About them repair times

[Jur Schagen]

Look at this from the opposite angle. A crowbar is an extremely usefull tool, especially if your char could get involved in any kind of trouble; I'd say its a life-saver. If you want to carry this very very important tool with you, you should make an effort maintaining it is well.

And did anyone happen to notice that, though the repair times may be long, so are the deter times? In other words, how long it stays "brand new" after fully repairing it?

Jur.

[Surly]

An effort?

It will take me 8 days to repair a tool that took 2 days to make. I'm pretty sure it takes substantially less than 8 days to make from scratch if you have the resources.

And I notice that nobdy wants to come and have the item rot debate with me on IRC... just as well for them, I suppose. It never was a water-tight argument anyway.

Let's just say... keeping Cantr a gmae people want to play is far more important than whatever weird twisted realism the ProgD seem to strive for. Currently we have the worst of both worlds... it sucks from the players point of view, and doesn't even have the realistic factor to back it up.

Item rot is unrealistic, pointless, and ultimately a bad idea.

I've always said it, and I stand by what I've said.

(Note: My brand new iron shield will take 5 hours to repair... hardly brand new is it? )

[Nick]

Make up your mind!

Do you want the deter/repair rates balanced? Or do you want them realistic?
They won't be the same rates.

[Surly]

Um...

Item rot can never be realistic...

The best you can do is balance them. However, I do not see what we have as balanced.


So your answer Nick: I'd take either, it would be a massive improvement on the tangled mess we have right now.

[Nick]

Well, first everyone was arguing for balance now we're complaining about realism. Sure, a crowbar would be easy to fix. But it's a high end item.

How hard would it be to put a crumbling stone hammer back together? Pretty hard, if possible at all, but people complained when it took so long to repair.

[Doug R.]

The most realistic solution would be this:

1) Deterioration is based on use. Low-end items like stone hammers simply disintegrate with use, and should not be allowed to be repaired at all. The stone shatters, and the handle snaps. Metal items become dull and dented, requiring the tools that made them to repair them. Blades need to be sharpened, etc.

2) Deterioration is based on location. If a stone hammer is kept on the ground outside, the wood will rot, leaving the stone available for re-use. Likewise, iron will rust, allowing a person to recover the item and re-forge it with a loss of starting material (maybe 10% deterioration)

3) Tools being stored unused on a person or in a building should never deteriorate.

So, in summary, using a tool deteriorates it, as does leaving it lying around outside. Instead of disappearing after crumbling, it should leave behind a % of the original resources used. However, stored, unused tools should not decay at all. Stone tools should not be allowed to be repaired at all, and the repair of all other tools should require the posession of the tools that originally made it. This is, IMO, the fairest and most realistic way to have item deterioration in the game.

[Sho]

I'm guessing use-based deterioration was abandoned because it would be a pain to program. So I suggest a compromise solution (based on some borrowing from various other posts, particularly Doug's last).
It should not be a problem, however, to make it so tools held in the hand or left on the ground rot, while tools stored in buildings do not (possibly they could rot at a greatly reduced - say, one-tenth - rate).

Pros:
This is codable. If food rotting can be coded, and rotting can be coded to affect items in repair projects as well as loose items, so can this (or so I assume; I might be wrong).

This would solve most of the problems people are complaining about with the current system. It approximates the effects of a use-based deterioration system - players will learn to store all tools not in use.

This is reasonably realistic.


Cons (and rebuttals):
It would put characters without buildings at a disadvantage.
Tool storages would solve this problem, since storages can be made portable (think toolbox, maybe), but even without those it seems mostly fair - from what I hear, the characters hit hardest by item rot are the older characters, who would be able to either use their own building or have other characters store their tools for them.

Weapons would still rot.
Okay, so you have to keep your sword, shield and crowbar in repair. Not a huge deal. Even with the new changes I don't believe anyone would have a problem with this. Hire someone to help on the project or something.

[Agar]

How is coding use-based wear on tools hard to code?

Tools, and potentially (eventually) machinery gets wear and tear on it when it's used. So ... when should this damage be applied against it? How about when the project finishes? There has to be a block of code to handle removing the project and creating the goods, that sounds like precisely the place to put in the wear and tear of the equipment.

Aside from tools and machines, everything else that would get wear and tear would be combat equipment, which would get banged up during combat events.

Using the tools involved in making the item to repair it is a logical idea, but also an illogical idea, and also not a good idea ...

It's a logical idea in that you needed those tools to make the thing in the first place, so why wouldn't you need them to fix it? You need a knife to carve the atlatl peices to begin with, why wouldn't you need it to make things all sharp again?

It's illogical use some of the long lists of tools to keep something in a servicable condition. If you have a dull sword, you don't whip out an anvil and set of hammers to put a new edge on it.

It's not a good idea in the fact that anyone buying something would also need to buy a whole set of tools to keep the thing from simply disintergrating. That's a lot of capital to acquire to keep your equipment from deteriorating. And the equipment you're using to repair also needs repair, in a kind of evil, recursive, fractal tree.

[Sho]

Use-based wear for tools would be a challenge because the server doesn't associate a specific tool with a project. It just checks to see whether you have one of the needed tool. Coding use-based wear would require a system for choosing which tool to associate with a project.
This would take some brainstorming on the forums to decide what order tools should be used in (bone vs. metal? used or new?).
It would also be a load on the server; since the check is run every turn for every project, often for multiple tools per project, this change, which could multiply the check's runtime by, say, a factor of 3 (wild guess) would add significantly to lag.

All that was wild speculation. I'm not ProgD and don't know much about databases or web applications.


Use-based wear should be codable for weapons and shields, and I like the idea. The current system (weapon user manually selects weapon to be used) would make weapons easy to do, and for shields the only issue is whether old shields come before new shields, or vice versa.


A possible way to make use-based wear work: It has been suggested elsewhere that weapons, shields and tools be equipped, like clothing. That would make clear what tools are being used. This might even speed the tools check past what it currently takes (wild speculation). Of course, it would need to be coupled with code that prevents people from equipping two equivalent tools, such as two shovels, or a hammer and a stone hammer.

[Agar]

Don't hit the tools with the wear every time it checks to see if you have the tool, just when you're done with the entire project. You have to possess the tool to finish the project, so it's only going to add that server load to the project end, not the duration of the project.

As for what tool should be used, the simple way to do it would be, the wear and tear hits the top most one in your inventory. If you don't want your iron hammer to get dinged, drop it and use the stone one for the project.

Same thing for weapons. Ding the top one.

[Chris Johnson]

Sho is essentialy right about how the checks are made . Its only presence of at least one example of the required tool in your inventory that is currently checked.

The additional load to deteriorate that item wouldn't be an enormous load on the projects checks-. But there are a lot of issues as has been correctly pointed out as to which item should be deteriorated .
It would either have to a totally new 'Equiping' system as has been suggested or some compromise priority system ... and remember we've only just achieved that for food , a much simpler process .

Agar, the checks woul have to be done as the project proceeds , not at the completion point , that would be too open to abuse , have 10 people working on building that building and then when 95% complete all but one with the cheap wooden trowel stand back ....

[nitefyre]

It would either have to a totally new 'Equiping' system as has been suggested or some compromise priority system ... and remember we've only just achieved that for food , a much simpler process .
....

Some of the new semi finished products will make this a major pain, equipping 6 times for however many tools to make the necessary copper wires for a radio transmitter every half day? Hugh!

[Bowser]

Its been said before, but I'll say it again...

Decaying tools make owning a Tool Shop unrealistic. You can not have a large inventory to sell because all your crap rots on the shelf. If you can not program "per use" decay, atleast create some sort of shelf or box you can put your sale items in so they don't rot or just make items only decay if you are carrying them.

To carry them is to use them. To not carry them is not to use them.
That is the answer.

[Solfius]

Its been said before, but I'll say it again...

Decaying tools make owning a Tool Shop unrealistic. You can not have a large inventory to sell because all your crap rots on the shelf. If you can not program "per use" decay, atleast create some sort of shelf or box you can put your sale items in so they don't rot or just make items only decay if you are carrying them.

To carry them is to use them. To not carry them is not to use them.
That is the answer.

Bump and suggest a move to suggestions maybe? I only skimmed the thread though

I like Bowsers idea for storage cupboards to prevent deterioration, but I don't agree with toolboxes as I think it makes it too easy then.

[Mykey]

I can look for the reference to a site on which there are many articles on this question.