Passed Research Mark II

  • Thread starter DeletedUser1105
  • Start date

Would you like to see this in-game?

  • Yes, I would!

    Votes: 78 87.6%
  • No I would not!

    Votes: 11 12.4%

  • Total voters
    89
  • Poll closed .
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DeletedUser1105

Summary
I propose that towns be able to research. This research would result in town-wide benefits.

How It Could Work
You would have to construct a new building (with an appropriate name) first. This would cost a lot of money and construction points to do. Then, within this building it would look much like it does when you construct in the town. You would have different categories of research (see below), with each category have different (increasingly difficult to attain) levels, each upgrade giving more benefits. There would be a good number of categories hopefully, each with 5 levels of research. But you would have restrictions on how many you could research (explained below).

Research Categories
I need some assistance with these. These are purely examples to give you a flavour of what my intentions are.

Security Research
Level 1: You could 'discover' a way to build a better bank vault. This would unlock an extra level (11) on the bank which could be constructed (at a cost of money/construction points as usual) to give an extra limit, such as being able to deposit $15,000
Level 2: Let's you upgrade the bank to level 12, giving $20,000 limit
Level 3: Let's you upgrade the bank to level 13, giving $30,000 limit
Level 4: Let's you upgrade the bank to level 14, giving $40,000 limit
Level 5: Let's you upgrade the bank to level 15, giving an unlimited bank.

Health Research
Each upgrade (there would be 5 levels again) would 'discover' a new cure for a disease, or a new discovery about the benefits of eating fresh vegetables or whatever, and would give extra health points to members of the town (which you would lose if you left the town). Very handy when the duellers come a-knocking.
Level 1: All members get 5% extra HP
Level 2: All members get 10% extra HP (total, not on top of the previous 5%)
Level 3: All members get 15% extra HP
Level 4: All members get 20% extra HP
Level 5: All members get 25% extra HP

Military Research
Level 1: You learn a new defensive tactic. All members get 5 tactics skill points (lost when you leave town, of course). Not putting offensive one in here because 1) would help attackers and 2) would cancel out the benefit of this defensive bonus.
Level 2: You learn something new about guns (God knows what, this is hard!). All members get 20 LP's towards all jobs with 'Shooting'.
Level 3: All members get 20 LP's towards all jobs with 'Leadership'
Level 4: You learn a new offensive tactic (oh, go on then!). All members get 20 LP's towards all jobs with 'Appearance'.
Level 5: You learn a new defensive technique. All members get 20 LP's towards all jobs with 'Hiding'.

Commerce Research (Thanks to George Hurst for this category and bonuses!)
Level 1: The town will recieve an extra 20% commission off items sold in shops.
Level 2: All town members get 10% off shop items,
Level 3: All town members get 10 LP's off jobs with 'Trading'
Level 4: All town members get 25% off shop items (25% total, not added to the previous 10%)
Level 5: All town members get 25 LP's off jobs with 'Trading' (25 total, not added to the previous 10)

Horse Breeding Research
Level 1: All members get a 5% speed bonus
Level 2: All members get a 10% speed bonus (total, not added to the previous 5%)
Level 3: All members get a 15% speed bonus
Level 4: All members get a 20% speed bonus
Level 5: All members get a 25% speed bonus

Technological Research Thanks to Diggo11 for this lot.
Level 1: Jobs can be performed faster. I.e. a 1 hour job will only take 55 minutes.
Level 2: Difficulty of all jobs is reduced by 5.
Level 3: Duellers weapons damage is boosted by 10%.
Level 4: Jobs can be performed even faster. I.e. a 1 hour job will only take 50 minutes.
Level 5: Difficulty of all jobs is reduced by 10 (not additional to the previous 5)

Educational Research Thanks to Diggo11 for this lot.
Level 1: All other researc bonuses are increased by 10%
Level 2: All other bonuses are increased by 20%
Level 3: All other bonuses are increased by 30%
Level 4: All other bonuses are increased by 40%
Level 5: All other bonuses are increased by 50% (to clarify a 10% bonus would become 15%, not 60%)

Tailoring Research Thanks to Clash and Diggo for these.
Level 1: Allows Tailor to be constructed to Level 11
Level 2: Allows Tailor to be constructed to Level 12
Level 3: Allows Tailor to be constructed to Level 13
Level 4: Allows Tailor to be constructed to Level 14
Level 5: Allows Tailor to be constructed to Level 15

Crafting Research Thanks to Clash and Diggo for these
Level 1: Allows General Store to be constructed to Level 11
Level 2: Allows General Store to be constructed to Level 12
Level 3: Allows General Store to be constructed to Level 13
Level 4: Allows General Store to be constructed to Level 14
Level 5: Allows General Store to be constructed to Level 15

Can you think of some others?

Research Level Restrictions (Thanks to Gem for this part!)
Towns would not be allowed to complete ALL the research. Each town would be allowed to research a certain number of research levels. This would depend on the number of categories. For example if we came up with 10 categories with 5 levels each (50 research levels total), each town could choose, say, 20 of these. Once you have researched your 20 levels, all others would be closed off.



Notes on restrictions:
  • Once a research level has been started (i.e. when a town member has completed some work towards that level), this is counted as a choice. This is regardless of whether the research is completed.
  • Anyone with enough labor points would be able to research, much like they can construct. It would require good town management to ensure that town members did not start research on any level that wasn't in your choice.
  • If you wanted to choose, for example, level 5 of Security Research, you would have to research the 4 preceding levels first so it would cost you 5 of your quota of levels.
Downgrading (Thanks to Gem again!)
It would be possible to 'downgrade' your research at any time. A town founder/councillor could choose to 'cancel' any level that is currently being researched, or 'downgrade' any level that has already been fully researched. All money and research points spent would be lost, but the town would regain a research level to choose. This would allow a town to essentially re-spec the town and choose different research levels depending on their mood. To get it back (or to spend the gained research level) you would have to research in the same way, with the same costs in money and research points.

Skills Needed
I need help here. How about: Leadership, Tactics, Fine Motor Skills, Stamina, Repairing. I do not know what difficulty each level of upgrade would be, I would leave this to the developers to work out. However, the 'research facility' would be upgradable to level 10 and would give a reduction in the difficulty of the upgrades, much like the town hall does for construction. (Thanks to Denisero for that suggestion!)



Benefits of this Idea
  • It would spawn a new breed of character spec. 'Researchers' would be in demand and people would specifically spec their character to be good researchers. The research levels would be sufficiently difficult that basically unless you specialise as a researcher, you wouldn't be able to research very well, and certainly wouldn't be able to research the last few levels. Gives another dimension to gameplay.
  • Builders would have more to do, with them having to construct a new building. This building would be sufficiently difficult to build that it would require a lot of effort.
  • Other town members would have more to do, having to donate a lot of cash first to help with the construction and then right through with all the research
  • It is important to remember that research such as the security one would only 'unlock' the ability to construct further bank levels. It wouldn't automatically give you those levels. You would then have to pay and construct those upgrades. These would also cost a lot of money/construction points. This would extend the building of towns by a long long way. It would also give more management issues - do you let your researchers spend money in the treasury, or do you let your builders have it when you unlock something? Keeping both sets happy would be fun.
  • Could possibly bring more money to Innogames. People may be more inclined to start a game on a new world just to be a researcher, and if they buy premium for their other worlds, they probably would do for this one too.
  • Variety and individuality. With towns having to pick and choose which levels to have, every town would be different depending on which levels they chose. This would make joining a town more interesting, because you'd most likely want to know what they planned on choosing before you joined.
  • Community aspect. This could result in towns having big discussions on which levels to choose. Or a leader might just pick and choose themselves - but will town members be happy with that and accept it? Would add more elements to town communities.
Potential for Abuse
I cannot see any.

Mock Up
Not the best, I know (it even still say's 'construction' instead of 'research', but I had limited time and I'm sure you get the idea anyway.
 
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DeletedUser

Absolutely love this idea. I think it might need refining but the foundations are fantastic. I'd love to see this ingame :)

Would there be a max number you could research?
 

DeletedUser1105

Well, I was thinking each 'category' would have it's own limit. For ease I just chose that each one would have 5 levels. You could have as many categories as you can think of I suppose, as long as the benefits given were not too powerful.

I agree that it definately needs work, but hopefully that's where everyone else comes in :)
 

DeletedUser

An idea would be to say you're allowed to research 6 or so "research levels" and the town must choose carefully the ones it needs.

It might create a little variety in towns
 

DeletedUser1105

That's an excellent idea. Depending on how many categories we have, we could say the towns have to choose 5 out of the 10 categories available. Once chosen, these cannot be undone.

Then, within those categories there would be 5 levels to each one, a total of 25 levels, so we could say you can only research 15 of those levels. (Levels must be researched in order too. If you want Security level 5, it's gonna cost you 5 research levels.)

Definately worth discussing Gem.
 

DeletedUser

I love that idea, however another way this could go is that you can either research *ALL* of one section, or bits of each...as in you don't have to choose a module. Say, you have 6 levels. You can do level one and two of health however you have 4 choices left etcetc

6 being an example obviously :)

inspiration: The sims, and the sims 2 :p
 

DeletedUser1105

That would probably be much easier to implement actually, so I'll add that to main proposal now.

Edited, is that what you had in mind Gem?
 
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DeletedUser

Another thought:

Could research be "downgraded" for example if the town was going to go to war they;d up their bank and military specs however if they are peaceful they might need others.
 

DeletedUser1105

That's also another good idea. We could let them downgrade, but you'd get no money/research points back. That would be lost.

If you changed your mind and wanted it back, you'd have to re-research it.

EDIT: Have edited the OP to include this idea.
 
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DeletedUser

I really like this idea, especially with Gems way to make each town choose different specialities.
Rather than have it as one level of military research, why not have a whole category for commerce?
Level 1 could give 20% more town income for external purchases,
level 2: all town members get 10% off shop items,
level 3: all town members get +10 trading bonus,
level 4: all town members get 25% off shop items,
level 5: all town members get +25 trading bonus.
(The bonuses for level 4 and 5 are replacing those in 2 and 3, not adding to them, in case you think I am too generous)
 

DeletedUser1105

Good idea George. I could change the trading one in military to something else and then we have a whole new category.

Edit: Have edited the OP to include the Commerce category.
 
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DeletedUser

I like this a lot. I think it would give a lot more identity and uniqueness to towns, especially once you've bought out everything in its shops.
 

DeletedUser1105

I like this a lot. I think it would give a lot more identity and uniqueness to towns, especially once you've bought out everything in its shops.

Well, that is now one of the aims of this idea. It was originally just a way of giving people something more to do and adding some new elements to town building, but it's now also about letting each town gain some kind of individuality.
 

DeletedUser

Brilliant idea.
Benefits of this Idea
  • It would spawn a new breed of character spec. 'Researchers' would be in demand and people would specifically spec their character to be good researchers. The research levels would be sufficiently difficult that basically unless you specialise as a researcher, you wouldn't be able to research very well, and certainly wouldn't be able to research the last few levels. Gives another dimension to gameplay.
....

  • It would spawn a new breed of character spec. 'Researchers' would be in demand and people would specifically spec their character to be good researchers. Gives another dimension to gameplay.

These are the same aren't they?

Your mockup was fine.
 

DeletedUser

I like the idea. I'm just worried about new character spec. Is it really a new spec or is it a new class? What sort of skills are needed for the research? Will there be anything like the town hall that builders can construct to make research easier or will there be a research that can be completed to make other researches easier?
Research Level Restrictions (Thanks to Gem for this part!)
Towns would not be allowed to complete ALL the research. Each town would be allowed to research a certain number of research levels. This would depend on the number of categories. For example if we came up with 10 categories with 5 levels each (50 research levels total), each town could choose, say, 20 of these. Once you have researched your 20 levels, all others would be closed off.
Notes on restrictions:
  • Once a research level has been started (i.e. when a town member has completed some work towards that level), this is counted as a choice. This is regardless of whether the research is completed.
  • Anyone with enough labor points would be able to research, much like they can construct. It would require good town management to ensure that town members did not start research on any level that wasn't in your choice.
I'm worried about this part. You can only research so many things and once research has been started (not finished) on one of them then it counts towards your total. Anyone can research.

What if someone makes a mistake and researches the wrong thing? It's been known to happen in construction. I can also see towns sabotaging each others research. You let someone into shop and they do 30 minutes of research on something your town did not want.
 

DeletedUser

I'm worried about this part. You can only research so many things and once research has been started (not finished) on one of them then it counts towards your total. Anyone can research.

What if someone makes a mistake and researches the wrong thing? It's been known to happen in construction. I can also see towns sabotaging each others research. You let someone into shop and they do 30 minutes of research on something your town did not want.

That's why I suggested that it can be unspecced, however it's the same as building really. If you can't manage your town effectively then the towns that can will become better
 

DeletedUser1105

Timo, whoops, didn't mean to put the resaercher bit in twice - it's because I did the proposal bit at a time during work.

Dee, doesn't that make it more interesting? If you are inviting people willy nilly then that's your own fault if they wreck it for you, same as you can't complain when you make someone a town founder and they steal your town. You have to be careful about who you let in. And you can 'cancel' or 'downgrade' your researches to regain your allocation of levels, so all you would have lost is the cost of the 30 minutes of working from your treasury.

As to making things easier, that's a good idea. I'll edit the post to make this new building upgradable to help with that.

Skills needed are to be discussed. As an example I have put: Leadership, Tactics, Fine Motor Skills, Stamina, Repairing. But that is purely for examples sake.

I was thinking it could be another class, but that would make this proposal much more complicated. I'd prefer to keep it as something you could spec towards without character class being an issue for now. If this was ever implemented, then we could look at asking for it to be a class.
 

DeletedUser

Gem it isn't the same. If someone builds accidentally on a town building for 30 minutes or 2 hours it isn't a big deal. You are eventually going to be building on it anyways. If research is limited to so many items and someone makes a mistake then the entire town can be screwed over.

I don't think towns that allow other players in to shop so they can get more money in their treasury are allowing people in 'willy nilly'. Everyone does it.

And I just saw the downgrade option. That is much better then. Two thumbs up.
 
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DeletedUser

super idea..
However with regards denise's worry...

All you do... is ... You need to have one of the council's approval(vetto) before you start building a new research level. However for subsequent research no approval is required.
 
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DeletedUser

I'd like to see the last level of research for the bank allow unlimited funds kept in personal accounts. I think the game is going to suffer without such a feature. Plus it adds more incentive for towns to do that research. Of course, I think once you reach a certain level of bank it should be unlimited anyways and that it should be a construction job, not research job. What bank is going to tell you "No, sorry, we won't accept all your cash".
 
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