why do sandbags require steel?

[Franklin]

I'm sure this is a dumb question but I'm new with the game, and early on it's hard to come by. I find myself dismantling abandoned buildings on the map for their steel walls and floors in order to build sandbags. Why can't I use like, sandstone or literal sand for these things. :/

[Kagemusha12]

Because the bags holdsing the sand are woven from steel fibers 

No, actually I don't know ... normally you would need sand as well as cloth for the bags themselves ... I guess Tynan chose steel instead because cloth at the beginning is too hard to come by

[DariusWolfe]

If that is the reason (cloth being hard to come by, which is true) sand-bags could be as easily made from leather.

I would actually love to see it work like that. Make sand-bags out of whatever textile at the tailor station, then have a set-up time to actually build the defenses. It'd be realistic to have them essentially one use (tear down gives you a reduced amount of raw fabric) as sand-bags are rarely good for extensive moving around without them starting to fall apart.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

I'm sure this is a dumb question but I'm new with the game, and early on it's hard to come by. I find myself dismantling abandoned buildings on the map for their steel walls and floors in order to build sandbags. Why can't I use like, sandstone or literal sand for these things. :/

I expect as with most things that don't quite jive with real life, it is just a game balance issue.

I'd bet there are mods that actually use more appropriate materials for sandbags, like cloth and sand. There are definitely mods that have sand as a substance in the game.

Similar to using steel to make concrete flooring, yet there are mods where you make concrete itself and then reinforced concrete from that.

[grisamentum]

I'm sure this is a dumb question but I'm new with the game, and early on it's hard to come by. I find myself dismantling abandoned buildings on the map for their steel walls and floors in order to build sandbags. Why can't I use like, sandstone or literal sand for these things. :/

It's an obvious placeholder material. You would expect lots of different materials in a game like this, but they just haven't been implemented yet. No reason to "go deep" on specifics when there are still core game elements that are not done or implemented yet.

[StormySunrise]

Sandbags cost sand for me, try CCL tweaks

[DariusWolfe]

...unless I've missed something, CCL Tweaks doesn't add sand as a material. You probably have one of the other mods that does so (there are at least a couple that I know of)

I have CCL+Tweaks, and my sandbags still cost steel.

[Franklin]

I'm sure this is a dumb question but I'm new with the game, and early on it's hard to come by. I find myself dismantling abandoned buildings on the map for their steel walls and floors in order to build sandbags. Why can't I use like, sandstone or literal sand for these things. :/

It's an obvious placeholder material. You would expect lots of different materials in a game like this, but they just haven't been implemented yet. No reason to "go deep" on specifics when there are still core game elements that are not done or implemented yet.

I'm hoping this is the case, and I presumed as much given the alpha state. It just seems like a strange placeholder given you could've used wood, which is far more available in early game, and makes a little more sense contextually. Like we're filling them with wood pulp or whatever.

[carbon]

Would be far easier to just rename them to 'Fortifications' or the like rather than mess with the existing balance.

If you think about it, your colonists are probably mining steel in little gravel-sized chunks that would make for a half decent "sandbag" anyway.

[Havan_IronOak]

Changing the recipe for sandbags (and doing nothing else) would actually be a pretty easy first exposure to modding if you want to try playing with the xml.  Course I'd make a backup copy of any file before I touched it and only make the change before starting a new colony if I were doing it.

Pretty sure any modder with some RimWorld experience could do it in about 5 minutes or less.

[Shurp]

My middle name must be "Trump", I can't resist bait like that

In Defs\ThingDefs_Buildings\Buildings_Security.xml replace:

<costList>
<Steel>3</Steel>
</costList>

With something more suitable like <Cloth>

[Havan_IronOak]

My middle name must be "Trump", I can't resist bait like that

In Defs\ThingDefs_Buildings\Buildings_Security.xml replace:

<costList>
<Steel>3</Steel>
</costList>

With something more suitable like <Cloth>

See! I KNEW it was easy. I've been playing with some of the xml files for a while now but my PC is on the fritz right now and I'm in the midst of deleting and reinstalling things so I couldn't look it up myself.

I'm guessing that cloth would be bad since folks don't start with that but leather might work. Or even better how about whatever scrap metal is called? There's always some of that from the crash-pods and its not a lotta use early on.

[DariusWolfe]

Would it be as easy to change the build-time?

[Havan_IronOak]

Would it be as easy to change the build-time?

Pretty sure its the same file

<WorkToMake>180</WorkToMake>

Adjust as you see fit

[cultist]

Probably because Tynan wanted sandbags to be available from the very start as a basic defensive measure. Wood and steel are the only resources that are guaranteed to be available from the start on any map.