So I came onto stonehearth and found now that the class system is going to be based around outfits.
E.g a carpenter has a carpenters outfit that he then switches for a worker outfit or a swordsman outfit so on so on.
Like most of my posts I was curious about the community’s reaction.
For myself I’m unsure how I feel
On one side it seems like a good idea. But does this mean we have to manufacture more outfits? Will this mean that if I lose a man I will lose his gear too? If we assume the tailor is going to make the outfits then who makes the tailor outfit?
Understandably this is early days and they could end up switching to whatever system they had previously (I’m sorry I can’t remember what that one was) but I’d just like to open this up to debate.
When’d it change? It used to be and I thought it still was that it was based off tools, worker picks up carpenter’s saw and becomes a carpenter. Presumably though you could get the stuff back just by sending a unit to where they died, only exception I could think of is there might be special stuff with the magic classes.
I am sure that you dont need a tailor to get tailer outfit. That would be impossible and silly . What question raises to me is wether or not classes are changeable. I would say yes as it is just changing outfit.
If outfit drops when a unit died or dissapears when changing class we dont know. I think I am in favor of dissapearing, cause it creates a cost for just changing classes over and over.
Around minute 2 or so you can see some coding-details on the professions and how they change:
Based on the code (and I think it was also mentioned in the stream) we can assume that every profession will have a “Talisman” allocated to it which will define the profession. This Talisman could be the saw for our carpenter, just as @Xavion mentioned. A bit further down the road you can see in the video above also the place where an option is mentioned for the settler to change his profession by exchange of the “Talisman”.
Actually I am not sure how the outfit (look) is related to this and if the worker will change automatically his look based on the Talisman. I would assume so, but then the question raises on how other items will be handled which we can equip on the different slots.
This was my understanding as well, and to answer @Rybilton’s original question
As far as I know (unless things have changed and I missed the memo ) you don’t create the uniforms for the workers. We’ve seen the example of the carpenter, how a worker goes to pick up a saw and he then becomes a carpenter right? That’s how it works as we know it.
They were talking in one of the livestreams about customisation of workers, and their argument was that - yes you will be able to customise each unit, but there needs to be something in place where you can still easily recognise what a unit does just by quickly looking at him? So, I would say that the base clothing of a class will change automatically when you adopt that class. Customisation of gear/ improved equipment I would imagine is created, managed, and equipped differently.
If he dies, I would guess that you could recover the gear. If you swap class and there’s a mechanic that means his gear is incompatible with the new class I would say it’ll end up in a stockpile?
@Geoffers747 I think you are on the right end of the stick (where the Marshmallwos are ). I am just a bit careful because I have quite some questions related to that which I cannot answer. E.g. while this might work good for crafting professions… how about soldiers? We should be able to add armor and weapons to our fighting units which will change their look automatically (at least I hope). So here the “Talisman”-idea might not work in the same way regarding providing a look which is allocated to it.
Well, everything here is just guesswork, but we obviously know there will be military units, perhaps each class will have access to certain types of weaponry? We did have that massive discussion on military and weapons ages ago I think?
Perhaps it won’t provide such a formulaic look, but will provide a recognisable one? I mean it’s perhaps easier to indicate which units are your hunter/rogue units by their cloak and bow? Something like that perhaps?
I do remember that from the post but here’s the relevant paragraph.
What that looks like to me is that the tool is part of that outfit and thus is what causes it to count. They still talk about binding to a piece of equipment and it’s more likely that you’d just have equipment that count as part of the outfit and cause the respective class change to trigger. I’m nearly certain it doesn’t refer to actual clothing outfits.
jumping into this late, but just to lend my own understanding of the blog… tool outfit
so, we provide a unit with a saw, and he magically transforms (clothes and all) into the wood chopper (and has all the associated AI that comes with the profession, as a result of acquiring the saw tool)…
the “air quotes” around worker’s outfit in the quote would imply that we’re not actually providing the clothes, and that they come along with the chosen profession…
In Stonehearth, you will be able to associate AI scripts with a piece of equipment. So the scripts for chopping trees, hauling, and other workman-like tasks are associated with the “Worker’s outfit” equipment piece.
Huh, very interesting. I was wondering about this myself. Allot of StoneHearth’s gameplay seems to be based off of Cultures 2 (One of my favorite games of all time).
So, say for example, if a worker changes to a Soldier, he does so by picking up a Sword. But then you can give him Leather/Iron/Etc. Armor or jewelry to increase is stats further. Makes pretty good sense to me!
My biggest question/concern with that is how must customization do I have over how the individuals look. Maybe it’s a minor thing, but does that mean that if I have 10 carpenters they are all going to look the same? If I change one guy to a certain class suddenly he has a huge beard and if I change him back the beard is gone, and the color and the exact outfit would be the same for each person?
Question then turns to soldiers which I think has already been asked. Is each soldier going to have the same stats and everything and his equipment not be upgrade-able or customization because he has his set “outfit” already?
Or am I misunderstanding everything, which seems the most likely option?
I think the biggest thing is to think about what @Tom has said regarding customisation - they want us to be able to customise things so it feels like ‘our’ settlement, ‘our’ settlers, ‘our’ soldiers. With this in mind I’d feel pretty confident in saying that there will be customisation options for you classes.
As I said above, they’ve also said that they need to find the balance between letting us run wild with customisation and still being able to ‘read’ what a unit is by a quick look.
I think when Tom was talking about changing classes and that, he used an example that you might have a unit with a massive beard that you want to be your blacksmith, but his skills determine he’s a farmer … I can’t quite remember the outcome (I’m sure @voxel_pirate does) but I think it was something like, you’ll be able to adjust your settlers appearance? But those physical features don’t change when you change class…?
I might be wrong though.
As for soldiers, your guess is as good as mine, however I would imagine we can customise loadouts/ equipment of our units …
To my understanding the physical appearance of settlers can be only be changed at the beginning of a game (maybe also once a new worker appears) and the assigned profession shoud not have an impact on the look (apart from clothing). Just remember that Tom said something like if you have this one guy looking like a smith, you should be able to assign the profession to him… woul not make sense to change his look once he becomes a smith, right?
@Dash it’s what @voxel_pirate said, so anything like skin colour, beard etc. should all stay the same when they change class, otherwise what’s the point in @Tom making variety amongst them? So they’ll be customisable in that way, they’ll just share clothes with those of the same class, meaning from a distance they’re easily identifiable as e.g. carpenters but up close you can tell which one’s Mer and which one’s Tony (I can’t remember the other guys’ names so far…someone who remembers should make a thread for that! ).
@Geoffers747 what that was was an explanation as to why they weren’t giving people stats. @Tom said that if you had a guy who looked like he should be a blacksmith but he had the skillset for a farmer, then you’d either go for the better choice for the game and be disappointed that he couldn’t be a blacksmith or make him a blacksmith and be disappointed that he wasn’t very good at it. @Tom said that was no fun and that you should be able to make them what you liked without the game pushing you toward one in that way.
As for soldiers, I think @Geoffers747 is in the right area. Or also, somebody mentioned a little while back that it might be a better sword for a better soldier. This may well be the case, as up until now they’d been using, and as far as I know still are using (I say this because I’m not sure if this changed to the outfits but I don’t think it did), a tool to be the trigger for each class. So either a) we can give them armour and swords as we want and they are just ‘soldiers’ in terms of class or b) there are many named soldier classes and you give them the next sword they require to upgrade to change their class
you are correct sir… want that big burly lumberjack guy, with the manliest of beards, to now be the town gardener? no problemo… give him the mini-shovel tool, and presto!
just remember, wood shavings are easier to get out of a beard than topsoil…
. What question raises to me is wether or not classes are changeable. I would say yes as it is just changing outfit.
) you don’t create the uniforms for the workers. We’ve seen the example of the carpenter, how a worker goes to pick up a saw and he then becomes a carpenter right? That’s how it works as we know it.
). I am just a bit careful because I have quite some questions related to that which I cannot answer. E.g. while this might work good for crafting professions… how about soldiers? We should be able to add armor and weapons to our fighting units which will change their look automatically (at least I hope). So here the “Talisman”-idea might not work in the same way regarding providing a look which is allocated to it.
outfit