Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

futurebird · 2019-06-09 13:32:45

Here is the problem:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OneLifeSuggest … ike_doors/

Animal pens take up a lot of space, "berry corners" are confusing to new players, fences are rarely used for their intended purpose of housing animals.

One of the reasons people don't use fences to house animals and choose adobe or property fences instead is because fence gates make it too easy for someone to let all the sheep out (by mistake or on purpose) by simply leaving the gate open.

Air-lock style gates are a bit better but hard to enter and exit.

What if we could put springs on fence gates as we do with doors?

Spoonwood · 2019-06-09 14:34:00

Crops can get put on the corners of a fence pen (by 'fence' I mean the one made from two long shafts, NOT a property fence), just like any other pen. So, fences and berry bushes CAN go together.

I've seen fence animal pens a fair bit on low pop servers. I would guess that the frequency of such is much higher than on bs2. Airlocked gates do pose difficulties in working with that the corner crop system does not.

People don't build fence pens all that often because of two reasons:

1. They take longer to set up than the other common designs. Even with a cart they take longer than almost all other designs (probably not longer than a tree and box design... but the tree and box design has more uses).

2. They cost two straight branches to make which can get used on other things.

I've also felt it kind of awkward that the most natural feeling type of pen isn't all that common. But in terms of game mechanics, I don't know how things would work differently.

Sukallinen · 2019-06-09 15:10:06

Yes I think the main reason is it takes controlled click to open and close, and hence more time - compare it just with running through some berrybushes. Also newbs can see ppl running through so I fail to see a problem here.

The cost in long run is negligible - although now we returned to eve spiral it is again one to think about a bit more. Fences were used in about half towns I played last week (I wondered for a while why, but it was just because lineage length I think-cost goes down and you can also put horses there).
Also for 2 - they need also time and shovel use (last time I did some...). I'll be testing pens with north/south part being horse fences and others being adobe or such...

Please continue about optimization, not my forte'

DestinyCall · 2019-06-09 16:08:51

It's a combination of the things, but mostly it comes down to cost and convenience. Looking at fences from the standpoint of realism, you are SUPPOSE to build a fenced enclosure with a fence gate. But if you actually do that, you will lose all your sheep eventually, because the gate must be manually opened and closed every time you enter or leave the enclosure. Even if everyone is very careful, it only takes a moment for a sheep to hop through an open gate. Worse yet, many people are NOT careful, so eventually the gate will be left open by accident (or malice) and all the sheep will again escape. Adding an air-lock setup makes it harder to come and go from the pen, but doesn't eliminate the risk of doors being left open and sheep escaping. Using a crop entrance is much better gate design because it doesn't require any clicks to open/close, players can freely path in and out of the pen, but sheep CAN'T escape through the opening. You can make an airlock that has the same features as a corner crop entrance, but people rarely do it since it requires more materials so the majority of air-locks are just as susceptible to escapes as a regular gate AND take twice as many clicks to use.

Putting aside the problem of gates, fencing material costs are too high to let them stand out from the competition. The many advantage is that long shafts are a renewable resource. Unlike the other options which can eventually become exhausted in the immediate vicinity, long shafts will eventually grow back, allowing you to expand your pen in future generations without using horse carts to travel long distances and gather more supplies. And fencing allows you to secure horsecarts so a town with lots of fencing can have a lot of horses. However, during the period of time when most sheep pen are constructed, long shafts are relatively scarce and horsecarts are even less common. In contrast, large stones for bell tower bases or clay deposits for adobe bases are fairly common and easier to produce/transport in large quantities. Adobe is especially good, since you can transport three in one basket or twelve in one cart. For long shafts and stone blocks, you can only fit four in a cart or one at a time, if carried by hand. Adobe is also collectible by children and with minimal steel tool usage. Even better, adobe and bell tower bases can be removed relatively fast and easy if you want to expand the pen or change the configuration of entrances. Currently, property fence is the cheapest pen material, although it has the downside of making pen modifications much harder and requiring long-term maintenance if you continue to use the pen indefinitely.

Ultimately, I'd say the reason why the traditional fence never caught on is mostly due the way that gates function badly. If you aren't going to use a normal fence gate, you don't need to make your pen out of fencing. IF you aren't making it out of fencing, why not make it out of whatever is fast and easy to gather around your village?

Kai · 2019-06-09 17:25:13

5 steps to make oven base
57 steps to make a fence

not hard to figure out why

pein · 2019-06-09 18:46:16

air locks are shit cuase wont stop animals at all

the main reason i hate fences cause people do it too early and can kill a town not having tools
and they take every straight shaft from considerable distance
they should really plant mappes and have like 4 reserve shafts for tools
proven to have much shorter lineages where they make the fences early
i seen good looking families, lineage died at 19 gen and other like 25 gen while others who didn't made fences, was no difference, but lasted 30+

fences cost soemthing so i respect more than prop fences, but know the timing, after you plant mapples

Sukallinen · 2019-06-10 06:13:17

DestinyCall wrote:

For long shafts and stone blocks, you can only fit four in a cart or one at a time

Need to correct: put two shafts to stack, put two curved to stack (for kindling in forge) and add two curved ones to two long straight ones, makes one item. So four of these means you can bring eight kindling-mats and eight long shafts in one run (in handcart with no rubber wheels).

(of course "smart girl always carry a bowl and a sharp stone in backpack" the bowl being irrelevant here)

Last edited by Sukallinen (2019-06-10 06:17:14)

RodneyC86 · 2019-06-10 06:15:28

Sukallinen wrote:

DestinyCall wrote:
For long shafts and stone blocks, you can only fit four in a cart or one at a time
Need to correct: put two shafts to stack, put two curved to stack (for kindling in forge), makes one item. So you can bring eight kindling-mats and eight long shafts in one run (in handcart with no rubber wheels).

Niiiice thanks for the tip

DestinyCall · 2019-06-10 14:32:17

Sukallinen wrote:

DestinyCall wrote:
For long shafts and stone blocks, you can only fit four in a cart or one at a time
Need to correct: put two shafts to stack, put two curved to stack (for kindling in forge) and add two curved ones to two long straight ones, makes one item. So four of these means you can bring eight kindling-mats and eight long shafts in one run (in handcart with no rubber wheels).
(of course "smart girl always carry a bowl and a sharp stone in backpack" the bowl being irrelevant here)

True, but it requires two shafts to make one fence section, so wood and stone are equal. Sorry if my original post wasn't clear. The extra kindling is a nice bonus, but if your goal is to construct a quick fence in an early village, adobe is the way to go, imo. Unless the swamp is too small to support it.

I do think wood is an okay fence material. Pretty close to stone blocks. I like that it grows back. And if buildings were more important, I might leave the boulders for stone wall projects. It just takes an awful lot of long shafts to construct a decent sized pen from wood. You usually don't have horse cart or upgraded cart yet and wiping out all available long shafts for a generation is a bit problematic. On the plus side, at least you should have plenty of kindling.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-06-10 14:34:38)

Alec · 2019-06-10 18:20:45

Why don't people use boxes to house sheep and cows more often?

I'm really thinking everyday, why.
Box is very good to contain feed of sheep, and fleece.
I hate pen using only fence or oven or stone.

Only one point of fence is that can park my horse.

CatX · 2019-06-10 18:32:12

Alec wrote:

Why don't people use boxes to house sheep and cows more often?
I'm really thinking everyday, why.
Box is very good to contain feed of sheep, and fleece.
I hate pen using only fence or oven or stone.
Only one point of fence is that can park my horse.

I do like the occasional fence box.

Reasons I can think of why they're not in more use...

- Requires a lot of milkweed
- Griefing opportunity 1: Place a long shaft on it to let animals out
- Griefing opportunity 2: Create a locked box

DestinyCall · 2019-06-10 19:27:49

CatX wrote:

Alec wrote:
Why don't people use boxes to house sheep and cows more often?
I'm really thinking everyday, why.
Box is very good to contain feed of sheep, and fleece.
I hate pen using only fence or oven or stone.
Only one point of fence is that can park my horse.
I do like the occasional fence box.
Reasons I can think of why they're not in more use...
- Requires a lot of milkweed
- Griefing opportunity 1: Place a long shaft on it to let animals out
- Griefing opportunity 2: Create a locked box

I'd say the milkweed cost is the main reason. There's never enough of the stuff and tons of other applications. Growing a ton of milkweed to make a box pen would be quite time consuming.

Unless you were lucky enough to already have abundunt milkweed, but then you would be better off making carts and buckets first

pein · 2019-06-10 19:55:21

more of the griefer issue

i did sometimes replace one side of pen with boxes but people are dumb even if they not bad intended
like someone stole the boards before i made it into box when the pen was clearly open
and generally i don't trust people to leave the ropes or boards where i put them
chests are ok for this purpose if you can afford them

it took a cut when jason changed boxes to be destroyed with axes but now you can disassemble

adobe and stone is highly dependent on map
speed is often the main issue, cause if you don't make it in one life from start to finish and get sheep, then someone else has to do it and those mix projects rarely get done

what i really don't get why people don't do half walls
full walls decay but half ones dont
so biggest dick move is to water up a pen of half walls and smash it to adobe bases
like if you got so much time then get some plaster and make it properly or leave it be

adobe is better than stone cause you can get tons of clay and limestone on top of the bowls and plates later
stone gathering is quite hard considering that it's not every map
sure you can find enough but it seems people leave tools all around when they do it

you can fit 4 stone in a cart, you can fit 12 adobe in a cart/horse cart, you can even just get clay and plant wheat, make some bread
sure with limestone it's same 2 adobe 1 limestone

i do enjoy painted walls and they don't always get griefed
i havent seen a full room painted in one color, and decent size
but is quite fun activity

gives job to gatherers, smith and uses up only a bit of water

painting it should be cheaper tho, like a bucket should be 6-10 uses

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-06-09 13:32:45

Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#2 2019-06-09 14:34:00

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#3 2019-06-09 15:10:06

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#4 2019-06-09 16:08:51

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#5 2019-06-09 17:25:13

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#6 2019-06-09 18:46:16

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#7 2019-06-10 06:13:17

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#8 2019-06-10 06:15:28

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#9 2019-06-10 14:32:17

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#10 2019-06-10 18:20:45

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#11 2019-06-10 18:32:12

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#12 2019-06-10 19:27:49

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

#13 2019-06-10 19:55:21

Re: Why don't people use fences to house sheep and cows more often?

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