Stables and their storage slots

[VanguardMk1]

Could the stables be edited so they have a few specific water and straw slots? It makes no sense to me that I'd have to use haystacks to store straw while stables could hold plenty of it too and keep it in good condition for far longer. That would also help during winter, because your people don't need to deliver 1-3 straw to these buildings every few seconds. Water doesn't last as long, but with the 2.5x storage duration of the Stone Stables, it would be more than enough to last the winter.

[korac]

Stables are not barns, nor were they intended to be. They are for housing animals in winter, not for storage. If the decay rate on haystacks bugs you too much, you can build your own 'barn' near the stables using a storage hut / warehouse set to materials only and simply don't provide any haystacks. Assuming your stables aren't miles away from your fields, you'd be surprised how much straw will end up in the 'barn'.

More to the point though, the system as it stands requires your people to care for and nurture their animals through the winter, thereby setting a limit on the maximum feasible herd size in a realistic fashion (as opposed to, say, just limiting the number of stables you can build), leaving you to decide just how far to take things given your current population size. This is surely better than imposing unrealistic limitations, such as x-number of stables.

[yennefa]

This is all fine and well, but if the stable has around ten slots (cannot remember exactly now) and all it holds is three straw and water at a time, while housing 10 to 15 animals.. it does kind of bug me. Why does it display ten slots in the first place and why does one slot only hold 3 items instead of the usual ten it holds in every other place in the game?

At least make it so (directed towards the developer) that each animal has one of each (water and feed) slot and then it has to be refilled if its empty and the animal is hungry. A stable housing animals usually has the capacity to feed animals in their separate stalls, if you are not comfortable with the idea of a barn.

And on another note, what else bugs me is the chaotic way things are stored away. There is no sense to how people are storing things (other than it being the closests building/free slot) and it uses up a lot of slots with single items, instead of stacking slots to the full 10 units of a certain material, for example. Instead lots of stuff (food) is decaying in houses faster or - as stated - taking up room that could be otherwise used. Even when they have nothing else to do, they do not tidy up storages and sort things out. And there is no button or option to do it manually. If I "throw out" items from a storage space, they will just immediately put it back in the same place instead of taking it to the other slot in the next building to fill it up with already existing units of the same item.

I don't know if that has been discussed already, I just think about it every time I play because it annoys me quite a lot. If I want to have an overview of things I always have to look it up in menues or click through buildings, instead of having greater control what is stored where and being able to sort and stockpile. (I also always wanted separate stables for different animal types and them not mixing..) Yes, I have mild OCD.

[VanguardMk1]

Originally posted by Salty:

This is all fine and well, but if the stable has around ten slots (cannot remember exactly now) and all it holds is three straw and water at a time, while housing 10 to 15 animals.. it does kind of bug me. Why does it display ten slots in the first place and why does one slot only hold 3 items instead of the usual ten it holds in every other place in the game?

At least make it so (directed towards the developer) that each animal has one of each (water and feed) slot and then it has to be refilled if its empty and the animal is hungry. A stable housing animals usually has the capacity to feed animals in their separate stalls, if you are not comfortable with the idea of a barn.

And on another note, what else bugs me is the chaotic way things are stored away. There is no sense to how people are storing things (other than it being the closests building/free slot) and it uses up a lot of slots with single items, instead of stacking slots to the full 10 units of a certain material, for example. Instead lots of stuff (food) is decaying in houses faster or - as stated - taking up room that could be otherwise used. Even when they have nothing else to do, they do not tidy up storages and sort things out. And there is no button or option to do it manually. If I "throw out" items from a storage space, they will just immediately put it back in the same place instead of taking it to the other slot in the next building to fill it up with already existing units of the same item.

I don't know if that has been discussed already, I just think about it every time I play because it annoys me quite a lot. If I want to have an overview of things I always have to look it up in menues or click through buildings, instead of having greater control what is stored where and being able to sort and stockpile. (I also always wanted separate stables for different animal types and them not mixing..) Yes, I have mild OCD.

Exactly, why does it have so many slots if only 5 items at a time are stored in it? They usually disappear instantly because there's always a few hungry and thirsty animals inside.

Houses should have the storage options too, I don't want to store food in there because it doesn't last as long as in a staddle granary.

[korac]

Originally posted by Salty:

Why does it display ten slots in the first place and why does one slot only hold 3 items instead of the usual ten it holds in every other place in the game?

A fair point. I suspect it was a lack of adequate communication between the art-design guy and the coding guy, or maybe they just didn't foresee that it would actually give a mistaken impression and lead to this subject being raised anew every week or three... It could do with a tweak for that reason alone.

Originally posted by Salty:

If I "throw out" items from a storage space, they will just immediately put it back in the same place instead of taking it to the other slot in the next building to fill it up with already existing units of the same item.

FWIW, the more dedicated storage tents / huts you have (e.g. one for tools, one for materials, etc.) the more inclined your people seem to be to use them for the purpose intended - even when throwing stuff out of their huts (provided they don't have to walk too far to do so!). With the forthcoming v1.6 you will also be able to grab the offending person and deliberately point them to the correct storage spot... That should help my OCD, too. :)