Resource gathering as activity instead of project

[Jos Elkink]

Suggestions similar to this have been made a long time ago, but then I dismissed it as too complicated since it was too different from the basic structure of how Cantr is coded. But I changed my mind, and I could use this alternative structure for other things anyway.

Currently, everything that is farmed / digged / produced / build / repaired etc. is done through projects. A project has a fixed duration (perhaps with repetition), can have a number of participants, etc. Well, you know all about this ... What I would like to add is a different kind of 'project', or rather 'activity', which would replace the system at least for resource gathering and for repairing things. This would mean that you just say 'character A starts digging' and A keeps digging until you say 'character A stops digging'. Nobody can help in this 'project' (since it's not) and all goods always end up in A's inventory, or on the ground when there is not enough space. So, A's digging project does not show up under projects.

The advantages for digging are: 1) slightly more realistic; 2) clean up of projects list (no massive projects anymore); 3) easier to keep working as long as possible; 4) easier to see how fast you are producing. Disadvantages might be: 1) no way of forcing your employees to deliver their gathered goods to you - they now voluntarily have to hand over their goods from their inventory to you. I can't see any other disadvantages ... And I think this one is only fair.

For repairs it would definitely be better, imo, since 1) it removes the bug of being able to stop deterioration by adding all your old tools to projects you don't actually work on; 2) it allows more easily for repairing that you can stop halfway if you suddenly need the tool or weapon; 3) it's more realistic; 4) it allows for bigger things to be repaired - e.g. buildings should not vanish into a project temporarily .... It also clutters the projects list less, of course. Possible disadvantage is again that you have to trust somebody if you want their help (you have to hand your tool/weapon) and also that nobody can help you repair as such on the same tool.

Note that if this were to be implemented, old projects could still be finished, of course, but you wouldn't be able to start new digging or repairing projects.

[Chris Johnson]

How will this work with resource slots?

If these are still there as limits players are going to need some way to view who is digging / using slots , It could be a different page to the main projects page but the requirement to show them will still be there.

[Jos Elkink]

Resource slots would work the same way as now.

So yes, it should be visible, for example immediately on the people page ... Or a button at the bottom of the people page saying 'further details' and then it lists all people, including a brief description and what they're working on ... Or something like that.

[Nick]

I like the idea.
So would what you gather go into your inventory be calculated every cantr hour?

[Nick]

An addition to your suggestion:

Maybe you could avoid that change you mentioned, by letting people click the "help" button next to your name, and you could work on their "activity".

In the future this could allow for maybe the same use of machines. You could instead of creating a project, just put resources in the "machine"
ie: throw some iron ore, coal, and limestone into a smelter.
Then you could 'use' the machine and have it output the ingredients.
Or for another example, you could have a stone table, and have people working on it.. and the foreman or whatever could just keep throwing more hematite on the table.

This would certainly help make the game more realistic. And give a use for that "p" button that isn't so evil.

[Jos Elkink]

So would what you gather go into your inventory be calculated every cantr hour?

Yes, initially ... eventually I would like it to be possible to calculate at any random moment, but that's irrelevant right now for the discussion ...

[Jos Elkink]

In the future this could allow for maybe the same use of machines. You could instead of creating a project, just put resources in the "machine"
ie: throw some iron ore, coal, and limestone into a smelter.
Then you could 'use' the machine and have it output the ingredients.
Or for another example, you could have a stone table, and have people working on it.. and the foreman or whatever could just keep throwing more hematite on the table.

I have no objections as such, except that whereas the original suggestion is fairly easy to implement, this is a much more difficult change. It is exactly the fact that you need raw materials for a certain project that made me design it as it is and not like activities ...

Point about P-button taken ...

[Nick]

I have no objections as such, except that whereas the original suggestion is fairly easy to implement, this is a much more difficult change. It is exactly the fact that you need raw materials for a certain project that made me design it as it is and not like activities ...

Point about P-button taken ...

Yes, this is why I said in the future.
However, I'm assuming what you could do is give the machines similar properties to storage devices. You could have the machines draw their resources from the "storage compartment" of the machine, or whatever you wanted to call it. Although perhaps you'd have to set it to a certain metal type with smelters for example, to draw certain types of resources rather than look for ones that aren't in there.

[melbi]

Rather than gathering until the character is stopped, could a limit be set instead? Say a character only wants 1000 g of spinach: she could set the limit and start gathering. The activity would end when the limit was reached. And there would be a absolute top limit for any activity, which would be the maximum weight the strongest character can carry. In other words, no activity could be for more than 18,000 g or whatever the top is...

I am afraid that if characters can gather until they are stopped, that we will have robot-gatherers who use up slots and fill towns with unwanted goods. There was once a character who got on a 99-repeats barley gathering project, and that useless junk kept piling up until he was forced to quit. If we had had this no-stop gathering, I'm sure that character would have been killed.

Another thought: I would like to see these activities cleaned up -- if they are inactive for a certain number of days, they are automatically deleted -- OR other characters should be able to delete inactive activities, just like we can delete inactive projects (albeit only at certain points).

And if this change is implemented, could it be taken as the opportunity to delete all projects with more than 20 repeats?

Also, I'm assuming that you don't intend to change the daily delivery of resources, so that if someone is gathering potatoes, they would still receive 800 or so each day.

[Nick]

I am afraid that if characters can gather until they are stopped, that we will have robot-gatherers who use up slots and fill towns with unwanted goods. There was once a character who got on a 99-repeats barley gathering project, and that useless junk kept piling up until he was forced to quit. If we had had this no-stop gathering, I'm sure that character would have been killed.

99 repeat project workers are essentially doing the same thing, so this doesn't actually create more problems. If your society wishes to enforce their gathering slots, there are plenty of ways to do so under the current and the suggested system.

[new.vogue.nightmare]

As far as the 'problem' Jos mentioned, I don't see it as a problem at all, except from perhaps a character's perspective. In reality, if you have a bunch of people collecting things, there is (in most situations) no way for the items being collected to end up in one persons's possession. Think of a bunch of farm workers gathering fruit from an orchard. They have to pick the fruit and then deposit it at intervals, when they need to make room for more or when there is nothing else to gather. It's also quite possible for one of these workers to try and sneak out a small piece of whatever they're gathering as well.

This also will cut down on the situations where you have been working on a project almost to completion, and then suddenly have to leave. It's hard to imagine many situations in which you would be picking or harvesting things for hours and have nothing to show for it, until a certain point in time whereupon a large amount would suddenly appear.

Instead of adding to a project's percentage to completion, the game would simply add to the amount of resource in a character's inventory. I implemented a similar mechanism on a much smaller and primitive scale in my own little game years ago.

So in short, this'd be a great way towards increased realism, without adding too many difficulties. Hope my post wasn't too incoherent.

[Nakranoth]

As far as repairing tools go, will we loose the "help this person" ability or could we use that as a way for something in our possession to be repaired by someone else as long as we're also repairing it (to prevent us from crushing hematite while out sledge is being repaired).

[psymann]

All sounds good to me, Jos.

Melbi -
I suppose a limit would be a reasonable addition, mainly since it allows you politely to leave a resource slot free after a certain time, otherwise you'll have to RP like "If I forget to leave room for you, drag me away and stick me in a corner".

Agree with Nick about robot-gatherers.

As for clearing up activities:
- almost all towns I see have activity lists dominated by collecting raw materials and repairing things - both of which Jos proposes to remove.
- you can already remove projects that have no work/materials on them
- something with 20 repeats is no more trouble that something with 1 repeat. Once you've got it down to 0% done and 19 repeats, you can delete it. So melbi's italic sentence I don't agree with.
- as for automatic deletion of projects, I don't like this - I might have a project to make something in my house, then go away exploring for a few years - I don't see why it shouldn't still be there when I get back. Maybe a bit dusty, but...

Ah, ok, how about this for old projects:
- if you leave a project with resources used on it, but no work done, then you can have another project to reclaim the materials used. This could only be done after it was a few years old, and would take a little while, but if you had a project with 1g of iron put in, you could, with a little bit of work, reclaim that 1g of iron, and then delete the project as usual. The time taken for this would have to be something like S + xG (S = standard time to reclaim anything, G = grams used, x = amount of time to do one gram).
- and if a project has had some work done on it, then (very slowly) the project deteriorates (ie gets dusty). So if you go away for a few days, nothing has changed. But if you go away for ten years, and then come back, your project which was 30% complete may now be only 10% complete. Therefore, really old projects would gradually be removed after a hundred years or so, which I think is not going to upset anyone by harming their projects, but should be a sustainable way of keeping the activites list under control, since then all projects (eventually) can be deleted:
- wait for the % completed to go to 0
- project to remove the resources used
- delete activity

psymann

[SekoETC]

Even if it weren't a project, it should be visible to others (in the character description) and in my opinion, it should be possible to participate through there. And people are forgetting that these projects would expire once the initiator stops working, so there wouldn't be a mess.

If someone falls asleep on an activity and starts dropping stuff, that's hardly a problem, everything has it's use, though maybe not in your current location. And you can drag people away from their activities - but in a place without buildings, that might be a bit hard. It should be possible to force someone to stop without having to move them into a building.

For repairs, it sounds very reasonable as well. Though sometimes you might be using repairs as a temporary storage - if someone's gonna walk in, they're gonna have to wait at least an hour before getting any of the tools, and by that time you might have time to wake up and arrest them. But that's an unnatural way.

[SekoETC]

Oh, and I just realized this would prevent a way to exploit the fact that you can enter virtually any number into resource gathering and start as many projects as you like without working on them. This is a trick that only works on un-inhabited regions, for example when you're exploring a new island.

Lets imagine that you have a friend that also has a boat, and to save time, you both sail the opposite ways. Of course you could drop notes to places you visit, but in some cases there might be a need for a more subtle way of leaving messages. So you come up with a code language that's based on numbers. I'll leave the details to imagination. When you arrive in a new place, you check the projects to see if there's any around. If none, no one has probably ever been there. But you can leave a message for your buddy. Starting with a code key two or three digits long, then followed by the part that carries information. Even though it might be limited to two or three digits, you can repeat this as many times as you like. In a place with several resources, find out in which order the projects appear in the activities list, then you can start one of each and convey a continuous message. Wait an hour and continue.

Naturally things like 1000, 9999, 12345 and the amount which can be gathered in a day should be excluded, since it's likely that a random passer-by might start a project like that. But if you have a code key like 82, who uses numbers like that? Start several projects starting 82 and your friend will know it's not a coincidence.

(This example is based on theory and has not been tried out ingame.)