The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

Psykout · 2019-03-09 10:13:47

The shovel has so very many different uses compared to the other tools. Most importantly moving dung to complete compost cycle, digging up rocks, digging graves, making wells, pulling up stumps, making fences, digging up potatoes.... it goes on and on. Strangely though it has lower average uses than the other tools, aside from the saw. We often talk about the viability of something because of its shovel uses, looking at you potatoes. We critique double dipping shovels by not going straight from pen to compost pile and setting it down. Some of us would straight up stab someone they saw burying a bunch of people. Steel shovel, more like gold plated diamond tipped shovel.

Now that clothing is more important, the best way to do that is wool. Fed shorn sheep produce dung, so you can balance mutton/fleece/compost much more effectively. It's practical to have someone constantly shepherding sheep for fleece if you can support that amount of berry and carrot use and for someone to be turning all the fleece into clothes and pads. You don't have to overflow the whole place with mutton, and on the flipside if you shear all the sheep it's not as big of a deal, it's just a small hiccup until you start getting new sheep. Essentially gives two gears to the shepherd, meat production or clothes production. I have manned the station for 45 minutes and have gone back and forth from killing a bunch and just shearing the same 6 sheep over and over. If you are quick babies don't pile up, or the just flood the pen and all the sheep are just stuck there till you shear them and clean up.

But still given all this new productivity in sheep handling, trying to get somewhere with stable pen construction, it only exacerbates the shovel's workload. I think we need a Pitchfork. It would fit perfectly, it's two uses would be to thresh wheat and move dung. It would be a tool that hangs out in the farm to thresh the wheat after picking, when the compost was ready you'd go to the pen to get a pile of dung and bring it back. Can't figure out how to get around, why wouldn't you just use a branch for unlimited uses. Bigger pile of wheat maybe? Could use better grain storage as one per pile or bowl adds up quickly, three piles per tile just like soil would be cool.

I think it would be interesting to see something else take over the compost cycle, the wheat idea is just because needing to get straw and dung together go hand in hand. Having more than one use for it would be enjoyable, plus seeing a pitchfork next to the wheat fields instead of a branch would be neat.

pein · 2019-03-09 12:26:49

i fed like 15 sheep and still havent had an apron one time

2 pens would be nice, a new pen can make a new outpost or district viable

then they can fuck their pen, they wont make pies and clothes shearing and killing and never increasing count from mouflon/sheep or 2 sheep wont work too well

no need to add workload for tools with no features
i think that the 4-5 bowl cost of compost, giving 21 bowls, is neat concept , it worth it, you don't know why it worth it when you never done it

so far long process, low resource count jobs are successful, most things cost a lot but easy to make it and you don't spend time with it but they don't even worth it your time. stew worth it and its rewarding, making a room is just grind and people just rui nit anyway. bu lot of things re just that, boring and not really worth it mechanics
a newbee has one resource it can offer: time
i don't see hwo more worers do more work, generally its not the case

UnnoticedShadow · 2019-03-09 14:33:02

How did I never think about this, honestly it could work, and I'd love an item replacing the curved branch to thresh wheat. Still, I think people may look at it as just another thing to make, and another iron to be needed. Also, how would the pitchfork visually pick up dung?

Psykout · 2019-03-09 14:55:48

Visually as in the game? Just like the shovel, dung sitting in the middle of the fork. It would be another thing to make yes, and another iron needed, but the hope is that the iron use just shifts from the shovel to the fork. I'd say we go through shovels twice as fast or more because of compost. Also if the only reason to use a fork is compost or wheat, less chance of someone taking it for another task. You'd be consuming more iron just in the threshing wheat sense, which is why I ponder adding the element of gaining more wheat (two bowls) by threshing it with a tool rather than a branch. It's so hard to replace the branch, its renewable, its cheap, it doesn't have uses. Taking away anything of these to make something else more appealing would hurt early settlements too much...

Regardless - The shovel has too many uses and I think shifting some of them off it would be a good idea. Compost makes the most sense to me because it's a single limited action (move dung) but is absolutely necessary for a civ to go anywhere.

fragilityh14 · 2019-03-09 17:20:23

I've had this thought, as i'm an avid composter, and I move manure with a pitchfork, as well as mixing the compost with one.

As far as making things more like real life go, you simply can't mix a compost pile well with a shovel, at least, not nearly as well as with a pitch fork. I don't want to need to use an iron tool to move bundles of wheat, but it is what a person would use IRL. i don't know if there's a worthwhile way to apply that.

I also use a pitchfork for moving cut rose branches a lot, though there is no need for that function in game.

Something to think about is that pitchfork heads are a bit more difficult to make, and less likely to break than shovel heads. they're made of tempered steel or something. A cheap pitchfork is still like $40-50, whereas a cheap shovel is $15-20.

You'd want an extra step to make it,, but i guess potentially use a chisel then a file on a shovel head or something.

BladeWoods · 2019-03-10 02:39:49

Many updates ago Jason nerfed the shovel to balance the iron-usage overtime needed to feed a village. This is based on shoveling dung.

This hurt every other use of the shovel like making graves. I wish making graves didn't suck ass. But idk about making different tools like a pitchfork for every different thing to balance things is a good idea, there just needs to be different probabilities of using a charge. Graves and potatoes could have a very low chance to use up the shovel and dung could have a higher chance to use a charge and so on.

And I don't think wool is the best for clothing. Rabbit fur is easier to get and has more insulation.

Psykout · 2019-03-10 21:04:20

BladeWoods wrote:

Many updates ago Jason nerfed the shovel to balance the iron-usage overtime needed to feed a village. This is based on shoveling dung.
This hurt every other use of the shovel like making graves. I wish making graves didn't suck ass. But idk about making different tools like a pitchfork for every different thing to balance things is a good idea, there just needs to be different probabilities of using a charge. Graves and potatoes could have a very low chance to use up the shovel and dung could have a higher chance to use a charge and so on.
And I don't think wool is the best for clothing. Rabbit fur is easier to get and has more insulation.

Yeah thats why I pondered what other uses the tool could be for, so its not for one thing. Kind of like the adze has a few other uses like taking handles of sledges etc. I am not sure if coding a shovel to have different probabilities depending on what you use it on would work, no other tool is coded that way as far as I know. Already you bring up the point of the shovel being tied to too many tasks makes balancing hard. To nerf compost, everything else the shovel does was hit. Shifting the task to a different tool is the cleanest way to go about it for long term in my mind, and gives more freedom with making a tweak without upsetting other areas. Also it does fit thematically because forks are used to move manure typically, not shovel.

fragilityh14 · 2019-03-10 21:33:40

I'm not a coder, and i don't make videogames, but there is no obvious reason to me that a tool could not have custom probabilities based on what it is used for. Other than that it would presumably take some work because you'd have to code in the rate for use on each object.

Picking up manure should not necessarily break down the shovel (you ever seen a shovel give out shoveling dog shit?) but of course it would make people all the more hostile to other uses if manure didn't wear it down.

Averest · 2019-03-11 00:45:57

Having actually farmed potatoes firsthand, the pitchfork is the weapon of choice for picking potatoes. Pitchforks are also great for turning compost piles and breaking up soil.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-03-09 10:13:47

The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#2 2019-03-09 12:26:49

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#3 2019-03-09 14:33:02

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#4 2019-03-09 14:55:48

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#5 2019-03-09 17:20:23

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#6 2019-03-10 02:39:49

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#7 2019-03-10 21:04:20

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#8 2019-03-10 21:33:40

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

#9 2019-03-11 00:45:57

Re: The Shovel needs a break - Time for Pitchfork

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