Idle Carpenter (or Class) Suggestion

Suggestions
1

Hey everyone, it’s me again!

So I’m sure this might have popped up with a few of you by now, but I have a suggestion about treating the carpenter (and possibly others) during idle times. As the carpenter isn’t queued up to keep up quantities of stuff, the idle lazying around that comes inherent to the position, seems a bit precarious.

Now I seemed to have noticed that, during down-time, the farmer actively participates in construction, gathering etc. along with the workers. What boggles my mind, or has evaded my gaze, is why the carpenter doesn’t do this as well? With nothing queued up, it frustrates me beyond belief when he/she just stands there. Sure, bugs with idling aside, I’m wondering if this is built into the class as standard behaviour, and if so, whether it can be changed to something akin to the farmer?

I know of a few posts which allude to the trapper needing a semblance of autonomy as well (micro-management being a detriment to some extent), and so, I’d sincerely want Radiant to take a look at classes, and deem which ones should partake in the usual, menial work that needs to be done when they’re idling. At least the early stages of the game are a bit frustrating with one, or two, characters just sitting around, digging their noses for gold, when they could partake in the gathering or building of greater things, when they aren’t scheduled to other things.

As much as I understand the notion that one has to decide of they need a carpenter, farmer etc. as a crucial part of town management and strategy, it still becomes a tiny bit tedious when these decisions seem to make sense for the greater good (e.g. beds so that workers don’t get debuffed early on) are hindered by then having some stand around for nothing.

Hopefully someone can illuminate this a bit more to me, as class mechanics around menial work are pretty much shrouded for me for some reason. Or maybe I’m just daft - who’s to say.

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2

I’m fairly certain it is built into the carpenters AI. From what I understand the farmer gathering is most likely a test of this type of system and if feedback and testing deems it worthy enough the carpenter will most likely do the same.

At some point during one of the livestreams @Tom said something along the lines that crafting classes may help with things similar to their profession. For example carpenters may help build wood houses and such while a Mason might help with stone ones. That is just what I recall, it might be something different.

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And this for sure makes sense! I’d however want workers of all classes help with some more minor things, such as non-specialized gathering (one might assume that a mason wouldn’t go doing a farmer’s gathering). But it’s good to know that the farmer is at least a probe into this kind of mechanic, as it just leaves me so befuddled at times :slight_smile:

It only makes sense (or does it?) that everyone would pitch into the moving of stuff, possibly building etc, especially considering everyone starts off as workers. One might therefore infer that they have the proper training for it, and would go about joining in on building, gathering etc.

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But they would slowly do less and less as they go farther down the skill tree, at least that makes sense to me.

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Bingo! This is how I envisioned it, but just forgot to add it before.

6

Farther up the skill tree you mean? Usually you start at the bottom :wink:

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I believe what he meant was, that the work that is required of classes below the character. As you descend down the line of work needed to be done, the less the higher classes will participate in the work of the lower-tier classes.

I.e. a physician would do more of the brewmaster’s work, a bit less relating to the brewer’s work, and very little of the farmer’s work at the very bottom, let alone the meager work of a normal worker; think trickle-down economics, but in the form of labour.

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I think every idle (keyword) class should help our workers - not only farmers, but carpenters and scouts, even footmen too.

Game would be that’s way easier to play. You aren’t forced to decide, how much workers/transporters you must have

9

I think you’re right, but then again, there should be a limit to when characters participate in menial tasks. Now, in all due respect to your opinion, I for example think that soldiers shouldn’t participate in anything but “soldiering”. Effectively, choosing to class characters into soldiers is quite literally putting forth excess for protection. As much as other classes, such as the carpenter, farmer and probably the weaver play an important role in the grand scheme of things, they aren’t by default a surplus of labour. They serve a solid role in the development of a village. Military on the other hand, as well as historically, has been the assigning of surplus for, what could be without immediately better verbiage, as “empty” labour. The role of police and military is to serve and protect, to be on guard at stations and to insure security and safety. For them to be thrown into the fray of work, no matter how peaceful things are, seems like just wrong. Basically assigning soldiers is always assuming that you have the stability to do so, therefore probably signifying the more essential strategic decision which the casting of classes seems to present inherently as a mechanic.

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