Is art worth it?

[Col_Jessep]

I had a colonist with decent art skills (7 with a double-flame) and decided to build a sculpture workshop for her.
(This wasn't easy since you need wood and I embarked on the ice shelf - not a single tree! I first had to mine a space, build fertilizer pumps, a sun lamp, two heaters, a new windmill in -70�C weather to power the whole thing... All to build a single workshop. I <3 the ice shelf!)

So, she grabs 75 stone blocks and goes to work. The result is an awful sculpture which was worth less than the blocks I had used to create it! Stone blocks are worth roughly $2 and when the sculptures' value is sometimes significantly below the cost of the base material it's pretty disappointing. That awful statue actually has a negative beauty (-13) and a base worth of $80. Assuming the trader gives you roughly half of the base price that's a loss of $35 and a lot of time.

By now my artist is level 11, almost 12 and she's still producing shoddy or poor pieces of art that are not turning a profit. One statue was normal (+$25) and one good (+$50).


Now let's compare this to my craftress. Cloth sells for ~$1. Every Parka sells for ~$220 and takes 120 units of cloth to make. That's $100 profit for every parka you make. The time needed to make a parka is 367 compared to 1000 for a sculpture. And a parka keeps you warm. With -80�C outside you can't leave the base to take a piss haul a survival meal without a parka or you'll lose some extremities. 

I haven't looked into smithing yet but I'll probably try that next. Got some wood and metal I don't need atm. But I don't think art is the way to go unless you have idle colonists and too much money. There will be no silver sculptures any time soon in my base, that's for sure!


PS: In unrelated news: Please make the ice shelf a regular embark, Tynan. It is soooo much fun! And colder areas, - 150�C FTW! 

[EscapeZeppelin]

While I think it will be nerfed in the next release if you're making sculptures for resale gold and silver is the way to go. The art's value is significantly higher than the metal put into it.

[Col_Jessep]

I was wrong btw, a sculpture takes 100 units of material instead of 75 so the possible profit margin is actually even smaller.

I think maybe silver and gold are too valuable for a RimWolrd where you fight for survival? Food, steel, cloth and even wood are useful and ensure survival. Melee weapons seem rather expensive compared to guns as well.

[amul]

On the other hand, the Poor Wooden Sculpture I just made has a Beauty rating of 77. That's a significant morale boost compared to everything else in the game.

[porcupine]

On the other hand, the Poor Wooden Sculpture I just made has a Beauty rating of 77. That's a significant morale boost compared to everything else in the game.

You do realize it doesn't boost morale by 77 right?  It just increases the "beauty" of the area slightly.  77 isn't that much.

I've been making art from Silver/Gold on my mature colony, and it takes 1500/2000 silver (I think 4 full stacks, 2000?).

Usually stuff comes out between 2000 and 2500 value, which means you're getting a chunk less from the trader.

Art is a sinkhole for time/materials, to increase colonist happiness from what I can see.  Making a golden/silver dinner table is a better investment

[christhekiller]

Does she have injuries? Cataracts or missing hands may be impairing the quality of her work in a similar manner that injuries reduce the likelyhood of doctoring work being "Good quality"

But I think Tynan just made it so that getting a quality is super hard and/ or nigh impossible.

[giannikampa]

i've succeeded int having a full time artist of 19 level (it gets to 20 then drops again to 19)
he made some legendary wood sculptures, 1530 beauty!
i don't know if all the time and materials (only woods) and even neurotrainers to become so good worth it, but my common rooms now have +15 morale just thank the sculptures.

[baronjutter]

Is the way environment is rated changed?  I remember back in the day so long as you decorated with plants and smoothed the stone floors people would get a "nice environment" mood boost.  No matter how fancy I make my base and people's quarters no one ever is impressed.  Full carpets, tons of plant pots, fancy furniture.  I even filled my artist's quarters with her crappy art and still she was not impressed with the room.

[christhekiller]

Its measured with the beauty stat. As far as beauty is concerned the best flooring is wood and carpet. I'm not sure how beautiful smooth stone is since it got moved to the orders menu. Also wood walls (I think) are more beautiful than say steel walls which will have an effect. Furthermore, plants beauty effect is minimal. I think I got a +30 from them or something like that.

Honestly, the only way to do it is to stack as many beautiful objects as you can in a room. If you get more beautiful sculptures then replace the less beautiful onces with new ones.

Also, it took a second for my colonist to get the mood modifier for a nice environment when I had him lingering infront of a good quality statue. So it might just be that your colonists are leaving the areas too fast to really get a modifier.

If you want to check the beauty rating of an item click on it and then click on the "I" for Information. Then it should be in one of those menus how beautiful it is.

[Col_Jessep]

Does she have injuries? Cataracts or missing hands may be impairing the quality of her work in a similar manner that injuries reduce the likelyhood of doctoring work being "Good quality"

Healthy as a horse.
Now, my craftress got two bionic eyes and arms and hopefully soon some legs as well but that is a good investment. She's a lvl 19 crater and producing steel swords now. (I'm not going to abuse gold, silver or wood.)
And not only that, a double-flame lvl 11 shooter. Although there are few enough enemies to shoot. They only survive the march to my base in summer anyway.

i've succeeded int having a full time artist of 19 level (it gets to 20 then drops again to 19)
he made some legendary wood sculptures, 1530 beauty!
i don't know if all the time and materials (only woods) and even neurotrainers to become so good worth it, but my common rooms now have +15 morale just thank the sculptures.

Okay, that would be worth it! I installed two good sculptures but there was no visible impact on my colonists.

My artist and crafter both have the depressive trait and we have two abrasive people who lower morale atm. One of them already has a ticket on the next slave ship if I can find somebody to replace him as hauler.

Is the way environment is rated changed?  I remember back in the day so long as you decorated with plants and smoothed the stone floors people would get a "nice environment" mood boost.  No matter how fancy I make my base and people's quarters no one ever is impressed.  Full carpets, tons of plant pots, fancy furniture.  I even filled my artist's quarters with her crappy art and still she was not impressed with the room.

That would be interesting to know.

[giannikampa]

yes, maybe blood or dirt is affecting overall beauty so you don't see positive beauty thoughts.
I'd like to have a visual overlay of the beauty of each point of the map to directly act where needed.
I still didnt figure out if beauty is affected by the distance from the beauty source (like the lights) or by a boundary (like the temperature sistem).

[keylocke]

yes, maybe blood or dirt is affecting overall beauty so you don't see positive beauty thoughts.
I'd like to have a visual overlay of the beauty of each point of the map to directly act where needed.
I still didnt figure out if beauty is affected by the distance from the beauty source (like the lights) or by a boundary (like the temperature sistem).

i think there's a feature for that in dev mode (in the view options i think)

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anyways, iirc, the difference between apparels vs art/smithing is that apparels don't seem to have quality modifiers as compared to art/smithing.

so probably start training your crafters to make stoneblocks and apparels first, and then when their skills are high enough, just switch them to art and smithing. this way, you don't end up wasting materials making awful/poor products.

[harpo99999]

unfortunatly the crasfting skill does NOT transfer to ART skill, so use your block trained crafts(wo)men to smithing, otherise they will have to learn  how to art and make lots of poor to horrible art

[Cimanyd]

If you're in a forest, you have all the wood you'll ever need, so you can train art and crafting by making wood sculptures/weapons.

Apparel will have quality in A9.
Dec 8 changelog

• A9: Apparel now have quality levels which affect insulation and armor.

[Col_Jessep]

If you're in a forest, you have all the wood you'll ever need, so you can train art and crafting by making wood sculptures/weapons.

Yeah, but I'm on the ice shelf and there are no trees except for those that I planted in a heated and lit growing zone deep in the mountain myself. Even mining for stone is difficult outside of summer since temperatures drop to -80�C. That means either heating the mine or keeping mining areas really small to avoid hypothermia and frostbite.

now, when my art colonist has lvl 99 art she produces shoddy sculptures... with 25 it was awful yea!! i'll try 999 next.

It would be nice if they wouldn't have to be lvl15 to produce decent stuff. Takes so friggin long to get there and it wastes so much time and material.