Automated Processes

[Mr. Black]

As we all know, machines are what really drove the industrial revolution. Therefore, I think we should have more automated machines around, and possibly power generators as well, that would use propane, gas, etc. in a similiar way to cars. This would change a lot of Cantr and make propane worth a lot more.

(I'd make a more elegant argument but honestly, I'm exhausted)

[Snake_byte]

Well we don't want too much automation in here. Plus even large industrial machines need to have their production supervised. And what are these generators supposed to generate what, for?

[Mr. Black]

Well, my idea is this. Currently, everything in Cantr besides cars and motorcycles is basically a free lunch: you don't need any sort of power source to run it, besides yourself. I was thinking power generators (run on oil, solar power, whatever) could be implemented so that we could have a whole new impetus to trade and establish connections with other villages throughout Cantr. When these things are implemented, you would only be able to run simple machines without them. Maybe that also creates a clear division between "haves" and "have-nots", but that's only good for budding nation-states in my view.

Really did not explain that well before, did I?

EDIT: As for automated processes, if we had machines that could do things pretty much on their own, we could actually have phases of society (i.e. progress), rather than things just basically staying the same from Day 1 to now.

[Snake_byte]

well a lot of big machines do accpet petrol to increase production... Any machines you're thinking of specifically?

[Mr. Black]

Not just to increase production. To allow production at all. Not things like bow stringers, beehives, and the like. I'm thinking of complicated machinery, like harvesters or looms (also, why not an automatic loom?), or presses, stuff like that.

[Snake_byte]

Well like I was saying, I'm pretty sure harvestors and other large machines (not loom) have the option to use petrol to increase production rates.

[Mr. Black]

Yeah, I know. But what I'm saying is, we shouldn't be able to run those things at all with petrol. I'm saying you would need petrol to run such things, or a power generator.

[SekoETC]

It was pointed out in the past that since most work in cloth-making comes from gathering raw material (at least in the case of cotton), even if there was a super loom that could produce vast quantities of cloth in a day, it would only make it cheaper by a fraction because of the gathering rates. Think about it, cotton is gathered 200 grams a day, even if it didn't lose any of its weight during ginning, spinning and weaving, which it does, and all the rest of the processes were automated, you would still only be able to produce a maximum of 200 grams per day of work, which is ridiculously low. You could only make one tunic with that.

[Mr. Black]

Hmm. Maybe a cotton harvester is needed?

[SekoETC]

Tadah! You said it, not me.

[Mr. Black]

Actually, that would help a lot of things: gathering reed is quite slow as well. In fact, we only have harvesters for the things that are -easy- to gather, which seems rather pointless.

[Doug R.]

As long as the automation is balanced by consumption, I'm not against this sort of thing. I do think more things need to run on fuel.

[Mr. Black]

It just feels like we have too many chars in Cantr who waste their entire lives working inside on machines which could easily be automated. So, yeah.

[Pilot]

Perhaps is time to consider electricity?

[cooldevo]

Hmm. Maybe a cotton harvester is needed?

I have a couple of comments for new harvesters.

At the basic premise it is a good idea, anything to help promote the use of fuels isn't necessarily a bad thing. But if we were to simply add in mass harvesters it would have the potential to hurt the economy.

As long as a sudden influx of a material is tempered to keep up with demand than it could be done. Remember something like clothing is a one-shot sale. It lasts forever, and through countless generations of characters.

As a hypothetical bit of what if. Suppose a town could automate cotton collecting and pull in large quantities of cotton a day. Then that they could also use propane to automate the ginning, making yarn and cloth. Propane usage does go up, and after a few years they now have enough cotton clothing to clothe the entire island they live on two times over. Then what? Sure, the value of propane may have gone up because of a new demand, but what about the demand for cotton? It is only good for clothes, and if everyone has a set that last forever, would the need for cotton and other clothing be, and stay, at a reasonable level?

If we want to go that route, in order to try and keep the market balanced, we'd have to implement an artificial limitation elsewhere, for examples caps on resources. Every year towns get between 'x' and 'y' grams of cotton. Once it's collected it is it for that year. Without something like this you'd be adding potentially hundreds of thousands of grams of cotton onto a market not necessarily prepared to handle it. And I'm not just picking on cotton, any harvester of any resource that lasts forever could possibly have this effect.