I love the idea of the modder pack. The banner too, but wouldn’t it be cooler if there was a way to make your own custom banner? Maybe a small sub program that comes with the modder pack? Just a thought.
I personally am holding off on the idea of a modders pack, unless that is the only thing they can work out with Minddesk, simply because it then limits the communities access to modding.
Of course if absolutely no arrangement can be made, then yer, a discounted version of qubicle at the $75 tier would be good, but I think there are other ways of getting what Radiant and Minddesk want, without having to charge people. Or only having to charge them a small amount.
oh yes… a Kickstarter tabard/coat of arms, or something along those lines… that would be pretty sweet… 
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That said, only a “kickstarter flag” or coat of arms seems quite small to be a tier bonus on its own…
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right, so perhaps a “decoration pack” that includes 4-5 custom decorations?
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, + Digital Soundtrack
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A huge badass statue of Tom’s head connected back to back with Tony’s head… We can have our townsfolk worship their faces and then I can hold the first ever annual Tonytom festival with beergardens and mummers and fireworks.
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Make it gigantic and spinning, and it shoots fireworks out of the eyes.
You’d only have to make one, then copy and paste! That will be my first, and last twin joke.
I’m here all night folks.
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and yet, somehow there was no reference to sausages… 
I definitely missed a trick there!
There are some great in-game suggestions here. I love the idea of a “Decoration Pack” that could maybe have a special Backer Flag (for declaring territory), a Backer Banner (so your little settlers can be seen far and wide), and a Backer Tabard (so that your people can go out in style). It would also be nice if you toggle this stuff on and off. I also love the idea of a special Backer’s Statue (so that your people can look upon it and know how far they’ve come). And of course, all these things would go very nice with a digital sound track. 
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Some kind of in-game aesthetic change would be good. Like a special edition starting villager that starts at the $75 tier.
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Maybe you could go for the generic ‘have your name in the game’ thing. So random villager names could include your name.
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@Schmillt There is already a pledge tier that covers that. “$500 EXPLORER TIER - All previous tier rewards, plus we’ll let you add your name or the name of your choice (subject to our approval) to the pool of randomly generated settler names. Or if you want your name to appear on a monster we can swing that too. You’ll also receive a PROMINENT thanks in the game’s credits.”
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Fair nuff, except that that still leaves out animation. I understand, as a general thing, that animation can be done with Blender, which is free. HOWEVER, the how-to’s made so far are (as far as I know) all with 3dsMax, which is ever so far from free.
The idea isn’t necessarily to package all the necessary software together; the core idea is to lower the barrier of entry into modding for already-enthusiastic customers, and to get this happening as soon as possible.
I’ve been part of other modding communities before (Skyrim & Oblivion), and mods come out on day one, inevitably. Hell, at this point, I’ll probably be one of those day-one publishers for Stonehearth. Setting aside the high-technical-competence, all-the-time-in-the-world set, though, there are a lot of straggling would-bes who want to mod and can’t get past the initial hurdles. Hell, for Skyrim, I put a good twenty hours into learning to model with Blender before I gave up, not because I couldn’t handle Blender as such, but because nearly every. damn. modder’s. tool was made for 3dsMax - and to top it off, the legacy tools from Oblivion only worked with an outdated version of Blender whose tutorials weren’t complete when the community moved on. I could make all the models I liked, but couldn’t get them into the game, animate them correctly, give them particle effects… in fury and despair, I moved on to another project.
What I’m saying is, it doesn’t have to be a software bundle type dealy. It’d be great, though, to have links to free or low-cost software, some well-made basic tutorials for each including aspects specific to Stonehearth, and further links to thriving communities of users for each system (i.e., LUA community for scripting system). This pack of information might be published free later, but holding it back until at least beta gives you that early-access, I-was-one-of-the-first cachet.
I say all this because boy oh boy do I love me a thriving modding community. It’s a never-ending font of entertainment and self-expression. Like many living things though, a community thrives best when nurtured. Helping the enthusiastic get started is one part of that process.
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