Tygah
New Member
So the recent thread, A Fresh Start, got me thinking about raiding, stealing, town interactions, and other such things. One interesting mechanic that might give people a little more to fight over and defend could be a trade caravan mechanic.
Let's imagine that there are NPC caravans that can carry goods from one place to another. Person in town A wants to send diamonds to person in town B. Why would they use such a slow caravan system when they can just both go to spawn? What if the goods in the caravan multiplied by a certain factor over a certain amount of distance? If Town A sends 10 diamonds to Town B a thousand blocks away, Town B would receive something like 15 diamonds. But let's say Town A sends 10 diamonds to Town B that's 20,000 blocks away perhaps they'd receive 30 diamonds.* These caravans could be attacked and looted, which would make players cautious about sending them without guards. It would also provide a mechanic to help players grow their goods in trading groups, and also foster the existence of more legitimate stealing and looting. After all, you're choosing to take the risk of putting your stuff into a caravan, if it gets looted, then you didn't defend it well enough. If you don't want to take the risk, fine, but neither do you get the benefits of more stuff!
How would these caravans stay on track? Players would create Route Markers that would tell a caravan where to go. Route Markers could follow roads, go off through the wilderness or nether, and be as straight/zig-zaggy as you want. But the terrain in between the route markers must be maneuverable (no more than one block up or down in elevation, 3x3 width and height. Caravans would go straight from one marker to the other, and the benefits would be achieved upon successful completion of the trip. As you level up, you could obtain better/more NPC guards and increase your trading profit margin.
Thoughts?
*These numbers are not exact. Please do not get too hung up on the math.
Let's imagine that there are NPC caravans that can carry goods from one place to another. Person in town A wants to send diamonds to person in town B. Why would they use such a slow caravan system when they can just both go to spawn? What if the goods in the caravan multiplied by a certain factor over a certain amount of distance? If Town A sends 10 diamonds to Town B a thousand blocks away, Town B would receive something like 15 diamonds. But let's say Town A sends 10 diamonds to Town B that's 20,000 blocks away perhaps they'd receive 30 diamonds.* These caravans could be attacked and looted, which would make players cautious about sending them without guards. It would also provide a mechanic to help players grow their goods in trading groups, and also foster the existence of more legitimate stealing and looting. After all, you're choosing to take the risk of putting your stuff into a caravan, if it gets looted, then you didn't defend it well enough. If you don't want to take the risk, fine, but neither do you get the benefits of more stuff!
How would these caravans stay on track? Players would create Route Markers that would tell a caravan where to go. Route Markers could follow roads, go off through the wilderness or nether, and be as straight/zig-zaggy as you want. But the terrain in between the route markers must be maneuverable (no more than one block up or down in elevation, 3x3 width and height. Caravans would go straight from one marker to the other, and the benefits would be achieved upon successful completion of the trip. As you level up, you could obtain better/more NPC guards and increase your trading profit margin.
Thoughts?
*These numbers are not exact. Please do not get too hung up on the math.