Character Classes/Archetypes

[jimmy_1283]

The thought occurred to me that different players prefer different styles of play, and that maybe having different character 'classes' or archetypes to choose from would be worth implementing. In my mind they would offer a little specialization to certain attributes, in much the same way modular armor does, but from the very beginning.
Things such as:

• Scout: Increased running speed and vision radius.
  Architect: Increased build range and inventory capacity.
  Laborer: Increased tree and rock mining speed, and increased 'reach'.
  Engineer: Increased hand building speed and repair speed.
  Soldier: Increased damage (melee and otherwise) and damage resistance.
  Scientist: Allows research to happen from player inventory (only tier 1 research, and at a much lower speed).

These bonuses would be rather small, be superceded by modular armor modules, and subsequently made obsolete. The aim is to provide players with a choice to fit their play style, and modders to add their own classes.

What do you guys think? Alternate suggestions, improvements, etc?

[Grimtongue]

The thought occurred to me that different players prefer different styles of play, and that maybe having different character 'classes' or archetypes to choose from would be worth implementing. In my mind they would offer a little specialization to certain attributes, in much the same way modular armor does, but from the very beginning.
Things such as:

• Scout: Increased running speed and vision radius.
  Architect: Increased build range and inventory capacity.
  Laborer: Increased tree and rock mining speed, and increased 'reach'.
  Engineer: Increased hand building speed and repair speed.
  Soldier: Increased damage (melee and otherwise) and damage resistance.
  Scientist: Allows research to happen from player inventory (only tier 1 research, and at a much lower speed).

These bonuses would be rather small, be superceded by modular armor modules, and subsequently made obsolete. The aim is to provide players with a choice to fit their play style, and modders to add their own classes.

What do you guys think? Alternate suggestions, improvements, etc?

Something like this would add value to the early game. Right now, the player character is basically limited to engineer - having the ability to hand-craft numerous complex objects without the use of assemblers. It would be interesting for other play classes to have different abilities if they could not hand-craft beyond a certain tech level (or hand craft much slower).

[bobingabout]

There is actually a topic about this in Development proposals.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7

Seriously, Topic #7, that's how old it is, what are we on here, 35637 apparently. Wow.

Anyway... As you can see, the basic idea for this was quite early on in the development, yet we haven't seen anything about it make it's way into the base game yet... so, probably won't by this point.

However, considering the player controls a player entity named player, is actually is possible to create additional player units, and allow people to play as different ones. I personally was considering one with larger inventory, and another that can craft furnace recipes in hand crafting. Some of your ideas are already do-able via modding, the main issue is adding a method for selecting which one to be (Probably some form of GUI when you start a new game, or join a network game for the first time would be the best solution), and having unique sprites.

I mean, researching "By hand" isn't possible... more damage and resistances probably aren't either.

Increased speed, vision, build range, inventory capacity, mining speed, mining reach, build speed and health are probably possible.

And I'm not sure about Repair speeds.

[ssilk]

I think in the end it is relatively simple to have different characters, cause what it needs is just different prototypes for character, different research trees and so on. And the basic structures are already there, we need just multiple of them.

[GlassDeviant]

The original discussion thread is very old and nothing has been done, and that is probably a good thing. Factorio is about research and automation, not to mention using conveyor belts to shoot aliens, not character development, classes, skills and other elements that make up a role-playing game which Factorio is not. Also note that there is an achievement for limiting hand crafting that you perform.

Research and automation give you everything (nearly) that is asked for here:

Running Speed: Exoskeleton.
Vision Radius: Radar, a lighting mod.
Inventory Capacity: Toolbelt, armour upgrades, Car.
Build Range: Walk over to it, or use a mod.
Resource gathering speed: Steel for pickaxe, electric drills, construction bots to clear trees, etc.
Increased damage: about half the research tree contains upgrades to damage.
Increased damage resistance: armour upgrades.
Research from inventory: seriously? It doesn't take much to build a single lab and stuff in a bunch of RP1 you made in your inventory. 10 minutes into a game you should have at least one or two of them, 10 more RP1 should be fully automated, 30m tops for everything.

Not to be negative or anything like that, but I don't see value being added to a game by going against the root paradigm of the game.

[ssilk]

I don't see value being added to a game by going against the root paradigm of the game.

Sorry, but I don't understand the coherence to the OT.

And to the proposals: The devs wrote the proposals in the very early days and they really want to implement all promised stuff at some time. So written in one of the last months FFF.

[jimmy_1283]

Not to be negative or anything like that, but I don't see value being added to a game by going against the root paradigm of the game.

Oh I agree, but as mentioned in the OP, the point was only to make the changes relevant very early game, by the time you reach any of the techs you mentioned, the bonuses would be rendered obsolete.

My intention was to provide players a choice that fits their play style in the early stages, as there is very little divergence toward end game; and my suggestions were just that: suggestions.