Lo-Fi Games

An old idea borrowed from Ultima Online. Work Order were started by players or NPC's and requested an item, with minimum quality and a quantity.

New Item: Work Order (looks like blueprints but is brown in color)
The "Work Order"...
1.) ...would be purchased from NPC.
2.) ...will cost 25% to 50% of the completed value of "Work Order".
3.) ...would be Titled "Order:<Item Name> <quantity>".
4.) ...would have charges to represent quantity desired.
5.) ...will list NPC(Owner) it was created & Location.
6.) ...upon use check for Owner is within trading range, then check for item ordered in inventory. Then, it would remove item & remove 1 charge.
7.) ...would gain value equal item turned in multiplied by charges removed.
8.) ...would gain a "bonus to selling price" if 0 charges remain. 5% to 25% based on time conditions.
9.) ...will contain a date for completion.

Simplified variant:
Change rule 6.) to: ...upon use will check for item in inventory and remove item, then remove one charge from Work Order.
delete rule 7.)

Just some musings on a subject; thoughts anyone?

Updated: to read "Work Order" not "Work Chit".

Clarification: The use of "Charges" would be to combine 1 finished product, with the "Work Order". This simplifies the delivery of the completed job.

No idea what you are saying

never played Ultima Online so have no clue what work chits are.
Even so i have no idea what your requesting.

Simply it seems as if he means something along the lines of this.

You go to a merchant Y from City X and he has a variety of work requests (work chits) for sale along with his items. You scroll over one of the requests and see that the merchant is requesting 12 units of building materials. So you then accept the request by purchasing it off of the merchant for 1000 cats. Collateral of sorts until you return with the building materials. When you return you deliver the work request with the 12 building materials. He pays you the cost of the materials plus 2000 cats (1000 was your original investment and you get 1000 in profit.)

It would also appear as if Tallios's idea involved charges (number of uses) for the work requests. for example, the above mentioned word request had 10 charges until you completed the job. You can complete this job 9 more times. The next time I complete this job i might pay 2000, and receive 4000 and then continues to increase each use after until you hit zero and this merchant now loves the work you do for him so he pays you an extra bonus each time you return to him. Reaching zero would not cause the work request to be considered empty of uses but as a way illustrate your reputation with the merchant. However after a certain amount of time the request will expire.

That is my interpretation of what what he said.

Other thoughts
I think having a system with the merchants that reflects them liking or disliking you would being a certain aspect to people who are playing the game as a merchant. So he travels around picking up items from these work requests, after a while your character has met a number of vendors who rely on your character to bring them what they need. So they like you and pay you extra to keep you coming back to them during your travels. Next thing you know you have developed an extensive trading route. Your grow your caravan and eventually you find entire cities living off what you and your people bring through.

I would like to see the above system done in a way that brings your character personally closer to merchants bringing you a whole new way to play Kenshi.

LostSaint6689 wrote:It would also appear as if Tallios's idea involved charges (number of uses) for the work requests. for example, the above mentioned word request had 10 charges until you completed the job. You can complete this job 9 more times.

I believe OP meant that the "charges" would represent the actual quantity of goods requested.
So if a merchant requests that you bring 12 <insert item here>, then the work chit would have 12 charges, and as you give each item to the merchant, the work chit would lose a charge.
Its more of a "quest tracker" of sorts.

I do like the idea of having some way to track individual disposition with merchants, but that would likely require an additional database filled with disposition values for each individual in the world of Kenshi (which has been done in other games, but I don't think would mesh so well with Kenshi).
This system would also be useless if you have been trading with specific merchants, and those merchants died for one reason or another.
I think that the currently existing faction-wide relations would suffice for this, but I agree that adding another level of "reputation" would be enjoyable.

How about instead of modifying relations on the individual-level, completing work chits would raise relations with the town where the merchant resides?
Cities can be listed the same way as factions are in the Diplomacy tab, and it would affect all the people living there.
These effects would also be combined with faction-level relations, thus allowing the possibility for the player to enter cities owned by hostile factions or force the player to fight a city owned by a friendly faction.

I think everyone in this thread should also take a look at the thread requesting a more in-depth economy located here:
http://www.lofigames.com/phpBB3/viewtop ... =16&t=5003