What's up, RMers?

[Kain Nobel]

The idea of NPCs behind crafting is definitely a good one; Metal Gear Solid 5 TPP is the first thing that comes to mind, oddly enough.

Just a breakdown. Some terms, grading schemes and other things may not be 100% accurate, but it should still give you a good idea.

In a typical day in the life of Snake, when he's not beating up soldiers and floating them away with balloons, he's rescuing prisoners and hostages, many of them R&D. Some of them are of varying degrees of skill level; D, C, B, A, S, S++, etc which adds to the overall R&D "Score" which determines the levels of equipment you can create. Some of these people are specialists which boost your R&D subscores (Machine Gun Specialist, Rocket Specialist). Then you've got the Electrospin specialist and the Prothestics Specialist which are needed to develop your prosthetic arm weapons. Their 'materials' system, however, was very basic and effective. Fuel Material, Biological Material (yuck...), Common Metals, Precious Metals and... something else.

Not only did it apply to weapons and goodies, the system was reused for the expansion of the home base. Platform and bridge, after platform and bridge where it apparently rains diamonds. 5 common materials and personnel to build new weapons and expand your base.

IMO they did a very good job at keeping it simple and robust at the same time. An expandable system which is both simple and complex. People + Materials + Money = Waiting on R&D to finish making orders = a brand new cardboard box, a non-leathal semi-auto knockout gun to shoot people in the **** and... ROCKET PUUUUUUUUNCH! (I can't believe nobody heard him yelling...:X)