Increased Smelter capacity

[Surly]

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.

Wrong. The point is that if you can still only produce 100g of steel a day, it's value remains the same. Yes, slightly cheaper from the increase in iron production, but only to the old rates. You like to have a go at those who "don't understand" iron production, but my characters have been producing things for much longer than yours, and this only restores the balance Cantr once had. Don't attack other people when your position is so weak.

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.

No, just how will it screw up logistics? Iron still needs all the same resources, it just takes 1/7 of the time to smelt. If you cannot find anything else for you employees to do but refine iron, the fault is with you and not with programming

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.

This is not poorly thought out. The repercussions of hematite were poorly predicted, this change just restores the balance. Get off your high horse and be reasonable. I know the values from before and after hematite... this change simply allows the Cantr economy to move forward again. Iron is still not as easy to gather as it was, but at least now it is a reasonable rate.

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

She isn't the only one...

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.[/b]

No. Hematite was maximum disruption. This simply redresses the balance.

I do have one question... is it quicker to produce in primitive smelters as well? Because I think that rate should stay the same, as a full size smelting furnace would be substantially more effiecient.

[Lumin]

Obviously the discussions moved on from where it was last night, but I have to cut in real quick and reply to this:

Are you trying to get out of carrot farming by selling carrots? Because of all the options out there, that's definitely the most hopeless. I mean, do you really expect to trade carrots, which are the next thing to free, for iron, which is the most valuable thing there is? It may happen with the new collection limits...but prices probably are not going to be good.

Obviously raw resources aren't enough, but neither is anything else. There is not a single product out there that Cantrians will trade iron for, simply because nothing even comes within a mile of approaching the value that iron has.

The only way I've seen to get ahead is to forget all about my characters goals and personality and simply sell them into slavery for several years in the hopes that their employer might actually hold up their end of the bargain and pay them in iron or tools at the end of it. And of course no one ever wants to flat out tell you how long you'll have to work or how much you can expect to get paid. All you've got to go by are some vague promises and the hope that your employer doesn't fall asleep, and in the mean time you might as well forget all about that character because they'll be locked away in a building, and the only time anyone's going to interact with them is to tell them to start a new project or give them food - trying to RP with your employer or any other workers is an exercise in futility, as these people only seem to check their chars every three days or so.

Joining an organization that requires iron tools isn't the answer, because the tools belong to the organization, not you, and you're only supposed to work on the projects the organization tells you too. So basically you're just working for food and the dubious privilege of holding someone else's tools while you do so.

Anyway, I've pretty much accepted the fact that, in the current economy at least, none of my chars can ever seriously expect to have iron or iron equipment. Most of them have learned to deal with that as best they can, except it makes things very difficult. There's nowhere to store food or items for instance, because you need iron to even make a building, let alone put a lock on it. (Why in the world does a wooden trowel require iron, anyway? You're telling me you can't spread imaginary mortar with some other material?)

So they've all pretty much taken involunatary vows of poverty, never being able to own anything more than they can hold and still travel at a reasonable speed with. Out of the 18 characters I've had over the entire time I've played Cantr, none have even touched iron except the one who owns an iron shield somebody else gave her with no strings attached. Too bad she's currently my most boring char, but that doesn't mean I treasure it any less...

[Surly]

Obviously raw resources aren't enough, but neither is anything else. There is not a single product out there that Cantrians will trade iron for, simply because nothing even comes within a mile of approaching the value that iron has.

That just simply isn't true. Limestone, coal, wood, salt... all are valuable items that my characters would trade iron for. You just need to find the right place, and that place is inevitably the big cities. Just like real life. That's why they are big cities...

Anyway, I've pretty much accepted the fact that, in the current economy at least, none of my chars can ever seriously expect to have iron or iron equipment.

Why is it that Cantr players like to feel sorry for themselves instead of pursuing an asnwer in game? I have 15 characters right now, and all of them have iron shields. Many of them have 2 or more. This is because they
1) joined an organisation, which provided them with one as payment (true for only a few of my characters)
2) They seized the initiative and made them themselves. Since hematite... it really isn't that hard.
3) They inherited them. Probably the hardest of all the options to achieve, because it is impossible to predict.

Anyway, my 25 year old has and iron shield, crowbar and crossbow. All without sacrificing his character. Stop moaning and find the answer IG. There are people out there, if you care to look, who can help you.

[The Industriallist]

My youngest iron-class character attained iron ownership after a mere few years of work, and without joining anything. Took a combination of luck and actively looking for complicated tasks of the kind that actually warrant that kind of payment. Like going somewhere and doing something...the kind of thing you don't hire just any pathetic sheep for empty promises. He didn't earn it fast, but he could make a couple of shields by now...if he hadn't already recieved one.

Another of my characters, by pure trade, has amassed a fair amount of iron. i'm not the only one who's done this. Anyone can go out and collect or trade for iron-making materials. In most iron-making towns, those resources can be sold for a small amount of iron.

It's hard to earn iron as a local resource gatherer or as a stay-at-home factory worker...because both markets are relatively glutted with the throngs of people who aren't willing to travel often. Transport is probably the best field for free agents who hope to earn anything, because in most areas it is not at all well set up.

[wietse]

sorry Jos, but this change is way to much.

7 times is really to much.

as it was 67% of the cost of making iron would be factory work (most of ik working on the smelter. the rest resource gathering. Ok it was slow.. but it gave you something to do inside buildings.

All our wages and prices were calculated based on the value of iron and steel. They represented mostly money because everybody wanted it and it was relativly expesive to make so valuable and easy to carry.

this change has devaluated our iron and steel supplies (only 15 kilo or so...) by at least 2-3 times. To build this up cost.. ages. Actually the whole factory is based on the value of iron and steel.

Well, i guess i have to recalculate all the wages and prices...

i think it would be better just to reduce the cost of vehicles if you think they are too expensive...


Why can't anything in this game get programmed correct from the start??
It seems that every change has major flaws and has to be tweaked a thousand times for it to work a bit. Think things through before implementing or programming it....

Sorry .. sometimes it gets so frustrating....

[mortaine]

Lumin and I clearly have very similar experiences in playing Cantr. I wonder if it's regional (i.e., a lot of my characters spawn in the same places-- I wonder if his are in the same areas, too!)

[Surly]

You spawned in KDS?

That's the only main area I have no characters.

[Lumin]

Well, I'm not a he, but other than that, yes, most of the characters from my last account (when I seriously tried to give the iron thing a go) spawned in the Drojf area. Actually I couldn't seem to get away from the place. So if mortaine's chars are there too then maybe it is a regional thing...

[mortaine]

Yep. It's a regional difference-- about 3/4 of my English characters spawned in KDS or Blojt areas.

Hey! For anyone trying to identify "society simulator" things-- here you go!

--m
PS: sorry, Lumin. I knew better. Kinda. I just suck at remembering gender online.

[julie2]

Surly, I’m not going to attempt a point-by-point response to your last (the reason being I’m a very slow writer, and this board eats too much of my my time, if I let it). I’d just like to point out that all of your arguments have neglected the fact that the quantities of resources required to make iron remain the same, so any increased production is going to be directly proportional to an increase in resource-gathering . IT's just not goinbg to happen any other way. It’s the increase in resource-gathering which screws up the logistics. It’s not simply that I don’t want to make iron-workers redundant as iron workers More to the point, I don’t want to force them into resource-running/trading jobs, like it or not, equipped for it or not. I’d prefer to provide alternative indoor option, especially for new workers (If that idea of turning them into tailors sucks from my point of view, it doesn’t suck half of as much as the prspect of turrning them into resource –runners ; but I don’t have an option, there.. Most of them will just have to be resource–runners or it defeats the whole object of this change, which is to increase the availability of iron, isn’t it?)

Like Wietse, I think the balance between indoor work and resource-running work was therabouts right. I just don’t believe think thiis change in emphasis is going to work, especially not in the face of the new resource limitations/ I’ll be amazed if we manage to effectively double the flow of resources. But that’s what it going to take if we’re aiming at doubling the availability of iron.

Here’s the problem from my own perspective: Someone has to work for my character for a quite a while before she’s willinng to entrust them with a valuable bike, and valuable trade goods.Some people never really become suitable for jobs like that, because they’re too darned sleepy, and some people just don’t want to travel.. Weed out all the variosly usuitable people and you’re left with a minority Unfortunately, that minority overlaps considerably with the minority who would make good managers/supervisors and those who function as the “life and soul” of the factory. Already, it’s a bit of a wrench sending those people away, and there’s a risk of things falling apart while they’re gone. Now I’m looking at the prospect of doubling that number of people, somehow, just to take advantage of the increased smelting rate.

There’s also another hidden cost to iron production-all the travelling time which gets wasted when trade deals fall through. If we’re forced to trade, not gather, now, and if resources for trade become scarcer due to gathering restrictions, that hidden cost is bound to increase- possibly dramatically. My character is already doing exactly what Jos wants us to do- trading rather than gathering, wherever that’s feasible ; but that adds in a big unreliability factor; and it’s not so simple for the iron industry to trade as you might think., because the he towns which control the essential resources usually need anything but iron, They’ve already got their own thriving iron industry.(that said, those Towns can happily trade with each other, of course. It’s in those towns which don‘t have any of three major resources, that’s where it gets complicated. You then have to gather or trade for large quatitities of food, or whatever,
to get yourself a foothold in that chain. My character trades potatoes for hematite in one place, then hematite for limestone in another place which doesn’t need potatoes or iron, for example.)


Like Weitse I think that a far simpler and more effective way of achieving the desired result, would be to reduce the amount of iron and steel required for iron and steel goods. I think this should be implemented for all iron goods (because some of the tools are ludicrously costly ),and maybe to a larger extent for vehicles, especially cars.

I think the iron rate could also be made double what it was without making things impossible, but only if the resources required were reduced. Yeah, there’s only so far you could sensibly do that, before the iron you get out outweighs the iron ore you put in. But you could probably come close to halving the resources requires without making it too silly.

Put those two ideas together and you’re going to see a bigger and much more immediate effect on the Cantrian economy than this hugely increased smelting rate gives you- and with much less disruption. Add in increased efficiency for hematite crushing, and you can make the effect bigger still (though I’d really hate to see that brought in without reducing the smeting rate and/ or reducing the requisite resources or it will throw the balance out even more)

[formerly known as hf]

I like it

but,

I don't have any characters that work heavily in the iron trade - so I guess I would like anything that devalues iron

In the long run though, I guess it will make Cantr progress faster, as more things can be made more easily.

[west]

I guess I just don't understand the problems people have with this change. The hard part is still gathering the materials, and that hasn't changed at all.

[Bowser]

Remember when you could pull iron out of the ground?

The game will survive if it takes longer or shorter time to make iron.

[Just A Bill]

I would tend to agree with Julie as to changing the ratio of normal to trusted workers. This change should actually devalue the run of the mill day laborer , and increase demand for trusted, competent characters. Unforutnately, it increases the difficulty in making the first step into an organization.

It might make life easier for those wander/traders types who are looking for iron. Smelters might tend to be idle more frequently, hence obtaining time on one might be easier, and the producers might be more interested in trading for the resources...

Of course, this will probably be offset by the limits on number of gatherers as towns will be more likely to allow their own to gather then outsiders.

As far as the relative value of clothes and things other than iron, when the other things have a visible in game effect, demand might pick up. If weather is implemented, clothes could offset their effects. You might also be able to rest better with a warm cloak or at least a some clothes...

[Bowser]

People keep talking about what will be easier for this or that...
People talk about what would make things fair or even...
People complain about change...

...just see the change and adapt.

I have played since before violence was added. I have seen what it was like to play in a land where no one had iron except a chosen few. I was not one of those chosen people, but I found a way to get iron and become a powerhouse.

I have played when iron was collected from the ground at 50 grams a day (I think that was the rate). Now it takes a giant process to get it, but I continue on. Stop calculating and just DO IT. I may smelt awkwardly, but in time, I get it done. Understand one thing, power comes in groups. It always has, get involved in a group.

These changes maybe trying to promote trade, maybe trying to promote specialties, maybe designed to to promote sheep worhipping... either way, no change can stop what you put your mind to.