Varied quantities of resources

[formerly known as hf]

When wood no longer has a fixes gathering rate of 300 grams per day, but somewhere between 200 and 450, based on the forest where you get it, the price of wood will not automatically be based on the time spent in gathering. The demand for the resource will have much more influence on the price.

This was my original thought when I first thought about this, ages ago.

I've realised though, that all would happen would be an intervening period with a lot of haggling, then soon, poeple would just create lists of locations nearby, and what the rate of resource collections are, then just go back to this crappy day-rate system.

[T-shirt]

How woud a person who has not travelled know whether a resource is plentily available or scarcely? I see no need in telling people that.

Digging for stone
Note that in one day one person can only dig 554 gram. The number of turns will be rounded upwards. The end result will have a random deviation (max 20%) of the amount you ask for.
If you have pickaxe, you can dig 1108 grams a day.

No need to tell whether this is little, much or average.

[wichita]

When wood no longer has a fixes gathering rate of 300 grams per day, but somewhere between 200 and 450, based on the forest where you get it, the price of wood will not automatically be based on the time spent in gathering. The demand for the resource will have much more influence on the price.

If you factor in transport time, local demand, and current supply, you get this sort of dynamic economics. Come to Lake Village, that very policy is in effect there and a few traders have figured out quite nicely how to play the market. It is anything but rooted in a fixed gathering rate. The problem is, few players have (or take) the time to do this, which will not change even if we hard code resource yields. Every region will be different, they will have to go to each location to find the local gather rate...or use a default value *coughs* 300 *coughs*.

What will actually happen is the average gather rate will be posted in the Wiki and all the players will use that average, completely nullifying this idea and leaving us where skills put us.....the Sociologist nagging about it in every post for a year and a half.

[SekoETC]

Umm, it doesn't take multi-locational experience to see if a thing is rare or not. Something like stones would be in friggen piles or mountains in a location where they're abundant, while in a region covered vastly by plants you couldn't see the stones but might find some by digging. Then again something like gold would in most of the cases be listed only as "there might be gold on this region".

[T-shirt]

It would be nice if there was a chance of failure and you'd end up with 0 grams but it wouldn't say "project finished 0 grams ending in the inventory of X" but instead it would say "the project finished unsuccessfully: No #resource# was found." Then again you could also find a rich source, which would give you more than the +20% of what you were looking for. But it's stupid that the random variation is the same for all the repeats, since if you have time then you can experiment with various hour-long projects and pick the one with the biggest outcome.

That's another suggestion and should be posted in a separate thread please.

[Pieter de Groote]

I sure hope this diversity system is implemented in a way that big differences between islands exist. It will really make a change.

An example:
You're on an island that has average gathering rates that match the values in the wiki. (which will be based on the experience of users)
The average rate for wood is 300 g/day, hematite 750 g/day and limestone 1100 g/day.

Then, a traveller stumbles upon an island where the average gathering rates are completely different. The average gathering rate wood is 1500 g/day, hematite 250 g/day and limestone is not available at all.

The far off island will not be the perfect place to settle, but will be a very interesting colony.

In a situation like the above, I seriously doubt the following:

What will actually happen is the average gather rate will be posted in the Wiki and all the players will use that average, completely nullifying this idea and leaving us where skills put us.....

This would be very good for trading diversity and it would make colonisation and long distance trade interesting.

Right now I have characters a LONG way from home. They can bring back some herbs, strange animal parts and some exotic resources that have no use at all. I'd say this is not enough to set up long distance trade routes or trigger others to explore or colonize. The suggested mechanism could mean drastic changes in that, provided we allow for big differences in gathering rates between island.

[Nosajimiki]

if the gathering rates we made different on a large scale (by the island or large reagon instead of by city) and were drasticlly different in far off places then it would incourage intercontinaental trade, and maybe even add some new flavor to the game, but in the possess, ruin the economy of any currently settled region. I think the proper solution to long trade is to give every major island a unique but very useful resource. things like timber which are good for quaries and such, maybe add titainium on another for makeing helicopters when those finally get implimented. Give another Chromium for making stainless steel for making much lower upkeep weapons and tools. I have no problem giving places "newly discovered" things, but I dont want to see any new system that takes resources out of the hands of those who already have them.

[wichita]

Why would a lower gathering rate encourage intercontinental trade any more than not having the resource at all on a given continent?

[Pie]

If i could get 5 g of diomands frome a cave two miles away, and they were poor quality diomands, or if i could get 30g of diomands 100 miles away, and they were of good quality, than I would go the 100 miles.

[Nakranoth]

Except that right now, diamonds are diamonds... so it's really a matter of, I need 10 g of diamond, so I'll mine 2 days one town over rather than go 5 towns over for 60 g a day... it wouldn't increase long range travels, just slow a few processes more than they already are.

[Nosajimiki]

Why would a lower gathering rate encourage intercontinental trade any more than not having the resource at all on a given continent?

this was my point, it wouldnt, which is way I said that the only way to stimulate cross continental trade is with unique resources.

Also, I agree with Nakranoth, in most situations, the disparites wont be worth the extra distance.

As a side note, I know for fact that the current system isnt keeping players from making long trade runs. I've seen people have to go somewhere 10 towns away for diamonds, 6 or 7 towns away for hemitite, 7 for copper. Using the wonderful economy of Lake village again for example, I know that they have regular trade roughts covering everywhere from Brunoi to Siom. Trade is not broken, players ability to capitalize on supply/demand principles in most places is. So if you dont like daypoints, then get out a pencil and paper, and figure out more complex systems.