Nilla--Funsted; Industry Mining in the North

[Nilla]

OK, OK, if this is what you all want, I'll have to accept it. 

Maybe it's not so hard to see the point after all; when the workers at the sawmill have nothing more to saw, they simply go out in the yard with some axes and chop the "waste wood" into firewood. Like so many other steps in the Banished work, we simply don't see it. Why not?

@RedKetchup, I only hope that the reduction of the productivity, that you've set in RK Ed stays and that it will not be too easy to "cheat" a very high production with these numbers. But as someone says; those who want to cheat will always find a way, so no need to bother all too much about it.

[LadyMarmalade]

I'm getting confused here.

Firewood has always been the bane of my Banished game. I almost always run out frequently. That's why this thread caught my attention but I find all the flags and values stuff totally bewildering and confusing.

Do I understand correctly that the latest idea is to reduce how much firewood the various woodcutters and Lumber yards produce? I can't imagine why anyone would think thats a good idea!?

Am I also right in understanding that if I download the new updated version of Kids Lumber Mill and add it to my game it will somehow make my existing woodcutters produce more firewood?

Call me a cheat - doesnt matter to me an iota - I believe there's no 'right' way to play the game except the way thats pleases you personally the best!

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't have a big problem with firewood as second option of a lumber mill in an industrial setting. It anyway needs a logical relation between processing a log into lumber and into firewood. Doesn't really matter if in one or different buildings. In my understanding, firewood cannot be sawed faster than boards and planks and to keep it simple I would make both with same input of logs. The more important point is to make water or wind powered sawmills faster than chopping or hewing a log with an ax.

Looking at this new firewood change I don't catch the idea because it doesn't solve something. It actually only makes it complicated and creates new problems. Wood choppers with vanilla speed are already overpowered. Now they would shred even the doubled amount of logs in the same time and sawmills are still not faster. Slowing down wood chopping instead of speeding them up is the better attempt in my opinion. It gives way to sawmills for higher productivity.

If you add such cutters and sawmills to the North, they will be useless (taking 2 logs for 4 firewood and wasting 50% material). That's not a big problem since not everyone plays the north, I just say because Brad was asking. At least I suggest to talk about it before hastily updating a lot of mods.

[kid1293]

Do I understand correctly that the latest idea is to reduce how much firewood the various woodcutters and Lumber yards produce? I can't imagine why anyone would think thats a good idea!?

Am I also right in understanding that if I download the new updated version of Kids Lumber Mill and add it to my game it will somehow make my existing woodcutters produce more firewood?

No, the amount will be the same.
 1 log in - 3-4 firewood out
or
 2 logs in - 6-8 firewood out.

It is just a simple way to equalize the numbers compared to lumber.

And yes, yes, if you have my updated windmill, all old choppers will produce double firewood.
My windmill is adjusted to new setting and will produce at same old speed/amount.

@Tom Sawyer - I agree some with you. I don't care for lumber. I don't use it. My logs are
worked at building site. But there are other mods using lumber.
I try to be courteous here. I could have stayed with what I have and rejected
RK's 'whole package' idea. I don't think I lose by updating my choppers.

[brads3]

hmmmm,NILLA look what you started LOL you now have half the people confused and the other half trying to figure out which is which. KIDD we like having different modders with different ways of doing things. if everyone used lumber for all buidings,we would have a stampede.it is good to have a balance and build small villages and work up to bigger houses and cities.

     to NILLA's point of making tools and clothng in 1 shed,i usually leave the building set to 1 output item.unless there is a shortage of something. the game has limitations that won't allow bannies to do things in their houses that would have been done. worksheds and the workplace mod is kind of an extenstion of the bannies houses.just like you add a room to your house now for a sewing room or a garage for tools.

     i think TOM is concerned that a new upgraded mod will affect the vanilla wood chopper,causing it to be over-productive. if you are under RED's RK choice mod,that wouldn't be an issue.without it though,you would see double firewood if using the vanilla chopper. TOM don't worry i didn't load the upgrade. it would override too many other mods. CC,mini,pine,etc.

      i agree with the logic of it. balance of lumber and firewood from the same cutter has always been an issue for modders.this is 1 of those problems with the game coding by LUKE. sometimes new mod won't override other mods even if it is put high in mod order.

[Nilla]

Do I understand correctly that the latest idea is to reduce how much firewood the various woodcutters and Lumber yards produce? I can't imagine why anyone would think thats a good idea!?

Call me a cheat - doesnt matter to me an iota - I believe there's no 'right' way to play the game except the way thats pleases you personally the best!

Mods with a reduced output from the woodcutter are there for quite some time, it's not new; I know of RK Ed and the North, I also think @Necora had some chopper with a lower output. And yes, I (and many other people) find woodcutter overpowered, especially if you use firewood to trade with. I have seen a single woodcutter make 1000 firewood each year (it's not common but possible). You need 1 log for 4 firewood; a profit of 3,5 for each. This means that this "super chopper" can support a small village of 35 people with food, if you sell the wood and buy food for it.

It's a bit different, if you only use firewood to heat your houses and you have a lot of vanilla woodhouses or similar fuel consuming houses. Especially on harsh, this super chopper can only support something like 20 houses with firewood. It sounds more reasonable. Or is it really? Where is the incentive to build better houses that use less fuel?

Now you can say, a normal chopper doesn't make 1000 firewood each year. That's true! And it's true, because firewood is probably the product, that's most dependant on a good location of the workplace of all. Logs are heavy and a woodcutter can only get 10 at the time and he needs a lot of them (our super cutter needs 250, which means 25 times to the store and back or even more, if the store holds less than 10 logs ). My guess is, that if you are short on firewood @LadyMarmalade there's not enough logs close enough to the chopper (at least it is the problem in my games, if I am short on firewood).

I know and I find it good, that we all have our different playstyles and that we can enjoy Banished in different ways. I absolutely agree, that there is no "right" way, or maybe I disagree  ; there are a lot of "right" ways. We all have our own and we can all find "our" mods. And that's perfect. I didnīt want to offend you or anyone else by calling it a "cheat" to use mods to get more firewood or more of something else. I'm sorry.

[LadyMarmalade]

Oh @Nilla, please don't apologise. My comment wasn't directed at anyone at all and definitely not at you!  It's probably more a self-protection thing because deep down I know I do take advantage of 'cheats' a bit but don't like admitting it! LOL

I think my problem is that I don't really understand the mechanics of the game half as well as most people here and success or failure of my towns is based more on good luck than good planning. I will take your advice re the woodcutters. I had discovered for myself recently that it seems to work well to have the woodcutter right next to the marketplace which is kinda along the same lines, I suppose!

[Gatherer]

Or you can put Kid's Log Depot and a woodcutter next to each other. That way the woodcutter won't have to travel far to get logs.

[RedKetchup]

the changes is made only to equal some numbers when the buildings compete each other, for the wood cutter it changes nothing overall

instead to take a trunk and get 4 firewood in 15mins, you take 2 trunks and get 8 firewood in 30 mins. thats totally the same. it just change things for the lumbermill, the way it works.

[Nilla]

Or you can put Kid's Log Depot and a woodcutter next to each other. That way the woodcutter won't have to travel far to get logs.

Yes, or any other specialized store, market, cart, where a vendor "drags" logs close to the chopper. But if you have one vendor just for logs and one efficient chopper, it's two people and it might be better to have two less efficient chopper without vendor instead. So there are no obvious solutions for this, as so often; no "best way". By the way, it's one of the things, that makes Banished interesting also after playing it as much as I have. (Together with all the fantastic mods, of course    ) But the location of a woodcutter at a market is a "classic". A good choice @LadyMarmalade. Another good choice is to have a chopper close to where the forester put his logs or close to a trading port, where you import logs. To order logs for firewood is another "classic".

This thread's name is "Funsted-Industry Mining in the North". Not much of that so far. Anyway; I built my first DS Industrial building yesterday (if we exclude the small workshop for wagon parts only). It's an Industrial Blacksmith. After I've built it, I realized, that it can't make iron and I don't want to build the large Blast Furnace, yet. It's no problem. I like the Nordic blacksmiths very much and they make iron from iron bloom. Now it will produce iron and the DS blacksmith the tools. I even made a second Nordic blacksmith in the same area, there was a suitable spot for it and I can compare the two different buildings, even if I think, that they use the same (Nordic) numbers.

I have two questions @Discrepancy:
-Hardened tools; how much better are they, compared to steel tools?
-What does the "Industry Trade Merchant"? I've read the menu and your homepage and if I understand it right, the merchants bring only industrial products to this port. My idea in this game is to produce industrial products, sell them and buy food (and maybe some other supply). I guess this port isn't suitable for that. But that would be the logic kind of port for a mod like this. Maybe here in the North a port for exporting industrial products for coins only. You will have to buy what you need in another kind of port.

First picture
I made this and the next screenshot as I first stopped my game yesterday evening. I wanted to watch a film but it was boring, so I went back to Banished and played a few more years instead, but I'll show these pictures anyway.

Year 25, start of the industrial era/area I'm fond of these red houses, so I will build all new houses in this style for a while and I have also slowly started to upgrade the "old fashioned" houses. I guess, that there will be some DS house settlements on other parts of this map.

Second picture
Whole settlement in year 25.

Third picture
Expanded industrial area.

[Discrepancy]

I have two questions @Discrepancy:
-Hardened tools; how much better are they, compared to steel tools?
-What does the "Industry Trade Merchant"? I've read the menu and your homepage and if I understand it right, the merchants bring only industrial products to this port. My idea in this game is to produce industrial products, sell them and buy food (and maybe some other supply). I guess this port isn't suitable for that. But that would be the logic kind of port for a mod like this. Maybe here in the North a port for exporting industrial products for coins only. You will have to buy what you need in another kind of port.

1 - Hardened Tools have use value of 250, slightly better than Steel tools (200). weight is the same at 2.

2 - I agree.  I realised this myself when playing some more with it. In the update I'm working on right now I'm changing it to be an exporter of industrial goods (logs, stone, iron, coke, charcoal, timber, roof tiles & bricks, raw materials (sand, lime, clay), and will now only import Foods, household fuels, herbs, tools, clothing, utensils.

[Nilla]

Why not tools as export? Isn't that the endproduct, together with other industrial products from the other chains? You would hardly be intrested in exporting rawmaterials only, unless you've changed the productivity/profit of these products and made them more profitable. I donīt think, I would like that. From my point of view, it should be more profitable to produce and sell as complex products as possible.

How do you find the idea of a port for export only with coins as payment? And other ports for import? You have already made one port for food import only, if I remember it right. It would solve my old problem with a well working autotrade.

[Discrepancy]

easy enough to do in the north. I will add a few variants of build options.

[Nilla]

I just see, that I made a lot of screenshots yesterday, so today I'll show several pictures and tell a little bit to each. I have started to make notes of the production and I have a few reliable numbers, but I think I will make a larger post about it a bit later, instead of writing a little bit about it here and there.

First picture
Isn't it a beauty? Well, I don't mean the vanilla trading port . I mean the DS lumber mill, but it can also be said about the Nordic Glasswork and Brickmaker. Old industrial buildings are in real oft beautiful, at least to my eyes. Nice that they also are in Banished. 

Second picture
Why does she show this picture, you may think? There's nothing to see!  No, there isn't and that's the point! I'm trying to plan (!)  an industrial center. I have the ambition, to let everyone be happy. So my plan is to locate as many "bad buildings" together as possible and let no one live in that area. I don't know, if it pays off with these large unhappiness circles, but it will be fun to try. Only, this black color is hard to see for an old lady. I gave it up and made a second attempt in winter. It was better but only if the wheather was nice.

Third picture
Snow, a brake in planning new industry! I had time to take a look into some houses. I'm about to upgrade the old houses in an area with uneducated people. This is a segregated society, only educated in the industrial part of the village, only uneducated in the farming area. I keep track. If the Bannis try to rebel, I take action.  But here I really don't know what to do. Uneducated blacksmiths at the inn; a profession where education makes a lot of difference. There are educated laborers in the red houses, where the tavern attic sign is shown. I even started the glass and brickmakers close to the inn and let the vendor in the close cart work. No change! Pure rebellion!

Fourth picture
(Almost) the whole settlement as i stopped the game in year 40.

Fifth picture
Upgraded startvillage in new design. If I understand it right @Tom Sawyer, the sauna loses it's relevance together with the red houses. I've demolished one of them and can see no difference.

Sixth picture
Industrial area. You can see, that most people are happy. As far as I have seen, everyone in the village is happy (Also that envious couple I wrote about in one of the first post. It took about 20 years but finally, they realized, that they had a good life) There are a few single houses out in the woods and pastures, that haven't any happiness buildings in their neighborhood, yet. But it will come, as the settlement grows.

Seventh picture
New industrial area. You can see some of the buildings, I planned. There is more to come.

[Nilla]

Yesterday I didn't play much; nice wheather, nice football game, nice husband........

First picture
You can see my strategy, to keep the people happy in the industrial area, where many buildings have a big black circle.

There is one area with many overlapping black circles, where no one will live. The houses for the workers are just outside the circles. It's alright, if a black circle touches the backside of a house. Maybe the distance from work is too far with this strategy. Maybe they spend more time walking between house and workplace, than they would have spent idling with 2 stars less. I don't know. I might build the same production buildings somewhere else on the map later and locate homes as close as possible to compare.

The large blast furnace has a huge black circle. I don't think, it's a good idea to locate the houses of the workers outside it. It would be too far. Instead I've built it a bit separate from the other black buildings. You can compensate the bad influence of one black circle with "good" buildings, maybe even two but I don't think more. As far as I have seen, the effect of the "good" buildings only work once for each category. Maybe there are some exceptions, I haven't discovered, yet. I will look a bit more into it during this game. Anyway, the houses inside this big black circle aren't influenced by any other "bad" building but from all "good", so everyone is happy, also in the close Bryggen house.

One question @Discrepancy; the Industry Market contains a lot of different goods, among others tools and clothing. Why these consumers products as well? You know, that vendors don't steal from eachother and if you locate these markets close to your production sites, in order to have a good supply of raw materials (what make sense), I'm pretty sure, that most tools and clothes produced in the neighborhood, would land here. Vendors from other part of the settlement can't get them and there will be a bad distribution of tools and clothing to other areas. So my request is, to take tools and clothings away from the Industrial Store.

Another request to you @Discrepancy, is to set the default number of vendors in all markets (and also all production sites) to 1. From my first vanilla games, I've always found it annoying that vendors, traders, foresters, gatherers, miners..... disappears from some sites as soon as a new building is done, just because the default number is larger than 1. Maybe you didn't even want to start production in the new site at once. Some modders like Red and Tom has changed this. The default number is always 1 in all of their buildings and it's much more pleasant to play that way.

Second picture
Even if my ambition was to write shorter blogs, I also have a complain/question/request/suggestion (?)  to @Tom Sawyer. I have mentioned it before, but we haven't really discussed it. I don't like the balance of textiles/clothing and meat. Especially with uneducated workers. My ambition is to have enough pastures to be able to make warm clothes for my population. Maybe it's not necessary on "mild" but I think it pays off on "harsh", so I find, it should be possible. Together with a hunter out in the woods, these pastures aren't enough to make warm coats for everyone. There's enough textiles to make enough clothes, but I need to make some simple wool coats as well. And the place swims in meat. I have seen this in all my latest games. It will improve a bit when everyone get educted but still; if you want to have enough textiles for warm coats, there will be a lot more meat, than you need.

I know @Tom Sawyer, that you have well calculated numbers and some thoughts about them. In this case what are your thoughts? I think it might be a good idea to set the amount of meat (especially beef) down and increase the amount of leather or maybe better; reduce the input by the tailor.