jorb wrote:Automating the entire game does reduce the incentives to bot. I'm not necessarily saying that you're wrong, and that smelting shouldn't be automated. I'm just wondering/raising the question of where that logic actually ends.
Ok, I completely understand what you are saying.
My suggestion was only for time constricted tasks such as smelters, fineries & kilns, and I'm not sure I see the logic applying to other things at the moment, because for instance; mining is a very dangerous, non-time constricted task, to dangerous to automate, perhaps unless you had a machine doing it, but a mining machine is not something I am suggesting. It would be cool to see further technology trees in this game, but for the moment my suggestions only came from the place of reducing incentives for botting, where botting gives them an advantage from time constrictions.
I felt the largest advantage is how smelters, fineries and kilns were being botted. Sure people could bot chopping down trees or other such things but I don't see it being a huge advantage doing so. Smelters, kilns and fineries are bound by time constraints; amount of fuel to burn time, to product completion time, where as chopping down trees is not done by a timer. Anyone can choose at any time to go and chop down a tree, but only those who are playing the game without bots or alts are bound by waiting for the smelter, kiln or finery to finish and refill it before they can be completely absorbed into other tasks, where as bots & alts can do this consistently so that those who are using them can focus 100 percent on other tasks at hand while still getting the goods from these time constricted tasks.
I would put the focus on adding ways to remove time constricted tasks while adding more complex decision making to tasks that can be easily botted. Something like tree growing & planting is a bit more complex in that I don't think it can be easily botted in a proficient way, because the trees may die in the pot, and you have to decide where you want to plant them and which seeds you want to use.
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On the separate note of further technology trees; if my suggestions for smelters, fineries and kilns were implemented, and further technology trees fell within your scope of vision for the game, I would then suggest automated mining and tree chopping machines.
- They would have a reasonable material cost; steel & coal etc.
- Work speed 50-75% slower than a regular player(Work speed is speed they chop trees or mine at).
- Their movement speed, which is not their "work" speed would be 25% faster than a player's fastest running speed.
- They would be liftable.
- Their fuel reserves would last long enough to not bind them so tightly to time constraints, (as if that happened it would make the botting problem even worse.)
- The chopped logs would just be left on the ground, and the coals, ores and stones that were mined would be stockpiled.
