Architect Archive
Thread: Professions Revamp Idea to Save Architect from Itself. 08-05-03
First I am aware of how difficult these changes will be to make.
Second I am aware of how unlikely the devs are to make such sweeping changes.
Third I am aware of the importance of fixing the bugs. (I already have a large post about them.)
So please no the devs wont, or thats to hard or you should focus on bugs, etc... replies.
I will only address comments that can prove that any or all of these suggestions will not work in any realm of possibility. (It does not mean I won't respond to negative replies but I won't address them.)
this list is companion to an Idea suggestions thread I have previously posted..... please read that thread before this one.)
Also be aware that I will make replies to my own thread as I think of modifications or additions.
With the disclaimer out of the way lets get to the meat.
First this willr equire the breakup of architect into several professions. but the end result will allow architect to work more closely to how it does IRL.
I. Profession: Structural Engineer - Players pursuing this profession make various structures from houses to shops to factories and harvestors to large city/military buildings.
A. Requires: Engineering I-IV + 35k General Crafting XP.
B. Novice: Structural Engineer - Personal Extraction Deeds. Personal Factories Deeds.
Title - Novice Structural Engineer
C. Line1: Residential Structures - Starting with Small houses, Medium houses, Large Houses, Mansions.
Title - Architect
D. Line 2: Commercial Structures - Starting with Small pubs and shops, then restraunts and taverns, then cantinas and medical centers, to department stores and arenas.
Title - Developer
E. Line3: Industrial Structures - Starting with small extractors and factories, then medium extractors and factories, then large extractors and factories, and finally multiproduction extractors and factories.
Title - (open to suggestions on this one.)
F. Line 4: Major Structures - Includes military structures and city structures like bunkers, turrets, shuttleports, hotels, theatres etc....
Title - (open to suggestions on this one.)
G. Master: Structural Engineer - Pa Halls, Starports etc...
Title - Master Structural Engineer
H. Experimentation:Overall Quality - Maintenance Costs, Resistances - Decay Rate(natural climate of location determines which resist is needed. Generic use decay.), Unit Toughness - Storage Capacity, Conductivity - Power Consumption.
I. Skills Granted: Structural Assembly - gains bonuses to assembly attempts, Structural Experimentation - gains point to be used when experimenting with structures,Construction Times - Lessens time it takes to assemble and place a final structure.
J. Other Changes - Only Structural Engineers can do the final combine on structures. Factories can only be used to create components.
II. Profession: Artisan - Same as before with a few minor changes.
A. Change 1 - Surveying changed to Sampling and is reduced in efficiency.
B. Change 2 - All currently available structures in this line areremoved from this profession and replaced with lesser structures such as disposible extractors or portable extractors. They are not as efficient as personal extractors but they are cheaper and available to those outside the mining class. Disposibles cost no maintenance however only work for a set amount of time before they must be discarded. Portables work with lesser efficiency each time they are redeeded however do not cost anything to redeed.
C. Change 3 - Reduce information provided when sampling to general densities. like low medium high.
D. Change 4 - Return action/mind costs and time delays to thier previous state(or reduce them)for sampling but also reduce the yield and the time it takes to actually perform the sampling.
E. schematics requiring advanced resources such as steel, aluminum and other processed materials should be moved to more advanced professions or setup as supplemental to the line. Ensure there is a way to advance through the artisan trade using basic resources such as iron and ore being that the processing ability to make complex resources is being restricted to the mining profession.
III. Profession: Mining Engineer - Person pursuing this profession gain the ability to locate, extract and refine raw materials into usuable resources.
A. Requirements: Engineering I-IV, Sampling I-IV and Exploration I-IV + 10kGeneral CraftingXP, 8k Sampling XP and 5k Scouting XP
B. Novice: Mining Engineer - Ability to use all extraction related structures.
Title - Novice Mining Engineer
C. Line 1:Surveying - As you improve you can see more exact concentration percentages, See material purity and locate resources from further away.
Title - Surveyor
D. Line 2: Extraction - As you improve you can increase yields and reduce the time it takes to extract a unit of raw material.
Title - Prosepector
E. Line 3: Refine - As you improve you can improve the quality of the material removed from the ground. (increase its stats.)
Title - Refiner
F. Line 4: Process - Gives you the ability to create new composites such as steel and aluminum from the raw materials extracted from the ground.
Title - Mineral Processor
G. Master: Mining Engineer - Produces the best quality resources and advanced composites such as titanium, duraplast, duracrete etc... Ability to run all Extractors from a single remote location.
Title - Master Mining Engineer
H. Experimentation - Gains points to use on refining processes to improve the various stats of the materials being refined.
I. Skills granted: All access commands related to extraction structures. A newtool (like crafting tools) to process materials into new alloys and such. improved survey devices.
J. Other changes: Resources should be more generalized with only the basic resources available for extraction. it will fall to the Mining Engineer to take those raw materials to make non naturally occuring alloys and composites.
(The following profession is the least required of the revamp and while I do like the idea of a profession dedicated to mass production I expect this to be the least accepted of the new professions. As such it would be just as easy to not create this profession and incorporate the features from this profession into the other exisiting professions.)(With that in mind be aware i never developed a title list for this profession. Though you are welcome to suggest some.)
IV. Profession: Industrial Engineer - Uses factories to create mass components. buys schematics from crafters and sells the components back to the crafters so they may make the final combines.
A. Requirments: Engineering I-IV +35k XP
B. Novice: Industrial Engineer - Ability to use all factories.
C. Line 1: Mass Production - Ability to produce more and more components from a single schematic.
D. Line 2:Production Rate - Ability to improve production rates to reduce time need for production run.
E. Line 3: Waste Management - Reduces overall resources needed for large runs saving quantities of resources.
F. Line 4: Multi Production - Ability to make more and more complex components. IE the ability to make Structural Components then take those structural components and make Wall Components all in the same factory on a single production line.
G. Master: Industrial Engineer - Ability to run all factories from a single remote location. further improvements on each of the professions skill lines.
H.Experimentation: None, however, no critical failures either.
I. Skills granted: all of the factory function commands.
J. Other Changes: Factories restricted to Industrialists. change XP to 100% with industrialist getting 80% for each item and the schematic creator getting 20%.
V. Profession: Design Engineer - Makes items for interior/exterior structural decoration. Also provides planning and items for cities and military bases.
A. Requirements: Engineering I-IV andExploration I-IV + 15k general crafting XP and 10k Exploration XP
B. Novice: Design Engineer - Ability to incorporate PA structures into a City or Mililtary Base. (Requires PA's to have several required structures to determine whether they become a city or a military base.)
Title - Novice Design Engineer
C. Line 1: Interior Design - Ability to make furnishings and equipment for use in habitable structures.
Title - Interior Decorator
D. Line 2: Terrain Design - Ability to smooth rougher and rougher terrain into buildable locations.
Title - Landscaper
E. Line 3: City Planning - Ability to create exterior objects relating to cities such as streets, parks ponds fountains etc..
Title - City Planner
F. Line 4: Military Planning - Ability to create support objects for military bases such as fences, barricades, spotlighting etc... (fences and barricades would be limited to the base ZOC and can be destroyed or removed by PA leaders.)
Title - Military Planner
G. Master: Design Engineer - Ability to move PA structures around creating a city/base layout and re-placing said structures. This does require a redeeding cost per structure but allows the design engineer to redesign a city/base from the ground up. Structures that are not placed after a certain period of time return to the owner. Design engineers can also set aside the amount of land = to the number of lots the PA has so that only that PA can build on it.
Title - Master Design Engineer
H. Experimentation: Objects can be experimented on to be more durable or provide more benefit or cost less to maintain.
I. Skills Granted: Terrain Tool and Planning Tools to alter terrain and peform city layout tasks.
J. Other Changes: Add the ability to lay down on beds.
This mostly affects the the crafters that use inorganic resources however the same principals can be applied to organic resources by creating a profession that gains mass organics through breeding programs and such.
I know this is a huge change to the game but I also beleive if they want to stabilize the game they need to do this.
One other thing I ask is to restrict the use of commercial buildings to merchants. This seperates the economy into 4 processes(extraction to creation to production to distribution.) and stabilizes the market by ensuring no one class can do everything by themselves.
Extraction/Processing should be limited to Mining
Businesses should be limited to Merchants (however non merchants can still run home businesses or out of market square tents.) (My idea would also include the ability to rent space from merchants to sell your wares without using your only house or becoming a merchant yourself.)
I am also aware that this post would have been better suited to beta but I didn't get into beta till beta 3 and by the time i had tested enough to make these suggestions the game was alreadyreleased.
Continued from original post.
XV. Skills/Professions.
I. Profession: Structural Engineer - Players pursuing this profession make various structures from houses to shops to factories and harvestors to large city/military buildings.
A. Requires: Engineering I-IV + 35k General Crafting XP.
B. Novice: Structural Engineer - Personal Extraction Deeds. Personal Factories Deeds.
Title - Novice Structural Engineer
C. Line1: Residential Structures - Starting with Small houses, Medium houses, Large Houses, Mansions.
Title - Architect
D. Line 2: Commercial Structures - Starting with Small pubs and shops, then restraunts and taverns, then cantinas and medical centers, to department stores and arenas.
Title - Developer
E. Line3: Industrial Structures - Starting with small extractors and factories, then medium extractors and factories, then large extractors and factories, and finally multiproduction extractors and factories.
Title - Industrialist
F. Line 4: Military-bunkers, turrets,and such.
Title - Combat Engineer
G. Master: Structural Engineer - Pa Halls, Starports and City based structures.
Title - Master Structural Engineer
H. Experimentation:Overall Quality - Maintenance Costs, Resistances - Decay Rate(natural climate of location determines which resist is needed. Generic use decay.), Unit Toughness - Storage Capacity, Conductivity - Power Consumption.
I. Skills Granted: Structural Assembly - gains bonuses to assembly attempts, Structural Experimentation - gains point to be used when experimenting with structures,Construction Times - Lessens time it takes to assemble and place a final structure.
II. Profession: Artisan - Same as before with a few minor changes.
A. Change 1 - Surveying changed to Sampling and is reduced in efficiency.
B. Change 2 - All currently available structures in this line areremoved from this profession and replaced with lesser structures such as disposible extractors or portable extractors. They are not as efficient as personal extractors but they are cheaper and available to those outside the mining class. Disposibles cost no maintenance however only work for a set amount of time before they must be discarded. Portables work with lesser efficiency each time they are redeeded however do not cost anything to redeed.
C. Change 3 - Reduce information provided when sampling to general densities. like low medium high.
D. Change 4 - Return action/mind costs and time delays to thier previous state(or reduce them)for sampling but also reduce the yield and the time it takes to actually perform the sampling.
E. schematics requiring advanced resources such as steel, aluminum and other processed materials should be moved to more advanced professions or setup as supplemental to the line. Ensure there is a way to advance through the artisan trade using basic resources such as iron and ore being that the processing ability to make complex resources is being restricted to the mining profession.
III. Profession: Mining Engineer - Person pursuing this profession gain the ability to locate, extract and refine raw materials into usuable resources.
A. Requirements: Engineering I-IV, Sampling I-IV and Exploration I-IV + 10kGeneral CraftingXP, 8k Sampling XP and 5k Scouting XP
B. Novice: Mining Engineer - Ability to use all extraction related structures.
Title - Novice Mining Engineer
C. Line 1:Surveying - As you improve you can see more exact concentration percentages, See material purity and locate resources from further away.
Title - Surveyor
D. Line 2: Extraction - As you improve you can increase yields and reduce the time it takes to extract a unit of raw material.
Title - Prosepector
E. Line 3: Refine - As you improve you can improve the quality of the material removed from the ground. (increase its grade.)
Title - Refiner
F. Line 4: Process - Gives you the ability to create new composites such as steel and aluminum from the raw materials extracted from the ground.
Title - Mineral Processor
G. Master: Mining Engineer - Produces the best quality resources and advanced composites such as titanium, duraplast, duracrete etc... Ability to runtie allExtractor functions together into a single interface.(basically this allows the Mining Engineer to have all harvestors excecute the same commands without having to go through each one.
Title - Master Mining Engineer
H. Skills granted: All access commands related to extraction structures. A newtool (like crafting tools) to process materials into new alloys and such. improved survey devices.
I. Other changes: Resources should be more generalized with only the basic resources available for extraction. it will fall to the Mining Engineer to take those raw materials to make non naturally occuring alloys and composites.
IV. Profession: Design Engineer - Makes items for interior/exterior structural decoration. Also provides planning and items for cities and military bases.
A. Requirements: Engineering I-IV andExploration I-IV + 15k general crafting XP and 10k Exploration XP
B. Novice: Design Engineer - Ability to incorporate PA structures into a City or Mililtary Base. (Requires PA's to have several required structures to determine whether they become a city or a military base.)
Title - Novice Design Engineer
C. Line 1: Interior Design - Ability to make furnishings and equipment for use in habitable structures.
Title - Interior Decorator
D. Line 2: Terrain Design - Ability to smooth rougher and rougher terrain into buildable locations.
Title - Landscaper
E. Line 3: City Planning - Ability to create exterior objects relating to cities such as streets, parks ponds fountains etc..
Title - City Planner
F. Line 4: Military Planning - Ability to create support objects for military bases such as fences, barricades, spotlighting etc... (fences and barricades would be limited to the base ZOC and can be destroyed or removed by PA leaders.)
Title - Military Planner
G. Master: Design Engineer - Ability to move PA structures around creating a city/base layout and re-placing said structures. This does require a redeeding cost per structure but allows the design engineer to redesign a city/base from the ground up. Structures that are not placed after a certain period of time return to the owner. Design engineers can also set aside the amount of land = to the number of lots the PA has so that only that PA can build on it.
Title - Master Design Engineer
H. Experimentation: Objects can be experimented on to be more durable or provide more benefit or cost less to maintain.
I. Skills Granted: Terrain Tool and Planning Tools to alter terrain and peform city layout tasks.
J. Other Changes: Add the ability to lay down on beds.
I also have some thoughts about bone/meat/hide/milk/egg farms structures to compliment the inorganic extractors we already have. it would involve creating a profession called Agricultural Engineer. the structures would be considered industrial and made in the same line but would only be usuable by the above mentioned profession.
I amaware that this post would have been better suited to beta but I didn't get into beta till beta 3 and by the time i had tested enough to make these suggestions the game was already released.
FYI: I will add replys to my post from time to time as I think of new things I want to keep track of.
It seems a lot of your ideas might be incorporated into the Urban Planner proffession. And as I have understood it the mayor is able to move structures at free will with in the city with out a structure redeeding cost, but who knows if that was true and if it will become reality.
One coment, I dont really like the Miner Engineering. Just seems way to boring of a profession. I think moving it away from artisian is a great idea. They should just incorporate it into a higher elite profession like architect or your structure engineer or whatever. So that way the little guys who dont want one of these professions still dont get it, but people who want to do these professions will slowly get it through skills. They would be ok at it the whole time, and then they should basically double their skills once they master one of the elite professions. just me thinking outloud.