Shelves should work differently

[IceThorn]

They should hold up to 3-10 stacks ok but the more different the content the more it should take to fetch stuff from them.
Reasonment: if you've just silver in a chest it's easy to take. Bury it into tons of stuff and it's not that easy.

[schnappkatze]

I am not sure if realistic shelf management time will make the game more fun overall, but maybe there will be a mod for that someday.

[IceThorn]

Originally posted by schnappkatze:

I am not sure if realistic shelf management time will make the game more fun overall, but maybe there will be a mod for that someday.

by the announcment of 1.4 he said the game was trying to add more realistic stuff.

[Zanakain]

I think its good you can store more, but how its done is bad.
I really dislike it, the stacking should not work for shelfs, it looks weird. I nomally used shelfs to hold meals to eat in the dining room, or medicine near beds. Since you cant choose how much a shelf hold, everything is stored there now, hate it, this will make thing more annoying.

[Hykal]

After playing 1.4 for eight hours, you'd be surprised at how you get used to it.

The one thing that could probably be added is how many stacks you can fit. I totally get how one shelf holding three stacks of 10 meals is a bit wasteful, especially if you're using it for food.

[Zanakain]

Well luckily there are mods for shelves with old low stack. So its possible to make it visually pleasing in dining rooms or hospital and ban the new shelves to the warehouse. Still had hoped I dont have to use mods for something like this.
It really should be added that you can limit storage. Sometimes you only want 1 or 5 items at that place and not more.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by IceThorn:

They should hold up to 3-10 stacks ok but the more different the content the more it should take to fetch stuff from them.
Reasonment: if you've just silver in a chest it's easy to take. Bury it into tons of stuff and it's not that easy.

My understanding is that the three item limit is a compromise between having deeper storage and keeping lag down. It’s not limited as a gameplay mechanic.

Personally I’d rather have the LWM Deep storage style than the offset stacks.

[The Blind One]

I like the offset stacks visually for shelves but Deep Storage itself is much more convenient and offers more storage options combined especially with something like KanbanStockpile which allows you to limit the amount of stacks a stockpile or shelf has and it's absolutely glorious.

[XelNigma]

The deep storage mod already does this. The more varied the items the longer it takes to "sort" when sticking that shelf.

Considering how ugly the vanilla stacking is, chances are deep storage will be adapted to 1.4 all of its configuration glory.

[Morkonan]

Important note: I do agree that retrieval/stocking cost should be increased for more complex shelving with more than two stacks. Yes - I agree. (But, not for anything more in terms a capacity of more than two stacks of items per two-space shelf. One space per one stack, that's the limit.)

"Space" is a gameplay mechanic in Rimworld.

Or... well... it was. It may not be as important to Ludeon now. Unsure there, but that it is a vital gameplay mechanic the player has to deal with can not be denied.

The notion is the same as it is in many "builder" games. The gameplay space itself becomes a "resource" the player has to deal with and planning around utilizing that space is part of a seasoned players knowledge of the "rules of the game." Rewarding that knowledge is a key component of feedback and player reward. Anyone who first comes up with a max-efficiency "this is the way" colonist bedroom design can "feel" that "reward" in manipulating the rules.

"Rules" and manipulating them are important for players of a game...

So...

A shelf provides a very big bonus in its ability to preserve anything that's placed upon it without any other requirements.

It is, in that way, "game-mechanic breaking." It subverts the rules that would otherwise say "You have to build an entire room with temperature and access controls in order to do that."

Lookit:

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Shelf

Shelves are entirely "overpowered." They significantly alter the game mechanics and have... no downside? Amazing!

They're so overpowered that one would think they're only available from some player-made mod...

So, making them more overpowered is, IMO, not a good idea. It's just not necessary at all for that to be done for the base-game. But, if one wants a mod to change that, I'm all for it - Rimworld players can do whatever they want in terms of their own gameplay.

For myself, I only use them sparingly 'cause they're very OP and... kinda ugly. :)

[ichifish]

I don’t think something like a storage mechanic could be considered overpowered, especially in a game with so many interlocking mechanics and systems that it takes 100 hours before you’re even close to taking advantage of synergies.

From a difficulty perspective the new shelves make the game easier, sure, with lots of small knock on effects (less travel time) but even if they make storage 3x more effective (which they won’t unless you really micro it), it’s less of an impact than moving the difficulty slider a notch up or down, breach raids, or taking advantage of strategies like multiple colonies.

The choice between “a slightly easier game” and “more enjoyable gameplay” seems like an easy one.

As the meta develops there’s more interest in designing aesthetically pleasing bases, even for those of us who like the hardcore stuff. It’s a smart move for the dev to recognize that and adjust to it (like with tinctoria). If they want to keep the focus on story generation they need to pay attention to this stuff.

[Astasia]

Deep Storage as mentioned for people who want their haulers to stare at a shelf for an hour instead of hauling.

This mod for people who want more or less stacks per shelf or want to revert it to 1.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2872105813

I don't think it's on a per shelf basis, just a global setting for all your shelves.

Originally posted by Lornsteyn:

Since you cant choose how much a shelf hold, everything is stored there now, hate it, this will make thing more annoying.

It's barely different from how it used to work, it just saves space now. It used to be shelves held 2 stacks and took up 2 tiles, now there are single shelves that take up 1 tile and hold 3 stacks. It's not like you had single shelves in vanilla to hold a single stack where you wanted it, that has always been mods or using a normal 1x1 stockpile on the floor or a stool.

[Hykal]

One thing I dislike about Deep Storage is its hard to find the one thing in your shelves and you need to search one by one. The 1.4 shelves may be messy, but I can tell what it holds at a glance.

[Shas'O O'Kais]

One thing I sort of miss about Dwarf Fortress that Rimworld lacks is... Oh what did we call it... Quantum Stockpiles? Sometime like that?
Basically we had a means of dropping unlimited items into a single square if you set it up properly. You could store ALL those stone chunks at once. Or all those dead bodies. or all that food. All in a single square.

Maybe its not realistic, but boy did it make management easy, and depending on what you feel like on any given day, maybe thats more important.

[Zanakain]

Originally posted by Astasia:

It's barely different from how it used to work, it just saves space now. It used to be shelves held 2 stacks and took up 2 tiles, now there are single shelves that take up 1 tile and hold 3 stacks. It's not like you had single shelves in vanilla to hold a single stack where you wanted it, that has always been mods or using a normal 1x1 stockpile on the floor or a stool.

Thats not what I meant. Sure you can stil put stuff on the floor or a chair for normal stack but this looks a bit silly not really aesthetically pleasing. I use the small shelf mod now for that.
I still hope they think about a better way. Pallets like in extended storage mod would have been so much better for the new stacks than ruining the old shelfs.

[Punyrock]

Lol, maybe they can add a feature where pawns open a fridge and look around, only to close it again and get back to their day. In all seriousness though, I would not mind too much if pawns had to move items in shelves around. Might be pointless in the grand scheme of things, but interesting in terms of implementation.