Alpha 50A Building Buildings (and Modules)

Discussion in 'Clockwork Empires General' started by Alavaria, Jan 28, 2016.

  1. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    The below should be up to date for version 50

    Ok, so buildings are an important part of Clockwork Empires. To keep your Clockwork Colony running like clockwork, let us discuss what your colony needs, and then you can add more as you like.

    Several things to keep in mind:
    • Minimum required?: Your colony can probably run with less than you think. This frees up colonist time and resources for you to do more... well whatever (I suggest Surviving is a good option).
    • Adjust to taste: Randomly generated maps mean you have to adjust. You may have various options or constraints.
    • Plan Ahead (Slightly): Getting your stone mined before you need it helps. Waiting to build something is long enough, having to produce all the planks etc you need is annoying.
    • Avoid Overload: If you put way too many things up for your colonists to do at once, especially early on, don't be surprised if hardly anything gets gone. I favor two-at-a-time process, but it hardly matters if you are not making multiple large buildings with insufficient materials. And remember the hauling is also rather important!

    These will have links to posts, each with a building... in rough order of building (remember, you can adapt to your colony!).

    Overview: Tech Tree v50
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
    Rentahamster likes this.
  2. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    version 50

    Carpentry Workshop

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    You need planks for a lot of things, so better prepare accordingly. You will need a whopping: 2 logs and 1 stone for a 2x3.


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    This allows you to fit in 2 Carpentry Workbenches. You only need one initially, but by say day 3 when you want to start making Cots, you'll find having a second is useful.

    These modules are built on site.


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    Assign a single overseer there (enable all jobs, so they will go do other things when free) and set a nice minimum limit (I like 5, then up it to 10 etc.... eventually I hit 50)

    By the way, a log turns into 2 planks (not 1) as of ver50.


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    How well does this work, you wonder? Very well. If you have controlled your stockpile properly, logs will be at the workshop's door, and any planks made will be dropped just outside the door. For now, with one module, the building is at quality of -1, which is Typical (-1 to +1 range). That's fine.


    When you are preparing to make a bunch of cots (and of course decor), you will want to add a second carpentry workbench. At this point adding a window or decor will keep your quality at Typical.


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    Much later on, adding a second Carpentry (2x3) or making a new large one (4x3) for 4 Carpentry Workbenches is necessary in order to support making large numbers of the Practical Bed (which is good for Middle-Class sleeping). Each needs 5 planks and is made in the Carpentry, so preparing your first great sleeping hall will need a lot of Carpentry work.

    As you can see, I opted for a second Carpentry, while decoring up my first one (who has the best carpentry). This was because I thought it would be a temporary measure and I had decored the first carpentry up. But do as you like, really, according to your needs.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
  3. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    version 50

    Barracks

    A thing can happen where you're attacked, your starting NCO dies and then you're in a bit of trouble as colonists tend not to defend themselves unless under an NCO, and you can't assign another NCO as you don't have a barracks, and it's hard to build a barracks as everyone is running away...

    Avoid that and just build a barracks early.

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    You can use a 2x2, however investing in something a bit larger (8 squares?) would be good as building health is now a thing, and having your barracks destroyed is very troublesome (build a new barracks and reassign your NCO before this happens).

    As a note, when attacked really early, it helps to immediately (even if you have no guns to spare) fill out your squad(s) with colonists, if only to act as a meatshield for your NCO. I like to empty the farming crew in as it's easy to remove multiple people, no idea if a farming hoe works better as a weapon than say a knife or whatever a tool-less militia uses.

    =================================================

    I have moved the barracks to basically be #1. This is because you can artificially boost your productivity by assigning your NCO to the barracks, then unassigning them. This turns them into a standard overseer.

    They will maintain their level in The Art of War, so no worries, you can turn them back to an NCO to deal with animals or... fishpeople/bandits.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
  4. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    version 50

    Kitchen

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    The Kitchen requires planks to build (as well as for the oven). Regardless, you can lay it down early so your workers will bring over the stone needed. It should be right next to your food stockpile! This way raw food is just outside the door, and any cooked food is dropped off there as well.

    To start, I like using a 7x2. It can hold 5 ovens and a Wooden Brewing Vat (quite handy to have). The cost for this will run you: 3 planks and 2 stone.

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    Your first module will be a Stone Oven: 4 stone and 2 planks, I usually just put one down, this should be enough for up to about 16 colonists (using Basic Food)


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    Cook Basic Food will output 2 units of Basic Food for each unit of raw. I recommend using Basic Food all the way until you are quite far into the colony building!

    You'll also be relying on stone ovens for a bit, as getting to the upgrade (iron ovens) will take a while to spin up. More on mining and metalworking later in this series though.


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    When you have finished your first bunkhouse (see later on), take some planks to decor up this. Even more than the carpentry, people will be working hard here. It's nice to get the most out of your kitchen.


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    The wooden brewing vat is produced in the Carpentry Workshop. Using it allows you to turn Maize (my preferred starting crop) or Wheat into a basic drink (Chicha or Beer). This is pretty good for the happiness of whoever drinks it, and happy colonists tend not to be driven to drink the way unhappy ones are.

    It's a fast thing to add to your production to help a bit before the bunkhouse it built. But do NOT use a Minimum/Standing order for Brew Basic Drink!!! Brew Beer is fine, but the Brew Basic Drink will go to infinity, taking up all your food, be careful!

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    Each Brew Basic Drink (or Beer) will take one unit of input raw food and give you 3 jars of chicha/beer.


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    If you are going to cram in a Brewing Vat and 5 ovens into a 7x2, there's only one way to fit in the Brewing Vat. It won't work if you put it in the other side of the kitchen.

    Be very careful that the Vat's access point is on the small bit of open space colonists have to walk on.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
  5. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    If you're reading this from the top, go back up to the top and follow the links for later posts. I like using the "open link in new tab" feature of say Firefox to just open links, going down the list.

    This will take a while (a building or two a day? sounds good to me), so it's expected that there might be some discussion or updates (if the next version comes before I finish, etc), so let's roll with it. The list of links should be good enough to allow easy reading of the guide-like portions.
     
  6. Rentahamster

    Rentahamster Member

    I like your approach with small buildings. It's a lot different from mine, where I just build big buildings to house work modules and beds from the start. I plan out my town basically how it'll look endgame, from the beginning.

    (I don't like demolishing and rebuilding lol)
     
  7. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    In order to build as much flexibility as possible.** I actually work off the assumption you might have to relocate to an iron mine.

    Specifically you "need" either a decent amount of stone nearby (covers you until you can relocate) or a nearby iron deposit (which you can spot if there are surface nodes). Otherwise it can get annoying to cover your needs. Especially if you also spend more stone on large buildings.

    I tend to build a specific house, but that's because I am delayed by the need to actually farm flax (this means I can't make cots early on)... and also to take advantage of the "per building" nature of building quality (gotta get that Wonderful house). Though next time I might just go for a 100%-from-the-start Middle-Class Beds strategy... though 4 cots early on is nice while waiting for your second or third (larger) flax harvests so perhaps not.


    Also, you're slightly wrong if you think I need to rebuild workshops larger (as opposed to relocating), they're all except for the kitchen as large as they need to be.


    **Getting into the idea of a strict build order etc is a bit silly as you have to deal with randomly generated areas. In this colony, the ground is pretty rough so I don't have nice rows since I can't be bothered to wait to flatten everything. Especially if I might relocate (this one won't relocate though)
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2016
  8. Rentahamster

    Rentahamster Member

    What I do in the beginning is make a bunch of foraging/clear terrain jobs all over the map, then cancel when colonists get there. This reveals much of the map, and I just start my colony closest to the iron/copper/coal.

    I also use the tip where you build a mine/mineshaft near a node to see what's in it, rather than having to wait for a naturalist.

    No, I mean in the sense that I put beds in my workshops too, whereas you do not. I need space for that :p
     
  9. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    Yes but unless you reroll, this doesn't help if there's no iron nearby.
     
  10. Rentahamster

    Rentahamster Member

    Reroll? I just start building my colony right next to where ever the iron/copper/coal is.
     
  11. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    That's why I said "nearby", if the nearest iron is a couple screens away, you'll use a lot of time to find it, level ground if needed etc etc. Though it's also the case that I think the game start gives you some magical sight radius for some distance away beyond what your colonists would be able to see normally.

    I actually wonder though about how the game assigns raw stone for mineshafts, I didn't try sweeping to see if I could get a stone mine in my colony either.
     
  12. Rentahamster

    Rentahamster Member

    I see. I figure I'll just deal with what I'm given, so I'll relocate even if it's far away. I know I stretch the rules a lot when I play games, but in this case I'll draw the line at rerolling, hehe.

    I actually want to try and build a colony up on the cliffs of Antipodea sometime. I can't do it in this one though, because of the airship mast bug.
     
  13. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    Somehow, sweeping with mineshafts seems more ridiculous than the reroll. Probably because in my mind they can remove sweeping but not rerolling.
     
  14. Tikigod

    Tikigod Member

    Meh, having distant mining operations is part of the 'fun'. :)

    Though it would be nice if distant mines didn't create isolated bubbles of 'civilisation' for colonist behaviour and then cause all sorts of idiotic colonist decision making when under threat near a mine.

    As an aside, with throwing a map out the window, you might as well then just find a good map layout condition and ask the devs to make it easier to let you only ever play on that one single map for the rest of time.... though rerolling will hopefully get slightly more meaningful once some overworld functionality is introduced so there's actually some kind of persistent tracking of old colonies that were started and then left, abandoned or destroyed, to discourage just mashing "Start new colony" until the ideal situation randomly occurs and to hope that the past colonies just poof away from existence like they never happened.

    Anyway, on the actual topic of early building focusing on workcrew on nothing but construction and then set them to only have 1 section of day off work will pretty much solve the problem of "Don't over order construction because it will appear nothing gets done as colonists jump from one construction to the next", it's also a very good means to get a workcrew trained up into construction very early on so things go much quicker, rather than just leaving construction to the random rabble to decide to do whenever they feel like it. :p
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2016
    Rentahamster likes this.
  15. Rentahamster

    Rentahamster Member

    Well, in my view, generally speaking, if I keep rerolling to get an optimal starting position, it's the same thing as if the game always giving you an optimal starting position, except with rerolling, I just wasted a lot of time.

    That's usually the approach I take to RNG games. Like FTL, for example.
     
  16. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    Actually if you look at ...Conveyor Belts it's possible, you'd just set up a metalworks to "pull" from the distant mine's stockpile. I haven't quite tried to calculate how much iron you need in order to feed a 60-meals-per-day iron oven kitchen. Im thinking it's possible to get by without too much issue. (leaning towards 3mineshafts and 3smelters in the pulling metalworks with 2 metalworkers for a medium distance).

    I think 60-meals-a-day is like means you need to output one iron part for repairs from daily to every other day. If so actually I'm just consistently overkilling (my v47 colony ended with a stack of 50 iron ingots which was the minimum order and then a stack of iron ore left lying about)


    Though then again your miners currently will walk all over the place with their ore so it's troublesome to plan when their production varies from "drop outside door like normal colonist and then mine some more" to "spend day walking with ore, then sleep time".

    As it is, even if you have the mine and metalworks right next to one another on a stockpile right next to your kitchen... your ore might end up in some other stockpile far away and the metalworks ends up "pulling" it anyway. If you only have stockpiles accepting raw material in one location, that's probably the best you can do (since it means the miner has to drop off their stuf there) but you can't avoid them taking a daytrip, the lazy chaps.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2016
  17. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    Actually I just had a good idea on how to estimate:
    Raw food production via farm (per worker, for a given overseer skill level)
    Cooked food production via kitchen (similarly)
    And repair requirements (for a given level of cooked food production)

    which I will try once I have my current v47A colony is a stable state.


    If miners start working like sane people, then you would also be able to estimate "amount mined per day" but it would depend still on the distance of mine from "the colony"
     
  18. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    version 50

    Ceramics Workshop

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    Now for the next step, Ceramics! I recommend working on this while filling up your bunkhouse. This is because your needs are mostly going to be stone-based, it fits perfectly.

    This should be near to your stockpile again, of course. I've started just using a 2x2 will do. We will cram in:

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    One stone ceramics kiln. These are built on-site. Colonists have to watch the kiln at work, but worry not, one kiln is quite enough, the real issue is getting enough clay to feed your kiln.


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    Right now, one unit ofclay will turn into 2 crates of bricks. Hopefully you have a couple surface nodes of clay nearby, have your colonists dig up 3 or so units of clay.

    Put a Minimum order of say 20 bricks to start with. Initially you might feel "I gotta get more bricks!!" but really you'll be good to go as long as you pace yourself and don't waste what you produce.

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    This is what my ceramics workshop looks like... when I am ready to start serious industrial production (ie: mining & metalworks) I will usually make a new ceramics workshop as well...

    Until you want to begin that, you don't really need a ceramics workbench. Save it for later or build it earlier if you have planks (but the carpentry is usually busy at the point this workshop is built).


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    A ceramics workbench, made in the Carpentry Workshop. It won't be used too much...

    This needs to be fitted into the building the right way. Arrange door and modules such that when a colonist enters, they are immediately facing the kiln and the workbench is on their right. This is because the Ceramics Workbench only has one access point.


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    In version 48-C these are amazing for trade. This is because the ratios are actually 1:4.
    • 1 Sand (80) -> 4 Glass Panes (150 each, 600 total)
    • 1 Glass Pane -> 4 Glass Bottles (60 each, 240 total)

    I've experimented with using a 2x3, which fits in the Ceramics Workbench and 2 Stone Ceramics Kilns. Up to you, but 1 will do just fine (as the inputs are slowly mined in the Mine)
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
  19. Alavaria

    Alavaria Member

    version 50

    Foreign Office

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    This is what we will aim for first with our precious bricks. Now there's an interesting little dynamic with the requirements...

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    Yeah, though you need 2 bricks to click the button,it only takes 1 brick to make a simple 2x3.

    As a result, I recommend laying out two foreign offices at once.


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    Modules: Standing desks at 1 plank each. Build at the Carpentry Workshop.


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    Quickly assign an overseer +1 helper. Double-check that all other jobs are disabled.

    Alternatively, you can fit in 4 Standing Desks in a 2x3, and actually have 4 people working at once...

    =============================================================

    Foreign Nations: You should see the following: one is allied, one is neutral and one is hostile. It takes another four missions to turn the hostile foreign nation to neutral.

    De-hostiling is a priority! Not only does it protect you from being attacked by their bandit-killing groups but also prevents any invasions from them. They will also send traders.

    You can't just diplomacy and then forget it, as events can occur which will decrease relations. As a result, I recommend you bump up relations with the factions more. In fact you can get special events when you hit max relationship - for me only the Republique one matters in ver50.


    Bandits: Diplomacy won't really protect you from bandit raids, it's always fight or let them take stuff (or intimidate).
    Givng in to bandits always sets them to neutral, and fighting (or failing to intimidate) always sets them to hostile.

    Later on it helps to make the bandits neutral so they will not shoot you on sight. This lets you loot their tents and take weapons off the ground with no issue. Also, successful intimidation does not move them to hostile (they just call off the attack) which is great.

    See the Military Post: Stochasic Goblins for more details about foreign attacks and bandits...
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2016
  20. Tikigod

    Tikigod Member

    man, the foreign office if it just outright disables bandit attacks like that is clearly in need of some tweaking to not be so effective.

    That's almost as bad as when you used to be able to just pick the option to be nice to fishpeople and it would completely disable hostile fishpeople events, so you could then slaughter them when they came to give you free goods for unlimited food and plus you got to keep what they brought you, and they'd never do a thing about it.