Base material quality improvment systems

[Enjoyment]

What it is about?
This is a likely 1000 times said idea of some kind of way to improve base materials like clay/water/soil/sand.
Why is this topic exists?
It my personal vision on a general overhaul of q-grind idea. It may be (or may not) based on some of the posted before ideas I was inspired by, but it is a solid post made completely be myself "from my head". This is only my vision, so try to judge it as standalone idea without any comparison.
What is the idea?
We should divide a "Basic" version of this idea (only touches base mats) and "Advanced" (which will be posted, if Basic will get some positive feedback (lol, positive feedback on H&H forum).
The general idea is that hearthling should be able to improve the q of base mats he have found. It should be painfull, long and un-bulk proccess that can only benefit some of hermits, w/o keeping all the players to enclosureness.
More of it, it could really push the trading and collaboration on next level.
How does it work?
Via workstations. But mostly as tunning tube works.
Let's say you've found a q 50 soil. If you're not a somekind of DiS member - it's pretty sure your max.
And so goes on when you've find a clay/sand or water.
Yeap, you could be very lucky and find some q60 spot, but most likely it will be already claimed or you will be banished by main faction... But, you can try to raise to by yourself.

Example:
We don't want Loftar to implement new big constuctions into the code, so let's use what we have - tanning tube!
Lets, give a closer look at it - we have a hide (resource), a tube itselfs (a workstation) and a tanning fluid (a component). And q of all three will matter in q of leather (result).
So, here's fertilizer:
We have a fertilizer (a workstation), which is filled with soil (resource) and fertilizing fluid (component=water+crops). And after some time spend we have a fertilized soil (result), which can be both better or worse of initial soil (based on said factors).

Same is for sand (including some glass and board for sand-drying workstation and some cloth+coal as filters(component)), water (same components (filters) as for sand, but purely metal/glass workstation), and clay (WIP, the space for devs creativity)...

Will it be OP?
No. It should be very time-consuming (like 48h) and have a small output (like 16 fert. soil) - so it will not erase trading of base mat, but even may born some small-factions speciallized on one production. More than that, involving one of the base material as requirements for uping another base material q will push people to collaborate and trade...

Thx for your attention.
Kindly, your Enjoyment.

[Grog]

Hm.
It does sound quite grindy and I don't really see how this prevents to be botted...

...unless the fertilizing process contains soils of various different soils and biomes all over the map.

[Enjoyment]

Hm.
It does sound quite grindy and I don't really see how this prevents to be botted...

Nothing could prevent botting in current time, but suggested system barely will be botted by one reason - it won't be worth botting. It should have a very little amount of output products, like a 4 fertilized soils for 2 days. So you can raise potential quailty of your own trees, but won't make a hundred of fertilizers to bulk-produce. And it could be quite big (let's say 7x7 tiles size) to prevent mass-building...

[Hasta]

...And it could be quite big (let's say 7x7 tiles size) to prevent mass-building...

You mean to make botting it require a huge ugly base.

I agree with the idea and, again, want to remind that "bottability" of a mechanic is not a reason to discard it right away. Although the process may need to be more complicated (a few additional steps, like with Steelmaking).

[Enjoyment]

Although the process may need to be more complicated (a few additional steps, like with Steelmaking).

I've got your thought, but should admit I hate everything related to "steelmaking" (Im working at kinda crazy unstable working day and hate any aspect needed to be online every x hours for x days straight)...
But If you think my idea is little bit too simple, I could assure you it wasn't intended - the main idea IS that process should be painful, boring and time-consuming, but there should be a possibility of it.... If J&L decided to implement such things (maybe in their own vision, different of mine) - we can bag for let's say "Advanced soil fertilizer" with better/faster output, but still - mine version should make it really hard-work to produce even 4 pieces of up-q soil (basicly, all this q-grind work-station will be used mostly in upping your tree-q).

[Hasta]

I hate everything related to "steelmaking" <...>
<...> the main idea IS that process should be painful, boring and time-consuming
<...> really hard-work to produce even 4 pieces of up-q soil

Noone likes to make Steel, because... well, the process is painful, boring and time-consuming.

How I see it should be implemented:

1. Put 4 pieces of soil into a Tanning tub.
2. Fill it with 40l of water + 40 vegetables (fertilizing fluid enough for 10 hours). Remember to refill with more vegetables, or the Soil dissolves into unusable Mud.
3. After 30 hours, depending on your nature-related skills (Druidic Rite etc.), Soil has 50-75% chance to turn into Compost (failed process results in Mud).
4. New object: Compost Pile (non-liftable, 3x3 tiles, boards+boughs+hides to build, mechanics used similar to a Curding Tub).
5. Fill Compost Pile with Compost and Soil, it will produce 1 unit of Fertilized Soil per 3 hours, total of 4 units per 1xCompost + 2xSoil. Fertilized Soil is usable as common Soil.

This will be as hard to bot as the full process of steelmaking (starting with forging Cast Iron into Blooms with a chance of it becoming Slag), yet each step have the potential of increasing the output quality; and the whole process will require a variety of skill-dependant materials.

And maybe (for some consolation) Mud x3 can be used to craft a Mud Pie, curiosity akin to that inedible bread from Legacy.

[Enjoyment]

I hate everything related to "steelmaking" <...>
<...> the main idea IS that process should be painful, boring and time-consuming
<...> really hard-work to produce even 4 pieces of up-q soil

Noone likes to make Steel, because... well, the process is painful, boring and time-consuming.

How I see it should be implemented:

1. Put 4 pieces of soil into a Tanning tub.
2. Fill it with 40l of water + 40 vegetables (fertilizing fluid enough for 10 hours). Remember to refill with more vegetables, or the Soil dissolves into unusable Mud.
3. After 30 hours, depending on your nature-related skills (Druidic Rite etc.), Soil has 50-75% chance to turn into Compost (failed process results in Mud).
4. New object: Compost Pile (non-liftable, 3x3 tiles, boards+boughs+hides to build, mechanics used similar to a Curding Tub).
5. Fill Compost Pile with Compost and Soil, it will produce 1 unit of Fertilized Soil per 3 hours, total of 4 units per 1xCompost + 2xSoil. Fertilized Soil is usable as common Soil.

This will be as hard to bot as the full process of steelmaking (starting with forging Cast Iron into Blooms with a chance of it becoming Slag), yet each step have the potential of increasing the output quality; and the whole process will require a variety of skill-dependant materials.

And maybe (for some consolation) Mud x3 can be used to craft a Mud Pie, curiosity akin to that inedible bread from Legacy.

Your vision may be some kind too complicated - I doubt it should involve more than one workstation...