Primary/secondary tools on projects

[Surly]

Put simply this suggestion is that projects have two different tool requirements: primary and secondary. When the project ticks, a check is made that at least one of each primary tool is possessed by the workers. Then a check is made that every worker has the secondary tool.

For example, let's say a project has tools required (primary) A&B, (secondary) C&D. 5 people are working on it. At each project tick, the game checks that between the five people they have at least one tool A & one tool B. If both tools are not present, no work advances. If both are present, each worker is checked for possession of tool C&D and for each worker that has C&D, their work is counted.

The idea of this is to help get over the reluctance of Cantrians to distribute high-end tools to newspawns. Newspawns can still help with lower-tech tools, but can get to help on more interesting projects.

Thoughts?

[Joshuamonkey]

I think it could make sense in many cases.
I'm thinking it would be like this:

Hematite crushing project (sledgehammer):
One person needs a sledgehammer. People with only hammers can work on the project also, but slower, at a rate to match normally crushing hematite with a hammer. (this is kind of a variant of the main idea)

Bus (same tools needed as most cars): 21 days
Someone needs to have: screwdriver, pincers, pliers, wrench, fork spanner
Would the secondary tools normally not be the same as the primary ones? I'm thinking we could check to make sure each person at least has a screwdriver (or any of the tools?), and if they did, they could work as efficiently as normal because everyone's sharing the tools?

Steel battle axe head: 4 days
Someone needs to have: peen hammer, chisel, flatter, set hammer, sledgehammer
Everyone needs to have at least: hammer

[Piscator]

I think it would make sense to require one tool per project instead of one per person in many cases. Especially when assembling things you could expect the participants to share their tools. I also wonder why two people would need two buckets to fetch water from a well for example.

[Doug R.]

I don't think projects should advance at double the rate if two people are working on it with one set of tools.

Also, Piscator, I don't understand your well comment. If you have two buckets, you can collect twice as much water. I'm not actually sure what the second person would do without a bucket other than watch (are we inventing Cantr road-crews?)

[SekoETC]

If you think about how wells work, there is a crank used to coil a rope and lift a bucket attached to the end of the rope. The bucket is heavy so it takes a while to bring up. If two people were using the crank, assuming there was enough room for both of them, they would have twice the strength and could lift the bucket in less time. Also they could take turns resting and working. But Cantrians never get tired from projects.

[Doug R.]

If you think about how wells work, there is a crank used to coil a rope and lift a bucket attached to the end of the rope. The bucket is heavy so it takes a while to bring up. If two people were using the crank, assuming there was enough room for both of them, they would have twice the strength and could lift the bucket in less time. Also they could take turns resting and working. But Cantrians never get tired from projects.

Well, I always envisioned it as just tossing a bucket into a hole. However, I guess the wood requirement implies a crank. If that's the case, then it's silly that well water is a gathering skill. It should be based on strength.

[SekoETC]

As far as I know, it uses drilling, which in turn seems like something that would take some strength.

[Surly]

Well, I always envisioned it as just tossing a bucket into a hole. However, I guess the wood requirement implies a crank. If that's the case, then it's silly that well water is a gathering skill. It should be based on strength.

In Cantr, mining is not related to strength in anyway. Smashing up rocks on a stone table is classed as mining, even though it would pretty much solely rely on strength in RL. Cantr is full of such inconsistencies.

The point is that primary and secondary tools are different. Not all projects need both: weapons may require only secondary tools (i.e. everyone needs every tool). But if you're making steel, it might make more sense to specify bellows as a primary tool (i.e. only need one set of bellows, beyond that everyone can help).

[phoenixannwn]

I like this. Some items are catch 22s sometimes, it seems--you need A B and C to build D, but B and C are built using D. If you don't have enough for everybody, you get to go it alone.
This way, you get more done. :]