Compost Yard suggestion

[ThatGuyFuryan]

Compost Yard Suggestion

Hello there. I’d like to present a few thoughts or suggestions on the Compost Yard.

Work Radius
I’d like to see the Compost Yard get a work radius–I feel that the Compost Yard fills under the harvest type buildings, like the Forager and Work Camp, and they all have work radius areas.

In my current session I spent a year following one a villager named Calla, my nightsoil woman, travelling for months to get one pile of poo from a house half way across the map. It just seems like needless timewasting, especially when you have multiple little villages on a map or multiple Compost Yards set up spread around the villages.

I used a small radius for the example above, but it could be larger or follow the Theater mechanic where it can only service X amount of houses within it’s radius.

Improve Nightsoil Collector

Increase the carry capacity of the Collector’s barrow as well as the collection function, so they can travel between several buildings before either having to return due to being unable to carry more or another job–restocking etc–is required.

Waste from Spoilage
When food spoils–whether in a house, Root Cellar or other storage–that building produces a little bit of a waste that the Compost Yard can take away.

As far as I can tell now, when food stuff spoils it just disappears and you don’t have to handle it–I may be wrong about that, but I haven’t noticed spoilage result in waste. I’d like to see spoilage become a thing you need to handle. If you leave waste/spoilage in things like Root Cellars too long, it could increase the amount of rodents or diseases that spring up in the area.

Boosting Environment Fertility Factor
Currently compost it used to help boost the fertility of farms, shown by the fertility bar in the Yield Factors for crops section of it’s UI.

When compost isn’t needed to help boost the specific fertility factor of farms, my suggestion would be to be able to have the Compost Yard have the ability to ‘spread’ compost on the ground in a selectable area, allowing this to boost the Environmental Fertility Factor. This might help boost yields from the arborist, as you’ll be able to boost soil fertility to max, and if environmental fertility applies to the bushes/greens max yields, that might help get the maximum out of yields coming from Foragers.

[apd1004]

I agree! A work radius and the ability to be able to increase the number of workers. Every time I click on a dwelling there is always waste accumulating. The work radius could function the same as the one with the hunter or forager in that you could move it around. I’ve also seen the worker abandon his/her load of waste right in the middle of the road to go perform another task such as stocking their own house.

[ThatGuyFuryan]

Yeah, I’ve noticed they drop their loads mid transit; the game must have shelter stocking as a high priority, but that is double edged when the game doesn’t take proximity into consideration: if we don’t pay attention, villagers will live on one side of town, work on the other and journey to things like the Pub wherever that is which involves a lot of walking time. Calla, my compost yard worker took only completed 2-3 load of poop in the last ingame year–her first one she stopped half way, dropped it, went to the pub, went to her house both which were far from where she was, walked back and picked up the poop and then continued on, passed near an apple tree, stopped again for that then took the most roundabout way to get the poop to the Yard.

So much of the challenge of this game is it’s unbearable lack of logistical control.

[Artur_rzesz]

The idea with the work radius is good, but I believe it should be larger than the current one. Increasing the number of employees (even up to 6 slots) would not be a bad idea at all. Current composting plants are inefficient, especially as we have more and more houses.

[Jaradis]

You would think after all the years my compost people are working, someone would give them a bigger wagon where they can pick up the garbage from each home all along the street then go back, and not have to go one house then back to the yard.

[ThatGuyFuryan]

@Artur_rzesz yeah, definitely need a larger radius, I was just using the Rat Catcher radius for the visual because it was easier to photoshop. Radius wise I’d say it should be similar to the Market or Theater tier 1 radius, at least.

@Jaradis Oh, totally. A wagon would be better if it, say, behaved like the Storage Wagon you get at the start of the game. The Wagon is driven out to a point automatically and the worker goes between it and the houses, loads up and returns once full or after a month or two of ingame working. Repeats the process a few times a year.

[Jaradis]

No, I’m just talking about a wagon that has more capacity so he doesn’t have to go to just one house and then head back. Instead of a capacity of 20-25 or whatever it is, allow upgrades so it has 100-150 capacity, allowing him to visit 5+ houses before returning to the yard.

[ThatGuyFuryan]

Oh I get you now, we are just using the term differently–I had them as barrows in my initially write up and yeah I fully agree. I thought I had that part in my suggestion, here but I didn’t copy and paste the whole thing up it seems–my bad. I’ll update my suggestion when I’m home.

The barrow they use should be able to carry far more than the baskets that a forager uses, I agree totally. I watched a nightsoilsmen take 64 units of waste in one trip, can easily triple that amount. Plus, if they mechanically acted like a forgager–being able to go between several bushes to fully load up before returning–that would be preferred. Game mechanics wise a visited and emptied house would need a flag (code wise) saying its been visited and to ignore it for 3 or so months, as that seems to be how long it can take for waste to reappear to a worthwhile amount for another visit–I say 3 mobths as I’ve observed waste needing 2-3 months to start building up in a small amount. Would stop nightsoilsmen from getting stuck in a loop of only visiting the same houses all the time.

My wagon comment was for capacity above that.

[ThatGuyFuryan]

Alright, updated to include the barrow/wagon function change.

[Solo]

" unbearable lack of logistical control." … yea that just about sums up the user experience !

[Solo]

Precisely… why on earth they think anyone would trundle a hand barrow for literal miles on back and forth journeys when they can hire or buy a wagon and carry the handcart and load unload in each street ( just as modern day bin men do) … it’s simple logic but then that is something this game UI is rather short of…

[pantolomin]

Just as the wainwright use a wagon to move stuff around, the collectors would use a wagon to move poop from houses to the compost yard.
And of course do multiple houses in one trip.

My user experience is that if I add a work place in a building, the laborer chosen to do the job will be the one located in the house that is the farther away from it.

[7enpier]

I solved the composters problem this way →

I do this for every quarter and have no problem with feces.

[bruteForceKill]

Like this post, so that devs pay more attention to it!!! All 4 points are super important!!

[ThatGuyFuryan]

Adding more yards currently keeps up with poop production, yeah, it just doesn’t stop people like my boy Rokard from spending a lot of time running three villages over to do his job.

I like the idea of keeping the game mechanics consistent. I feel that something like the Compost Yard fills under the harvest type, like the Forager and Work Camp, and they all have work radius areas.

[7enpier]

I agree with you regarding a radius for more buildings. Maybe for all.

But for now we have to do with the coding. And hope they add a radius to more buildings.

[SSJ_Krillin]

I found that 1 compost yard can serve about 100-200 people with no problems. I think adding a radius would take away from the trash mans abilities with a well thought-out town layout.

[ThatGuyFuryan]

If you build one continuous town, sure, but some of us like building a main town/village and then villages in other areas of map, which then trips that up as then that 1 compost yard has to have its workers going from one side of the map to another. Even when you add more compost yards the way the workers are currently coded can have workers going unreasonable distances which becomes a problem that should have a more reasonable solution could fix–well, I feel at least.

[CallMeBlackSheep]

They do go to multiple buildings. I’ve watched their behaviour and it entirely depends on how much they pull from a single house, whether that goes over the carry ‘limit’, and that causes them to go back home.

[Taiga_OKS]

I would like to upgrade from a wheelbarrow to a cow cart.
Increases the amount collected in town at once.
I want an alert when the amount of building storage reaches the limit.

I would be more than happy if I could increase the number of staff and have the compost handler distribute the compost in order of the compost level of the field.
It is tiring to select and distribute fields by yourself.