Some musing I was having recently was that the game could benefit not only from more "themed" NPCs, but also more NPC categories altogether. Two particular suggestions I was having recently were those in particular: -NPC Craftsmen: Basically, those would be NPCs that would actually act like a mix between a merchant and a crafting table. On one end, they might allow you to purchase some crafting recipes, but on the other their main and major use should to be basically a "Crafting Table NPC" allowing you to specifically craft, using raw materials rather than pixels, themed blocks and furnitures yourself through their selves rather than stealing such from villages and then copying them in your 3D printer(which only seem to support some furniture). So you could have something like hiring(potentially via recruitment center in villages or such)/attracting(via colonies) an Avian craft(wo)man that would basically function like a specialized crafting table allowing you to craft all of the Avian villages blocks and themed furniture using related raw materials. That way, with such an NPC, a player could make their own themed villages and constructions without having to loot an entire village for the raw materials. The NPC basically representing the specialized artisans and craftsfolk produced by that race, responsible for their aesthetics. -Arms Scientists: In a fashion, a variant of craftsmen. We already have multiple merchants selling us randomly generated gear for pixels but right now, we cannot craft such ourselves with raw materials. And to some degree, it would feel a bit silly if our own characters were to -always- be all-knowing genius able to create -everything- of their own two hands to the same degree than even the most expert of people. Here thus come the arms scientist, specialized researchers and weaponsmiths known for their knowledge in experimenting with various types of weapons. Each one of them would come with a random selection of randomly generated weapons. However, rather than sell them for money, their use would be in using -their- knowledge to make -your- own randomly generated weapons using raw materials. The recipes could be fixed for various tiers of items or even elemental effects, but if the game engine allows it maybe it could even be randomly generated with properly tiered raw materials. History shows that many people can make a same item, but it's not all of them that will be as efficient in making it. Thus a good arms scientist could make good weapons requiring little ressources... but another one could make weapons of very similar quality yet takes double the amount of raw ressources. And since the knowledge is tied to a given NPC, it would make them doubly more important for a player to protect a good weapons craftsman from monsters(or hostile PCs) since even if you could spawn or hire another it wouldn't be a certainty their weapons would be as good or their recipes as cost-efficient. This would thus give further incentive to players to develop properly defended buildings to house their scientists in to protect such uniques NPCs.
Everyone should get on this guy's boat. I'm liking this idea. EVERYONE, THERE'S A COOL IDEA OVER HERE, CHECK IT OUT.
Thanks. I just feel this is an idea that could add a lot without necessarily taking a ton of coding to implement. Especially when it would come to the craftsmen NPC since it would just be giving an NPC the same functionality than a specialized crafting table.
Actually, I imagined them more as them giving you the ability(through their "skills") to craft themed furniture for raw ressources instead of pixels 3D printing. With an added bonus that they would also allow you to craft more unique blocks such as the ones used by avians to make up their villages and such(which is something the 3D printer cannot do as, for I have yet to see a block proper which it can print). So by summoning a racial craftman you could craft their village's materials as you were doing more conventional crafting. Like you could make themed roof tiles using the same materials than a regular roof-tile, but with the unique visuals. For example, with a proper craftman NPC you could craft "ornate woof" using regular wood planks materials. Basically the idea is that while everyone could and can make regular wood plank, only the specialized and skilled craftman would know how to make the more ornate block. Basically, they would be in all practice, be a "crafting table" NPC in mechanics and function. -Maybe- their block would come with a (small) pixel costs in addition to raw materials but I feel jst the ability to use raw materials for said crafting would just be neat. In a lot of block's case you could even simply reuse the same recipe than used for equivalent player-made blocks from the players' existing crafting list.
