Increased Smelter capacity

[julie2]

It makes an iron shield cheaper than a wood one, possibly (I haven't done the math yet, but it must be close)

Wrong. To make 350g of iron you need to spend 6.38 days gathering the raw resources... and 1 day making, then four days making the shield.

A wooden shield take just under 4 days to make, compared with around 11 for an iron one, and that's not even including the cost of a smelter and the travelling required for 3 different resources. Do your research.
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Ooh, I can't be botherered to do the maths that precisely, Surly, but that sounds about right to me.

My problem with this one isn't so much that the price of iron will come down, but that it won't come down anywhere near so much as your average Cantrian will expect (yet more abuse thrown at "money-grubbing " iron producers to follow, shortly). And also that travelling to get resources will quickly become by far the biggest component of that process. What with the recent resource gathering limitations, the price of iron might not come down at all, in fact, because it's going to become more difficullt to get the necessatry supplies; especially with all the iron-producers simultaneously attemptng to get seven times as much as before. But unless those supplies increase in volume, in spite of all that, then iron will remain every bit as scarce. At worst scenario, resource-runners and traders will spend so much time kicking their heels that the process becomes a little bit more costly, all-in-all. The only guaranteed result is that that a lot of the characters who now work on smelting will be made reduntant, or else pushed into resource-running jobs, because one man can now do the work of seven at the furnace.
If the iron industry can solve the resource problem, then the cost of iron might halve as a consequence. That won't make a huge impact on the Cantrian economy. and I don't think that's excessive at all . I just think there must surely be better ways of achieving much the same effect (eg byhalving the amount of iron required for all iron goods)


I do think that smelting rate might be usefully doubled. That won't halve the price of course, but go beyond that point and the returns (in terms oif cheaper iron) become so diminishingly small that they completely fail to justify the disruption- not to the Cantrian Economy, but to the infrastructure of the iron industry(which has been messed about quite enough, thanks)

[julie2]

Btw, according to Surly's figures, that means 6.38 resource gatherers, (plus how ever many people it takes to transport those resources) for every one person working on smelting. That's far too big a disparity between outdoor workers and indoor workers. I thought the PD wanted more people working indoors? Yet they're forcing this change, which is bound to send droves of iron workers back out of doors

I'm cut up about this because I don't want to see my factory emptying, not after working hard at building up a sense of community within it, but there's no way of gathering enough resources to keep all those people occupied, now,

[Talapus]

So now you have spare hands, and the same production. It seems obvious to me, that if oyu want to keep the spare hands inside, you should expand your business to other things such a clothing production or similar. You would then have the same iron/steel production, and also several other products, thus making your business more profitable.

[west]

A society where everyone has is a truely dull one.

Spoken like someone playing at least one of the Iron Class.

Those of us playing the peasants and not having ANYONE in the Iron Class find society to be very dull indeed, with no hope of advancement, no hope of improvement, no hope. Cantr is a pretty sucky place if all you get to do is farm carrots, and get cheated in trade deals (I think I've seen iron actually be traded in good faith about twice, and I see iron trades gone bad almost every week.)

Of my 11 characters, 10 are in the iron class, including my younger ones. It's not hard to get there if you try a bit. Every single one of my current chars has gotten to iron class before they were thirty. My youngest is 21 and she's well on her way. My next two are 26 and 30 and they've been iron class for years.

If you try to do it yourself, you probably won't get anywhere, true. That's why this is a society simulator. Try joining organizations where you need to have iron tools and weapons to be useful

Only very few of my chars have gotten to iron or steel class by themselves. All the rest had help, and got there pretty quickly.

It's not hard if you try. If all you do is farm for carrots and hope someday someone with iron will want to trade it for carrots, it's no wonder none of your chars have any yet.

[Surly]

My youngest (he is 25) is a member of that iron class. He got his iron shield at 20, and his crossbow and crowbar at 25.

It really isn't that hard in built up areas. Much like RL in that respect.

[west]

And just like real life, you're not going to get anywhere without working for it

Farming for carrots isn't going to get you anywhere in cantr.

[mortaine]

Try this sometime, when you're playing a twenty-something.

Walk into the center of town and say "Hi, I will work for iron or steel. I will do anything you ask, if only you will pay me in iron or steel."

If you are lucky, you won't get laughed at.

Coins need to be meltable/usable in projects, so you could pay people in iron coins. It's the only way.

[Nixit]

Then you might as well just give them iron.

[west]

Try this sometime, when you're playing a twenty-something.

Walk into the center of town and say "Hi, I will work for iron or steel. I will do anything you ask, if only you will pay me in iron or steel."

If you are lucky, you won't get laughed at.

Coins need to be meltable/usable in projects, so you could pay people in iron coins. It's the only way.

Why are you giving me tips on how to get iron as a newspawn, when you've just admitted none of your newspawns have any?

Try my way, see if it works.

[Antichrist_Online]

One of my characters just started collecting resources for iron, then steel, and now she has a bike. It is possible just to find a rich area and say "I will work for steel or iron!"

[Sarah]

3/4 of my old characters have stashes of iron (which, admittedly, almost all came from before the hematite change--only one has actually made iron from hematite) and 2 would be quite willing to trade that iron for labor. But no one asks those characters for iron. They have several thousands of grams of it just sitting in storage, and they've already built everything from iron that they want / need. It's funny how people do things for free for my characters when they are quite willing to pay in valuable resources. . . .

Thievery is an option too. My newspawn "acquired" a saber, iron shield, silk clothing, iron tools, etc. the day he spawned. And got away with it, without running like all the other stupid newspawn thieves. . . . .

[Surly]

Not to be greedy, well ok it is greedy, but it looks like only new projects get the bump in speed. Is there any chance the rate of production could be increased on existing projects. I set up a long (multi-week project) for someone to work while sleeping and the player left before setting the chareacter to work on the project...

Please?

[julie2]

So now you have spare hands, and the same production. It seems obvious to me, that if oyu want to keep the spare hands inside, you should expand your business to other things such a clothing production or similar. You would then have the same iron/steel production, and also several other products, thus making your business more profitable.

That could only make sense to somebody who hasn't tried managing a serious business in Cantr, nor even thought about managing one.

If iron production stays the same, but iron gets cheaper, then you have a big shortfall in income to make up Production has to increase under those circumstances and resource-gathering has to increase in propotion to production . Therefore a lot more people will have to go outside- not only go outside but travel to get those resources, like it or not, equipped for it or not (most won't beproperly equipped, of course, not only because it takes a long time to gear up for this sort of change, but also because over half the workers, at any one time, are too young or just too darned sleepy to safely entrust with valuable vehicles and valuable trade goods)

And if you think that making clothing will offset any loss, you've never looked into the clothing industry. Cantrians do that for love , not profit. There's no way of making that profitable. You have to build expensive equipment, gather resources at flat day-rateds, then work at a snail-pace.
My character actually has made clothes, sporadically, because she happenened to inherit a loom etcetera, but only to clothe her own workers, and to provide a bit of diversity in the workplace. It costs rather more in lost iron production than it saves (as against going out and buying the clothes)

[Surly]

I do understand your fears, julie2, but I do not think it will be all that bad. Think about it, you will need less labour. So what? That's good. Those people you don't need for iron/steel can work on the harvester (I know which character you tend to work from on these... points) or on manufacturing tools. Or on repairs...

You do not need to employ absolutely everybody... and it is possible to have a cross-company community, if you stop being so damn offensive to other people.

Less labour = good for the Cantr employer.

So what's your problem? You don't have to employ someone to be friends with them.

[julie2]

Maybe steel production should remain the same, just because every society needs some kind of much sought after but hard to get thing for the greedy chars to go after

I agree, in principle, but steel will never become useful as currency in Cantr, because its trade is strictly regulated in too many places. Anyway, if iron becomes cheaper, then steel automatically becomes cheaper, since iron is the main ingredient of steel (even in Cantr!), so making iron cheap but keeping steel expensive just isn't an option.

As for the arguments against it, well, so what if cars are no longer completely impossible to make? It still won't be easy --ground vehicles will be the domain of the incredibly wealthy for a long, long time to come-- but if more towns can now own even a bike or two, how is faster communication and trade bad for the game in any way?

Hold on...only one of the people on this thread thought that vehicles should remain so expensive. The rest of us want thre price of vehicles to go down.

And as for iron itself, the more out there in the general population the better. Would it really be that damaging to the game to raise the average person's standard of living just a tiny bit?

Most of us also want the cost of iron to go down. Even those of us who produce the stuff. I , for one, am far from protesting about the cost of iron going down. I don't think this change is going to bring it down enough, nor raise anybody's standard of living to serious degree, just screw up the logistics of iron production, and make people think that iron producers are making a great deal more profit than they are. (already quite a problem, even under the old system)

I know in the short term this sucks for chars who've put a lot of time and effort into making or acquiring iron,

No, the point is it sucks for some of those who understand iron production, because we can see the bigger picture and we realise that it's another of those poorly-thought-out ideas, which will cause a lot of disruption without having the intended effect. Any loss of personal profits pales nto insignificance in the face of that

You haven't actually answerered any of the serious arguments in this thread, you've just completely ignored them.

The question isn't "Do we want the cost of iron and steel to come down" (It's pretty clear that there would be a resounding "Yes" to a poll on that question); but how do we effectively implement that? This change looks like the answer , but it's really a case of maximum disruption to minimum effect.