Just thought I’d raise a point I’ve noticed with my games ATM - namely the issue of bottlenecks in the crafting system. The two professions most at fault here are the weaver & the blacksmith…
Weaver
At the moment, I think it’s quicker & easier to buy cloth (if not comfy beds/chairs) from the traders that turn up periodically. Now perhaps it’s intended to be slower, but regardless, at the moment it takes quite a while for the weaver to make much of anything. 3 spools of thread per bolt of cloth, plus the need to go & grab all those resources / drop off the finished products… it all adds up.
Blacksmith
The blacksmith’s problems feel like the weaver’s… dialled up a bit, because of the need to level by pumping out vast quantities of metal bars, which often require lots of materials. Steel requires, what, 5 items to make 1 bar? And I need several to make one sword? That’s a lot of going to & fro . I often feel like I need several blacksmiths if I’m to get enough metal bars in a reasonable amount of time - but that then means half the XP gain for each one…
Solutions
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The one I don’t want is to simply see the resource costs reduced. I mean, some I think could be anyway (why do almost all the metal bars require wood AND coal?), but in general I’m happy with the model whereby silkweed becomes spools of thread etc.
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Crates. This is the one I prefer, and would have each workshop either start with, or be upgraded with, the crates that @Tom did in a stream a little while ago. Each workshop would have two crates, one for inputs, the other for outputs, both of which would appear very close to the workshop in question to minimise travel time. Crafters would never normally carry things from their personal crates to the stockpiles (or vice versa) unless there were no free workers to do the hauling. Instead, regular workers would try to keep the input crates stocked, and the output ones empty, leaving the carpenter etc to actually do the crafting.
Edit: Hit post early .