Most useless workshops ?

[b0rsuk]

My award goes to Smelter. You get a whopping 8 steel for smelting something, it requires steel to build (a long time to break even!), power to operate, and there aren't that many metal slags. Newbie trap.

Tailor - people who raid me always seem to leave some rags behind, I don't see much point.

Smithy - I guess I'll try to sell them, but for using them directly, bleh.

[userfredle]

I thought the smithy was going to have guns, i misread somthing in the changelogs, super excited comes alpha 9 NOOOOO Just pilas

I get it though gotta code materials building the gun and all that jazz, plus im sure tynan will invent some sort of different bench for ranged and melee, ranged being the more later game costing research points

[CheeseGromit]

Smithing table is the only one I don't build.

I've yet to experiment much with melee weapons and personal shields, I could see a use if a fight moves indoors. Guns are introduced early enough in the game that I see no place for the more primative ranged weapons.

[Boboid]

The smelter got hit pretty hard in A9.

Previously in A8 colonist skill increased smelting efficiency quite significantly, to the point where you could exploit it to gain more steel out of a destroyed structure than you put in.


Of course now you can at least turn it off with a power switch. I personally don't build it until I've got enough slag for it to yield a profit.
Keep in mind that almost every random-resource-drop-pod comes with some slag.


As for the tailor - you ought to look into Devilstrand clothing, high quality devilstrand clothes can have 30% or more sharp resistance. It's very useful armour.

As for the smithy - I've played exclusively melee colonies and they've all been quite successful (100/130/160% difficulty, usually 30+ colonists)  so it certainly has its place.
Can't imagine crafting bows/pilas though.

[jasta85]

smithy definitely is the worst, it would become a lot more useful if it could craft advanced weapons but so many knives, clubs and other melee weapons drop off of enemies there is almost no reason to craft more unless you want to try to make some incredibly leet weapon for your powerhouse melee fighter.

I want to be able to build mechanoids that can act as guards, if you require like an AI core or something to make them it will prevent people from building mech armies, but just having the possibility of making some friendly death machines would be very fun.

[warden]

The smelter is the most useless for me too. But building your own mech would be awesome.

[lusername]

Smelter isn't quite useless, it serves as a garbage disposal for all the slag that accumulates, like the corpse disposal of dead turrets. But the Smithy, that is pretty useless. Exactly how many junk melee weapons do you need, and how is it that you don't have enough from all the dead raiders you kill?

But the most useless? The beer brewery. A tiny buff that barely lasts, and it ultimately causes a penalty? What is this good for again? I've never, not once, felt the urge to build it. The production pipeline is too long and labor intensive and it causes a mood penalty, when colonists are flakey enough as it is. Maybe the system is just underdeveloped at present.

Tailor doesn't win high marks either, as far as necessity goes, given how much drops from dead raiders, but I suppose I have to do SOMETHING with their skins.

[warden]

But the most useless? The beer brewery. A tiny buff that barely lasts, and it ultimately causes a penalty? What is this good for again? I've never, not once, felt the urge to build it. The production pipeline is too long and labor intensive and it causes a mood penalty, when colonists are flakey enough as it is.

Come to think of it, efficiency-wise i agree. I'd guess it's the same with bedrooms, 3x3 or even just 2x1 for the bed alone is more space-efficient to put anywhere than 5x5, and since the cramped penalty only lasts while they sleep in the room, it's not bad enough to force you to build larger rooms. Still i build 5x5 mostly, and sometimes stuff art and flower pots into them because that's how i play the game, not just crunching numbers as to what's most effective. So i research and build the brewery too because i can.

In the end it's up to everyone to do as they please anyway.

[Geertje123]

the most useless? The beer brewery. A tiny buff that barely lasts, and it ultimately causes a penalty? What is this good for again? I've never, not once, felt the urge to build it. The production pipeline is too long and labor intensive and it causes a mood penalty, when colonists are flakey enough as it is. Maybe the system is just underdeveloped at present.

A brewery can be good to make beer. If one of your colonists is near a mental break you just feed him a beer, which gives him a +10 mood boost.

[CreepyD]

They all have their uses.

Smelter - I have slag piling up all over from the masses of turrets that have been destroyed.
I was running out of metal nearby too, so the smelter is very useful here.

Brewery - I haven't tried a brewery, but that would be very good for combating the AI persona that drops near your colony.  I know it took me a while to mount an assault on it since I only had 5 colonists.

Tailor - Very useful for making devilstrand gear - either to wear or sell for profit.
That armour is WAY better than anything I find on raiders.

Smithy - Again raiders drop crap weapons - If I want something decent I need to make it myself.
Doesn't it also craft shells?

I'm liking the combo of using personal shields with a strong melee weapon - it kicks ass over ranged raiders unless there are many - still need ranged to thin their numbers first (turrets will do!)

[Elfblood]

Me thinks, most of the Workshops are a bit useless.

So I didnt even build one single Nutrition Paste Dispenser in all my games so far...didnt like the idea to feed this stuff and get a moral malus.
I crafted one single meele Weapon, for testing, and build some clothes...took far to long. I use stonecutting if I have enough workers left, and the butcher, cooking table are always running.

In fact, you can get around everything except cooking.
Beer is nice and all, but the weak colonists tend to abuse it so much, I dont craft it anymore.

Later you can use the mechanics table, but you get far to less raw materials (droidcorpses) for it.
Ah and I forgot the crematory. Number 2 in usefulnes lategame. Always burning ^^

As Im coming from the Gnomoria department over here, the workshop system there is something it wouldnt be a bad idea to take a look for inspiration there ^^

[Boboid]

I tend to run nutrient paste dispensers until about.. 30 colonists.
And they're always in my prisons.

They use like 1/3rd the food and the mood debuff is tiny (-4) and doesn't stack.
You can spend the time you would otherwise be farming food farming cotton or Devilstrand or Wood for clothes/armour/sculptures respectively.

The machining table is incredible if you're getting constant mech attacks which you can deliberately force by becoming neutral with all human factions.

And there's no reason to use the crematory since you can Butcher humanoids for a TINY mood penalty (-4, doesn't stack) and get human meat + human leather for selling/clothing->selling respectively


Gotta think Gnomoria style, don't just kill the goblins, kill them, butcher them, and then turn them into sandwiches! And wear their skulls!
And make armour out of the ogre-hides

[MsMeiriona]

Once you have a decent sized colony and are in need of income, ALL the workshops are good. Because the key to income, I've found, is -always- being able to sell enough to whatever trader comes by to get all their silver, you want to have a large variety of stuff. Wood weapons (wood isn't checked for weapons by default, but I always have them only make from wood) Wood sculptures (and I restrict my artists to wood as well), stone blocks, clothes, basically keep everything that doesn't spoil going until you have a good amount.

Beer is useful if you don't have anyone who's prone to binges, and if you have a teetotaler to handle the brewing room and beer freezer, they give a decent sale. Just lock the door to keep the colonists out.

Smelter is the only one I don't find much use for. It gets turned off from the power grid and left that way 90% of the time, if I even build it.

[Daemoneyes]

If i had no smelter my whole map would be littered with slag from those turrets, so its really useful even after the nerf. (i only loose 1-3 turrets per raid but it sums up)
Tailor, devilstrand clothing nugh said. (also i like to keep it semi rp and have them wear cowboy hats and dusters before i outfit them all with power armor)
Smithy, easy to make money of it at the start and it trains your crafters, so useful in the beginning even if you are not using melee.

[lusername]

Once you have a decent sized colony and are in need of income, ALL the workshops are good. Because the key to income, I've found, is -always- being able to sell enough to whatever trader comes by to get all their silver, you want to have a large variety of stuff.

Yeah, but eventually you start requiring a ludicrous amount of storage space just to store all the silver...and you still have nothing to buy.