Phase 8 - It's raining details (firms part 2)[/font][/color]
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In Phase 7 I focused on firms located outside of the cities, in this update I will focus on the firms inside the cities.[/font][/color]
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I thought about it long and hard and decided that while it might not be a favorite of mine we can also add logging camps as firms. The reason is that wood is important and can be used in many different ways. This will give those players that don't want to farm the option to have something else if they haven't found the location of a mine or well.[/font][/color]
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Logging camps - Logging camps will function in a similar way to mines but they will be available to all players. The amount of wood that can be extracted per day from the camp will depend on the amount of workers on the job. The value of the logging camp will be determined by the quality and amounts of wood available.[/font][/color][color=rgb(40,40,40)][font=helvetica]
logging camp types: wood[/font][/color][color=rgb(40,40,40)][font=helvetica]
logging camp attributes: size, workers, output, wood quality, wood amount.[/font][/color]
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Let's move on to building in the cities[/font][/color]
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Warehouses - Warehouses will be important to ensure that items have somewhere to go. Users will be allowed to create warehouses in case they want to store items and stock up on them. Warehouses will generate orders of specific items that users will want to put in them. Players will be allowed to sell from their warehouses to factories but not directly to the public. The number of items a warehouse can contact will depend on slots. Slots will be given out by size. to simplifying things all warehouse can hold any item. Items located in a warehouse will be available to all of the players factories or retail stores in the city. When users return with items from outside of the city they will decide if they will send them to the warehouse or to the factory itself.[/font][/color][color=rgb(40,40,40)][font=helvetica]
Warehouse attributes: size, slots, workers, item ordered, if selling to others,[/font][/color]
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Factory - Factories will be the engine of the game and will requires lots of capital to get started. Their goal is to take a raw material and turn it into something else. Players will define when creating factories what they want to produce, from there we will determine what they need and if it is available in the current city. Factories will first look to local warehouses to fill their needs. If the items they need aren't located in any of their factories they will need to find it from external sources or buy it on the open market. Purchase orders on the open market will create demand which will spur missions for users to get these items.[/font][/color]
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Important concepts -[/font][/color][color=rgb(40,40,40)][font=helvetica]
As i write these definitions for firms I am skipping ahead a lot to deeper game concepts, to make sure they are understood lets briefly examine them here. I will go into more details later one.[/font][/color]
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First - Players are teamsters. The player's role is to move items around, really that's pretty much it. They are glorified truckers braving unsafe roads because no one else can.[/font][/color]
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Second - The goal isn't to create the best economic sim, but the goal is to give as much as possible depth to the background events to ensure that players don't feel like they are just battling cards.[/font][/color]
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Third - The open market will be controlled by us. At the beginning a lot of the games activities will need to be controlled by the shadow hand of the open market ruled by the evil mega corporation called [insert evil mega corporation name here]. This will created the perfect villain because it will be a shadow entity that all players will interact with from the start.[/font][/color]
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Next up I will cover - Retail stores, residential buildings, and commercial buildings.[/font][/color]
