Books, Bookshelves, and Writing

[Draegon]

Reading is a wonderful way to pass the time and writing has long been a great way to keep information for later generations. I was thinking that bookshelves could be added as a new joy object/storage object and that writing could be added as a new type of crafting. Bookshelves would require a building material and leather to be built if it's purely a joy object. If it were added as a place to store books as well then it could require only the building material. Storage would be for if writing were added as well. Writing would require a new workbech type and creating a book would require cloth/leather for the book and maybe wood for paper (creating paper could be a separate step in crafting if need be). Books would be able to be kept and stored in bookshelves or sold for silver. Copying books should also be possible, manually at the beginning or via a printing press/copy machine later on. Any pawn could write but pawns with high skills of any type could create a book on the subject, which when read would give joy AND some exp in that skill (one "free" level perhaps, but the book would take quite a while to finish reading) Writing could either be in the crafting skill or be a new one. The writing skill would increase the chances of producing a high quality book which would give more joy. A new room type called Library. Libraries would be a room with only bookshelves and tables/chairs (although chess would be nice in a library). Libraries would REQUIRE a light source as reading in the dark is nigh upon impossible. Bookshelves with books in them should be flammable to some degree as books burn quite easily.

[Adalah217]

A mod which focuses on adding in additional joy objects has been made! https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=13400.0

Although without the lighting feature to read. Check it out!

[ChaosChronicler]

Also the Industrial pack for the Call of Cthulhu mod has a writing system with the typewriter joy item
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=26078.0

[cmitc1]

I would prefer for this to actually be apart of the game, letting "artistic" skills branch off to more things would be cool.

[Draegon]

I would prefer for this to actually be apart of the game, letting "artistic" skills branch off to more things would be cool.

Good point, Art in real life is quite varied.

[SangoProductions]

Maybe art could add a boost in quality for any skill (that results in quality work), other than medicine, that is above a 10? And likewise, making exceptional quality things (such that they can be viewed as art) would give art experience. That though, could be complex to have happen, depending on the inner workings of the code.

[Barley]

The idea of instructions is cool, but for vanilla game purposes we should keep it simple and not force Tynan to spend a month trying to code an entirely new aspect of the game. In this case, I recommend "Write book" as an artistic activity at a crafting spot or special workbench, and "Read book" as a joy activity where the colonist grabs the book from the stockpile, relaxes somewhere (In chair if available, recycling the same code that tell colonists to prioritize a table to eat at) and reads for joy.

The books themselves could share the art pool with the statues; alternating between random and historical events in the colony.