So, on the dev roadmap it mentions a “mason” class. Does anyone know what this will do? Presumably the mason will allow the construction of stone or brick buildings, but I was wondering if it will do anything else.
I was also wondering about the “engineer” class (perhaps it will allow multi-storey buildings?)
Engineer will be defence traps and machines, think water wheels and stuff. Mason will let you build rock furniture. Just my guess.
Why does he need a welding mask to set a trap?
comedic value? 
Good point… As a blowtorch hasn’t even been invented yet! A glitch in the Matrix, probably.
Engineer description taken from the Kickstarter:
Class - Engineer: Fiendishly complex traps. Steam pumps. Black powder. In his moments of genius, this Master Craftsman boosts your town’s productivity with miraculously advanced tools and weaponry. In his other moments…
“With steam, human ingenuity, and enough pipes, anything is possible!”
SOZ, posted on mobile and was too lazy to rectify the situation. 
Look at the trap he’s making. Now. Do you really want to ask him about that welding mask? Really?
Anyway, as for jobs, yeah I think the engineer’s going to be our the guy making any mechanical stuff, like complex traps or waterwheels. Whether he makes them on-site or just makes the parts that regular workers assemble… good question 
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For the mason, I think his job will be much like the carpenter, but for stone - making nice stone wall segments or whatever. I don’t think he’ll be doing any stone building construction (unless he’s not busy, like the carpenter with wooden building construction ATM), because otherwise it’ll just take too damn long to build a castle 
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[quote=“Teleros, post:9, topic:6696”]
For the mason, I think his job will be much like the carpenter, but for stone - making nice stone wall segments or whatever.[/quote]
Perhaps he will be able to construct stone equipment? Stone Swords, Stone Saws (to make more carpenters), Stone… Helmets? Ah better scratch that one, your little settlers would fall over to much from being upper-weight heavy.
I think there will be some similarities, but I agree it’d be far easier and more cooperative between settlers for the mason to “refine” stone materials for building–otherwise, you’d be completely dependent on the class for anything to do with stone structures. The mason produces the stones/stone bricks/etc. that are used to build the structure, while the actual building can be done by the general population alongside him/her.
I can imagine their other crafting abilities including both utility objects (like stoves, basic furnaces) and decoration (statues, stone braziers, and tiles). Refining could nicely tie in to the quality/value of the item being produced.
As for the Engineer, I’m hoping eventually for impressive steam creations, possibly even archaic-style rail systems and firearms. I know this isn’t a direction most people want Stonehearth to take (those with a preference for a pure-fantasy style), but I like early industrial elements or Steampunk mixed with Fantasy settings and lore. You can mix and match to get the best of both genres (Or fight one in the name of the other).
I don’t think that’d be a good idea, simply because of the sheer quantity of stone required. Imagine if your carpenter had to make the wood blocks used in house construction - it’d take an age to get even one house up, because all the workers would be waiting in line for the one carpenter to do his thing.
Refining I’d basically reserve for optional stuff. Maybe you want to tile a house you built with a black-and-white marble checkerboard on the floor - the mason could do that IMHO - but note it’d be an upgrade for an existing house.
I think you can still get a fair bit of mechanical stuff in the game without getting to steam engines. Windmills & waterwheels spring to mind, and actually, once you have good water or wind power (well, water power, because wind is too unreliable IRL), you can make some pretty nice mechanisms after all.
My concern would then be what value, in terms of building and construction, would the mason class ultimately have. Wood does not need to be refined into a building material, due to it being an initial material needed for the game. Stone, however, is something that comes off more as a higher tier material than wood, and is something that needs to be worked for–to me, the Mason class is what begins to unlock this stronger substance and develop towards larger buildings. Obviously, it’s unrealistic to expect one Mason to construct a stone tower or castle by themselves, so my suggestion instead focuses on producing the supplies needed to make it instead (as well as building it, if possible). As the players gain more Masons, who specialize with working with the material, the ability to create stone structures will become more reasonable and quicker. Otherwise, I just feel everyone will immediately jump to having massive walls and fortresses rather than a natural progression from a fledgling group of settlers to a thriving metropolis.
Certain things such as roads or very early stone buildings should be able to be constructed without a Mason, reflecting their crudeness and simplicity. Once there is a Mason, stone becomes much stronger and versatile, like the historic progression from iron to steel.
Players will already be limited WRT this though due to the number of people they have. Converting your existing houses to stone, and/or building new stone structures, is expensive in terms of resources and workers required - you have to mine the stone then use it, meaning that a worker getting stone isn’t a worker getting, say, wood - which can be used for lots of other early-game things.
I think though that you’ll slow the game down tremendously if you require masons to make stone blocks or w/e for building. You’re also talking about skewing your workforce towards stonecutting by quite a bit if you want to speed it up. Not the best gameplay IMHO.
Don’t forget, stone will eventually have its own plethora of uses once the game develops–I expect it to be equally as important as wood at some point. I don’t believe one stone block should equal one brick, though. Like you said, it’d be far too overcomplicated and demanding. Each unrefined stone could equal “several” completed bricks, which are then carried in a group similar to how one log creates multiple sections of wooden logs, roofs, and floors and are then customized via the blueprint in the building system. The current pacing of the game seems fairly quick, so hopefully waiting for the finished products wouldn’t be too much of a time issue. If there’s a particularly large amount being processed, I suppose the settlers could always work on another project in the meantime.
As for only collecting stone and no wood (either due to being hardcoded in the Mason class or focusing on the former instead), perhaps the Mason could compensate for this by collecting more than a normal settler would when mining/collecting, possibly even gather that amount at a faster rate than normal. That way, the Mason would be more self-sustainable and efficient, avoiding bringing too many more workers away from their other tasks to make ends meet. This quarrying could even function as an early way to discover mineral and ore deposits for crafting later on with metals.
Honestly, I won’t be surprised if the Mason turns out not having any role with construction or mining like the earlier ideas, and the class is more of an artisan or furniture creator like the Carpenter. I guess I really just want to see the class be more involved with their specialty, rather than simply be a new Carpenter with different recipes. It’s all really just going to depend on how the game develops in the next few months…
I don’t really know. Can you think of any ways to make the Mason more versatile?
Agreed. Mason =/= miner anyway, and you know my ideas about construction from above .
A few thoughts:
-Statues. These are “buildings” in that they’re made / coded the same way, but only masons can make them (skill required!).
-Doodads for stone buildings: I don’t mean like lamps that the carpenter makes & the worker places, but… say a gargoyle on the castle that the mason has to make himself on the spot. Or as above, a new fancy marble floor.
-Stone tools: You need things like whetstones & furnaces for moving on to metal tools, so the mason can be the gatekeeper for metalworking tech (speaking of which, I don’t think the carpenter should craft a mason hammer - it should be a starting item).
-Overseer Aura: Basically, anyone working with stone does their job X% faster if he’s nearby. So now you have to decide where to send him (well, where to move his workbench or w/e) - do you want him helping the miners, or the builders?
I imagine that the mason will simply unlock creating buildings with stone, but then will be able to create the stone-building equivalents of “doodads” as you said.
He might also help in making stone buildings when he has no statues (etc.) to craft (just as when the carpenter helps with building when he has nothing else to do).
I think that normal workers will build the stone buildings, but perhaps first the mason might have to create some tools for them to use. This way the mason will actually be required for construction, but won’t have to do everything himself.
This is kind of like the Tactician idea we threw around before on my previous page–it’d be nice to see some sort of buff system like this. I wonder if it’d be better for this kind of ability/passive bonus to have a physical range, or if it is received when the Mason and workers are all in the same squad, like a mining or construction team. The latter case would be similar to the idea of a foreman or project overseer.
The only concern I see in this situation is that if the Mason can’t mine, the only way he can directly help miners that I can think of is by hauling off all their materials as they work (being a basic skill all workers can currently perform in the game). If the Mason’s workstation doesn’t happen to be close by, he/she might just be hauling things away from the team, or standing there looking pretty. If the ability has to be activated to work, that nulls this issue–but the bonus would need to justify the loss of an otherwise productive settler.
Actually, that brings up another thought. Should stone objects be more difficult to move than wooden ones? Stone is quite heavy comparably, and this would be a slight (realistic) penalty for the stronger material. It also supports the idea of making an established settlement, whereas wooden homes are much easier to build in the wilderness, far away from existing civilizations.
I believe that the mason class needs more use… perhaps by making it required to build anything (including buildings) out of stone by requiring them to be made from stone bricks (which currently have absolutely no use at all)
Then you wouldnt have to do something silly like make stone spoons for the cook just to make people use mason (which they will probably just use it to make the spoon then immediately switch their job because mason just isnt very useful outside of decoration)
However if the mason was required to build stone buildings and they made it so buildings could be destroyed with stone buildings being harder to destroy the mason might actually be very useful (especially for things like castles/castle walls)
We actually had an earlier thread discussing this exact situation. I myself am in favor for restricting what units can work with stone, once there’s defensive and statistical differences between construction materials and they’re more beneficial/powerful…