(Skill) Add Engineering Skill

[Huey Newton]

ENGINEERING

How about we add an Engineering skill to the set of skills.
Another person and I brought up this idea months ago, but I have recently decided it should grace the minds of newer players.

What would this skill do?

1. crossbows require no skills. So that said, crossbows could keep on requiring no skills to use, but perhaps each engineering skill gives a little bonus to the crossbow. Reload time, reticle etc.

2. seige equipment.
Has anyone ever tried building seige towers, catapults, etc from construction site?
Has anyone ever given up trying to build these engineering feats?
You've probably chosen chosen the latter. They take alot of construction material. How about
If someone with 1 engineering skill spawns a construction site, it requires 5% less construction material to build. And make it ongoing appropriate to level of skill
Therefore making it that much easier to build for your team
(may not seem big now, but when strategus rolls along...)

Why do we need it?

1. Variety. Theres nothing wrong with adding new skills. Variety is the spice of life someone once said....

2. Engineers were plentiful during medieval times, so having these skills would be period accurate.

What do you think?

Add ideas, thoughts comments. Also vote on the poll above.
I honestly think this could be a very beneficial skill added for individual and group play.

[Wiegraf_BRD]

I like the idea, but honestly, Cross-o-bows as they currently are, are fine.   It didnt take much time to train people how to shoot them compared to archery, and those of us who do put crossbow up to 150 get that extra aim, which is nice, but plenty of people already run around with 1 skill point in xbow...

Could do something, like, if you have high engineer skill, you get some advantages to aim, just not as much as xbow skill would raise your aiming on the crossbow.

[Gristle]

Very cool idea. For such a loaded skill, it should probably be harder to level somehow. Maybe every 6 attribute points like HA.

[ArchonAlarion]

Engineering should not affect crossbow use directly *(I wouldn't particularly mind it, but I don't believe its necessary).

However, the play style of a dedicated crossbowmen complements the use of defensive siege equipment and sieges in general. I can imagine a crossbow player spending their extra skill points (They need less skill for their weapon than other classes) in engineering for the use of siege equipment. This also benefits their team making dedicated crossbowmen-engineers a sort of siege oriented sniper-support class.

The difficulty of siege equipment should be based  on engineering.

[Gamerofthegame]

I like the idea in theory, but... Wouldn't this be really selectively used? It's like a cav person on a fairly anti-horse map. Sure, they still can operate but they wouldn't be able to operate as well as everyone else - Save this has this the majority of the time and further they can only really do their thing briefly.

In addition NA servers have a bit of a ban on constructions - Not a direct reason to say 'No', but another thing to think about why this wouldn't really be used.

[El_Infante]

That idea is useful on strategus, maybe on sieges but i don't see any need/benefit on battle servers. Crossbows are fine now.

[Tavuk_Bey]

siege engines idea would be useful in strategus battles 

[Duke]

I had created a more generalized tread on adding both Charisma and Intelligence skills into cRPG, if anyone's interested:
http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,2517

Engineering for me should have nothing to do with crossbows.  My old ideas had it affect hp and deployment speed of ladders and structures.

[OzyTheSage]

I think siege equipment is intended for Strategus, where rounds typically go on for much longer than a Battle round and more people can contribute to the construction thanks to respawning.

If an engineering skill was added, perhaps it could make it so that your construction materials count for more towards completing constructions. Say, a normal construction material counted as 2 points, and someone with engineering of 2 it counted as 4 points, or something like that. A construction needing 4 points would be completed by some guy with 2 materials, but only 1 with the guy who has 2 engineering. This is different from Huey's suggestion simply because only the engineers get a bonus to construction, whereas if an engineer places a construction site with reduced materials cost any Joe Schmoe could finish it quicker even though he shouldn't technically know what he was doing as well as the head engineer. Although I guess his suggestion makes more sense if the engineering skill sort of took into account "planning" of some kind, where he would be able to plan the construction better than mister Schmoe and allow him to build it quicker since it's more organized.

...

Ahem, anyways... it still seems like a "strategus only" sort of deal. Maybe if your main character got a set of skills that were completely separate from battle skills (strategus skills perhaps?) and they only got one every 3 or so levels (10 skill points total when they reach level 30). It would affect things on the strat map, such as movement speed and other things (sort of like how singleplayer works). Or maybe give small bonuses for battles (construction sites build quicker, armor encumbers less... that sort of thing). In any case, an engineering skill doesn't seem appropriate for regular non-strategus play.

EDIT: After posting this I noticed a topic regarding something along the lines of what I'm thinking... sort of

[Kafein]

I think the idea about construction sites is good. And it would gracefully fill the lack of a crossbow skill if crossbows had requirements based on the engineer skill (you can fix it when it breaks as a logical explanation of this requirement).

[Huey Newton]

Perhaps Engineering could also be the first skill to require both attributes?
Say 3 Str and 3 Agi required per Engineering skill

Hunting crossbow no requirement
Engineering 1: Light Crossbow
Engineering 2: Crossbow
Engineering 3: Heavy Crossbow
Engineering 4: Arbalest

each engineering skill above the requirement gives an ever so slight improvement to reticle size and reload speed.

Engineering 1. 3 less construction material necessary
....................2. 5 less
....................3. 7 less
....................4. 9 less
etc etc

[OzyTheSage]

The thing is, the point of the crossbow is that people didn't need special training in order to use it, and that would kinda defeat the porpoise...

[Huey Newton]

The thing is, the point of the crossbow is that people didn't need special training in order to use it, and that would kinda defeat the porpoise...

but they did require some degree of training
obviously not as much as a bow
back then ballistas and onagers and trebichets were simliar to the crossbow in idea and operation. Not the specifics, but how the parts worked with each other rather.
Something most medieval crossbowman wouldve known I'm sure

[ArchonAlarion]

I firmly believe that crossbows should not have skill requirements. Engineering should complement crossbowmen naturally rather than be imposed on them.

[Fluffy_Muffin]

I firmly believe that crossbows should not have skill requirements. Engineering should complement crossbowmen naturally rather than be imposed on them.

Exactly, you dont need to know how the crossbow mechanics work, you just need to aim and pull the trigger.

Your idea is great, just the xbow part is rubbish