Postal network

[jlai]

There's already some ideas for mailboxes and letter-writing ( #391 ), but I think it would be cool to have a postal system for delivering letters and packages.

• Players can install mailboxes at their residence
• Instead of hand-delivering letters to another player, they can drop a letter off at their local post office or drop box
• The letter will be automatically delivered to the destination player's mailbox after a short period of time (instant or maybe like 5 minutes)
• For realism and balance, this action should have a cost, and require some infrastructure.

Let me introduce the postal network:

• Mailboxes must be within X blocks of a post office in order to receive mail, sort of like a power grid
• Each town/community will likely have a post office
• In order to allow for timely delivery of mail, without needing to wait for a player to perform a delivery, mail delivery will be abstracted by postal sorting machines. As long as the mail network is online, mail delivery is guaranteed and automatic.
• In order to create a recurring cost and allow for postal worker jobs, postal sorting machines require mail bundles to operate. Mail bundles are fuel items. Mail bundles are generated by post offices, and can only be deposited in a different post office. Post offices would need to be "refueled" through inter-post-office bundle deliveries once or twice a day, depending on the volume of mail.
• The transportation of the bundles between post offices would be left up to the govt (or possibly a private delivery company). It could be handled through recurring contracts or by salaried employees.

Stamps:

• Mostly to mirror real life and for role playing, letters should be affixed with stamps. Early game stamps would be created from wax (tallow or beeswax), later game bulk produced self-adhesive stamps with epoxy.
• Stamps could be affixed to letters at workbenches, which turns the letter into a sealed envelope.
• There could be some kind of bulk rate system for newletters, political campaigns, and advertisements

Package delivery:

Packages allow for delivering individual items through the mail. They shouldn't take the place of bulk deliveries, but would be good for getting specialized/unique items shipped from across the world. This might require a larger package bundle and a separate package sorting machine, with correspondingly higher costs and number of stamps needed.

As a game mechanic, to encourage long-distance and inter-continental trade, there could unique items, such as artwork or books or designer furniture or highly-specialized equipment. To encourage this, there could be a "theming bonus" where collecting these unique items (which you can't just find at your local corner furniture store) gives you a housing bonus. Unique items could be based on the availability of a resource in a region (region-specific plants/animals/ore) or just a random distribution of where players (writers/artists) happen to live.

[JestinJae]

I think the caveat with this is that it would effectively kill the reason for traveling to other players. It would need to be modern tech at the least probably. However, I also think it would be better as a courier profession where someone actually delivers the mail. I'm not sure how well this profession would work because I'm not sure how many people would want to do it.

[D3nnis3n]

Related: https://github.com/StrangeLoopGames/EcoSuggestions/issues/1711 https://github.com/StrangeLoopGames/EcoSuggestions/issues/1364 https://github.com/StrangeLoopGames/EcoSuggestions/issues/420