Freehold buildings

Freehold building types.

After you build your house, you can build other buildings on your Freehold. Each building needs the blueprint to start the process. If you have a cosmetic skin you want to use on a building, this is used after placing the blueprint. Once this has been placed, the building will be shown in a non-functional, construction state. Players will need to provide the required materials needed to complete the building construction, for each building on their Freehold. No Freehold has room for every possible option, so players will need to choose how to develop their Freehold by choosing to build specific artisan buildings, business buildings, and creating room for livestock and crops.

Freehold buildings that can be placed on a freehold plot serve three main purposes.

• Homesteads.
• Artisan buildings.
• Business buildings.

Freehold buildings require blueprints and materials to construct.

• Sheds are present on empty freehold plots to provide storage for materials needed to construct freehold buildings.
• Some freehold buildings have multiple tiers, with different footprint sizes.
• Upgrading a tier will not change the size of the building in terms of footprint, but may increase in height.
• Basements in freehold buildings are to be decided.

Freehold taxes are calculated based on the number of permits issued for buildings on a freehold.

• Buildings that require permits will have additional upkeep costs.

Freehold building architecture is based on the blueprint for the building.

• Freehold skins are applied to blueprints matching the type of building: housing, artisanship, and business.
  • The vast majority of cosmetic freehold skins are used for the homestead.
• The freehold building blueprints must be obtained in-game first before the cosmetic can be applied.
• Players are not locked to the racial appearance of a freehold building blueprint.

The way we look at it is the freehold is your space so we want you to be able to make it look the way you want it to. – Jeffrey Bard

List of freehold buildings

• Artisan buildings
• Business buildings
• Fishery
• Freehold building blueprints
• Freehold building permits
• Freehold building tech trees
• Freehold farms
• Guild hall skins
• Guild halls
• Homesteads
• Inns
• Large homesteads
• Lumbermills
• Medium homesteads
• Metalworking stations
• Mills
• Patron guild halls
• Sheds
• Shrines
• Small homesteads
• Smithies
• Stables
• Taverns

Freehold building placement

Alpha-2 freehold concept.

On the left we have some farmable animals- some livestock here in pens; and then we have in the middle there's a bunch of crop rows of farmable crops the players can have; and then there's a couple different examples of different freehold buildings you could have on your freehold: one of which is the house on the right and then some other freehold buildings as well, like it looks like there's a mill in the back there as well. – Kory Rice

Freehold buildings and other items/props can be placed on freehold plots (by the land owner).

• The homestead is the first building that must be constructed on a freehold.

• Freehold building permits to allow for a specific number and type of buildings to be placed on the freehold plot must be acquired from the node where the freehold deed was obtained.
  • Freehold taxes are calculated based on the number of permits issued for buildings on a freehold.

• Currently freeholds have a combined maximum total of six artisan and business buildings that can be placed in addition to a homestead.
  • The number and type of buildings that can be placed on the freehold and the way these buildings get placed are subject to change based on testing and iteration during Alpha-2.

On a Freehold you can have your house, and up to six additional buildings. The additional buildings can be artisan and/or business buildings. Larger buildings may take up more room, reducing the total number of buildings that can be built on a single Freehold.

• Space that is not used for freehold buildings can be utilized for other purposes, such as livestock and crop placements.

• Players can manipulate the orientation of freehold buildings and items being placed on their freehold plot.

• There may be a grid-based system that freehold owners can use to place items/props and buildings on their freehold plot.

• Targeting dummies are planned as placeable props with functional mechanics.

• Players are not able to adjust the terrain of their freeholds. Sloped terrain will result in stilts beneath placeable structures (to keep them level).

Freehold professions

• Artisan buildings on freeholds enable placement of processing and crafting stations.
• Business buildings on freeholds allow freehold owners to provide services to other players.

Freehold progression

Freehold progression unlocks new bonuses, abilities and capabilities for freeholds.

• Freehold buildings are able to be levelled up based on the length of time and productivity of the freehold.

We want there to be progression in many systems and part of the freehold progression is that when you establish these base buildings the longer and more productive you are and exist with that freehold, the more opportunity those buildings will have to both level up: offering new bonuses, new abilities, new capabilities; and just surviving in this world is a feat in and of itself, so it's rewarded by allowing progression with those things. – Steven Sharif

Processing stations

Lumbersmiths processing station.

Processing stations are of course a necessary component of taking gatherables into usable crafted goods essentially to fulfill what recipes require in order to make items. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 metalworking processing station in action.

We're trying to marry the visuals with what's actually going on with the station. So, if you have a job queued and you're trying to do errands throughout the node, or in your freehold or whatever, [you] should be able to look at the station and know what's going on with it: So you know he's there working and once he's done he's going to stop and you can be like, okay there's stuff ready to pick up and have some visuals associated with that. So, as much as we can have stuff rooted in world instead of throwing a bunch of UI in the player's face, that's something that we're trying to do and is important to us. – Kory Rice

Processing stations are workstations that are used to process raw materials into processed goods (crafting materials) at nodes or on freeholds.

• Artisan buildings are required to be placed on freehold (and node) plots to unlock placement of processing stations.
  • Each processing profession has four processing stations that unlock as players progress through their artisan building tech trees.

Each processing profession will have four stations; and the stations will come online as you progress through the profession. Each one of those stations will make goods that are immediately useful to the economy, to crafters, to other processors; and each processing station will build on itself and into the other stations. – Kory Rice

• Master and grandmaster processing can only take place on freeholds.

• Processing stations require fuel to process the required grade of materials.
  • Players can mix and match different fuels to fulfill the fuel requirements of a recipe.

Processing as it stands for Alpha-2's implementation is that there is a certain amount of prep work that's required first for the industry-specific component, which is the building. That prep work might be finding a certain amount of lumber to light the fire in kiln or whatever, to a certain temperature in order for you to process a certain grade of ore; and that grade of ore being malleable then into an ingot; and that produces that ingot so-to-speak. Now, in that process there's a gathering component, there's a preparatory phase, there is a time-related component. – Steven Sharif

• Processing stations have queue slots that allow jobs to be queued at that station. Processing jobs are processed sequentially for all players in freeholds. Processing jobs in nodes are processed sequentially per player, but concurrently with other player's jobs.
  • Processing animations in freeholds are visible to all players (as there is a single shared processing queue). Processing station animations in nodes relate to the processing activity of each player individually, as each queue is personalized per player.

Q: Can you provide more details in regards to the design philosophy behind why it's a queue system for freeholds but not for nodes?

A: On the freehold, processing can achieve the highest levels of processing. That's where the highest levels of processing occur. Nodes can only go up to a certain level of processing. Now we want to be able to throttle the amount of resources that can be processed at any given time in response to the fluctuation and flows of the economy. So, we want to make sure that the economy is a bigger ship when turning than being able to immediately start processing everything at once and get new resources out as the flow of supply and demand changes within the world. And because- again that's at the highest levels of processing; and you're sharing the available queues that exist at those stations. It's going to take time and it's going to take a long time for the higher level materials. – Steven Sharif

• There will also be time-related and gameplay elements that require the player to interact with processing stations. These elements act to throttle the introduction of processed materials from raw gatherables into the economy.

There's also possibilities that the machine you're using itself has some type of gameplay layer- should the kiln get overheated, and you have to throw some water on it or something. There are elements there in that process that we want to mimic this gameplay opportunity for players to interact; and not just be a time-sink. But time-sink is also a component of it as well, because that's the throttle for the introduction of processed materials from raw gatherables into the economy. – Steven Sharif

• Processing times, yields, queue times, and job sizes can increase based on node progression, service building upgrades, node policies, and relics.

That's going to be very important as you get to very late game processed materials that are required. Because some of these things might have days to process within a station, but if you have spent the time and done the work to advance that processing station you could cut that down considerably, perhaps even greater than 50 percent; and that's going to have a significant impact on your ability to either control markets or to create goods. – Steven Sharif

• Processing stations are distinct from crafting workstations that are used to craft finished goods.

• The developers are considering a decay system for processing stations similar to item decay for gear.

Q: Do processing stations wear out over time? Do they have to be repaired?

A: That's something that we're still discussing internally. It is coded in such a way where it's an easy variable for us to change that. There are material components that are necessary to feed the machines to keep them up and running, or it could be based on how you interact with the fuel components. If you overheat- overcharge with fuel, that can create like a system degrade similar to your armor decay, which then you have to feed materials in order to rebuild maintenance-wise. Right now it is not implemented. With that in mind, the only maintenance required is going to be through taxation. And depending on the number of permits that you have placed on the freehold will increase the amount of taxes that are necessary to be paid for the freehold. – Steven Sharif

List of processing stations

• Apprentice Crushing Station
• Farms
• Fishery
• Freehold farms
• Metalworking stations
• Mills
• Novice Debarking Station
• Stables

Crafting stations

Crafting a Nightblade weapon at a weaponsmithing station in the Winstead node in Alpha-2.

There's going to be a number of different types of selectables that you can incorporate as part of the crafting process; each of them having unique results as part of the stat block for the weapon, but also increasing the quality, predicated on the quality of the selectable that you're contributing. – Steven Sharif

Alpha-2 armor smithing station work-in-progress UI.

Crafting stations (also referred to as Crafting benches) are workstations located on freeholds or within nodes.

• Recipes have slots for required and selectable crafting materials. Adding higher rarity selectable materials increases the rarity of the crafted item. Choosing different selectable items can also result in crafted items with different statblocks and unique properties.

• Different tiers of crafting stations represent the quality of the items that can be crafted.
  • Higher tier crafting stations are unlocked with node progression.
    • City (stage 5) nodes may have one Grandmaster crafting station.
    • Metropolis (stage 6) nodes may have two Grandmaster crafting stations.
  • Players can only craft up to journeyman level on freeholds.
  • Upper-tier crafting benches within a node are accessible by its citizens.
  • Top tier crafting stations are present at all node types, however Academic nodes offer additional bonuses to crafting performed there.

• Crafting stations can pull inventory from a player's personal storage and warehouse storage from the node that the crafting station is in.

• There is no limit to the number of players that can use a crafting station at the same time.

• Crafting stations are distinct from processing stations, which are used to process raw materials into processed goods (crafting materials) at nodes or on freeholds.

Q: Can crafting stations be mobilized / moved and can they be placed anywhere in the world?

A: It depends on the crafting station. There are going to be different tiers of crafting stations that represent the quality of item you're looking to create within that specific profession. There's going to be crafting stations that can be utilized by players within their freeholds and then crafting stations that are resigned only to the development of particular nodes, within particular areas, or particular buildings... There's a wide variety of those things to make it a more dynamic experience and something that caveat how players decide to build the world and what the value of those things are. – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• Legendary crafting benches are present in the Academy unique building of Metropolis (stage 6) Academic nodes.

List of crafting stations

• Armor smithing stations
• Hideworks
• Laboratories
• Ship workstations
• Smithies
• Stoneworks
• Textile mills
• Weapon smithing stations
• Woodshops

Player owned businesses

Shop sign concept art.

Our business owner system... grants players a meaningful existence in the world and rewards them for their persistence, dedication and survivability. – Steven Sharif

Taverns

The longer a tavern is in business and the more patrons served, the faster the tavern will level up.

Q: What benefits do players receive for taking on the role of a tavern owner?

A: You will get noticeability with regards to your creations because that will be displayed to the characters that consume those things; but, in addition, you can get certain types of itemization rewards depending on the number of patrons that you serve. You can also reap economic rewards, such as gold from the inn that you are selling your goods at. And then you can unlock access to certain types of recipes and or vendors based on the level of reputation you build up in that particular node. – Steven Sharif

• Taverns have tech trees that allow the tavern owner to specialize and upgrade specific bonuses and services provided by the business.

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

• There may be quests that can only be gathered from player-owned taverns.

Naming buildings

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Buildings will be able to be named. The custom name will appear as floating text when it is targeted.

Freehold building skins

Sunbeam's Remembrance medium homestead cosmetic freehold building skin.

After you build your house, you can build other buildings on your Freehold. Each building needs the blueprint to start the process. If you have a cosmetic skin you want to use on a building, this is used after placing the blueprint. Once this has been placed, the building will be shown in a non-functional, construction state. Players will need to provide the required materials needed to complete the building construction, for each building on their Freehold.

Freehold building skins were offered as Kickstarter and Summer crowdfunding rewards and were available in pre-order packs.

• Freehold building skins can also be achieved in-game.

• Freehold building cosmetics cannot be sold or traded with other players.

• Freehold skins can be applied to blueprints matching the type of freehold building: housing, artisanship, and business.
  • These blueprints must be obtained in-game first before any cosmetics can be applied.
  • Freehold skins sold prior to the release of applicable in-game building-types will be able to be exchanged for embers via the account backend.

Cosmetics that we have sold as part of different packs throughout the past- our pre-order system: Those cosmetics are split into three primary categories: housing, artisanship, and business; and we will have a breakdown that we're going to be releasing of the cosmetics that have come previously and which categories they exist in, but players will have the option to override the appearance of a blueprint that exists within one of those categories with an associated cosmetic skin; and that is obviously not just something that can be purchased through the pre-order system, but also can be achieved in-game as well- our cosmetics that can be applied to specific building types. And we don't get as granular where, let's say, you might have a shrine cosmetic, and you have, let's say, a blacksmith building that you wouldn't be able to apply the shrine to the blacksmith building. If the shrine exists in the artisanship lane you can apply it to any artisanship type building, but not to a house or business. so giving a little bit of additional context there. – Steven Sharif

• The vast majority of cosmetic freehold skins apply to homestead buildings.

• Family members are able to apply their cosmetics to freehold buildings, if permitted.

• A planned feature may allow multiple buildings to be replaced by a single large cosmetic skin.

Cosmetics that are are very large in size- we will have a system that's not been developed yet, but we've been planning for this: we'll have a system where multiple buildings can be occupied space-wise by the larger cosmetic. So, a cosmetic might replace the visual appearance of one particular building, but then you'll be able to have that footprint occupy multiple buildings to replace the visual appearance. So that way you're still utilizing the similar amount of space. – Steven Sharif

• Baronies won't impose any appearance restrictions on freehold buildings.

See also

• Buildings
• Node buildings
• Player housing
• Architecture