Merging logs and planks

[psilous]

Keep the differentiation!

I just reworked my entire strategy for playing the game focusing on the wood economy at the beginning and OMG! the difference. After Alpha 4's changes you really have to change the way you think about building your early colony.

[Kubouch]

I like the diversity. I also like the use of planks as a building resource (i.e. beds) - not only for walls and floors. Maybe I'd add this progression low -> high level to another resources. First rank of a resource for primitive basic buildings, second rank for advanced aesthetics pleasing buildings. Foe example the rock debris could be used straight-away for building rough low-quality walls - an analogy to log walls.

[Tynan]

There was a poll, but we had the jist of it I'm hoping to see people's reasoning as well as base opinion.

[Utterbob]

I most certainly think it should stay the way it is.

1. It's scalable as it is, making it all one would limit (at least on the logical level) adding things later. Having a reason to keep a wood production chain running into late-game would also add depth. That's not to say it isn't scalable merged, just doesn't feel at all right to me (that is, if there is any intention of adding more depth to wood in general).

2. Space! The more space we need to run production chains the more we have to think of creative ways to defend larger and larger areas. It also adds to elements like designing efficient bases.

3. Consistency. Metal is the only resource that doesn't need refining (off the top of my head), well discounting that food can be used raw, just with a penalty. Personally, I would rather see metal need refinement too (for more advanced things like walls, while being usable raw for basic needs like power conduits - see next point!)

4. Tech-tree ( ) expansion. I would rather more depth to the tech advancement than less. Something along the line of; early wood (logs) gives you a basic wall and can, reasonably quickly, be turned into all the basic needs (i.e. doors, basic bed, etc.) at the trade-off of labor time. Stone then requires refinement to use at all (other than as cover) but provides an early strong material. Metal could then be used for basic essential things (power conduits, component in the plank wall with conduit, etc.) but needs refinement to make become a balanced type of building material, hence a wall that is stronger than wood and still has conduit but not as strong as stone.

I guess in short, I prefer systems and chains. They are what makes the game interesting and forces me to think about how I am going set things up. As a single unit resource I think wood would become a trivial starting bump, just slowing down the overall pace in the first few minuets. As it is, it forces more consideration of prioritising colonist work and early survival elements and provides a plentiful building material for safer areas of a base while you move up the tech tree and/or mine to build up more suitable front-line materials.

The only real issue is the attrition of logs over time (since they can't be recreated from planks). But even with the map deforested, forgetting to suspend the bill, not setting a 'do until x' limit on the bill and not having any log walls left... they can still be regrown!

I don't see the colonist time spent chopping as a relevant reason to merge it at all. Colonist prioritisation and time management is... well... kinda the point of the game!

[Tynan]

My big concern is inflating the number of objects. Now you're looking at:

Log wall
Wood wall
Metal wall
Stone wall

Log bed
Wood bed
Metal bed

And tons of other near-duplicates.

My ongoing thoughts on this are: Maybe it would be better to say that logs and planks are usable for almost all the same things, except the things are modified somehow. This becomes a "material system" where a bed can be made of tons of different things, each which modifies its stats somehow. This would also extend into making spruce beds, granite walls, basalt walls, oak log walls, oak plank walls, and tons of pretty dwarfy goodness.

I also like the fact that this is pretty ignorable for new players. My main concern with planks now is that they're such a burden at game start, but if we can have single items which are modified by their construction materials that might reduce the burden a lot because then you could to basically everything with logs and leave refined planks as a later-game, prettier, better material for when you've teched up instead of an immediate requirement at game start.

[psilous]

that's way too many, not every resource should have a furniture equivalent

[Tynan]

that's way too many, not every resource should have a furniture equivalent

I agree. But they kind of have to, in many cases, or it makes no sense and frustrates players. This is a main concern of mine with logs/planks.

[iame6162013]

actually i like having loads and loads of options to build with(all with up and downsides)
because then you have to rebuild certain parts of your colony.

[Abadayos]

that's way too many, not every resource should have a furniture equivalent

I agree. But they kind of have to, in many cases, or it makes no sense and frustrates players. This is a main concern of mine with logs/planks.

What you could do, for beds and maybe chairs, have a loyalty bonus for metal beds/chairs and none for wood.

A way it could be done is having something like 'exquisitly wooden crafted bed' that gives a high loyalty/happiness boost but have it take a production chain like thus:

Grow Tree > Harvest Tree > Process log > Process Planks/Refine Planks (needs 100 planks or whatever) = Exquisite Planks x10. Bed needs say 30. The result is higher colonist happiness and loyalty.

I am from teh DF line of gaming so complex, as long as it has a reason, is always welcome. It makes you think and not just go 'metal metal and stone...win'.

I would say keep it how it is and expand on it in the future with the loyalty or some other bonus

[Damien Hart]

I have to say, I really like the sound of a "materials system". 

[insanevizir]

I believe logs should stay. I'd just reduce the amount of itens avaliable.

For instance, I'd have only one bed. I dont realy care if its gonna be wood planks bed or metal bed, as long as theres only one type. A second type could become avaliable later in the game, something like the medbed mod, maybe.

Logs could be used as wall in early game, but I'd remove completely the wood planks wall. I never use wood wall becouse it burns too fast. Log wall could be used fast, in a desperade matter. Later on, you decontruct then, recover the log and refine it to wood planks.

In my opinion, wood planks should be used only for furniture.

[Dr. Z]

So if I'm understanding this material system right, one possibility would be to have only the option "bed" in the construction menu, and when you select it a drop down menu opens wich lets you choose the resource you want to use alongside with the effects it's gonna have. You could also select a favourite resource, e.g. metal, and when you just click on the icon you build a metal bed, but if you want to use another resource you just can select it in the menu.

In my opinion this would add a nice and expandable complexity to the game while perventing the construction menu from being overcrowded with thousends different bed and chair types.

Besides, the thing RimWorld needs the most right now is content, things you have to do, and I don't mean fighting larger and larger raids and building larger and larger bases. I often left my colonys after 120 days ore something like that because the only thing to do is unnecessary expansion or larger raids which is boring (mods are excluded in this statement). So decreasing the number of resources and options you have would be deffinitly the wrong way. There should rather be a way to tell the new players that there are resources which exist but they don't need them right from the start so the material system sounds very good to me.

[sparda666]

I agree. But they kind of have to, in many cases, or it makes no sense and frustrates players. This is a main concern of mine with logs/planks.

as long as the UI is good, this wood not be a problem
under the furniture tab, instead of having a list of all the beds, just have one bed.

When clicked and held down, a radial menu appears where you can drag around to select material. If there are no unforbidden materials of that type available, display a warning as the blueprint appears to notify that you have insufficient materials. (or gray out things you dont have materials for, but Id rather have the blueprint down and then mine for materials after the fact and let colonists get to building it when its ready).

edit: yeah.. what Dr. Z said..

[Austupaio]

Logs & Planks versus Wood; I'm actually neutral.

My only contention with Log & Planks is that it's inconsistent with the usage of metal. Metal as a resource is simple, you can take any rusty piece of scrap and build a bed, table or solar panel out of it.

Why is carpentry complicated enough to warrant two resources, but metalworking and circuitry is not?

I'd say that you'd need to decide how Metal as a resource should work in the game, and then base this choice off of that.

[DeltaV]

I would absolutely prefer only one type of wood. Refining seems like it adds a needless extra step to the process.