◆Enterprise Mode: The Tycoon's Ledger
Not every adventure is fought with swords and spells. Some empires are built with ledgers, supply chains, and the relentless hum of industry. Enterprise Mode introduces a complete resource management and production system that lets you run businesses - taverns, workshops, factories, guilds, or interstellar trading outposts - directly within your world.
Whether you are a dwarven brewmaster perfecting your ale, a cyberpunk fixer running a black-market clinic, or a frontier merchant supplying a growing settlement, Enterprise Mode gives mechanical depth to the economic heartbeat of your story.
›1. What is an Enterprise?
An Enterprise is any player-owned operation that transforms raw materials into finished goods over time. It is your headquarters, your livelihood, and your legacy.
Enterprises are created organically through gameplay. Perhaps you purchase an abandoned smithy, inherit a crumbling vineyard, or seize a rival gang's warehouse. Once established, your Enterprise appears in the Properties section of the OmniCodex, ready for management.
Enterprise names, icons, and terminology automatically adapt to your world's genre. A fantasy world might present a workshop with anvil iconography, while a modern setting would display a factory with industrial motifs. A sci-fi universe could manifest a fabrication bay complete with holographic schematics. The system always speaks the language of your world.
›2. Managers
Once you establish a business, a manager character will introduce themselves. You choose how involved you want to be:
Hands-on - You handle the crafting and production personally. Your manager takes care of background operations like restocking and maintenance.
Executive - Your manager handles day-to-day operations. They interrupt you only for urgent decisions or strategic opportunities.
Passive - Your property runs entirely in the background. Revenue appears in your coffers. Your manager handles everything.
You can also set a directive that guides your manager's priorities:
- Growth - Expand capacity, unlock new recipes, train workers
- Profit - Maximise revenue, optimise sales, reduce waste
- Quality - Focus on masterwork output, invest in materials, train for excellence
Your manager's personality shapes how they interpret your directive. Some are efficient optimisers. Others are ambitious risk-takers. You will learn their style through play.
A property card appears in the left panel showing your manager, the property's condition, and quick actions. You can change your directive or level of involvement at any time.
Even when you step away, your manager continues running your business. Production continues, merchants trade, and revenue accumulates. When you return, you will find your world has moved forward.
›3. Resource Management
Every Enterprise runs on resources. The Resource Ledger tracks your raw materials - wood, ore, arcane dust, gold, synthetic polymers, or whatever your world's economy demands.
Your resource stockpile is displayed as a clean, categorised inventory with current quantities. At a glance, you know exactly what you have to work with and where the shortages lie.
›4. The Production Queue
The beating heart of your Enterprise is the Production Queue - a visual pipeline where raw materials are transformed into valuable finished goods.
Recipes define what your Enterprise can produce. Each recipe specifies its required inputs, the resulting output, and the time it takes to complete. Queue up a batch, watch the progress bars fill, and collect your goods when the work is done.
A straightforward recipe might convert 3 Iron Ore and 1 Timber into a Steel Shortsword - a single transformation with clear inputs and a tangible output.
›5. The Stockpile
When your production queue finishes a batch, the results are deposited into your Stockpile - a finished goods inventory that is separate from your personal adventuring inventory.
Think of the Stockpile as your Enterprise's warehouse. Goods sit here until you decide what to do with them: sell them for profit, distribute them to allies, or transfer them into your personal inventory for use on the road.
Finished goods can be transferred from your Enterprise Stockpile directly into your character's personal inventory with a single action. That freshly crafted sword does not have to gather dust on the shelf - strap it on and take it into the next challenge.
›6. Equipment Upgrades
A humble workshop can become a legendary manufactory. The Upgrade System allows you to unlock and apply tier improvements to your Enterprise, expanding its capabilities and efficiency.
Upgrades might reduce production times, unlock new recipe tiers, increase storage capacity, or grant access to rare materials. Each upgrade tier represents a meaningful investment in your operation's future.
- Tier I: A basic, functional operation. Limited recipes, modest output.
- Tier II: Expanded capacity. New recipes unlock, production speeds improve.
- Tier III: A formidable establishment. Access to rare and exotic recipes, significant efficiency gains.
- Tier IV: A legendary enterprise. The pinnacle of your craft, capable of producing the finest goods in the realm.
›7. The Time-Skip Mechanic
Production takes time, and not every story wants to wait. When the narrator describes the passage of time - "Three weeks pass as you journey across the Ashen Wastes" - the Time-Skip mechanic automatically advances your production timers accordingly.
The narrator controls the flow of time. If the story describes a month of downtime while your character recuperates in town, your Enterprise does not sit idle. Production queues advance, goods accumulate in your Stockpile, and you return to your operation with fresh inventory waiting. Your story and your industry move in lockstep.
›8. Narrative Integration
Enterprise Mode is not a detached management minigame. It is woven directly into the fabric of your world.
Your Enterprise is established through the story. You do not open a menu and click "New Business" - you convince a merchant lord to sell you his dockyard, or you clear out a mine and claim it as your own. The Enterprise is born from narrative action.
All economic flow passes through the narrative. This ensures that your Enterprise remains a story-driven experience, not a disconnected spreadsheet. Every ore shipment, every new blueprint, and every upgrade has a narrative reason behind it.
›9. Your Workforce
An enterprise does not have to be a one-person operation. You can assign up to 5 characters as workers, giving them roles within your operation.
Assigning Workers
When a character is friendly and available, you can assign them as a worker through the Properties section of the OmniCodex. Each worker brings freeform skills that you define - smithing, brewing, engineering, whatever fits your operation.
Skill Growth
Workers start at skill level 1 and grow through experience. Every recipe they help produce earns them passive XP (the threshold for levelling up is their current level times 10). As skills improve:
- Speed Bonus - 3% faster production per skill level (minimum 0.25x of base time)
- Quality Bonus - 2% chance per skill level to produce Masterwork results (capped at 50%)
Each worker displays a skill card in the OmniCodex with their current level and an experience progress bar.
Worker Loyalties
Not every character makes a reliable worker. The people you recruit carry their own loyalties, temperaments, and histories into your operation.
- Allied workers grant a +15% speed bonus on top of their skill bonus
- Hostile workers contribute 0% productivity and have a 5% chance of sabotage per production cycle
- If a worker dies or is removed from your world, they are automatically dismissed from your workforce
Recruit carefully. A skilled but disloyal worker can slow your operation or damage your output. A loyal apprentice, given time, can become your most valuable asset.
›10. Proposing New Enterprises
You are not limited to the businesses the story offers you. The Properties section in the OmniCodex lets you propose any operation you can imagine.
Describe your vision - a black-market clinic, a mobile repair shop, a deep-sea salvage rig - and propose it. The engine will evaluate what you need, what it will cost, and how to weave it into your story.