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Northern Tetra

54 (50%)

Southern Tetra

16 (14.8%)

Zaldor

16 (14.8%)

Error

14 (13%)

Other

8 (7.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Android]

So one guy send me a message, kindly worded at at, asking me to become his vassal. Now, I doubt I could stop him if he came and subjugated me by force but, should I just give in and do it or refuse?

[Zazmio]

So one guy send me a message, kindly worded at at, asking me to become his vassal. Now, I doubt I could stop him if he came and subjugated me by force but, should I just give in and do it or refuse?

Do you like this guy?  I'll never willingly become vassal to someone I dislike.

Are you in a part of the world that is considered to be a major power's territory?  If so, it will be difficult for you to remain independent.

If you want to remain independent, some bay12 folks with powerful armies might be willing to back you up.  Are you on the discord channel?

[Folly]

So one guy send me a message, kindly worded at at, asking me to become his vassal. Now, I doubt I could stop him if he came and subjugated me by force but, should I just give in and do it or refuse?

If the terms are reasonable, you should probably bend the knee.
If he demands excessive taxes, you could plea your case to other military powers in the region, requesting aid. Most larger powers support the causes of peace and fairness, and will gladly assist those who are being abused.

[AlStar]

So, I'm running the numbers - why does anyone make charcoal? I mean, I guess there must be someone with a giant beech forest just begging to be turned into high-quality charcoal out there somewhere; but for me, I can turn 100 kg of 74% pine (valued at roughly 4,700), into 10,000 kg of 50% charcoal (valued at 2,300).

[Urist McScoopbeard]

mostly for the bonus to certain goods.

[AlStar]

mostly for the bonus to certain goods.

Well sure, that's a great reason why you'd want to buy charcoal from someone else - that's what I do. I'm just wondering who's making it in the first place, since the price/ton just doesn't seem to support such an effort.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

wouldn't you rather just produce it yourself?

[Folly]

He just explained, showed his math and everything, exactly why he would not rather just produce it himself.

As for why other people produce charcoal, presumably they have access to cheaper wood.

[Mini]

Or have poor economic sense and don't consider just selling the wood.

[Folly]

That's also possible...but he mentioned good quality Pine in his area was valued at 47/m³. In my area, good pine is currently 17/m³, and I've seen it go as low as 7/m³ before the market reset.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

He just explained, showed his math and everything, exactly why he would not rather just produce it himself.

As for why other people produce charcoal, presumably they have access to cheaper wood.

No, he explained how he could turn good wood into shit charcoal. You can turn good wood--and can produce better wood than 74%--into much better charcoal without spending a dime outside of tool and startup costs. Just sayin'.

Why would you actually produce charcoal, it matters for tool/weapon quality I believe and frankly there's something very freeing about being able to produce all your own stuff. Sell the excess, etc. among other reasons I'm sure.

[AlStar]

I think pine (which is what I'm mostly surrounded by) is just a poor wood to work with for this purpose - it's got a mere +5 bonus to charcoal, and even at 74% you're not even up to the +10 that a mid-tier wood would get you.

I was using a trained charcoal burner with good tools, but even that can't overcome the intrinsic crappiness of turning pine into charcoal. If I had bunch of ash, oak, or beech, I think it'd make a lot more sense.

edit: Something I find hilarious is that a possible option for charcoal making is tannin. Not only is tannin required for leather making, and eternally maxed out in price/not available in the market, but you'd somehow need to find 50,000 units of the stuff to make charcoal - with no bonus. Cork, which also needs 50,000 units, is equally laughable as a choice.

[Zazmio]

I'm not sure, but I think if you buy very high quality beech, and use a good charcoal maker, you can make charcoal that is high enough quality to make a profit.  Using lower quality or any other wood is probably not worthwhile.

If you're on an island and don't have access to Tetran market, you might be forced to use shit wood to make charcoal, though.

I think there's a glut of mediocre quality stuff, and it's probably more profitable to sell their components than to make the stuff.  For mediocre charcoal, it's probably more profitable just to sell the wood than to make charcoal.  Also, for many mediocre tools, you might make more just selling the iron and wood/charcoal that you'd use to make them.

[Zazmio]

edit: Something I find hilarious is that a possible option for charcoal making is tannin. Not only is tannin required for leather making, and eternally maxed out in price/not available in the market, but you'd somehow need to find 50,000 units of the stuff to make charcoal - with no bonus. Cork, which also needs 50,000 units, is equally laughable as a choice.

Some things have such a ridiculously low max price that it's not worthwhile to produce a surplus to sell.  Supposedly, the max price is there to "control inflation and help out the new player."  If you try to point out, on the forum, that it doesn't actually help new players when there are things no one will bother selling because it's not profitable, you get told, "stop whining," "just deal with it."

[Folly]

Why would you actually produce charcoal, it matters for tool/weapon quality I believe...

Fuel has extremely low weight on tools and weapons. Fuel only really matters for bricks and glass and other building materials.

...and frankly there's something very freeing about being able to produce all your own stuff. Sell the excess, etc. among other reasons I'm sure.

If by 'freeing' you mean that you get to spend far more time, and therefore money, producing various subcomponents that you could far more quickly and therefore cheaply buy from other players on the market, then yeah, totally freeing.