Improvements to Buildings in General

Out-of-character discussion forum for players of Cantr II to discuss new ideas for the development of the Cantr II game.

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Solfius
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Improvements to Buildings in General

Postby Solfius » Sun Jul 20, 2003 9:06 am

edited post I made to the Yahoo! group a while back
----- Original Message -----
From: Solfius
To: cantr_ii@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 9:26 PM
Subject: Solfius' thoughts on...Buildings, deteriorating buildings, destroying buildings, water, deteriorating tools, and food storage.


As I'm sure some will have noticed every now and again I have a "big idea" and post a lengthy (for me) post on it.

Recently I have not said that much about "big ideas", but now that is about to change. I have 3 pages of notes all about ideas I have had for Cantr. I think it goes without saying not all will be good, but I will put them all here over the course of a few days.

First up:

Variation in buildings

I think the cottage entry should be removed in favour of a wooden building. Predantic, but there are preconcieved images of a "cottage" which do not go with a more generic seeming "wooden building".

So the two options availiable would be either "hall" or "building".

These two "design options" would have a choice of building materials.

For a building the options would be: -earth
-wood
-stone

For a hall the options would be: -wood
-stone

A hall would need more of the chosen material than a building, and due to its size making an earthen hall is impossible (at least according to my view of engineering which is likely to be flawed)

The disadvantage for using a "lesser" material, like earth, is that the building wouldn't last as long. I feel buildings ought to weather and eventually collapse.

These are my suggested "building life spans" in real time:

earth- 4 months
wood- 2 years
stone- 4 years

As you can see stone lasts a lot longer than wood, and earth is really only good as a temporary measure. Although there is another material to make buildings out of I still feel people will prefer to trade for better materials.

Collapsing Buildings

When a building reaches the end of its "life span" it will collaspe. There are two ways to resolve this: the "simple way" and the "complex way".

Simple way:

When the building collapses all trace of it vanishes, the contents end up on the ground in the main area, and any doors opening into the collapsed building now open into the main area (buildings within buildings within collapsed buildings are unaffected)

Complex way:

When the building collapses it is no longer able to be entered. It disapears from the buildings tab and is now located on locations tab as a kind of resource. People can excavate the ruins trying to dig up anything that had been buried in the collapse (unlike the simple way the contents are buried in the ruin of the collapsed building). By excavating they don't automatically get any of the items, although they may be able to reclaim half the normal collection rate of the building material used. Whether the items and materials in the building are discovered is random, the more material is reclaimed the higher the chance of finding it. Doors to buildings within buildings would become blocked and another project could be started to excavate the door to be able to enter it again.

After a while the ruins will grow over and any items/materials buried will be forever lost. However, any doors will still be able to be excavated.

Barricading Exit Routes

It should be possible to build structures to block exit routes into and out of places, much like a town wall.

Again the materials availiable would be earth, wood, and stone with the same "life spans" before collapsing.

Earth barricades have no way through, the only way to pass after building one is to tear it down again. So again it is a temporary measure.

Stone and wood barricades are more like gatehouses with a lockable door.

People travelling towards a barricaded exit route, upon reaching it will stop as their way is impeded, the exception is wooden and stone gatehouses that do not have their doors locked. An impeded traveller will stay at that point (99% or 100% to their destination?) unless they turn around and return the way they came.

People in the barricade, or manning it in the case of the more mound like earth barricades will be able to see a distance along the road (not far) and be able to see who is there, who arrives there, who leaves, what is said. Also they will be able to attack people there, but only with missile weapons, and vice versa.


Just some ideas.
Looking forward to the constructive critisism.

Solfius
Meh
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Postby Meh » Mon Jul 21, 2003 2:59 am

Reeds as a half way between earth and wood would be neat too. That complters the house of straw/ house of sticks / house of bricks specturm. But I'm being serious reeds would be a bit better than mud and not a good a wood. Reeds and wood would have the disavantage of fire to destroy?

And just for laughs not for the game.

What about cookies {ginger beard/a witch}

The Midas house of Gold.

House of Glass {no bricks please}.
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Solfius
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Postby Solfius » Mon Jul 21, 2003 5:45 pm

By earth I intended sod, not mud baked houses. There's a difference in the construction and properties. I think sod is more stable and stronger than reeds (that may depend on how may reeds you use, I'm not a reed construction expert ;) )

Perhaps we could include mud as another option? How similar is it to sod?
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Rob Maule
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Postby Rob Maule » Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:43 pm

Personally, I find nothing wrong with the materials we already use to make buildings. if we implemented new materials, wouldn they not be spread out? That would just mean that some places could only make mud houses or reed houses, much like it is now. More materials makes it more complicated for no good reason other than roleplaying purposes.

Maybe just making stone buildings harder to tear down than wooden? Like if a hurricanne came through, the stone building would have a greater chance of standing.
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Camino
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Postby Camino » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:14 am

I think the idea of different building materials is really good but I think that the time frame you have put ont he materials is pretty unrealistic because unless a stone building is attacked its going to last more then four years, same for wood and earth. I think that in places like forests you should be able to build a temporary shelter and that should be an option weather you build it to last or to be built as quickly as possible yet not to last for any great length.
As for barricades I don't think that earth barricades should just be unpassable because you could have an earth wall but a wooden gate and then use a lock on it which being wood should really be another bit of wood put across it.
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Postby Meh » Tue Jul 22, 2003 2:39 am

The idea of a large peice of wood is interesting....

What if in addition to "wood" there was the concept of a "log" which requires one of the axe types to fell. It would be like a machine {i.e. a large object} instead of a quantity of wood grams. It would have to be moved with coorperation. It could be used an ingeridient in a "gate" for the "walls".

Also "logs" as "battering rams" for gate, building or door demolision. Why use a crowbar if you could use a battering ram? Maybe two types of ram large for "gates" and small for buildings.

Another thing about "walls" or even towns expanding may be "bypasses". You'd only be able to see people using a bypass from a tower or something.

Something similar to the "log" would be the "ton stone", a large block that could be used for walls and or larger strcuture. Like should a "ton stone" or two be the requirement for a lighthouse?

To move a "ton stone" "logs" could be employed to speed things up.

"ton stones" and "logs" could also be used for monoliths {large statues} or "totem" poles.

Two "logs" plus three spikes makes a "cross"? :twisted:

One "log" for a "dugout canoe"?

Large "diamonds" may be more valuable or more useful for machines that just grams of diamonds.

A large peice of rice :D
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Solfius
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Postby Solfius » Tue Jul 22, 2003 6:15 pm

Camino wrote:I think the idea of different building materials is really good but I think that the time frame you have put ont he materials is pretty unrealistic because unless a stone building is attacked its going to last more then four years, same for wood and earth.

As for barricades I don't think that earth barricades should just be unpassable because you could have an earth wall but a wooden gate and then use a lock on it which being wood should really be another bit of wood put across it.


about time scales: I meant 4 real life years, that translates to an awful lot of cantr years

barricades: the idea was have the earth as a temporary measure, and make people get wood and stone for permanent ones
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Pirog
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Postby Pirog » Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:46 am

I like the idea a lot.

I would also like the possibility to raze structures.
Areas with little natural resources for housing could raze existing structures and get some or all of the resources back that way.
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Solfius
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Postby Solfius » Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:02 pm

( see thread in "Suggestions" called "Buildings Ablaze" ;) )
Camino
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Postby Camino » Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:09 pm

Okay I understand your time scale now, but now I'm thinking what about reparing walls earth/wood/stone that way they would last much longer, also if you could attack walls it would be rather interesting to see town dwellers rushing to find resources to repair the town walls whilst under attack.
However the whole walls idea would only work if everywhere was split up in to smaller zones like in someone elses topic.
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Solfius
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Postby Solfius » Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:36 pm

Barricades would be like gatehouses blocking exit routes, so they would still work. However, I think they would work better if the areas were more split up like suggested in the other topic (coincidently mine ;) ) and walls were introduced as well.
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DYip16
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Postby DYip16 » Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:46 pm

Problem with barricades is they block off the only exit/entry point... Gurellia warfare isn't really possible b/c you can't go into the woods or attack from the top o a hill or something... Can't say I agree with the heavy implementation of combat b/c of the fact that this is suppoed to be a society simulator n all... I just dunno how close to real life its supposed to represent...
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Solfius
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Postby Solfius » Wed Jul 23, 2003 3:56 pm

Blocking off the only way in/out is the point ;)

The more complex ones would have lockable doors (maybe and inner door and outer door, so you can vet the people before coming in, but not let them escape if you want to hold them.)
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Postby Meh » Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:34 pm

We should be able to climb the buildings to get away from the meaner animals.

Maybe being able to "drag" a project indoors as well.
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Solfius
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Postby Solfius » Wed Jul 23, 2003 6:41 pm

dragging projects, now there's an idea

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