Usefulness of Builders once upgrades have completed

So as I come near completing the usefulness of my builders until the addition of new content, I was contemplating useful purposes for them once digging gold mines and building grog storage has come to an end - and I had the idea of allowing them to mine/brew additional resources - one way to do so would be to assign them to a gold mine/grog distillery, upping the production of that building by a specific amount and increasing that amount the longer the builder has been actively working at the building, up to a given point, for as long as they remain actively boosting the building. This would keep the builders useful even when there was nothing to build, and as so many people have paid actual money for their 4th builder, it would give those people the feeling that the money spent remains useful - and the people who actually farmed their 3rd and fourth builders via time that the time they spent still has a purpose even once upgrades have come to an end.

You could even expand this idea, to enable them to be assigned to a variety of buildings, increasing various aspects of that building - instead of just gold and grog buildings, you could assign them to the tavern, further decreasing troop production time.

Another idea would be to give them a defensive ability, where they could build a temporary defensive turret on the island, at a location of the players choice, that lasted for 24-48 hours that cannot be cancelled early once placed unless destroyed - or where they could be assigned to an existing defensive structure to boost it's damage output, or granting in combat health regeneration to the structure due to the builder "repairing" it in combat.

Anyway, just an idea - and one that I hope you guys like/find useful.

 

If you don't like the idea of builders just sitting around image following things:
they build the whole base new after every defence very very fast
they do the gardening
they clean the base, the beach is always clean
they carry away every drunken pirate sleeping around because I never see one
and so on
and they are ready for the next update with one building with some levels like Guild Ship
and they are ready for the next big update with many new stuff and upgrades

In my fantasy, builders don't sitting around

 

Do builder never get a day off?

 

Well after you max out, I suppose they have no advantage. However there are always updates giving the builders more use, be patient!

 

True, but those updates can be quite spacious as far as timing between their releases - and as time goes on and the game becomes more and more complete, they will come less and less. Another point to mention is that once you cap all structures, a new pirate hall and all the buildings and upgrades that it brings can be completed in a matter of weeks where the last time a pirate hall was released was several months ago. Not knocking the game at all, just saying that eventually people are going to have builder downtime and that something for them to do - not necessarily powerful, but to keep the player and the unit occupied - doesn't seem like too bad of an idea to me personally.

On a completely different topic, but a similar subject, it would also be nice to have a "fire drill" mode - where you essentially have access to every troop and can spawn them instantly without cost against your own base in any combination to test out various defense layouts. That, and ofc being able to save multiple bases for quick swapping defensive and farming layouts as well.

 

How about allowing us to assign one of them to wall-building mode, to decrease the cost per segment?

 

Shame you can't gift them to a guild ship so your guild and use them for a period of time.. Then, once they complete a project, they return to the owner for further redeployment.

 

Allow them to drop the ruler, pick up a sword (or med kit) and join the crew in battle.

TiGeR

 

That's a pretty good idea.

 

Great ideas there! I like it!

 

I like it also. Moving to build improvements.

 

I think my builders are busy fishing whenever they aren't building. That's how I explain the lack of fish in the sea around my base camp

 

The 4* fish move to new hiding spots the more you go after them, (usually toward the corners of the map) so just keep exploring, and you'll find them eventually

 

Maybe let idle builders "defend" their huts?

 

That's a good idea! I think the buildings would have to be elevated on the attack priority chain for some of the attacking units for one reason or another, whether just given a bonus to unit "aggro" - or potentially making the builders hut into a bunker or sorts given how the units that randomly walk around the island all run for cover when the island is attacked as is. This would have to be limited in some way though so as not to be too powerful and just trigger whenever a builder isn't building though for it to not effect gameplay too strongly, so maybe make it trigger automatically but give it a long cooldown, or be a mode that you can set builders into that if they are not in will not defend against attacks when the island is assaulted and that when leaving the mode it triggers a long cooldown before the builder can be put back into it - potentially including a restriction from building or upgrading anything as part of the "debuff" as well.

 

"allowing them to mine/brew additional resources"
Loved the idea.

 

I think we should stick them in the PH when not building, and let them drop things on attackers for a very small amount of damage. Historically people would throw rocks, or dump hot liquids, from the castle walls to help ward off attackers - why not let our builders dispose of the outhouse wastes out of the PH windows and into some unwelcome jug's barrel?!

You could even give it a random animation for what they throw out of a set of silly things, so we could have one more thing to giggle about when watching a replay. "Hey check out the banana peel that stuck to the brute's head at 45 seconds left! What a chump!"

It could even be completely harmless and just a comical addition, so we feel like they're at least doing something.

 

We discussed this in Pegleg, and thought it would be cool if you could loan them out for x amount of hours on the guild ship to lower rank players to speed up their upgrades.

 

You can always use their house as a bullet sponge.