Grimtongue wrote:Research techs that can enhance the player's statistics or abilities would be a much better direction for Factorio.
We already have a few of those, Toolbelt, weapon damage increases, Logistic slots etc. The issue is that in multiplayer, once the skill is unlocked, all players get it. And for grinding for experience, well, you could just gain experience from things you'd be doing anyway, like killing biters, or building things in your suit.
I know this is old, but I have a few comments.
Classes: I like the general idea, but some of the things could be harder to implement.
Engineer: having cheeper recipes... Doable, but you'd effectively need multiple sets of recipes, 1 for the engineer, 1 for the factories, and possible another set for every other class too, depending. I suppose an easier way would be Engineer overide recipes, so they use they default recipe for an item, unless a specific recipe is specified specifically for the engineer class.
Fighter: well, no notes there.
Scientist: Cheaper science... well, how would this work in multiplayer?
An alternative, and easier solution for the Engineer could be a personal Productivity guage. like having a productivity module installed in the player entity, so if you make 10 runs of copper wire, you get an 11th run for free, so instead of ending up with 20 wires, you get 22. The bonus could possibly be higher(or increased with experience). The problem is, how to choose what this bonus applies to, and if it should keep track of indevidual recipes, you might not craft 10 wires in a row, does it reset when you choose a different recipe, or does the bonus gague just fill for everything you build and apply to the item you're crafting when it fills? The best solution would be a seperate gague for every item you can craft, so when you eventually build a 10th item, you get the 11th for free, but it could end up being messy internally keeping a track of it for every possible recipe, then there's the issue that currently, most of these gagues and things reset when saved and loaded, including fluids inside a factory.
Fighter, perhaps a health bonus, and/or damage output multiplier bonus?
Scientist... well, i have no sugestions here, I just don't think this idea would work.
A sugestion could be miner: improved mining speed, though I suppose this becomes redundant when you're automating miners, in fact since you get a burner mining drill for free, you can play a game where you only have to mine 1 tree, or piece of coal, and don't have to mine anything ever again (though it is tricky without chopping down more trees for wood untill you get construction bots to remove them for you)
another thing you mentioned is experience gain, well, there are 2 directions you can take classes and unlockables...
The first is an EVE Online method, where everyone can unlock and learn everything, different "Classes" just start with different unlocks, and as you spend points, you learn more things. You could have a single entry point in different positions for each class, and as you go through the tree, you can learn everything from all classes, or you could have multiple small trees in specialised areas, say one aimed at combat that gives things like bonuses to health, resistances, and damage output, and another for the engineer, with mining speed, construction speed, and personal productivity bonuses, different classes just have different points spend in different areas.
Things like the Damage bonuses, Toolbelt, Logistic slots etc could be removed from science and placed within your personal Experience tree system.
The second direction is a unique level up tree for every class (so only the engineer would have the engineer tree, only fighter has the fighter free etc), and honestly, in a game like this, I don't recomend it.
I'd recomend the multiple small trees method, and every class has access to all trees, they just start with a few points already spent in different areas.
The next point is... where do you get experience from? Only enemy kills would be a bad idea, not everyone wants to hunt things down to gain experience, but it is a good way to gain experience. Crafting items yourself could also be a good way to gain experience.
A question you also need to ask yourself is... is there a single experience gague, so if you spend a couple of hours crafting constantly, you can gain enough experience to max out your combat skills, or seperate experience gagues so you have to go out fighting before you can level up your combat skills?