Denim as a Textile: The industrial answer to Cloth and Devilstrand!

[Call me Arty]

 Fairly simple request: Denim as a textile. This is a Western-themed game with a lot of people making a living on a frontier, that may or may not involve the mining of gold, herding of cattle, or duels between two people wearing dusters and cowboy hats wielding revolvers.
It's not an overly complicated task to make denim, so it makes sense that with the simplifications the game makes already, it's just as simple as taking some cotton and chemfuel (helps add to the stretch and coloring of the cotton) and put them together at either a tailoring bench or refinery, maybe even a bit of steel for reinforcement (the original jeans had metal pins put into points of high-stress, as prospectors wore through theirs fast).
Why add it? Isn't devilstrand already a boldy-colored, tougher, harder to obtain alternative to cloth (Thank-you to user "patoka")? Well, here's the thing: It's awesome in it's own ways.
The only thing keeping Devilstrand off of every profiteering colony is it's growth. It's got a low yield, slow growth, and doesn't play well in hydroponics. You know what does? Cotton.
Devilstrand, in it's best conditions, will take about 23 days to grow and produce 8 Devilstrand. Cotton, however? 12 cotton in 8 days! I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I've had times when I've literally had so much cotton produced, that it overflows my stockpiles! As long as a single unit of denim doesn't take more than fourish days to produce (don't trust my shaky math, I sure don't), you'd end up with more denim than Devilstrand!
Okay, so that's nice. If it was made more valuable than Devilstrand, no one would grow it to sell it. If it was tougher than Devilstrand, no one would grow it to wear it. So that just makes it a time and resource sink, if it's better than cotton, but not as good as what's already better than cotton. What else can we do to make Denim more worthwhile without make Devilstrand less-so? Insulation! While the insulation on cotton and Devilstrand isn't bad, it's average. So, is denim supposed to be better? Yup! As a matter of fact, it's even better at insulating that the fiberglass insulation they put in your house. . . for the purpose of insulating! This could be what really sets it above the rest!
So, in summation, I propose denim as an alternative to both cloth and Devilstrand, while leaving both as viable. Denim would work as an excellent industrial textile, boasting sturdiness, fair ease of assembly, and insulation, while neither intruding upon cotton's sheer abundance or convenience, nor Devilstrand's strength and value also it'll make me feel more like a cowboy.

I hope in the least that some of you will find this interesting, and at most: Tynan thinks it's neat.

[patoka]

this is one good ass suggestion. the only issue i am having with it is that i believe devilstrand was supposed to be the futuristic version of it. i wanna show you some of their similarities:
denim is typically blue - devilstrand is typically red. both have very strong color associations, while cotton is entirely white.
both are more advanced versions of cloth; tougher in any regard.
both are harder to produce than cotton cloth.
this makes me believe, devilstrand is a buffed, simplified, scifi version of denim for rimworld.
that said, i already like devilstrand in the game and i think it is a bit weird how they are a available so soon. i'd make them a spacer or at least industrial tech. denim could be before that. eventhough in real life it was an industrial product, i could much rather see denim as a tough growable textile that is available to tribes.
then again, tribes would most likely use leather, typical medieval clothing would probably be metal armor and cloth maybe and only in the industrial age would we encounter denim...
so i don't know, i am very split on this.

[Call me Arty]

this is one good ass suggestion. the only issue i am having with it is that i believe devilstrand was supposed to be the futuristic version of it. i wanna show you some of their similarities:
denim is typically blue - devilstrand is typically red. both have very strong color associations, while cotton is entirely white.
both are more advanced versions of cloth; tougher in any regard.
both are harder to produce than cotton cloth.
this makes me believe, devilstrand is a buffed, simplified, scifi version of denim for rimworld.
that said, i already like devilstrand in the game and i think it is a bit weird how they are a available so soon. i'd make them a spacer or at least industrial tech. denim could be before that. eventhough in real life it was an industrial product, i could much rather see denim as a tough growable textile that is available to tribes.
then again, tribes would most likely use leather, typical medieval clothing would probably be metal armor and cloth and only in the industrial age would be encounter denim...
so i don't know, i am very split on this.

I would like to thank-you, a lot. I totally forgot about Devilstrand, and have adjusted my post accordingly. Seriously though, I just now realized the holes in my idea after reading your reply, thanks a bunch! I think I've got a real solid thing here now.

[Harry_Dicks]

Why not just let us craft synthread like this? I think that might be an even better alternative. I feel like in vanilla, you virtually forget about synthread after your pawns' initial garments have deteriorated away. You might see some every now and then on a raider, but I feel like the whole idea of synthread and hyperthread is wasted because you barely see them in use, can't craft them, and traders will have minuscule amounts, if any at all.

I really think that vanilla would benefit from allowing us to craft synthread. I'm not sure about how it compares to devilstrand, but I think just using synthread in place of your denim idea would be even better. We already have the assets in game, so would it not make sense to make a recipe for them? Maybe the idea is that some things Tynan doesn't want you to craft, only buy. Like the megascreen TV and such. Maybe the idea behind this is a psuedo-lore idea in that, "your pawns are trying to hurry up and build a spaceship to get off of the planet. They don't want to spend extra time just to develop a bigger screened TV to be entertained better. When that time could have gone into the spaceship." I doubt that would be the reason, but also remember this - Tynan has said that this can be played as a "play forever" type of game, but I don't think that was ever the intent or goal behind any design decisions. That's what leads me to believe this might not happen, as some things are meant to be trade only. If it were up to me, though, I would make synth and hyperthread both craftable in vanilla, along with neutroamine. The mod Sparkling Worlds honestly does a fantastic job with this. With that mod, among a crap ton of other really awesome stuff (he just added in a new crashed spaceship event! how cool!) you can now craft synthread, hyperthread, megascreen TVs, telescopes, and a lot more. But it still feels fairly balanced and pretty "vanilla-ish", which is a requirement for me before I play with any mods.

I also think it would be great if there was a textile that could just be like a "patchwork leather." I know there is a mod similar to this, but I always thought it was crazy how much stockpile bloat you can have from all the little scraps of leather that are not in the right interval to make anything with. Example, 7 boomrat leather, 11 cassowary leather. Now you have one of those for every kind of animal in the game. What I think is awesome, though, is that there is a different color for all of the animals leathers, and wouldn't want to lose that. That's why I think it would be nice if in vanilla there was a way to just combine all of your leather scraps, into a barely worse type of scrap leather, that could be used like normal for anything made from leather.

[Call me Arty]

 Well, we can't craft Synthread. If we could, I probably wouldn't have had this idea, or it would've had even less of a roll in the game. As-is, however, we must rely on Tube Tvs, as we can't build Megascreens, standard medicine, as we can't produce the glitterworld stuff, and denim, as we can't weave synthread.

[Boston]

Denim is..... just cotton. Its just cotton woven in a specific way. That's it.

If you add denim, what is the difference between denim cloth and 'regular' cotton cloth? Realistically, just a pattern, and since the pawns don't weave the cotton into cloth in Vanilla Rimworld, who is to say they aren't making it into denim?

Needless diversification.

[Vlad0mi3r]

If you are happy for a mod that fills the gap I use https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=35747.msg367012#msg367012 . It gives you hempcloth which is closer to real denim anyway.

[AileTheAlien]

Denim is..... just cotton. Its just cotton woven in a specific way. That's it.

After reading the Wikipedia article on denim, I have to agree. There's not a big enough difference between denim and 'regular' cotton to justify having it as a separate textile in the (vanilla, un-modded) game.

[Call me Arty]

Denim is..... just cotton. Its just cotton woven in a specific way. That's it.

If you add denim, what is the difference between denim cloth and 'regular' cotton cloth? Realistically, just a pattern, and since the pawns don't weave the cotton into cloth in Vanilla Rimworld, who is to say they aren't making it into denim?

Needless diversification.

A plasteel longsword is just. . . steel. It's just plasteel forged in a specific way. That's it.

Denim isn't just "cotton" in the same way raw meat isn't a hamburger and rocks aren't concrete. There is a reason and a process for justifying the use of one thing over the other. There's a reason for all the hyperlinks in my original post, I did some research into this so I wouldn't be suggesting something "needless." From your reply, you're acting as if the stuff in your T-shirts and beanies is the same as a pair of jeans. . . which simply isn't the case. Denim is some tough stuff, I think it could justify its place in the game.

[Call me Arty]

If you are happy for a mod that fills the gap I use https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=35747.msg367012#msg367012 . It gives you hempcloth which is closer to real denim anyway.

I mean, I like the mod, it's not my first time coming across it, I just want more diversity in the game than changing all my crops to smokeleaf because I'm an idiot if I don't. Same reason why I'd highly recommend the Vegetable Garden mod, which just adds a bunch of. . . "flavor." Not only does it include a lot of non-specific foods, but also a lot more cloth as well. Highly recommend it.

[Boston]

Denim is..... just cotton. Its just cotton woven in a specific way. That's it.

If you add denim, what is the difference between denim cloth and 'regular' cotton cloth? Realistically, just a pattern, and since the pawns don't weave the cotton into cloth in Vanilla Rimworld, who is to say they aren't making it into denim?

Needless diversification.

A plasteel longsword is just. . . steel. It's just plasteel forged in a specific way. That's it.

Denim isn't just "cotton" in the same way raw meat isn't a hamburger and rocks aren't concrete. There is a reason and a process for justifying the use of one thing over the other. There's a reason for all the hyperlinks in my original post, I did some research into this so I wouldn't be suggesting something "needless." From your reply, you're acting as if the stuff in your T-shirts and beanies is the same as a pair of jeans. . . which simply isn't the case. Denim is some tough stuff, I think it could justify its place in the game.

The stuff in my T-shirts and beanies IS the same stuff in a pair of jeans, mate. The only difference is how it is woven. The literal only difference. Same material.

Plasteel is not steel. That, my friend, is a stupid comparison.  Sorry, but it's true.

[Call me Arty]

Denim is..... just cotton. Its just cotton woven in a specific way. That's it.

After reading the Wikipedia article on denim, I have to agree. There's not a big enough difference between denim and 'regular' cotton to justify having it as a separate textile in the (vanilla, un-modded) game.

I disagree.
I want you to go and grab a white, cotton T-shirt, and try to rip it in half. Takes some effort, but not a lot. Now, take some Jeans, and do the same (at a point that's not already torn, like the knees often are). This is pretty difficult. It may not seem important, but picture yourself in a scenario in which you're not the one trying to tear open these clothes, but a very angry, very hungry wolf. Now, you will want the denim.

[Ser Kitteh]

Honest I'd like denim to be a thing just so I can have some dark blues on my pawns' clothes. For a game so western inspired, we can't even make jeans and stuff.

+1 for denim.

[AileTheAlien]

grab a white, cotton T-shirt, and try to rip it in half. Takes some effort, but not a lot. Now, take some Jeans, and do the same (at a point that's not already torn, like the knees often are). This is pretty difficult.

You're referencing real-world, modern-day, average shirts and pants here. We don't know the specifics of what Rimworlders are producing and wearing. Maybe they're all cheap, thin shirts and pants; They could equally be tougher than what's commonly available in the real world.

Furthermore, not all pants or shirts are made of the same toughness, even in the real world, where we've got mass-produced goods. You can get work shirts that are as tough as the average pair of jeans, and you can get expensive jeans as delicate as the average T-shirt. Given this amount of variation, and that the game is an abstraction from the real world, I think adding denim as a material somewhere between cotton and devilstrand is too fine-grained for the (vanilla, un-modded) game.

[AileTheAlien]

so I can have some dark blues on my pawns' clothes

The game already has differently-colored cloth, though. Players can't make different colors themselves, but I suspect and hope that's an upcoming feature!  : )