Right, I came up with this idea 15 minutes or so ago, so it might be a little half-baked, but...
I found myself fighting a "Perpetual Motion Machine", and the thought occurred to me-- "Hey, I bet there'd be some neat parts to be found in something like that!" Because, you see, it's a mechanical enemy. If you think about it, there's quite a few. Observatories, Quantum Suicide Booths, Malfunctioning Rice Cookers, (the aforementioned) Perpetual Motion Machines... all of them, enemies you can't butcher for meat!
But with Contraptions and Contrivances out, maybe there could be a different sort of butchering for such enemies! One that gives you PARTS.
From what I've heard, there's a pretty high cig cost for getting into the scrap heap, but you expect to get-- hell, a couple dozen different parts at least, if you get in a good meal beforehand. This would only give you one part, maybe two. But it would be free.
Support? Ideas? Improvements? "That would never work"s?
I would love to see this!
I think the only issue is there's no economy for C&C's yet, whereas Meat has a minor one (you can cook it yourself or sell it to restaurants). For most players, especially new folks, C&C's would be useless baggage. And even if there was a way to sell them off (say, back to the scrapyard), that would create a sudden link between cigs and req CMJ and others may not want (spend 10 cigs for a dozen C&C's, sell them all for easy req, this could probably be exploited into something game-breaking)....though I imagine there's a lot of folks who would want such a link ("arg! I have too many cigs and nothing left to spend them on!" is a frequent lamentation of some veteran players.)
Creating a C&C Trading Post would also present its own challenges, not only for the req/cig link mentioned above if req is used as a trading currency, but may also diminish use of the scrapyard. Directly swapping C&C's would probably also have its own issues, too, such as determining how many of one item is worth another? But, it would benefit the folks who are looking for specific items.
Without a means to sell or trade C&C's back to the game, I think the issue becomes a volume problem. We had a huge server slow-down when Dwellings were converted to Places because of all the extra material that was now stuffed into the inventories instead of making up rooms and pages. Introducing a low-cost solution to find C&C's (the logic being that fighting and salvaging is lower-cost than the 10 cig scrapyard entry fee) would probably create the same slow-down again if everyone who found C&C's useless started dumping them in random Places' inventories.
I would love to see this!
I think the only issue is there's no economy for C&C's yet, whereas Meat has a minor one (you can cook it yourself or sell it to restaurants). For most players, especially new folks, C&C's would be useless baggage. And even if there was a way to sell them off (say, back to the scrapyard), that would create a sudden link between cigs and req CMJ and others may not want (spend 10 cigs for a dozen C&C's, sell them all for easy req, this could probably be exploited into something game-breaking)....though I imagine there's a lot of folks who would want such a link ("arg! I have too many cigs and nothing left to spend them on!" is a frequent lamentation of some veteran players.)
Creating a C&C Trading Post would also present its own challenges, not only for the req/cig link mentioned above if req is used as a trading currency, but may also diminish use of the scrapyard. Directly swapping C&C's would probably also have its own issues, too, such as determining how many of one item is worth another? But, it would benefit the folks who are looking for specific items.
Without a means to sell or trade C&C's back to the game, I think the issue becomes a volume problem. We had a huge server slow-down when Dwellings were converted to Places because of all the extra material that was now stuffed into the inventories instead of making up rooms and pages. Introducing a low-cost solution to find C&C's (the logic being that fighting and salvaging is lower-cost than the 10 cig scrapyard entry fee) would probably create the same slow-down again if everyone who found C&C's useless started dumping them in random Places' inventories.
I like the possibility of scavenging Contrivances/Contraptions. (After all, in roleplay and house descriptions, I use useful parts from mechanical monsters, and bet that others do too.) Especially if doing the scavenging gives Scrap-Scavenging XP - anything that potentially increases the number or decreases the cost of Contrivances/Contraptions seems like a good idea to me!
Also, these Old Parts or whatever they could be called, having them similar to a mechanical equivalent of Meat would be interesting. They wouldn't go off at Newday, but having small nearly-worthless things that you could only sell in CC404 would ... well, it would be interesting, and it would encourage people to go up the mountain and defend the city a little. Or maybe you could feed a whole bundle of them into yet another type of the suggested Vending Machines, and it would chunter away and make you a (random? or to order?) Contrivance/Contraption?
Getting machinery from mechanical monsters is a good idea, and it makes think of a way to improve the robot race. I've heard from many that the main problem with playing robot is the fact that Stamina is fixed. But, what if the robot could scavenge parts from monsters and integrate them into himself, like a battery, a cooling system, or a new laser spleen. With these modification robots would get small, temporary buffs and slight stamina increase. Perhaps they can only manually install themselves at a Chop Shop for a price or a Garage, found only in CC.
Another feature came to mind when the Scrapyard came back. For those who aren't Season One vets, the Scrapyard used to contain, well, scrap. You would be able to get ten pieces of scrap per New Day, ranging from cans to gears to leftover Terminators. What you would do is take them back to Newhome and essentially craft them into weapons and armor. These had the same attack and defense as the standard Shelia items (Rusty Spork and Strategically placed Tin Can). Tedious, but it did save you req, and this was before the stamina system our sole factor.
But I say, why stop with metal scraps? I would love to be able to get trinkets from the monsters, perhaps like what Dave said and make a chance to get a Sharp Tooth or a Patch of Fur which you could use to make homemade items. It would take a lot, 20-25 for a 'Stick with teeth glued to it' but it would be a fun feature.
I love this idea. I envision it working something like this: You have to go to CC404 to get the skill in the first place, and that costs cigs but also you have to have a Place or at least a Stake. Otherwise the game gives you text such as "why do you need this skill if you don't have a Place to put the loot in?" or some such.
The salvage skill would be like Butchering Meat, with three levels like meat has. Most stuff you get would be Twisted Scrap (useless except maybe for a tiny fee from a random encounter character at Squat Hole?) and sometimes you get Bits of Kludge (which are heavy and can be thrown away, or for like 1 req per bit at CC404) and finally, Contraptions/Contrivances. They could be sold to CC404 Scrapyard for maybe 5 req per bit, but more importantly, could be used for your Place.
I think it really could be done without upsetting game balance, and it might not have to be too difficult to code.
Metal bits? Possible food for Robots*.
*They can't eat, right? That wasn't just my imagination? It doesn't make sense to cram a cheeseburger into a robot, so I imagine they can't.
Sorry to thread-jack, but...
Without a means to sell or trade C&C's back to the game, I think the issue becomes a volume problem. We had a huge server slow-down when Dwellings were converted to Places because of all the extra material that was now stuffed into the inventories instead of making up rooms and pages. Introducing a low-cost solution to find C&C's (the logic being that fighting and salvaging is lower-cost than the 10 cig scrapyard entry fee) would probably create the same slow-down again if everyone who found C&C's useless started dumping them in random Places' inventories.
I mean, the more we think about it, the bigger we can make the entire idea. If we had a crafting system in this game, I think people would love making crazy and ridiculous trinkets that could essentially be used as weapons, as weapon enhancements, as weapon ammo, as shields or armor, buff-dispensing items, decorative memento-like items that go away during a DK, a Hall-of-Fame The Best Item Crafted By Contestant Awesome Fred (Planepacked the Limestone Statue, made of 3,105,600 pieces of Scrap), food/medkits for robots, pieces that get combined to make specific Contrivances or Contraptions, Turrets/Defenses that could be placed in Outposts that reduce monsters in Onslaught by 5 per minute for 12 hours, etc, etc.
So I really like the idea of scavenging corpses that you can't butcher, absolutely. I think we should settle on what we'd do with the parts first, actually, since that's the more difficult part.
Does this mean that the stack of ~2K bits of scrap in my house is a problem to the server?
Because if so that could have major implications on my ability to set up a shop...
I personally don't think scavenging entire c&c's off a monster is a good idea. CC has a long history of going down, and the player base has just been given a good reason to go there more often. It's not really showing in how much CC's breached, I don't think, but giving people an excuse not to go will be one more thing to bemoan next "shit's always breached" thread.
There have been a couple wildly extavagant ideas before this, but mine's simple. Fifteen Kg of scrap could get you into the scrapyard. As established in a different thread, a large part of the island has trouble getting cigs. While I, personally, feel the solution to that is something along the lines of "get off your ass and go earn yourself some cigs you lazy incompetent fucks", I guess that isn't a universal solution. So allowing a fairly large amount of metal to be traded in would help those people. It would also help those in a clan - ten cigs not in the scrapyard is ten more for the buff box.
There is a certain level of frustration, for me, when people think cigs are difficult to get. They're not. They're simple to get. I can, currently, make 20ish cigs in 5 minutes. It's a result of the broken stats system. Come season three, it will, presumably, be fixed. What then?
Cigs are awarded to the players who concentrate on the combat aspect of the game. Cig costs are also the barrier to most non-combat features of the game.
The high cig/stam-cost (and uncertain gain) of scrap-hunting means that creating interesting dwellings is no longer equally accessible to grinders and non-grinders. Some people may choose to change their gaming style to adapt to this. That approach isn't for me. Becoming a hardcore gamer just to allow me to create stuff doesn't appeal at all.
I know Awesome Fred started a trading business. Wongo the Sane and Alexander Quandle too. I have a few to trade as well.
First off, I'd like to remind everyone that the forums have the same rules as the Island. Please, let's keep it friendly and polite.
Secondly, the Island is, in fact, a game and it is not anyone's job. I don't like seeing phrases such as "work harder for more cigarettes." Some features will require cigarettes, yes. We can all agree on that. However, remember that different players have different play styles. Some people like grinding. Some people can't stand it. Some people are here for writing more than gaming.
Personally, I believe that there's a good argument cropping up here. Places are, primarily, a feature for RPers. Cigarettes are more easily gotten by gamers. Some gamers are also RPers and that's great! Cigarettes won't be any problem for them. However, many RPers aren't gamers and they just don't have the cigarettes. Why should a feature that's here to support writing rely so heavily on gaming? I'd love to see some alternative ways of getting C&Cs.
That's my thought on the matter, anyhow.
Personally, I believe that there's a good argument cropping up here. Places are, primarily, a feature for RPers. Cigarettes are more easily gotten by gamers. Some gamers are also RPers and that's great! Cigarettes won't be any problem for them. However, many RPers aren't gamers and they just don't have the cigarettes. Why should a feature that's here to support writing rely so heavily on gaming? I'd love to see some alternative ways of getting C&Cs.
That's my thought on the matter, anyhow.
I'd love to see some alternative ways of getting C&Cs.
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