Welp, I just did some math

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-30 00:19:46

I randomly sampled some 5-minute walk radius squares on the map.

There are roughly 3000 pieces of iron ore in such a map square, and 300 iron veins.

At 40 average ore per vein, this is 15,000 total ore in a 5-minute walking radius.

Doing some rough calculations based on shovel and hoe usage to produce food, you can get about 1100 units of soil from each unit of iron (this is based on the newly boiled frog, where you get 21 soil from a compost pile instead of 24).

One example "best case" for food per unit soil is the new mango tree economics, which is 69 food per unit soil, long-term. Stew and some other things might be even better. I'm just estimating some lower bounds here.

That means we're getting 75,000 food per unit iron.

A naked cold person needs 782 food per hour (4.6 seconds per food unit).

That means one unit of iron can support about 100 lives.

And the amount of ore present in a 5-minute walk can support 1.5 MILLION lives.

If the village has 10 people in it, we can thus keep a village going for 150,000 hours before running out of iron in a 5-minute walk.

This doesn't take water into account, which is currently a (slow) renewable resource.

The long-term pressure is supposed to come from iron. Clearly, there's no pressure there. At all.

I've got this all in a nice spread sheet where I can tweak various things to see what happens.

Seems like there are two solutions here:

1. Keep iron ore prevalence the same, but reduce the amount of soil per iron. This can come from some combination of more rapid tool breakage and less soil per compost. I.e., you spend more time forging.

2. Reduce iron ore prevalence. I.e., you spend more time searching for ore.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-30 00:26:40

Also, a 5-minute walk is a lot of space, probably more than realistic for a search radius.

If I run the math on even a 30-second walk, there's enough ore there to keep the village alive for 64 days....

Tarr · 2018-10-30 00:32:00

Definitely option two. You get to a point in town where you just have multiple stacks of iron from veins and you have nothing to do with the stuff besides make extra tools. Railways aren't a viable iron sink as they're borderline useless at the moment (we use them for hauling mutton like ten tiles max) and besides tools breaking what do you even use steel for? You either make a bunch of duplicates tool heads at the moment or you stare down multiple stacks of iron ore sitting over by the forge waiting for someone to decide to use it.

I think it's more exciting to go around and actually look for an iron vein than sit around town having to make more and more compost to make up for the fact I have three hoes and twenty iron I can convert to hoes whenever I want. I can't recall the last time town had to send a bunch of people out looking for iron but I can recall plenty of times we ran out of compost because no one wanted to do it. Until you start making higher tech that requires multiple steel bars per item we just have waaaaay too much iron in veins. I think ground iron is generally okay as is. You either get a lot or you get nearly zero in a badlands depending on luck and size.

Potjeh · 2018-10-30 00:49:41

You can also increase iron consumption with new recipes. Nails for example could be used for all sorts of stuff.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-30 01:20:44

Instead of the 5-minute search radius, I'm using 1-minute radius as a baseline.

To start with, a village of 10 naked people could live for at least 280 days on the iron in that radius.

I made the following changes:

Shovel 100 -> 40 uses
Ground ore half as prevalent (0.2 -> 0.1)
Ore vein half as prevalent (0.02 -> 0.01)
Iron mine produces half as much on average (40 -> 20).

These changes together make my spreadsheet now estimate 48 days of survival from the ore present in a 1-minute walk radius.

That is 5.8x harder.

I'm going to stop there for now (boiling the frog) because even though 48 days is absurdly long for a village to survive, and even though these changes are subtle from the user's point of view (even though everything is cut in half), I'm not sure how other non-accounted-for factors will affect things. But 5.8x harder than "super easy" may still be too easy. We'll see.

Also note that these changes all affect only "the top," because food values, food bonus, etc. weren't touched.

Well, except for mango trees. But they were going to be touched anyway.

Tarr · 2018-10-30 01:40:33

Potatoes were already unpopular because of shovel usage now they're almost going to be griefing levels of bad with the shovel changes. Have you thought of adding a trowel or something for potatoes/future crops? I'm all for lowering the iron and busting it more often but that makes one of the crops even worse than it already was as a consequence. Hell no one has even eaten a potato in game today and it's generally close to the bottom of the food stat lists.

Save the potato from becoming the next taco.

jasonrohrer · 2018-10-30 02:37:40

Yes, will do something about potatoes.

pein · 2018-10-30 03:17:31

yeah but players under 100 hours never go 50 tiles away from camp and if they do they die

its not that is hard to find iron its just hard for some
this changes only affect the veteran players, the newbies still wont go out to get iron or care to make compost

iron per veins is a lot but some maps i can find veins at all in reasonable distance to build a road to it from the flat rocks i see

i remember the town with the bonsai garden, was huge, long lineage, a guy told me it's a vein north so i went and made an outpost
i came back hours later and the knowledge of the mine was lost, so i put food and flat rocks along the line
and people kept going to make the road, it was a nice goal
around 10-15 iron per vein would be okay, but more veins around, maybe give flat rock or stone after that?

finding a vein should be significant moment and a small outpost near it should be a good investment, so it should give something, even if not iron, but yeah, 2 carts of iron is enough

i don't really see the shovel use as an issue, 40 is quite low when each female has 12 kids and only 4 in average reaches older age, 40 bones in a single 30 minute timeframe are quite possible
and this is annoying when they take a brand new shovel to dig graves

tana · 2018-10-30 06:51:24

isn't that a little too much at once ?
- reducing the amount of ore produced in a mine, i'm totally fine with it
- raising the rarity of mines... as pein said, most probably new players' camps will rely heavily on experienced players to get the iron for them, it can go either way, encouraging or discouraging players to get out of camp and venture further, but i would be still fine with it

but what i'm really less fine with is :
- reducing the ground ore occurence. It has already been nerfed in the past ans we went to iron littering badlands to being lucky to find the first three iron needed for eve camps. More often than not, I see huge badland with a single iron on the ground. I have had to venture quite away from camp quite often at eve camp to find the first irons.
In my eyes, as it is now it's already good, since most of the time we have to find mutliple badlands to collect all the iron needed to start exploiting a mine. Don't forget that we need all the tools made first before we can build a mine, and more often than not, we'll have been through at least two sets of hoes, axes and shovels before we're ready to mine.

And I believe reducing the amount of shovel usage is insane, I already feel we're using them up freakishly fast. On the other hand, if you really want to increase iron usage, reduce the other tools usage then, the only one that break easily is the pickaxe, but only if we need to break a wall with it. I remember only once a file breaking in all my playing and tbh i'm yet to see an adze or a froe break. Not saying that they don't break, I just personally never saw it happening.
Shovels and hoes are the ones that we go through the fastest as it is, axes and hammers have a good balance I feel.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, will do something about potatoes.

Yeah, I always found annoying that I have to shovel them out one by one, put them on the ground, put the shovel down and only then being able to pick them and put them in a basket.

But what could be done is using the shovel only once on a row of potatoes to dig them up, then we can pick them up by hand directly from the row after that.

I also already suggested the introduction of a spade or some other tool separate from the shovel to be used in grave digging, if this would be introduced, then maybe I would be more willing to see the reduced amount of shovel uses.

Last edited by tana (2018-10-30 06:59:25)

Dodge · 2018-10-30 06:58:57

+1 for the iron nerf

But with the current eve spawn mechanic and the villages dying because they are too far appart and not because of mistakes made by the players we will almost never get to the point where a village's main problem is lack of ressources

So atm if a village really dies because of lack of ressources it would be soil because everybody is too lazy to make compost and i understand why because making compost is tedious, the part im referring too is putting every single berry in the berry bowl, which is not challenging but boring to do

Even if having a village die because everyone is too lazy makes sense, can the players really be blamed for not wanting to do a task that is tedious instead of challenging

Getting iron for example is challenging because you have to find an iron mine, there is wildlife that can kill you, you can starve etc

If we would be able to fill directly the bowl from a full gooseberry bush or maybe have some sort of tool to fill an empty bowl directly, then a village's lack of ressources would be because of challenging reasons and not because a task is too tedious too do that no one wants to do it (also since full domestic bushes have seven berries it would waste one berry in the procces so more ressources used)

But lack of ressources will rarely occur anyway with the current spawning mechanic and villages never lasting more than a few hours before starting from scratch because of game mechanics and not mistakes made by the players

Sometimes i feel like the game is turning into a work/tedious task simulator instead of a chalenging and fun game

I made a thread about challenges in late game and building being pointless since villages dont last more than a few hours

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4312

Last edited by Dodge (2018-10-30 08:11:49)

MultiLife · 2018-10-30 07:10:04

pein wrote:

yeah but players under 100 hours never go 50 tiles away from camp and if they do they die
its not that is hard to find iron its just hard for some
this changes only affect the veteran players, the newbies still wont go out to get iron or care to make compost
iron per veins is a lot but some maps i can find veins at all in reasonable distance to build a road to it from the flat rocks i see
i remember the town with the bonsai garden, was huge, long lineage, a guy told me it's a vein north so i went and made an outpost
i came back hours later and the knowledge of the mine was lost, so i put food and flat rocks along the line
and people kept going to make the road, it was a nice goal
around 10-15 iron per vein would be okay, but more veins around, maybe give flat rock or stone after that?
finding a vein should be significant moment and a small outpost near it should be a good investment, so it should give something, even if not iron, but yeah, 2 carts of iron is enough
i don't really see the shovel use as an issue, 40 is quite low when each female has 12 kids and only 4 in average reaches older age, 40 bones in a single 30 minute timeframe are quite possible
and this is annoying when they take a brand new shovel to dig graves

I like this better. Let spawn rates and such be but have iron mines give less. Some Eve camps are really harsh with badlands and iron sources so making the trips longer is really tough especially without clothes and limited time in Eve camps.

Last edited by MultiLife (2018-10-30 07:12:17)

MultiLife · 2018-10-30 07:19:32

tana wrote:

isn't that a little too much at once ?
- reducing the amount of ore produced in a mine, i'm totally fine with it
- raising the rarity of mines... as pein said, most probably new players' camps will rely heavily on experienced players to get the iron for them, it can go either way, encouraging or discouraging players to get out of camp and venture further, but i would be still fine with it
but what i'm really less fine with is :
- reducing the ground ore occurence. It has already been nerfed in the past ans we went to iron littering badlands to being lucky to find the first three iron needed for eve camps. More often than not, I see huge badland with a single iron on the ground. I have had to venture quite away from camp quite often at eve camp to find the first irons.
In my eyes, as it is now it's already good, since most of the time we have to find mutliple badlands to collect all the iron needed to start exploiting a mine. Don't forget that we need all the tools made first before we can build a mine, and more often than not, we'll have been through at least two sets of hoes, axes and shovels before we're ready to mine.
And I believe reducing the amount of shovel usage is insane, I already feel we're using them up freakishly fast. On the other hand, if you really want to increase iron usage, reduce the other tools usage then, the only one that break easily is the pickaxe, but only if we need to break a wall with it. I remember only once a file breaking in all my playing and tbh i'm yet to see an adze or a froe break. Not saying that they don't break, I just personally never saw it happening.
Shovels and hoes are the ones that we go through the fastest as it is, axes and hammers have a good balance I feel.

I agree with everything here.

They are steel tools, they should last.. But yeah axes and hammers seem to have the best balance when it comes down to breaking.

Last edited by MultiLife (2018-10-30 07:21:53)

West · 2018-10-30 11:08:20

Just by reading this, I have to say that I dont like the changes.

The only thing I agree with is, that there were too many veins. A vein should be special.
But if a vein is found and made into a mine, then it should give a lot of ore imo.
Maybe there could be another upgraded stage to mines? Or even a few. This could go on top of the tech-tree.
It takes a long time to make a vein a mine. Getting loose iron for the tools, getting rope for the bucket, rope for the cart.
Therefore it should really boost the town, when a mine is build. But now they give half the amount of ore and tools even break twice as fast, so its like 10 ore before the changes.

Roblor · 2018-10-30 11:20:26

Would it make sense, if the pickaxe broke, after the first vein?
To us it's merely one click, but still, an entire mine is being mined here.

... Should justify for some wear and tear.

Tarr · 2018-10-30 12:48:42

tana wrote:

On the other hand, if you really want to increase iron usage, reduce the other tools usage then, the only one that break easily is the pickaxe, but only if we need to break a wall with it. I remember only once a file breaking in all my playing and tbh i'm yet to see an adze or a froe break. Not saying that they don't break, I just personally never saw it happening.
Shovels and hoes are the ones that we go through the fastest as it is, axes and hammers have a good balance I feel.

Yeah the steel tools have varying amount of average uses. The pickaxe is lowest at 20 which is tied with the saw, followed by the shovel at 40, then the hoe at 50, next is the file at 75, and lastly froe, axe, shears, and adze at 100. The smithing hammer is highest at 200 but that's because you use so many charges.

The froe and adze probably don't need so many charges themselves I think I've broken like one froe ever in memory. Hitting the shovel was probably a little hard with the nerf bat because it suffers double usage from composting. Now you have to have multiple compost shovels, a graveyard shovel, a stump shovel, an adobe shovel, and a potato shovel.

Also weren't things originally at like 40-50 uses when decay was added? I feel like I remember things breaking super quickly and everything sucked rofl.

lowdt · 2018-10-30 13:39:38

Ok we have too much iron.. seems like we need more things to use/waste it *steam engines*. Would also waste more water haha.

pein · 2018-10-30 14:58:59

well iron mines could still give stone or flat rock or clay or limestone
all got a use now and no buff to them since the start

what if a mine would be upgrade-able to second level and this would make it regenerate a bit, like 20 per hour (mostly clay but some iron too)

but instead of having only iron, would give stuff randomly from the above, maybe even gold if lucky

also this mines could be more prevalent but less iron in them

i would prefer 2 veins with 10 iron on average rather than 1 with 20
reason: bad seeds could have one vein if more prevalent

even if stone or clay is not that useful, having it would be nice, if you would see a few veins you could build an industrial village there, which would require more transportation. also badlands could be limited of no farming, this would separate the main town and the mines.

you need a lot of stuff for a mine:
hammer axe adze froh file saw rope and generally 1 hour for branches regrow
you get shittons of iron instantly and the vein loses its value
now we build roads to signal where is the vein, but we got carts by the time we got a stanchion kit
and then the whole road becomes useless
if would regenerate a bit, a kiln there could provide some tools and pottery, extra stones and longer roads

tana · 2018-10-30 15:05:52

I kinda like the idea of a mine giiving one iron every 10(or so) minutes, just like a goose gives an egg and you have to go pick it up and wait for the next one.
After all we rarely mine a whole mine in one go, extracting the ore kinda takes time.

Booklat1 · 2018-10-30 16:08:35

Potjeh wrote:

You can also increase iron consumption with new recipes. Nails for example could be used for all sorts of stuff.

Nails should work as rope in some recipes tbh

Booklat1 · 2018-10-30 16:16:23

West wrote:

Just by reading this, I have to say that I dont like the changes.
The only thing I agree with is, that there were too many veins. A vein should be special.
But if a vein is found and made into a mine, then it should give a lot of ore imo.
Maybe there could be another upgraded stage to mines? Or even a few. This could go on top of the tech-tree.
It takes a long time to make a vein a mine. Getting loose iron for the tools, getting rope for the bucket, rope for the cart.
Therefore it should really boost the town, when a mine is build. But now they give half the amount of ore and tools even break twice as fast, so its like 10 ore before the changes.

This is exactly the problem, mines cant be rare and full of resources, this leads to towns having much iron and others having none. Its just an iron mine, not gold or silver. I think adding a mid iron mine tier between the mine we have and the vein itself would be great. Maybe just strinking the vein with pickaxe gives some iron? (the advantage being you not needing froe and adze before getting some of the iron from mines)

Last edited by Booklat1 (2018-10-30 16:17:55)

Potjeh · 2018-10-30 16:58:49

Who the hell uses a shovel to dig up potatoes anyway? Whenever my family planted them, we'd use a hoe to clear the mounded dirt and expose the potatoes. I think in game potatoes should need one use of hoe to remove the mound and then you just pick them by hand from the row.

tana · 2018-10-30 17:12:38

Potjeh wrote:

Who the hell uses a shovel to dig up potatoes anyway? Whenever my family planted them, we'd use a hoe to clear the mounded dirt and expose the potatoes. I think in game potatoes should need one use of hoe to remove the mound and then you just pick them by hand from the row.

exactly what i suggested on my post above... exept with the shovel instead of the hoe, but i guess hoe makes more sense

Potjeh · 2018-10-30 22:48:52

Also, I support giving mines more stages. IMO pick should get you 3-5 ore from a vein before it turns to a hole, then 10-15 ore from each mine upgrade level. We already have stanchion tech for next level, maybe next level could be locked behind growing some domestic tree for bracing so you'd need multi-generational effort to do it and you'd have to carefully manage your iron supply while waiting for the next tech level. If pick on vein gave some ore loose ore could be less common.

Redram · 2018-10-31 00:20:40

West wrote:

Maybe there could be another upgraded stage to mines? Or even a few. This could go on top of the tech-tree.

This. Emphatically this. There should be multiple tiers of mine. First tier should consume an entire pick and yield more pieces. Second tier should require a minecart kit, and yield yet more. Tier three involves explosives (a hand cart full?), Tier four a pneumatic drill. And maybe more beyond. Each upgrade yields progressively more ore, commensurate with the requirements of the tech level.
If you want to make minecarts actually useful, The tier 2 and higher mines output a different kind of iron ore, that is heavy like boulders, and only fits in minecarts, not handcarts. Now there would be an actual use for minecarts potentially. Well, after you also reduce the iron cost of rails.

This kind of tiering would make the mine continually useful, and encourage teching up. Think ahead a bit.

As for potatoes, has nobody ever heard of a potatoe fork?

Last edited by Redram (2018-10-31 00:21:49)

BladeWoods · 2018-10-31 08:15:24

It's very idealistic math though, it's assuming all iron is found, all iron is used in the best way possible, none wasted, none lost, none stolen, none even used on less efficient crops or other things, your city placement might very well be worse than this randomly sampled average too. In fact, people don't start towns in ironlands cause of the lack of early game resources, and usually avoid starting right next to ironlands cause of the danger of wolves and bears.

Like other than shoveling dung, you need shovels to make fences. This inadvertantly made fences 2.5x more expensive (iron wise) to make and remove when I don't know if that was your goal.

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Welp, I just did some math

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