Yeah, Tom spent the first 100 art streams talking about how the style of the game needed to remain cute.
I don’t think that will change
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I have not really noticed such attempts at comedy in this game yet. Is this where it begins? I mean, i don’t really have a problem with it, but hopefully the narrative is cohesive and the Engineer isn’t the one off exception.
I do like some of the above ideas for balance and control. Making the turrets require a hearthling to operate them could go one of two ways. Either it opens up the need for a turret operator, or it gives all of the cowering support harthlings something to do during an incursion (i.e., go operate a turret when the alarm is sounded.)
I do like some of the above ideas for balance and control. Making the turrets require a hearthling to operate them could go one of two ways. Either it opens up the need for a turret operator, or it gives all of the cowering support harthlings something to do during an incursion (i.e., go operate a turret when the alarm is sounded.)
It’ll give civilian hearthlings something to do: drop everything they’re carrying for the job they were in the middle of doing (leaving items scattered all over town), then spend 2 minutes running half-way across the map just to get to a turret, jump in a turret for 5 measly seconds until it runs out of ammo, then get slaughtered like a poyo on the morning of the end of year feast (“Thank Goodness Day”) when they get out the turret. 
I’ve been playing a bit of Hard mode recently, and I actually use all of my civilians as part of the militia. I’ll ring the bell, then set the military group to defend an area just behind them. I’ll then tell the military to attack just as the mobs get close enough for the civilians to start attacking. Then, i’ve got more DPS going against the critters and my military doesn’t get slaughtered so fast.
If those civilians could instead be manning an emplacement gun, they’d be far more effective in aiding the defense of their homes.
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I’ve been playing a bit of Hard mode recently, and I actually use all of my civilians as part of the militia.
I do that too, at the start of the game (when your military is weak and not very well equipped because you don’t have a blacksmith, and the enemies aren’t groups of ogres and high level archers). Engineers and turrets are supposed to be “late game” though, not “very early game”.
So don’t build the turret on the ground. Have it up on a wall firing down. Also I would say make it have infinite ammo. We dont constantly craft arrows to replace what the archer shot, so I dont see why we should craft ammo for turrets. Having them be expensive to craft, limited in number and requiring a hearthling to man is a pretty solid downside as far as balance goes imo. If it needs more just adjust damage and rate of speed.
Why not just have the turret take the initial damage? If the turret takes enough damage (and breaks) the hearthling can run to a safe zone or whatnot.
They knew the risk when they signed up to establish a new settlement in the untamed wilds…
If TR insist on going the food war route, I suggest a cabbage catapult.
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So don’t build the turret on the ground. Have it up on a wall firing down. Also I would say make it have infinite ammo. We dont constantly craft arrows to replace what the archer shot, so I dont see why we should craft ammo for turrets. Having them be expensive to craft, limited in number and requiring a hearthling to man is a pretty solid downside as far as balance goes imo. If it needs more just adjust damage and rate of speed.
It doesn’t make any difference if it’s up on a wall or not - if the turret is able to hit the enemy, then the enemy archers are able to hit the turret (and anyone near it).
If turrets require a hearthling to do anything (even if hearthlings are perfectly safe while getting to/from turrets and operating them) then they’re just expensive and pointless pieces of junk and it’d be better to just remove turrets and engineers from the game completely.
I mean, what exactly would be the point of bothering with turrets in that case? So that your workers can stop doing useful work and defend the town while your mobile military force (that you still need for enemies that don’t come to you, like crypts and varanus families) sit around the campfire telling stories about the day a party of 15 kobolds spawned while they were taking out 5 zombies and they had to take on all 20 enemies without the benefit of babysitters manning food chuckers?
Yeah I’ve actually had turnips before. I’m basing that little joke off of the description for turnips in game though 
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Hi everyone! Just want you all to know that we greatly appreciate your feedback/suggestions and will continue to keep these in mind as we continue to work on and make improvements to the engineer.
One of the things we’ve been discussing a lot is what kind of tech fits the time period of the world in stonehearth. By introducing the engineer, we also introduce new technologies and machines that may change the way that world is perceived. We want to do this in a way that makes sense and fits well with the rest of the world (and we have some plans to re-adjust the turrets to address that concern). If you guys have any thoughts about this topic, we’d love to hear it! 
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Steam punk with a dash of magic.
(Just throwing out a idea to maul around)
Why not have certain classes only obtainable when your town score is at certain levels?
Basically, As your town grows and becomes more civilized you can obtain the next era, In turn certain classes become available - example: Stone age to Bronze age to Iron age (you can get the Engineer) etc,.
Not saying to do this with every class, just some classes are more advanced then others and should require something more than just leveling a hearthling in a certain class and (bam) you have all the end game classes.
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How ambitious would the developers like to be?
Forget about Stonehearth for a minute; and imagine a game where you start out as cavemen (hunting and gathering and not much else) and unlock various pieces of technology (fire, leatherworking, …) until you’re playing a futuristic space game (you’ve unlocked warp drives, etc).
Now come back to thinking about Stonehearth. Does the game need one specific time period?
If the developers are ambitious enough, having one specific time period is a crippling limitation - better to have a smooth progression through multiple time periods as the “tech tree” unfolds.
Maybe, you could even have some sort of quest to unlock “Tier 2 Township” that marks the beginning of the second time period…
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I honestly could see Stonehearth in Space. But for the exercise of creating a game that will eventually be done at some point, it’s good to pick a time period to prioritize.
However, I am ALL for mods exploring every single moment of hearthling history. To Infinity and Beyond!
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Okay this comes down to enemy AI and how they behave not the turret itself.
If enemy AI was improved to prioritize strong targets first and things damaging it and go straight for the immediate threats - logically - that would make building defenses have an obvious benefit of more targets with the same amount of hearthlings. So you get attacked but if a turret isn’t manned they don’t care as much and don’t target the turrets straight away. Its just like a castle siege you don’t waste time on tearing down the entire wall - you just break through enough to get your forces in. You don’t waste time fighting every peasant in the city, you go for soldiers. Yes, they should still want to disable the turrets in case they do get manned, but if its not an immediate threat finding fighting hearthlings should be top priority.
To me this seems like the best way to add strategy to combat, because if they are currently only after hearthlings and resources, adding structures to strategic locations throughout your town would have a major impact on a fight. Imagine all the anti-seige you could create in mods that will not work without the enemy AI being supported for this type of gameplay. I simply don’t see a downside to manned turrets and have yet to hear a good reason for not adding it. Saying everything works on Magic is kind of a cop out imo and it makes the world feel all that more disconnected and cold (in Factorio, its appropriate) from interaction by the player and now also its hearthlings. I want more interaction between the AI and game objects - not less. The less real something is to the hearthlings the less real it is to the player.
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It’s your choice - you can:
a) only do one time period, be finished in maybe 12 months, and then be unemployed/looking for another project in 18 months.
b) do not much more work (to make it seem more like a few time periods), be finished in maybe 18 months, and then keep going for another 12 months and charge me an extra $15 for a “next few time periods” expansion pack, and then keep going for another 12 months and charge me an extra $15 for a “next few time periods” expansion pack, and then … 
I’d rather them just make the current time period the best they can. I don’t see the large gameplay benefit of getting too technologically advanced.
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I don’t think the game would benefit from adding in several DLC packs that are more than half the value of the game itself. Besides, the game won’t be finished in a year and can definitely be improved without leaving the current time period.
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I do think the game would benefit from some kind of “longevity”. The way it is now, it’s like the game is designed so that everything happens within the first 2 hours of gameplay because nobody is expected like the game enough to play it for any longer than that. if you are planning to do any kind of large scale project; then you’ve completed all quests, unlocked all skills and recipes, and reached the population cap, all before you’ve done half the preparation (and before you even begin the project itself).
Note that (the development version of) the game already has 2 time periods - “camp” (Tier 1) and “town” (Tier 2). To be honest I think it’s bizarre that you’re able to have engineers while you’re only a camp (I think becoming “Tier 2” should unlock the engineer). I also think there should be a “Tier 0” where (for Ascendancy) you can’t have cooks, potters, shepherds or blacksmiths (until you reach some easily obtained milestone).
In that case, I don’t think either of us has a chance to convince the other of his own point of view. I’m quite certain the game has well over two hours of gameplay. Are you rushing through it? Are you using templates and and not designing any buildings yourself?
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the way it is now is because the game is in development, they’re adding more late game quests as they get further along in development. it wouldn’t make sense for the team to finish all the endgame quests right now (or when they first started making the game), because then we would have nothing in between them, and that would just give the same “problem” we have right now, long waits for something new to happen.
i’m pretty tired right now, so i hope that makes sense. 
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