When is dung going to have a use?

[EchoMan]

Making mud from water has always been a terrible way of getting it. But what you failed to mention (or didn't realize) is that mud is a harvestable resource in many places (I know at least 4 large towns that have mud, and I am sure there are lots more). And just because you have a shovel (to make a firepit) doesn't mean that you have extra wood or coal to spend on cooking food. And in many places (especially on the older islands) there are plenty of firepits dug outside that newspawns use even though they don't have access to iron or steel.

Dung is still quite useless on islands with no wood since you need a shovel to create a firepit, even on a beach. If I had the shovel (and dug my precious firepit) I wouldn't need the wood to cook food, I could use the dried dung... Wasn't that the topic here?

[Surly]

You can dry dung with machines that don't require wood.

So if that is the topic, then there is a very simple answer...

[EchoMan]

You can dry dung with machines that don't require wood.

So if that is the topic, then there is a very simple answer...

You can dry dung in a drying rack, which requires wood. Or in a firepit which requires iron tools wich require wood to manufacture.

You can use dried dung in a firepit, which requires iron tools to build.

Dung would be useful if it could be dried and used as fuel in underdeveloped areas.

[wichita]

As far as machines go, the advantage to dung for the wood poor regions will be, as Talapus tried to point out, that you only need a one time investment of materials (stone, wood, mud, or string) and then the stage is set for rudimentary cooking. The drying step was implemented so that dung is not as efficient as firewood. Firewood will be better and should always be more desireable than dung fueled cooking. But, once the machine is there, it should be possible for a small community to rely on dried dung and hunting to supply food enough to survive.

The availability of mud and the iron requirement are being considered. I will say than drying on the spit and the drying rack are also up for discussion and will hopefully complete the balance of this project. (The spit is a rather small amount of wood and stone and can be carved with a bone knife, FYI)

As for undeveloped areas...they are uncivilized and wild. That is the nature of the game. A big part of the game is seeing how people can band together in wild areas and form societies. Don't try to picture these areas as New York city. Imagine them as African bushmen or Indian tribes in the Amazon. Survival takes work! Yes the animals are vicious. Yes it takes a lot of work to get food. But that is adventurous for some and a vital part of the game.

[EchoMan]

I can appreciate that it's fun to watch an island without wood trying to evolve, personally I hate playing a neanderthal who can't even make fire. Wonder why many locations on that has piles of corpses waiting for burial? Maybe other people think as highly of this interesting aspect of the game as I?

[The Industriallist]

My main problem with an island without wood would be that there's no way to get off under your own power. But since all the islands that had spawning points back when they existed have wood, it can only come up if you travel there using a wooden ship, or are descended from people who did...

[Hellzon]

The problem with the whole "interesting aspect of the game" is that meat is in some places the only regular (non-healing) food available (I've checked), and therefore it shouldn't be that hard to cook. Certainly not requiring a single material. Using boolean operators, being able to dry dung and cook meat using wood OR sand OR stone (OR any other resources which together cover every location) would be nice.

/Hellzon - [/rant]

[EchoMan]

My main problem with an island without wood would be that there's no way to get off under your own power. But since all the islands that had spawning points back when they existed have wood, it can only come up if you travel there using a wooden ship, or are descended from people who did...

Being a decendent of someone who had access to wood doesn't really help.

[The Sociologist]

The problem here is clearly one of the New Lands people messing up in this instance, not one of a wrong sequence of builds involving dung. There are indeed far too many "New Lands" and and some look to have been designed with insufficient care. So, you kill off your charrie and start again, but that is a different issue.

In fact one of the problems with dung is that it further devalues trade. You used to have to go to a forest for wood, now there are great piles of dung everywhere and you don't even need wood to dry the dung (analogous to using wood to make propane). I would much rather they had created peat deposits here and there on the existing continents, so as to say double the number of sources of vis-a-vis using wood (peat deposits scattered strategically where there aren't enough forests). But instead you will soon have huge surpluses of dung, probably on the scale of surpluses of large bones.

[Lumin]

Yes, but dung can only be used for cooking, so even if it becomes easier to do so, wood will still be needed for tools and boats and smelting and machinery, so it's not like it's suddenly going to become worthless.

[Stan]

I don't think dung should be useful for tools or boats. Anyone want a poop boat or a turd hammer?

[The Sociologist]

I don't think dung should be useful for tools or boats. Anyone want a poop boat or a turd hammer?

Oddly enough boats do have a poop deck.

[Hellzon]

But instead you will soon have huge surpluses of dung, probably on the scale of surpluses of large bones.

What is peat? Forgive mein bad English, will you.
Anyway, the large bones are around because they can only be used for bone clubs and bone shields (i.e. newspawn armament), and we can't help but gathering them when we hunt for meat and hide, right? Same for dung, except it's not really useful for anything at all. (Except for the older societies that have access to wood tools, but not enough wood for fuel. But it doesn't help starting societies any.)
My point being, the large stockpiles of dung will probably not exist for very long if the actually become usable to those desert societies.
As for turd hammer - imagine the demoralising effect it would have as a weapon.

/Hellzon - find the not-so-serious sentence...

[The Sociologist]

What is peat? Forgive mein bad English, will you.

Peat: soil material consisting of partially decomposed organic matter; found in swamps and bogs in various parts of the temperate zone. It is formed by the slow decay of successive layers of aquatic and semiaquatic plants, e.g., sedges, reeds, rushes, and mosses. One of the principal types of peat is moss peat, derived primarily from sphagnum moss; it is used in agriculture as poultry and stable litters as well as a mulch, a soil conditioner, and an acidifying agent; it is also used in industry as an insulating material. Another type of peat is fuel peat, which is most widely used in regions where coal and wood are scarce, e.g., Ireland, Scandinavia, and parts of Russia. Peat is the earliest stage of transition from compressed plant growth to the formation of coal. Large deposits of peat in the United States are found in Michigan, California, and the Florida Everglades.


PS, in Swedish it is something like torvströ....or torvmosse?

PPS, or maybe the type for burning is bränntorv?

[SekoETC]

Yeah, sounds logical. It's turve in Finnish, sounds like it could derive from torv.