Animal Refuse

Have a new general feature to suggest, or think one should be tweaked? Share your ideas here.
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by Irylia »

Sorry to keep bringing this up. I know you've been busily working on other things, Rias, and that's very much appreciated. But has there been any further thought to potentially making refuse not dump all at once on a timer but rather gradually over time so that if you have to logout for several hours you don't have to worry about the timing of it causing your animals to stop working for long stretches? Or even just reducing the number of times those "dumps" happen so you can clean the farm once or twice a day instead of 3-4? Or even reducing the amount that gets dumped per animal even further for those problematic animal types? There are still issues with full-capacity sheds of large and small variety getting overly filthy too easily from single events and it's honestly making me feel like some kind of animal hoarding situation and I don't even have that many animals.

I would still also like to see some line of text when an animal "goes" - if possible - so players can easily see when to start picking up. This would be similar to when they eat or lay eggs or do other various activities. Of course if the poop moves to a more gradual accrual system this might not be necessary.
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by Irylia »

Bumping this thread since the topic came up in chat today in case anyone else has any ideas or Rias wants to give any potential updates. He knows I still have strong feelings about all the poop, but I still want to see some kind of change in how this currently works and am curious what others think about it.

Again, I get that there's a desire to not have people just login once, do chores in one fell swoop, and logout, but the way it is currently is really not good (in my opinion, at least). I still frequently internally debate dropping livestock or even going a different direction just because I get very irritated by the poop system. If you're not able to login at the "right" times, your production is impacted and at least one of the poop dump times is overnight for players (regardless of timezone, I think) when there is no chance to login and take care of it. It would be far better to have a more flexible system so people can login more than once (if that's the goal), but still have flexibility about when those logins are without sacrificing production rates. I'm in the game a lot and I still suffer production loss from my animals. I'm not sure I want to know how much those who can't login as much as I can are affected.
shoryuujo
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by shoryuujo »

Ok, so if we may. Lets discuss in depth.

Effect of poop pile up?
Currently: It halts animal production? does it affect quality of products already inside the construction, or the quality of produced milk, or wools?

future: What do we want, what is reasonable?
-I think that it would be reasonable to have animals cease production, but a better idea of what quantity of what types of animals are meant to be present, and how much work will it take to keep everything nice for what number of what types/sizes of shed? Maybe the rancher's office could have a post/recommendation guide, for such things. And then, if you follow those guidelines, then you have to clean out once a day.

re: refuse
-should we be able to have an object output from some of the animal types such as cow, which may help enhance growth of plant crops (fertilizer?).

I'm still slowly growing my understanding of the farming/ranching system
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nobody
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by nobody »

@shoryuujo I recommend that you start by reading the thread history. It's lengthy, but educational.

I believe rent increases were discussed in the past and wanted to bump that also. Renting a room for a day is 250 riln, renting a farm for a week is 800 riln. @Rias if you would like to provide enough detail for me to run simulations, I can help you figure out breakeven on rent.
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Rias
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by Rias »

What I'll probably do is take the suggestion of having the animal refuse build up slowly over time rather than plop down all at once every so often. This could be a better way of maintaining the idea that you should get out what you put in, without making people feel like they have to time it just right to get the most out of their cleaning efforts. Just like a woodworker who spends more time woodworking gets more woodworked products, a husbander who spends more time caring for their animals should get more animal products.

Keep in mind that animal production does not reduce or reset when the sheds are too dirty - they just stop building up toward producing their resource. So if you clean out the sheds and they get dirty again later, that cleaning effort wasn't wasted. The animals were building up their resource while the sheds were clean enough for them to do so.

Actually ... I think the above is only true for animal milk. Readiness for wool shearing and egg-laying is primarily based on the last time the animal was shorn or laid an egg. With eggs not happening if the animal is too hungry, has too low morale, or their shelter is too dirty once it's been long enough from the last one. I'll probably update those to similarly build up over time as long as the animals have the right conditions: not starving, not injured, not low morale, non-filthy shelter.

Also: If we can think of some more things husbanders can actually *do* with their animals, I'd likely turn down the rates of refuse buildup. The shelter-cleaning was added in the first place because animals were too beneficial for too little effort.
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Irylia
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by Irylia »

Gradual over time would be a great improvement, I think. I have a list of some other tasks in a previous post in this thread, but let me know if you want more ideas.
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Rias
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by Rias »

Irylia wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 10:25 am I have a list of some other tasks in a previous post in this thread, but let me know if you want more ideas.
There are some good ones in there, thanks for reminding me. More is always better, so if anyone has additional ideas for things husbanders can do to care for their animals, post them up. Even stuff that isn't specifically maintenance-focused, like - I don't know, spending some time petting them and playing with them? Never had anything other than common household pets personally, so I'm not sure what all play activities might apply to cows and goats and chickens and other farm-type livestock.
<Rias> PUT ON PANTS
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shoryuujo
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by shoryuujo »

Went back, re-read through the thread a couple times. Now, I think I've some more useful information and input. Though I've not yet gotten a plant harvest in yet to compare against ranching values. That said, I'll start poking in with stuff I've noticed, tested and have come to know.

We need to establish, I think, prominence in farming: farming vs animal husbandry. Is farming supposed to be a star over animal husbandry, or are both supposed to feel equally attractive to the player? So, lets first break down pros/cons of each, as I've experienced it, or felt about it as a player. Might be some technical or play improvements I could make or do that I'm not aware of.

Farming pros:
-daily chores: 1-2x/day (you'll get RNG weeds throughout the day, watering 1x day, or maybe even every other day. It felt really infrequent compared to animal husbandry animal care values)
-no/minimal structures needed.

Farming cons:
-skill gain: mostly on harvest and raw processing of product. (ex: rimeveil->bolls->threshed->winnowed->sell) note: it's a con because it feels like the bulk of the skill gain is at the end of the process. It may be intended this way as harvests are a lot busier. Could be balanced a bit more so more skill gain is emphasized on the maintenance of the plots.

Animal Husbandry pros:
-only upkeep is cleaning sheds/hutches/coops
-gaining riln every day

Animal Husbandry cons:
-cleaning sheds/hutches/coops is a 7-8x/day requirement. Did some testing, and it went from nothing to hutch+coop: slightly filthy, small shed x2: very filthy, and large shed x2: extremely filthy. After approx 3-3.5 hrs this jumped.

Overall, from a player perspective I can log on, check the farm for weeds, and be done and on my way in 5-10 minutes. For animal husbandry, I need to go to the farm, clean the sheds/coops/hutches a lot per day. This can also be done in 5-10 minutes. The big difference is in how often the checks need to be performed. I honestly don't know how weeds and water level affect plants, but mentally I write it off as non-affecting/no problem at the weed stage. I take care of it at the weed stage, because I don't want it to grow into a problem. If weeds affect either or both: growth progress and harvest quality, I'd be a little sad at that. If it slows plant growth by a small %, also not something that would bother me, if it slows to a dead stop, that'd be annoying. Earlier in the thread it was talked about filth effect, but I don't think conversation touched on exact effects for animal husbandry. Is filth a hard stop in production, or a % reduction in production speed, or other factor? Are animals correctly assigned? Because a fully packed hutch and coop generated slight filth, a small animal shed generated very filthy, and the large shed generated extremely filthy. That means the balancing of filth vs their animal capacities does not appear to be balanced. I did see that you were working on changing it to incremental filth increases and I'm curious to see how that goes. In the current state, I believe that cow production would shut down every 3-3.5 hrs, requiring a monumental effort from a rancher player over a plant tender to keep things looking nice and productive. So, I actually feel at this point, like plant farming is easy by comparison, though I've yet to experience market rewards (yet) on plants. Just to highlight the skill gain difference between the two, I can also jump 25 pts of animal husbandry on 1-2 cows and change. farming definitely requires full hands on skill action.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, I'll decide how to develop a farm based on:
1) How much I enjoy various facets of farming (both plants and animal husbandry).
2) Valuation and Effort put in: the amount of riln earned for the amount of effort
3) Market/Player/Economic Demands (needs for items not available in shops)

Bees: The bees addendum. So, I quickly learned Bees. The immortals gift to riln. upkeep: 0. riln: thousands time: a long time, but who cares? So, I do strongly recommend limiting bee hives to 5-10 per farm unless mechanics are introduced to make bees less clearly the world winner of farms. at 2 plots/beehive, if you had 160 plots, and dedicated everything to bees you could make lets say... 240,000 riln/month. That would be silly though. And devastatingly unbalancing to any economy where bee lords and ladies rule the world.

animal refuse idea: I think that if the refuse can generate an object to assist in helping plots grow faster would help balance things a little. It's a hard one to come to terms with because poop just ain't all that versatile.

animal enrichment: I think the ideas presented earlier in the thread were all ideas i'd suggest, and like. The only thing I can think about cows: They apparently enjoy massage rollers they can rub up against in the field. Chickens are also highly trainable, so you could maybe even allow simple tricks/commands to be executed by a chicken, in exchange for feed or a treat. This would increase chicken happiness, and also produce a cute, fun little side effect.

conclusion: I think that filth balancing, making sure that based on max structure allotment size/animal category, that if your hutches/coops are only generating slightly filthy, after a tick over, that your large animal sheds should...probably onlybe slightly filthy as well. To keep the system consistent. I'm sure there's lots of work being done on all this, and I definitely appreciate all the attention that is being given to the game mechanics.

specific questions:
1) Is filth affect in the sheds tiered? Does it cause % reduction in production, quality reduction, or full stop in progress?
2) Do animals have an internal buffer for liquid bearing animals; ie: will cow complete resource generation, then require to be milked, or can it complete/stack resource generation a few times, and be milked later?
3) I've had to put a lot more effort into animal husbandry than plants in my own opinion. Can you explain how you feel that other than bees, animal ranching in perspective is a log on/off craft/riln generation? I've not experienced this personally.

ideas:
1) Animal filth -> fertilizer
2) Breed/slaughter animals (req structure: breeding/slaughten pen 4 plots. Animals can be bred or slaughtered in here. Adds renewable leather/meat/products to farming repertoire. Could also resell/sell to players various animals. Do animals have age/do they grow old/die/stop producing?
3) Allow rentable rooms on the farm plots, but my concern here is that people rarely would leave their farms/plots. I know I've been tending the animal side of the farm almost all day, with the milking/etc.
4) Orchard/Tree Nursery structure, 4 plots, grow a couple trees. Maybe add in various fruit bearing trees. Shadgard weather might nix all but a few tree types though.
5) More use for coop feathers
6) Edited to add this one: Command at the office if you want to downgrade your farm one rank at a time, rent de-expand, unexpand, rent shrink? reduce plot by 20 at a time.
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Rias
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by Rias »

I've updated the filth production to be gradual over time, rather than in big dumps (har) every several hours. I've also made animals put up with more filth before their production timers pause. As long as their shelter isn't showing as "extremely filthy" they'll keep soldiering on.

==========
specific questions:
1) Is filth affect in the sheds tiered? Does it cause % reduction in production, quality reduction, or full stop in progress?
It just stops their production tickers once it's "extremely filthy" so any progress essentially pauses until their shelter is cleaned. I'm considering an increasing percentage chance to skip a production tick the filthier their shelter is, but for now it's all or nothing.
2) Do animals have an internal buffer for liquid bearing animals; ie: will cow complete resource generation, then require to be milked, or can it complete/stack resource generation a few times, and be milked later?
They build up a certain amount of milk and then stop once full. Milking is a gradual repeating process and not a single action, so you could stop milking before the animal's milk reserves are empty. You can also start milking them before their milk reserve is completely full.
3) I've had to put a lot more effort into animal husbandry than plants in my own opinion. Can you explain how you feel that other than bees, animal ranching in perspective is a log on/off craft/riln generation? I've not experienced this personally.
It's not anymore, it was in the past.
ideas:
1) Animal filth -> fertilizer
I denied this in the past because I felt like husbandry was a constant benefit without significant cost, and making animal filth into something beneficial would have gone toward nullifying the mechanic's intent as a cost. I know that analysis is up to debate. I'm warming up to the idea as husbandry takes more effort, so this may happen at some point.
2) Breed/slaughter animals (req structure: breeding/slaughten pen 4 plots. Animals can be bred or slaughtered in here. Adds renewable leather/meat/products to farming repertoire. Could also resell/sell to players various animals. Do animals have age/do they grow old/die/stop producing?
I'm not sure how well slaughtering animals would work when it comes to numbers. They cost a good amount to purchase, and making it worth it (money-wise) to then butcher them might require increasing the value of meat and leather which would increase the cost of food and gear which- yeah. Animals don't age or breed at the moment. Breeding animals would be neat and it's something I'd like to try eventually, but it's low on the priority list. Lots of balancing to consider.
3) Allow rentable rooms on the farm plots, but my concern here is that people rarely would leave their farms/plots. I know I've been tending the animal side of the farm almost all day, with the milking/etc.
I already battle with how often farmers cloister themselves away on their farms and want to be able to do most everything they do there. That's part of why I included furniture items when calculating farm space: I don't want people setting up their farm as a one-stop living space/workspace/leisure space/etc. I want Farmers to have more reasons to leave the farm, rather than make it easier for them to just hang out there forever away from the rest of the playerbase.
4) Orchard/Tree Nursery structure, 4 plots, grow a couple trees. Maybe add in various fruit bearing trees. Shadgard weather might nix all but a few tree types though.
My main issue with trees is the same as the beehive problem that was just addressed with multiple hive inefficency: You plant a tree and then you just cash in on it from then on with little/no effort. I feel that'd be a step backward toward "initial investment and then just pop in occasionally to reap the rewards". So we'll need to come up with some kind of maintenance activities and costs for the trees to prevent them from being a no-brainer "no effort for continual reward" thing.
5) More use for coop feathers
I'm all ears!
<Rias> PUT ON PANTS
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shoryuujo
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Re: Animal Refuse

Post by shoryuujo »

My main issue with trees is the same as the beehive problem that was just addressed with multiple hive inefficency: You plant a tree and then you just cash in on it from then on with little/no effort. I feel that'd be a step backward toward "initial investment and then just pop in occasionally to reap the rewards". So we'll need to come up with some kind of maintenance activities and costs for the trees to prevent them from being a no-brainer "no effort for continual reward" thing.
Suggestion on this, if you like: if cleaning animal sheds produces a fertilizer item AND you want trees in a reasonable way, a fertilizer object could be set to (for now at least), work only on trees. Maybe the composition of the manure isn't quite balanced for plants naturally. Maybe that'll take work and/or never actually work/come to pass, but it might "work for trees" now. You could set a growth size max for trees on farms, and give it a longer grow time, and limit tree varieties to commonly found ones. Maybe the trees on farms have little to no chance to harm you (or your farm) when being harvested. The only real difference is work being put in to specifically grow a tree, versus finding one in the wild, harvesting it, and transporting it. Which are valid, and very real concerns. The balance in my mind there is keeping farm trees to much more common/less valuable types. Helps keep the commodity market stocked for players, and does minimize some risk, and the reward wouldn't be very big, and gives you a potential use for interim fertilizer. I'm really just tossing out brain ideas here.
5) More use for coop feathers
Suggestion: honestly, aside from various quality fletchings, my first and immediate thought is craftable fishing lures. maybe used in "padded" items, either for comfort or warmth: pillows, padded coats and so far. But to be honest, I'm not sure chicken feathers would be a good choice for clothing or pillows. Duck, goose, great. But I don't think/know that chickens even have much, if any down feathers. Still, I think it could do ok for a lure, or maybe set a very low market value, like 2 riln/feather or something, just so we can clear it. If there was a use for it in bushcraft, might be able to make/improvise making a nest for certain avian species to try and attract them in the wild, and then wait for them to settle into the nest, and take the eggs after they lay/leave.
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