Why isn't there a way to recycle clothing?

[Penguinmanereikel]

We can deconstruct structures to recover some material, we can disassemble mechanoids to recover some materials (not that we would want mechanoid corpses anyway) and we can smelt weapons to recover some material. So why not also allow a way to destroy clothing to recover some material instead of burning it? One simple way to do this would be to add a new bill that can be done with tailoring tables saying something like "unravel clothing." Another way would be to add an additional action with clothing labeled "destroy clothing."

So why not add these? It could do away with all the unwanted clothing in a productive way. I can't see it as a way of unbalancing the game since we can collect fallen enemy weapons.

[milon]

You can destroy clothing in a crematorium, unless that's been changed recently, so there's that.

I would also like to see the ability to break down clothing & get some fabric back again. There's been lots of mods to that effect too, I believe. Finally, please remember that this isn't a finished product yet and there's lots of things that can't be done yet.

[TheMeInTeam]

Crematorium for this always struck me as odd.  It's super late game at best, and questionable even then if you have hauling animals, since you can just dump unwanted apparel somewhere in the open that's a little out of the way and it disappears eventually, and that's assuming you don't happen to have a molotov or incendiary handy from one of the 100's of dead raiders to just toss on the stockpile.  No electricity consumption or research required.

Crematorium is pretty high on resource costs for what amounts to small QoL boost at best.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Crematorium for this always struck me as odd.  It's super late game at best, and questionable even then if you have hauling animals, since you can just dump unwanted apparel somewhere in the open that's a little out of the way and it disappears eventually, and that's assuming you don't happen to have a molotov or incendiary handy from one of the 100's of dead raiders to just toss on the stockpile.  No electricity consumption or research required.

Crematorium is pretty high on resource costs for what amounts to small QoL boost at best.

For early game, can't you also burn apparel at a campfire?

[Andy_Dandy]

It should be self explaining with no deep thinking required. What do you think happens to the importance of getting cloth etc and to do tailoring if you can recycle clothing in this game?

[Gohihioh]

Getting cloth/leather is so easy it's retarded. There is no processing involved and yield is so huge you can easily swim in cloth in no time.
So it wouldn't hurt balance at all. Increase resources needed to make clothes, give an option to recycle all clothes for small(depending on quality or/and hit points but low no matter what) amount of resources, give clothing and devilstrand a processing job(change fiber into material) - I would also add tanning job to leathers taken from animals.
This leads to dilemma, you either buy expensive clothes from traders/wear dead man's apparel with debuff or you put some hard work to make your own clothes. Also you are put in front of dillemma of what you do with clothes you aquire(from raids/quests etc) or end up being low quality, do you recycle them for little amount of material which you can later make better clothing with, or do you sell it and make profit.

[makkenhoff]

Briefly, as it stands right now, clothing production is too easy; what you are suggesting would make it even more easy.

From my limited knowledge of the practices of cotton growing, harvesting, processing to either a thread or yarn, and then my experiences weaving new fabric and sewing fabrics together, along with fixing rips and tears in various clothing, is grossly oversimplified in RimWorld.

It takes a lot of time, even more to be done 'right'. I've done some yarn weaving, knitting, and quite a bit of hand sewing, and some experience with smaller sewing machines. I'm certainly not even very good at it, but I've done it. Sewing 'recycled' cloth scraps into patchwork cloth indeed seems easy enough to do; in our highly industrialized lives, we don't really notice or understand the difference in fabrics because everything is made on an industrial scale, and thus everything looks the same, because it is produced to 'industry' standards.

But, when you start looking at non-industrial scale? Everything has character, a definition, to it. When you have 10 different hand weavers, the cloth they produce will not be the same, similar perhaps assuming they all trained from the same person. I'd be thrilled if we had a more complex cloth industry, that is in my opinion, what it would take to balance out recycled clothing. Otherwise, you are just making it easier to attain, without adding to the difficulty.

[ArguedPiano]

I have to agree with makkenhoff, a recycle option would make clothing too easy.

In A16 I played with a 'balanced' recycle mod where the return was directly related to clothing condition and it was oclverwhelming in long colonies. Especially after those 50+ tribal raids I would end up with way more then I could ever use. 3 full time pawns making clothing and 2 full time breaking down old clothes I could never use up all the textiles I had. It was too much.

(This is just my experience, take it as you will)

[Bozobub]

It should be self explaining with no deep thinking required. What do you think happens to the importance of getting cloth etc and to do tailoring if you can recycle clothing in this game?

You can dismantle pretty much anything else in the game and get back materials; clothing is the exception, not the rule.  What are you on about?  I could use your same argument re: dismantling bad sculptures, FFS.

[mumblemumble]

It should be self explaining with no deep thinking required. What do you think happens to the importance of getting cloth etc and to do tailoring if you can recycle clothing in this game?

Recycling clothing with say, a 10 - 20% return rate really wouldn't be that significant, but would help out.

I don''t think its an awful idea, and it should never give more than 50% cloth back ever, but I think this might be a good idea.

As for the response about it being too easy, isn't it easy to get cloth with any means? farming cotton, hunting, ect?

clothing really shouldn't be terribly rare, and it would help with the whole "deadman" clothing concept.

[Boston]

As for the response about it being too easy, isn't it easy to get cloth with any means? farming cotton, hunting, ect?

Only because the game abstracts the shit out of both the weaving and leather-tanning process.

In the real world, clothing and cloth was a trade-good because of how long it took to make by hand. A wool shirt was the work of many days, if not weeks or months. Leather can easily take a week to prepare.

[Vlad0mi3r]

Chemfuel.

That's where I can see a valid use for junk clothing. If it will burn in a crematorium then you should be able to refine it into Chemfuel.

Time verses reward would be Meh but could keep peeps busy when numbers are up.

[Trylobyte]

I can sort of see why clothing is hard to recycle.

The thing with clothing is that, to make proper clothing, you need large unbroken pieces of cloth or leather.  Worn-out or damaged clothing has holes, rips, or weak patches in it that could have to be cut out, ruining the continuity of the cloth and making it impractical for use as clothing.  That's why, when you do see damaged clothing get recycled, it tends to be used as rags.

There are modern procedures to recycle textiles, but these tend to be large industrial processes that would be impractical on a RimWorld.

[jamaicancastle]

The thing with clothing is that, to make proper clothing, you need large unbroken pieces of cloth or leather.  Worn-out or damaged clothing has holes, rips, or weak patches in it that could have to be cut out, ruining the continuity of the cloth and making it impractical for use as clothing.  That's why, when you do see damaged clothing get recycled, it tends to be used as rags.

So what you're saying is, our colonists should take up quilting?

[BetaSpectre]

IMO you wouldn't want to reuse clothing from dirty non washed people for months/years on end.
Now why we don't wash the clothes is another matter.

Or turn the clothing into a paper mache like item like was IRL to make books.

Still reusing the old clothes as a resource makes sense in some form or fashion.