Repair rates v making rate question

[The Sociologist]

Bone Knife = 11 hours
Crossbow = 11 hours

Well, a crossbow takes a year to put together, excluding collecting the resources and making the iron and steel, but doesn't last all that long. A bone knife, on the other hand, takes a day to make using minimal resources and lasts just about forever. OK then, when it's crumbling make a new one instead of repairing it. But if by chance you're caught without small bones, then you can at least repair it if you want to. Indeed, perhaps there should be some items where it's easier to make a new one than repair the old one. Frankly I don't see a problem here.

What I have noticed is that a lot of people are repairing items way before it's really necessary. So it's small wonder they're whining so much about repairs. (Unless of course there's something going on that I've not caught on to).

I remain convinced that a solution to these issues, and to the by now notorious "exploit", is to require that resources be needed for repairs. Then you can cut repair times to next to nothing since the required resources compensate for that.

[kinvoya]

I think repair times should reflect some common sense regarding what is involved with repairing them. A bone knife or needle you rub against a rock to sharpen the edge or point. It doesn't take 11 hours to do that!

A crossbow? Who the heck knows what is involved with repairing that? It's a fairly complicated machine. But I'm sure you don't just rub it against a rock a little bit. It makes sense that this would take some time to sharpen (imaginary bolts), adjust, tighten, straighten...whatever.

[Just A Bill]

By setting the ratio of decay time to repair time, you in effect set a limit on the number of items that the average cantrarian can possess, after which, that cantrarian will be forced to spend all his time repairing his items.

In other words, lets say the ratio of decay to repair is 5 and we have a reasonably equiped character, on day one we repair his shield, on day 2 we repair his weapon, on day three, his knife, day 4 his hammer, and on day 5 his axe. Now his shield has 5 days wear on it, so its in the same condition it was before he started repairing it, so he is forced to repeat the process. If he always logs in at the right hour, and never has to stop to harvest anything to eat, and never uses any of the tools, he can keep all his items in the same state of repair. If for any reason he can't maintain this schedule, his items will start to decay.

If the ratio is closer to 10, perhaps he could harvest food to eat and occasionally use his tools, but its still not worth having more than one tool because since you can only use one tool at a time and it only speeds up production by XX%(Self Cesnored) it really isn't worth having more than one tool that decays while your not using it.

If you have a character who wants to make weapons, he needs to possess several more tools, all of which are decaying. It is not unreasonable for him to possess 10 items, in which case even if the ratio is 10, he will have no time to do anything usefull.

This is also no where close to real life. In real life lets say you have a rake that you use to collect and dispose of leaves every fall. Its october 1 and you decide you need to rake the leaves, so you grab your rake and notice that it needs repair. Assuming it was repaired last Oct 1 and the ratio of decay to repair time is 5 to 1, it would have 365 days decay and require 73 days to repair, so you should be finished around the middle of December. Now where I grew up thats the time to start thinking about fixing the snow shovel, which if it had sat for a year should be repaired around the end of february.

If we want Cantrarians to use tools, this ratio needs to be increased by at least a factor of 10, a more realistic aproach would probably increase the ratios by a factor of a hundred or more. You wonder why there are complaints...

[rklenseth]

You have to remember that a Cantr year is only 20 days.

[The Sociologist]

If we want Cantrarians to use tools, this ratio needs to be increased by at least a factor of 10, a more realistic aproach would probably increase the ratios by a factor of a hundred or more. You wonder why there are complaints...

Where are you people getting this from? Are you repairing tools the moment they begin to look "used"? Why? Nobody should even be bothering with iron tools at this point, let alone bone ones.

I repeat, I simply don't see any problem with a charrie possessing a weapon, shield and at least a few tools. By that time, assuming he has a personality worth anything at all, he should be a member of an organization or else be collaborating with others. So that would further lessen the impact.

[kinvoya]

By setting the ratio of decay time to repair time, you in effect set a limit on the number of items that the average cantrarian can possess, after which, that cantrarian will be forced to spend all his time repairing his items.

When I tried to point this out a while back I was told that I had too many tools.

Are you repairing tools the moment they begin to look "used"?

Yes, because it is my understanding that newer tools work better. Also, if you wait until all your tools are in poor repair you won't have time to repair them all before they disintegrate.

As a side note, Sociologist, do you think you could manage to express your opinion without implying that everyone else in the universe is an imbicile? Maybe start by not using the expression "you people" as if we are all inferior to you (it's clear you believe that's true but please try to hide it).

[rklenseth]

Maybe you should have less tools or perhaps a new profession should be created; tool repairer Or maybe you need more employees to take care of your stockpiles of tools and jobs.

[The Sociologist]

Are you repairing tools the moment they begin to look "used"?

Yes, because it is my understanding that newer tools work better.

Are you sure? I mean, do you have proof from observing tools in poorer condition somehow work less well? I get no sense that weapons work less well and surely they would be an obvious class of items for such a "feature", if it existed.

Also, if you wait until all your tools are in poor repair you won't have time to repair them all before they disintegrate.

My experience is that tools and weapons will stay in the "much used" and "old" categories for quite some time, certainly quite long enough to repair ten items or more.

As a side note, Sociologist, do you think you could manage to express your opinion without implying that everyone else in the universe is an imbicile? Maybe start by not using the expression "you people" as if we are all inferior to you (it's clear you believe that's true but please try to hide it).

I meant "you people who are complaining too much". I get the impression somehow of a large number of people who have become hopelessly obsessed with repairing everything they possess every couple of days.

I believe that this is another case of secrecy being counter-productive and simply leading to frustration. We should just be told straight out whether tools in poorer condition work less well. Could there be an answer to that, please?

[mortaine]

In my personal experience, degraded weapons *definitely* are less effective.

[kinvoya]

maybe you need more employees to take care of your stockpiles of tools and jobs.

Most common chars who have managed to scrape together a few tools along with their weapon and protection can't afford to hire people to repair their items. What will these chars pay with? Carrots the other chars can grow themselves? Only the rich and powerful have this luxury since they have the resources others desire. Also, many chars are too busy trying to keep their own inventory in repair to hire themselves out unless there is a real incentive.

It seems to me that this is turning into another way that those who "have" will get more and those who "have very little" will loose out.

[Talapus]

Yes, the current rate of decay seems to be a bit high. Take for example a full smith. A smith needs about seven tools (five minimum, and the others are close behind in being necessary) plus three machines. To have one person working all of the time, you would need two almost complete sets of tools (one being repaired, and one being used), and two people to repair the tools. It doesn't seem right that it would take two people repairing just to keep one person working, and this will definitely start to stagnate Cantr's economy if left the way it is.

[Just A Bill]

creepyguyinblack Said...

That's probably some error or miscalculation with the flatter, or before values were adjusted. On average things should repair about 5-10 times as fast as they decay (not giving precise values).

Thats where I got the ratio, he could be incorrect, but he sounded like he was in the know and giving us a range so as not to create a CRB. If he is not a member of the prog dept or otherwise in the know, I'll withdraw my earlier comments.

My comments were talking about the "Average Cantrarian", now if you have a lackey, perhaps you can have 10-20 items while your lackey has none, but the average will still work out to 5-10 per person.

As to when you repair an item, that shouldn't matter, if you wait twice as long to repair it you will have to spend twice as long in the repair. What matters is how much decay you can remove per hour of repair.

This feels like a back door attempt to force specialization, since after your weapon and shield you can only really be productive with one or two more items (you can maintain more, but then never have time to use them) thus you are only efficient at one or two things and would be better off trading for the other things.

I have actually had the most problems with characters who are members of fairly large organizations as they, in general had a higher item/person ratio than the others.

As to the length of the year, I am aware how long a year is and think this contributes to the problem, as humans we think it is reasonable for an item to decay a substantial amount in a year, and also reasonable that it should take a day or two(or 8 hours or whatever) to repair it, so an unrealisticly low ratio is thougth ok. I used a real life example so as to illustrate how rediculous the ratios suggested really are.

I would love to see a graph of how cantrarians spend their time, perhaps a line graph with the percent of time they spend, gathering food, gathering healing food, gathering other materials, manufacturing things, resting/doing nothing, traveling, and repairing items. It would be interesting to see how the trends have changed over the last several cantr years. I suspect we'll see a huge jump in repair time at the expense of just about everything else. Also it would be interesting to see how degraded the average item is over the same period of time, to see if we are keeping up with maintainance at a sustainable rate.

[rklenseth]

Guys, the rates aren't high. I set them myself and I know the things are going to last a while. And furthermore this isn't going to change.

[wichita]

Maybe you should have less tools or perhaps a new profession should be created; tool repairer Or maybe you need more employees to take care of your stockpiles of tools and jobs.

Well, I've tried the repair business but nobody has taken me up on the offer. So much for trying to develop that societal interdependence everyone's talking about. And is it really that bad? I mean if you factor in the time it takes to gather resources for a new tool, it's still faster to repair it.


I'm glad we found the new tiredness. I wasn't affected by that, and I'm not being hurt by this. Kind of like the government, taxes, gas prices...all the RL rant bandwagons of the world. Step into the circle and learn to relax. Class starts at 4:20. It works properly once you learn to adjust, trust me.

[Surly]

Guys, the rates aren't high. I set them myself and I know the things are going to last a while. And furthermore this isn't going to change.

I find that last part disturbing... even if we come up with valid points, it won't make a difference? Then what's the point? Especially as nobody actually responded to the points I raised. CAre to respond to what I said, RKL? I'd be interested to here the justification for the skewed system we have.

NOTE: I don't have a problem with the repair rates, per se. I don't think they reflect RL in anyway... but that doesn't seem to concern the RD, so it doesn't matter.