Dock or Port

[high summit]

This is a small immersion thing, but it would be neat to have a dock/port building on the edge of cities.

I could see it being handled one of two ways;

1. It's a simple additional building that has its own workers and some stationary ships for aesthetic purposes. That way the city doesn't look like it's completely inaccessible from the main lands.

2. It's actually a functional location that sometimes results in new/temporary citizens joining the city. ||This could even result in new things to investigate when trying to solve murders. Rather than a person being easily located in the directory, you have to break into the port office to find records of people visiting for work visas or family or what have you.||

[delicate whale]

Some piers and docks along edges of the map filled with shipping containers and barges would also be a great backdrop for crime scenes too

[high summit]

Yeah, sounds neat!

[proven shadow]

I support this as a necessary feature in the city. Would also allow new citizens to be introduced to replace ones that die.

[high summit]

Exactly! I honestly think it just makes sense, at the very least, as a set piece! I found it strange that there was no way off of the island.

[high summit]

If we were going down the route of adding more content around the port, maybe there could be some kind of "cleared for travel" ledger in the port office, and people could request that you add their name, or remove someone's for some reason.

It'd be a morally ambiguous mission, as some in the game tend to be.

[kind heron]

You know, it could also be used as a way to move cities, so to speak. It'd be a soft way to reset the world without losing sync upgrades

[high summit]

Oh, that's a neat idea! Keep your money and character, but move to a different city.

[kind heron]

It's especially useful if, like someone else mentioned in a suggestion about moving cities, an update adds something new to the world gen, or maybe your city has some pretty bad bugs

[somber condor]

That's been suggested before, and I didn't really see the point in it then, but thinking about it now, depending on how development progresses, those cities could be basically more difficult or have something different in the environment to make moving to them more worthwhile. Having syncs in that city will help since they'd be 'harder.'

[kind heron]

Difficulty is a bit of an odd thing though, even now as far as I know, the current difficulty setting for the game only affects combat. Having different environments, or even types of cities could be an interesting idea, but it'd be for another suggestion

[high summit]

My main draw for suggesting docks is just as a little immersion thing, but it seems like folks have good ideas for how to make them useful!

[somber condor]

Docks are a good idea. It'd be another industrial building to add to what we have already, it could be made so it doesn't take up space with the 'main' buildings on the grid, presents a lot of new opportunities for play, and it makes sense for the world. That checks about all my boxes.

[high summit]

Heck yeah. I figured it would stem off of the main square, sticking out from it somewhere as its own building(s).

[proven shadow]

Could even be two docks on larger cities

I'd like to see boats pull up and crime happen on them. They wouldn't need to be proc-gen in layout but their contents (people, cargo) would be. Imagine solving a murder on a boat, having to choose solely from the strangers aboard. Or trying to find evidence before the boat pulls away (you get tossed overboard if you stay too long)

[kind heron]

Boat crimes boat crimes

Honestly, that'd be a very cool set piece

[somber condor]

The cities are super high off the sea though right? And there's cranes to lift the cargo that appear already, which would be on level with the docks if they were added, I imagine. So the boats could be far below with lifts for the people to get to and from them.

What do all of us want, every single one? More waiting inside of elevators, that's what!

[kind heron]

Honestly, a big cargo lift on the port for offloading passengers and certain smaller bits of cargo would fit pretty well

Makes me wonder about NPCs taking them to get off though, since they don't yet

[somber condor]

Put in some invisible Penrose stairs for them until it gets to the destination

[normal crater]

Having a spiral staircase off to the side of the lift would fix that.

[prisma topaz]

Heck, you could even have the equivalent of a classic train murder where you get to solve a locked room murder mystery enroute to a new city.

[high summit]

I settled on Dock/Ports because they made the most sense, so that was what I ended up doing for my recommendation. At first, I was considering suggesting some kind of train track thing that stretched off into the distance (and disappeared in the fog), which would come every once in a while and could be explored, but figured it wouldn't make much sense.

I think train murders are super neat, and would love to look into boat/dock murders.

[meager valley]

If they added docks/ports, they could add a fishing mini-game and really take Shadows of Doubt to the next level of video gaming.

[kind heron]

Every good game needs a fishing minigame

[high summit]

Fax.

Fish up murder weapons.

Lol.

@prisma topaz Made another suggestion in the suggestion box about something akin to trains that I thought you might like. Let me know what you think, even if you're not a fan!

[prisma topaz]

Yup, will do.

[proven shadow]

Fishing as an interest would be neat for npcz

[high summit]

With it being in the middle of the ocean, it'd be neat if there were some heavy duty fishing rods hanging off the edge of the island in places. Although, it'd make a bit more sense if the dock was added down below and people just fished off of it.

[high summit]

@silent oasis

[silent oasis]

Upvoted, really nice idea and would go well with other suggestions about having immi & emigration.

[frigid forum]

i have some ideas about how ferries could add to the game! (ported over from my own separate post, thought it would be good to just add on here)

• opening a new business type (ferry + ferry workers, etc.)
• acting as a new game+ of sorts -- it generates a new city but you keep your credits, furniture, and Sync Disk upgrades and installations
• expanding the city and keeping the game fresh as the save gets older and the player collects large amounts of data (makes cases really easy)
• lore stuff! obviously all cities are islands now, so it would make sense to have ferries so that important people could travel between cities
• ferries to travel between cities would introduce a loading screen opportunity to unload one city and load another in its place, to expand the world without being a significant resource drain
• high cost + social credit level barrier could add more of a purpose to crows and social credit than exists right now

[high summit]

@uneven oyster Saw your post about ferries/trains! Posted this a while ago about potential transportation to other islands!

[uneven oyster]

Ha great minds, I just hadn't even considered that a train might be a stupid way to travel from one island to another loool

[high summit]

Nah, not stupid at all! Some other folks have suggested it as well!

If you like trains, I have another post you might like. 👀 Lol.

[uneven oyster]

It's funny because if I search "train" it doesn't show any but mine XD

[high summit]

I linked ya. :P

[high summit]

Oooh, I somehow missed one of your suggestions when I read this the first time! Having a high cost for using the ferries yourself sounds like a neat idea! Maybe it could also play into the kind of people you see coming into the city on them!!

[frigid forum]

ya!!! like maybe really elite people (for really high class murders hehe)

ideally the ferry would be its own location/loaded area (loading screens between entering and exiting so that cities on either end dont have to be loaded all the time, saves resources) so that murders could happen on them (itd be cool if it meant the ferry got quarantined and it was like a murder on the orient express situation 👀) and also just to introduce some flavor and possible gameplay (surely theres stuff to do on the ferry right?) but i wouldnt mind if the ferry itself was a rabbit hole/just a loading screen between cities as long as other features were implemented

i feel like visitors on the ferries would also combo really well with the hotels idea in another thread

because they have to go Somewhere and itd be weird/immersion-breaking if they were in regular apartments

[high summit]

I do love this idea, but worry that trying to have the ferries be their own location might go beyond the scope of the game. It would definitely be awesome to be trapped on the ferry and trying to solve a murder that's confined to a bunch of strangers located on the boat.

I hadn't seen hotel threads, though! Could you link me to one, I'd love to read what people are thinking about!

One thing suggested here was that some people who visit on ferries could be in town for work, that or moving into town. Someone made a really awesome suggestion that people who come on ferries could replace citizens that are the victims of murders!

[frigid forum]

#1104759860568019014 message hotel thread! i felt weird linking it because im the OP 💀

i still think ferries could function really well as a rabbit hole :>

[high summit]

😎 👉 👉 Nah, love a shameless plug.

[ruby meadow]

drug investigation cases on the docks, fish for evidence, body or weapon OR even hide something for someone.

[high summit]

Always love added thoughts like this! There have been so many wonderful ideas for what could go down at the docks.

[vivid dawn]

Would be cool to have to look though ship manifests to see if certain people entered the city or maybe to hunt down cargo for side jobs.

[drifting pagoda]

Also, if it hasn't been said yet, you could go here to leave town/NG+