Suggestion: Experience points from building things (and books!)

1st Official Post

    So Alblaka, you asked me to ask this question again once 1.8 is out, which finally happened at last ;) So here comes a copypasta from my previous thread, with a little addition i think could be neat together with this system.

    Suggestion:
    Would it be a good idea that building machines could give you experience points, or some form of experience? Perhaps that more advanced machines requires higher experience level to build?



    Perhaps there could even be a technological experience level beside the regular experience, if possible that is.


    Leveling your technological skills together with your amount of resources could be a fun challenge. It would be a good thing if it was toggle-able though, for those who just want to build IC1 style.




    Here is a little example of how this technological xp value could be shown in the HUD:



    Because the original XP-bar sucks i feel that it's much better to show a value instead of a bar. That way it's much more obvious how much XP points you need in order to "level up", or to build a certain machine that is. There should be a max value which represent the highest level of experience, required to build the most advanced machine(s).
    Crafting primitive vanilla tools could also increase this XP-value slightly, so that meeting the lowest requirements for building the most primitive IC-machines can be reached relatively easily in the early game.





    Also: Books have always been pretty useless for other things than building bookcases.



    Considering this system of experience points, books could be a way of sharing experience points with others, either by "consuming them" (like eating food) or by spreading experience orbs around the player when right clicking (consuming the book). It would symbolize knowledge sharing through reading a book.



    Maybe the item could be unique to avoid conflict with the original book item, with a name like "Technological Manual", "Industrial Compendium", or whatever you wish to call it.



    You might even make it into two tiers where the "Technological manual" is the first one, giving minor amount of experience points, and the "Industrial Compendium" (crafted from nine smaller manuals) will give you more experience points than nine smaller manuals consumed on their own.



    Technological Manual


    Industrial Compendium

    I like the concept you have, but I'm unsure how you essentially creating a book then reading it makes you smarter. Making/writing a book assumes you already have the knowledge tucked away in your brain. I could see something like this in the library stronghold though. Perhaps an additional bonus for exploring them in IC for 1.8, currently they only have regular books and maps in them.

    Whatever the experience angle is I do hope the IC2 team makes it optional. I've never liked the idea of XP in Minecraft and would hate to see the mods follow the game into that direction. The 'experience' is gathering the resources to build the thing, not some arbitrary number because I've done an arbitrary number of things.

    Quote from KakerMix

    Whatever the experience angle is I do hope the IC2 team makes it optional. I've never liked the idea of XP in Minecraft and would hate to see the mods follow the game into that direction. The 'experience' is gathering the resources to build the thing, not some arbitrary number because I've done an arbitrary number of things.

    I don't mind the addition of XP to the game, but I do see your point. You can measure how far you have gotten in Minecraft from the materials you have collected. It's even more pronounced this way in IC with having to gather up lots of resources just to get 1 more high-tech thing. I'd hate to see XP as a limiting factor in the game, but since it's here, at least we can use it's mechanics in IC hopefully in a way that makes it a fun to play mod.

    Quote from Jemulov

    Making/writing a book assumes you already have the knowledge tucked away in your brain.


    Yes it would make no sense to gain knowledge from a book you made yourself, but for the sake of gameplay one must disregard this little aspect and see it more as simply making a bonus item for yourself or for others.


    Quote

    I could see something like this in the library stronghold though.


    Finding a library with XP-books would indeed be cool!



    Just have to stress that this system i'm suggesting should be optional, but it can add a whole new dimension of gameplay to the mod experience.
    If other modders could tap into this system (through API) we could have a nice thing going.

    No I have not. I don't care for Yogscast. However, I did know about the books in the library stronghold which is why I suggested them.