Clay quality and Bone Clay

[onnings]

Now, we all know the importance of clay in this game. Pretty much every product of high quality is linked to clay somehow. To get anything up beyond the first tier of crafting, solid clay is required - ovens for baking, kilns for coal for metals etc, pots for wood and so on. Clay is very rare in the world though, meaning the people who find a strong clay node will defend it fanatically, and are also less likely to share their overflow due to the danger sitting on rare resources entails, which further advances the problem. This isn't a problem in itself, of course. With things hard to get, its importance for players will increase and it will take a central part in interfaction contact - both warfare and trade - something that will lead to a more living world where people are forced to interact with each other.

The problem lies in the exclusion of players without a strong faction to support them, without well-connected friends, or without a famous forum persona. When basically being a 'nobody', chances for getting clay above the first tier of trade goods is very unrealistic.

What I'm suggesting is an adjusting of the Bone Clay formula, to allow it to create higher grade bone clay. Doing this would allow people, through spending massive quantities of bones, to under the right circumstances be able to create some of the over-bottom-tier quality clay, and thus reach at least the second tier (q40) of crafting.

According to the wiki, the current formula is:

sqrt (Qboneash + Qcaveclay x 2 + Qfeldespar x 2)

With the ingredient count of 5x bone ash, 1x cave clay and 1x feldespar, the quality of bones of course gets highly downgraded - with the combined quality of bones counting for a fifth of the total quality value, while feldespar and cave clay each decide two fifths of the quality of the final product. The problem, of course, is feldespar and cave clay pretty much exclusively only spawning on q10-nodes, meaning the only real variable to clay quality is the quality of bones, which is "abundant" on deer, bears and trolls.

The change suggested would be to put stronger emphasis on the bone part of the recipe, something which would allow players to craft bone clay of higher quality than the current levels, so as to help them get a higher grade of clay and bricks for their (very much needed) ovens, kilns, metal-related smelters and treeplanter pots.

Now obviously, the actual change must be calculated properly before being picked. For my examples, let's first imagine a character with q200 bones, q10 feldespar and q10 cave clay - bones being the easiest to get to "max" quality (not counting troll bones here) due to its Survival-dependancy rather than node location. For this example, we'll also imagine that the bone ash has been made in a kiln that does not reduce quality - a rather utopian idea, but let's use it still. Anyhow, putting it into the formula from the wiki:

sqrt (200 + 20 + 20) = ~48

Quality 48. Now, on first glance, this doesn't seem very unreasonable - q48 is slightly into the second tier of goods. The realism of getting here is not very existing though - the example used q200 bones, which requires 200 survival, something which alone costs ungodly ammount of LP to get to. The example also uses a qUnlimited Kiln to avoid bone ash degradation, which is not realistic - for the non-affiliated character, a q20-30 kiln would be more realistically, something which would severely stunt the quality of bone ash, and thus the final produced bone clay. For the next example, let's use a more realistic scenario:

q150 bear bones. q10 feldespar. q10 cave clay. q30 kiln. q30 fuel.

According to the wiki, the quality rate of things ran through the kiln is

Q_product = ½ Q_unburnt + ¼ Q_fuel + ¼ Q_kiln

which basically means

sqrt (2x qUnburnt + qFuel +qKiln)

So for this example:

Bone ash = sqrt(300 + 30 + 30) = q90

Bone clay = sqrt(90 + 20 + 20) = q26

The clay from the q30 kiln results in q26 clay.

Now, let's imagine we're back at the q200 bones, but still using the same kiln etc.

Bone ash = sqrt(400 + 30 + 30) = 115

Bone clay = sqrt(115 + 20 + 20) = 31

The clay with the "capped" (pre-troll) bones would result in q31 clay - a slight upgrade from the current kiln level. So slight that the change in total does nothing.

Now, for a new example, let's imagine the bone clay formula used sqrt(qBoneash+qFeldespar+qCaveclay) - where the strenght of bones were doubled, so to say.

With the "realistic" example of q150 bones - sqrt(90+10+10)= 36 (rounded down).
With the "optimal" example of q200 bones - sqrt(115+10+10)=45

With bone ash given more emphasis, the quality of the clay would now increase through massive sacrificing of bear bones, giving 'nobodies' a chance to craft higher quality goods even with strong factions controlling the clay of the world.

Now, doubling the focus on bone ash might be dangerous though, as the gains could be pretty ridiculous at the top end of the spectrum. Let's do the example i started off with, but with the new formula instead. q200 bones, qUnlimited kiln.

sqrt(200+10+10)= 73

With optimal situation and the new formula, a player could craft q73 clay. This is far into the second tier, but not quite the third tier. To reach the third tier, bones superior to bear bones would be needed, and thus still only available for the very dedicated or very well connected. In effect, by doubling the bone ash dependancy in the bone clay recipe, 'nobodies' would no longer be completely shafted, while factions and powerpersons would still sit on the real strenght, meaning no real loss of stature or domination would happen.

[Kaios]

Nice, detailed post but this is probably something you'll never see happening.

[TeckXKnight]

tl;dr

Skimmed a bit and the idea seemed to be suggesting that bone clay should weigh the bones higher (The formula you used is wrong, by the way. It's multiplicative, not addition) so that you can improve clay to a "standard". I like the idea, honestly. Good luck with that.

[onnings]

tl;dr

Skimmed a bit and the idea seemed to be suggesting that bone clay should weigh the bones higher (The formula you used is wrong, by the way. It's multiplicative, not addition) so that you can improve clay to a "standard". I like the idea, honestly. Good luck with that.

Hm, that sucks. Guess I should blame the ten years since I did any sort of square-root based maths for that.

Anyhow, even with the examples void, I hope my point still stands.

[TeckXKnight]

Wait, I think I'm just being stupid. Don't listen to me. Something is incorrect with the math though. The sqrt of (240) =/= ~48

[ImpalerWrG]

I think we can all agree CLAY IS KING, and thats lame. But excessivly High Bear ByProducts is one of the other major Problems with the crafting sytem as it destroys the value of Domesticated Animals. Any solution to the clay problem that relies on Bear Bone is fundementally flawed.

The solution to Clay is to make it not a trivially simple act to collect it. Imagine if mines were replaced with chipping whole nuggets of metal right from boulders, dose anyone doupt that we would see all the Gold and Silver monopolized in a matter of days, thats basicaly war we are with Clay right now. Clay discover needs to be more resource dependent, the simple hand collected clay being low quality and substantial resource investments are required before the best stuff can be accessed.

[onnings]

Wait, I think I'm just being stupid. Don't listen to me. Something is incorrect with the math though. The sqrt of (240) =/= ~48

Sqrt (200+10+10+10+10) basically means 240 / 5, which is 48 unless my brain's broken down somehow. You're right that it's not approximately 48 though, as I've suggested with the squiggle - rather, the result is exactly 48.

I think we can all agree CLAY IS KING, and thats lame. But excessivly High Bear ByProducts is one of the other major Problems with the crafting sytem as it destroys the value of Domesticated Animals. Any solution to the clay problem that relies on Bear Bone is fundementally flawed.

The solution to Clay is to make it not a trivially simple act to collect it. Imagine if mines were replaced with chipping whole nuggets of metal right from boulders, dose anyone doupt that we would see all the Gold and Silver monopolized in a matter of days, thats basicaly war we are with Clay right now. Clay discover needs to be more resource dependent, the simple hand collected clay being low quality and substantial resource investments are required before the best stuff can be accessed.

Yes, I agree that making even more in the game bear-dependant is problematic, especially considering the ammount of bones which would be required for this. A kiln takes 45 clay, bone clay takes 5 bones. In total, we'd need 45x5 bones for one kiln, which means 225 bones. A bear also only holds 16 bones (if you count the teeth as well), meaning you'd need 15 bears for a kiln alone - a pretty extended project, taking weeks without a hunting crew spanning several supergrids and numbering in the dozen.

I don't want to discuss changes to general clay utilization and tools depending on it though - this is simply a suggestion to a change within the current system, not a suggestion for a new one.

Edit: One change could be to adjust the default quality of feldespar and cave clay instead of adjusting the bone ash weight. This would allow the generation of higher grade clay than currently without putting more strain on high-quality bones, although you'd still need the 225 bones for a kiln and since higher quality bones result in higher quality end result, people would still probably push for bear extinction to get their clay up to as high quality as possible.

[TeckXKnight]

Wait, I think I'm just being stupid. Don't listen to me. Something is incorrect with the math though. The sqrt of (240) =/= ~48

Sqrt (200+10+10+10+10) basically means 240 / 5

This is not what a square root is.

(240) = ~15.5^2
sqrt(240)=~15.5

[onnings]

Wait, I think I'm just being stupid. Don't listen to me. Something is incorrect with the math though. The sqrt of (240) =/= ~48

Sqrt (200+10+10+10+10) basically means 240 / 5

This is not what a square root is.

(240) = ~15.5^2
sqrt(240)=~15.5

Oh yea, it's divided in on itself. As in, the sum is the end result of a number multiplied with itself. That's how it works.

I'll have to look through things a few more times tomorrow, unless somebody else would like to generate some examples.

[Fantastication]

Sqrt (200+10+10+10+10) basically means 240 / 5

This is not what a square root is.

(240) = ~15.5^2
sqrt(240)=~15.5

Oh yea, it's divided in on itself. As in, the sum is the end result of a number multiplied with itself. That's how it works.

I'll have to look through things a few more times tomorrow, unless somebody else would like to generate some examples.

You're still not understanding a square root.

3² = 9
sqrt(3+3) = 2.449
average(3+3) = (3+3) / 2 = 3

Basically, go through your first post and change every sqrt() to average(), then it'll make more sense as to what you're trying for.

I do think bone clay would be nice if it could reach higher q.