any thoughts on this? I know there's probably something wrong with my suggestion (as I'm human, and so far I have found "perfect human" to be quite the oxymoron, but that's completely off-topic), so feel free to comment, support or disagree, add on, etcetera.

[SekoETC]

I would support this, but curiously enough, the machinery used isn't recorded in the projects database so after a project has been started, it no longer checks if machinery is present (unless it's portable machinery). It would have to look for the information all over the place based on what type of a project it was. Although it would probably make more sense to include a machinery column in the projects table so the information would be found in the same place regardless of project type.

[Doug R.]

I endorse this suggestion. We could even let the projects exist in inventory so only you could work on them.

[Piscator]

You mean we would have unfinished objects instead of projects then?

[Addicted]

I like it and expected it when I started playing. But what happens when you die? Do the materials you invested appear on the ground? Repairs stop at the place you were up to and the object fall out?

How can people join in on a project? Would they still be listed the same way?

If I say, set up lots of work for others and left the room, would it follow me? Repairs and other stuff, I mean.

[SekoETC]

I think projects would normally reside on the projects page but could be picked up if not bound to machinery on the location and would need to be set down again before they could be worked on again.

[Piscator]

Why not have them on the objects page then? You might see something like "Smelting furnace (0% finished)" and start working on it by pressing a button.

Actually, if machines showed what they are used for (e.g. "Smelting furnace (smelting iron 52%)"), we might not even need the project page at all.

[SekoETC]

Yeah, I guess it would make more sense to have the projects on the objects page if they were bound to machines there or if they were unfinished objects themselves. Edit: Machines have the project id saved in a field so it would probably be easy to look up the project that way, but sometimes they might still have the project id there even though the project has already been finished.

[Doug R.]

Anything that would reduce the number of pages we need to navigate is a good thing, imo.

[Snickie]

Wow. Didn't realise this was going to get so much support. I figured I was going to be shot down due to programming issues, but then again, I can hardly code a table and font colours, so who am I to judge the difficulties of HTML and programming?

Anyway, I like the idea of being able to have projects in your inventory (or however it was worded; I can't look for some reason). The way I'm thinking of right now is that if a newspawn is manufacturing a bone knife in their inventory and they get dragged somewhere, they aren't automatically torn from their project because a knife is definitely small enough to be carried with you despite being dragged.

It's just another complicated aspect of it I thought of, because I tend to make things complicated like that.

[masterekat]

Yes, I also like the idea of being able to carry a project with you, although I think that a character should only be able to carry one project at a time. And I agree that getting rid of the projects page is a good idea. I've always thought that projects in a town should be something that would be readily visible to each character, but the way that it is set up now it seems like other people's projects are some hidden thing because the player must hit search before viewing them. That may be something that only bugs me, but I still think it would be better for everyone if projects were displayed on the objects page because the one that require machinery could be combine with the respective machine.

[SekoETC]

It would be cool if you could see what a person was working on on the people page, although then it might be too easy to check the status of prisoners. What if people were given an option to work on a project in a concealed manner, which would decrease their efficiency but would give a random chance of the project not being listed? Then it would be like an automated version of dropping a project when someone walks in, but without requiring the player to be online and alert all the time.

[nateflory]

I am intrigued and support this idea...
...if only for selfish reasons of how it would be coded.
Mwahahahaaaa!

(see sig for explanation of above)

[Joshuamonkey]

What if people were given an option to work on a project in a concealed manner, which would decrease their efficiency but would give a random chance of the project not being listed? Then it would be like an automated version of dropping a project when someone walks in, but without requiring the player to be online and alert all the time.

Yes, I think it would make sense to be able to do this. All they'd have to do is check the progress of the projects, like in real life almost. This most likely would have saved my character that was locked up and killed in the town she led after her second in command died..I'm still not sure whether or not they believed her.