Decouple LH from Crafting Level

[GrubbyZebra]

@admin has mentioned, in passing, that they are looking for ways to decouple labour hours from crafting level. I think this idea is one of the more pressing needs for the in-game crafting economy, and therefore implore GL to look at ways to implement it as soon as practical to the game.

Ideas suggested so far include:

1. Enable crafting XP to be earned from anything crafted in the workshop, forge, shipyard, academy, or seasoning shed. This is the simplest to implement, and the most intuitive.
2. Tie LH to player rank - Definitely the most seamless approach, although it does completely ignore the role of LH in crafting
3. Hire "workers" like crew - Relates LH to crafting a bit more, cost more for the player, although if the crew cost is a model, not prohibitive. My favourite suggestion so far, other than #1.
4. From Cetric de Cornusiac: Tie LH to the port size, and allow for the transportation of workers from larger ports to smaller ones as part of a logistics meta-game. See his post for more details.

I'm sure there are others, but these are the two that jump to mind at the moment. If you have a suggestion for how to overhaul how LH are gained, please post below and I will update this post.

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by GrubbyZebra

[BoatyMcBoatFace]

but lh tied to crafting is tied to specialization

 

many players dont care about crafting and focus on other things

 

some players focus on crafting only and not so much on others

 

your suggestions would essentially eliminate specialization in the game

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

I would rather link the amount of available workforce to the port. Small ports - small workforce, big ports - high workforce.

So you could boost your industries by importing workforce from capitals where slaves workers are the most numerous in your ports, transporting them like any other merchandise. Oh god no, that is no historical slaver ship, it is a colonist transport instead...

However, I like the idea to have it connected with your crafting experience, so that could work as a modifier how many you can administer. Perhaps combined with another modifier, and that is your rank. Three factors determine then how many workers you can maintain; port size, craft level, rank. Their distribution across the map still is your logistic task.

[Frosty]

This is impressively NOT one of the current needs of this game. 

[Sea Archer]

LH is currently not that much of a problem, i would prefer to have some economy impact on ports, so that trading has some more use than filling your own pockets.

[GrubbyZebra]

22 hours ago, BoatyMcBoatFace said:

but lh tied to crafting is tied to specialization

 

many players dont care about crafting and focus on other things

 

some players focus on crafting only and not so much on others

 

your suggestions would essentially eliminate specialization in the game

no, LH is tied solely to shipbuilding, which is only one specialisation. 

Raw materials production is another, cannon crafting another, upgrades, repairs, seasoned woods, are all potential specialisations, but there is no way to increase available LH for any of these unless the player first invests significant time and resources into shipbuilding to boost their crafting level for LH.

[GrubbyZebra]

22 hours ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

I would rather link the amount of available workforce to the port. Small ports - small workforce, big ports - high workforce.

So you could boost your industries by importing workforce from capitals where slaves workers are the most numerous in your ports, transporting them like any other merchandise. Oh god no, that is no historical slaver ship, it is a colonist transport instead...

However, I like the idea to have it connected with your crafting experience, so that could work as a modifier how many you can administer. Perhaps combined with another modifier, and that is your rank. Three factors determine then how many workers you can maintain; port size, craft level, rank. Their distribution across the map still is your logistic task.

The problem with tying it to crafting XP is that there is no way to earn crafting XP other than crafting ships. This leads to many wasted resources creating duplicate shipyards instead of encouraging players to diversify the production aspects of the economic game.

As the devs seem to have decided against giving any means of earning crafting XP other than by building ships, an alternative means of determining available LH is needed.

[GrubbyZebra]

22 hours ago, Hr FrosT said:

This is impressively NOT one of the current needs of this game. 

Maybe not for you, but for many, it is.

[GrubbyZebra]

20 hours ago, Sea Archer said:

LH is currently not that much of a problem, i would prefer to have some economy impact on ports, so that trading has some more use than filling your own pockets.

It is a problem in that it is extremely difficult to gather resources when limited to 1k LH or 1.5K LH. 

It is more a problem in that it creates a crafting economy where everybody has to be a shipbuilder to "rank up", instead of allowing them to branch out and specialise in other aspects of the crafting game.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

54 minutes ago, GrubbyZebra said:

The problem with tying it to crafting XP is that there is no way to earn crafting XP other than crafting ships.

I also don't understand why other crafting, like casting cannons in forge, does not produce any crafting experience. Back in the days of the detailed industry, that was nice.

[GrubbyZebra]

On 3/18/2020 at 5:35 AM, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

I also don't understand why other crafting, like casting cannons in forge, does not produce any crafting experience. Back in the days of the detailed industry, that was nice.

I agree wholeheartedly. Anything that is crafted should generate crafting XP. I still think this is the most straightforward solution.