In most RTS games that I have played, every building (That isn’t just there for visual effect) has a set purpose. So for example, you might have a barracks, a armory, a forge, a house, etc. In the previews of SH that we have seen this far, you lay out a floor plan and the settlers build the structure. But what we haven’t seen is some sort of mechanic that lets you set a purpose for that structure.
So the question at hand really is; if we build a house and want it to be an armory. Is the role of that building determained by…
A. What items you place in that building (Ex: Sword Rack, Bed, Armor kit, etc)
B. A sort of zone selection grid.
C. A option that appears upon the construction of a building (Ex: A window pops up when you build a structure that meets set parameters and asks if you want it to be used as a kitchen, armory, house, etc)
D, Some option that I haven’t thought of yet.
If there is already a topic on this, I failed to find it. If there is though, sorry for the repeat.
I could be wrong but I think the answer is A, pretty sure I remember one of the devs saying they wanted the role of a building to be dependent on the objects in it.
My idea for this is kinda similar to C. You’d have some sort of a job chooser for the building and while the building is being built, you can click on the construction site and tell the workers what purpose the building is for. However, seeing as how they advance professions, it’s probably going to be A.
I think something between all three, but that might be because I’ve been playing a lot of Prison Architect lately. Basically, once you lay out foundations and build walls, you can assign individual rooms to be something like offices or kitchens. However, certain parameters need to be met, for example an office needs to be indoors with an office desk, a chair, and a file cabinet all within a room that is at least 4m x 4m. Kitchens don’t have a size requirement, but they do need things like a sink, a fridge, and an oven. Other rooms, like the Yard, don’t need to be indoors, but have a larger size requirement. I personally think that this system works really well.
@Swift_Cube mentioned Stonehearth advancing professions, and a way that this could work with the system I described is that, once you have all required materials, you could essentially upgrade your objects. This way, you don’t have to continue making new rooms for your professions, and once all upgrade requirements are met, you now have an advanced worker!
Anyway, that’s just my two cents.
In the live streams it has been stated that Buildings don’t have a purpose in and of themselves. The buildings are given purpose by what you put in them. If you put an anvil and a furnace in the building it becomes a blacksmith. If you put in a spinning wheel, it becomes a weaver’s shop.
@SteveAdamo or @Geoffers747 can probably tell us exactly which live stream or where the information is documented exactly.
So far I remember the devs mentioning that you will determine the “function” of a building by what you are placing into it. So if you place a carpenter’s workshop into a room, this turns into the carpenter’s shop. Room means that you should be able to place more professions into a bigger building and you are not locking the purpose of a whole building by placing a workshop into a corner.
Other than that I think you determine other usages also by the items you place into it. If you put in there a stockpile and limit the resources to “gold”, here you go with a treasury… do the same for weapons and you might end up with an armory.
Not sure if the new construction concept or other considerations have changed that in the meanwhile.
@SteveAdamo - @voxel_pirate has linked what I would link, it was directly after the “modelling the carpenter’s workshop” livestream I believe.
We also had the (can’t remember the name of the unit that works with wool) workshop livestream as well.
Essentially … the building is determined by it’s contents, rather than say “build barracks” “build tavern” “build archery range”, you build the structure to your own specification and then insert the relevant workshop (and place each part of that) - as far as I know anyway.
I’ve seen you mention ‘RTS’ a few times around the place, and I just wanted to confirm that the game isn’t an RTS, RTS was mentioned in terms of influencing combat, but the game is primarily a city building/ management game.
I think it’s A, which seems the most logical and the must fun/customisable to me. Buildings won’t necessarily have a purpose on their own, you choose the purpose by what’s in it, although the building doesn’t inherit any properties from what’s placed inside.
If you take a building and put an anvil and a furnace inside, it’s used for a blacksmith or something of the like. If you want to have multiple professions in a large room, that’ll also be fine. Just like the real world - You get a house when you put a bed, a wardrobe, a kitchen, a lounge into a building. You get an office when you fill a room with computers, or a meeting room if you put a large table and chairs into a room.
I may be completely wrong, but I love the idea of being able to choose what goes into each building, and not be locked down to having one building for one job, such as a smeltery (is this a word?), mason, etc. So I would hope something along the lines of A. It may also allow you to do things like having one castle with different professions in each area, or just simple one large room for everything.
You seem to not like the term RTS with SH. I disagree with that motive. Here is why.
Is StoneHearth real time? Yeah.
Does StoneHearth have strategic elements in it? From what we have seen so far. I think so.
So, it should fall under the category of RTS at least a little. I know it isn’t going to be anything like StarCraft or total war. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a RTS.
Well yes I will agree that it has certain strategic elements, and of course the game as we know it is in real time - but to me ‘RTS’ as a genre denotes a specific type of game which Stonehearth isn’t.
Whilst there might be certain aspects that give an RTS impression I just want to clarify that it isn’t an RTS in the traditional sense and should be understood first and foremost as a city building/ management game.
As far as I know, you can place a few walls and a couple of carpenter’s benches in there and it would, for all sakes and purposes, be considered a “Carpenter’s Hut”, even though it isn’t even a building.
In other words, the answer is A, based on what’s been released.
Eh, if buildings didn’t have a purpose, StoneHearth architecture would be kind of monotone. You’d just see rows after rows of the same building, which would be kinda bland.
There could possibly be something unique to each building… Or maybe a selection of different looks for a building? This would sound like it’d be in the later Alpha stages… But what I’m trying to say is that when you choose to build a building, there could possibly be a selection off different preset building looks… and the modding community could add different styles? This’d add variation in the towns and cities we build.
As Alfie said, there’d probably the ability to select from a variety of designs. There are also other features you can add to buildings, such as lanterns from one of the videos.
Check back a few desktop Tuesdays and you will see that there is actually some variation to houses (desktop Tuesday showed 8 different roofs) So all your buildings won’t be the same.
What I meant was that the building in and of its self doesn’t have a purpose other than to cover your villagers, the Items inside gives it purpose.
Although I suppose you could build monotone buildings that all matched if you wanted.