Preface
Ever since clan building was added, I’ve been greatly enjoying playing around with it and seeing what I could do. However, it always felt like there simply wasn’t enough content, functional structures, and polish on the mechanics already there to make it a genuinely good building system. So the purpose of this suggestion is to propose a ton of ideas I had that people can vote on that I personally think would vastly improve clan building. I’m aware these aren’t all original ideas but why not make a suggestion to vote on them in? Obviously I’m in favor of all these ideas so I won’t cast my own vote. Don’t forget to click the vote button up top if you want clan building to be improved in general.
New Content
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New wall types, those being a number of walls at various 15° angles as well as wall ends, which would simply close off the open gaps of a lot of the tiers of walls and make them look more finished. These would be very useful in having more complexly shaped walls that look a lot more unique.
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New decorations such as a massive and expensive clan flag with cloth physics, fences, actually working light sources, warning signs for things like whirlpools, wild animals, sharks, and restricted areas, and decorative rugs and chandeliers. Who doesn’t love making their clan base look nice?
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Decorative houses with interiors could be added for players to live in and to flesh out towns. We have the keep, barracks, and tiny huts, but nothing personal or with a Real Door™ or Real Glass™.
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New vegetation decoration tab that lets you decorate with bushes, ivy, moss, flowers, trees, ferns, and other various vegetation.
P L A N T -
Fruit and mushroom gardens. Some of the grown food is given to the player and most to the food merchant NPC unless manually harvested. The fruit and mushroom grown depends on the island claimed, such as Shale Reef growing omprela mushrooms. We need to farm Jessy.
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Bathhouses that sell soap and relevant clothing and can immunize you to infection and water poisoning for a time. Could even have short cutscenes with dialogue that gives insight into the player character’s internal dialogue for lore and aesthetics. Aesthetically pleasing and especially convenient if you, for instance, have claimed a dark sea archipelago. Could require building materials. Likely the second-most expensive structure
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Fishing hut that adds functionality to the next few things and requires a castaway, fishing nets that gain small amounts of galleons and stock the food merchant shop with caught fish, including variants, and a fishing boat that requires being placed in the fishing hut’s radius and an additional castaway per boat. Fishing boats sail out from the island and come back 30 minutes later, stocking a large amount of fish and generating a sizeable amount of galleons. Fishing boats can be attacked by NPCs and by players looking to steal some fish and galleons for themselves, and players will get a notification of this happening. Adds more purpose to the food NPC and a new way to profit and get cooking ingredients. Could require building materials.
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New functional houses with no interiors that have several tiers. Each one can house more castaways, and residents will pay property tax to the clan bank with a very small amount going to the island owner’s pockets (the fastest possible setup should be like 400 galleons an hour going to the player’s pockets, so a trivial amount). Just a great way to simultaneously decorate and up your clan’s profits, in my opinion! Could require building materials.
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New arena structures that get bigger with every tier and inherently can only be damaged by cannons. These would be designed to work well with the new dueling system. If the population size mechanics get added, they could even fill up with spectators from the town and create a prize pool of galleons for the victor to claim at the end of the duel. Would likely require the most building materials if that mechanic is added to construct given the size.
New Mechanics
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Resource system used to build the higher-tier new functional structures. Resources are gained from new functional structures like mines and lumber mills. The resource could be called Building Materials and would be gained very slowly so that each high-tier thing that needs to be built requires some real dedication of time and resources and, in turn, creates a real sense of satisfaction. With maxed out resource gathering structures (if they have tiers) you could expect it to take 50+ hours of a single member having the island claimed to build the most expensive structures. Keep in mind these structures that would be built would be very useful.
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New population size mechanic increased by all structures that require or contain castaways, such as farms, merchants, and houses. Resource structures would now require a certain population size to function, the requirement increasing for each one placed down. Gives players both a sense of accomplishment and something to do to help out their clan.
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Path, road, and bridge building that allows the player to click and drag to form one of the three along the length of the selection. These would be capable of creating ramps up and down different elevations and creating bridges across massive gaps for a hefty sum. Could also add vines, scaffolding, planks, and possibly even ramps and stairs that use this same system. This system, while likely time-consuming to develop, would take clan building to the next level and allow builders to make some insanely good looking stuff!
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A proper building grid the player can snap to that actually visualizes the alignment and distances on the grid with your typical white grid lines. It should allow the player to rotate the grid (while displaying the angle of course) and change the grid increment as well as hold a key to move up and down and lock it at that height level. Very important for building literally anything and everything and would enable players to have properly aligned builds and walls that aren’t an utter nightmare to put together.
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Unlockable and purchasable decorations obtained for the whole clan for completing events. These can be both seasonal events and clan events. An example would be corpses, skeletons, black rose bushes, and a blood fountain from a Halloween event. Would function as things for clans to be proud of.
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New architect NPCs that would sell expensive decorations themed around them or the region they’re in, as well as maybe having quests to obtain some. For instance, an extremely rich merchant architect could give a quest to obtain 100 diamonds for them in exchange for a gorgeous, massive diamond chandelier decoration. Would also function as things for clans to be proud of.
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Allowing for clan leaders to change the permissions of each role so that, for instance, lower-tier members could still load but not save a clan build. This permissions customization could even set a daily budget on how much clan funds each player can spend building or limit it to be equal to as much as they earn from a claimed island. Slightly off-topic but a massively needed feature. Lower-tier clan members are demotivated to engage in island claiming when they have to build out of pocket for defenses. This would enable a lot more players to actually be able to realistically use the system or at the very least look at their clan’s bases while solo and have something more defensible.
- New Wall Types
- New Decorations
- Decorative/Player Houses
- Vegetation
- Fruit & Mushroom Gardens
- Bathhouses
- Fishing Hut, Nets, & Boats
- NPC Houses & Taxes
- Arena Structure
- Resource System & Structures
- Population System
- Paths, Roads, & Bridges Building System
- Actually Good Grid Building & Height Locking
- Event Obtainable Decorations
- Architect NPCs
- Clan Permissions Customization
I did write this idea before some similar suggestions popped up but I highly recommend you go check those out too!