How are some materials "better"?

[Farrowmorne]

I understand the logic behind making food storages colder, but I do not understand why your rooms are less efficient or less good when made with brownstone walls/floors and iron stations. Does making an igneo-copper furnace/forge output more or better results? Does having a hotter room affect anything for production? Does anything of the sort apply for the handicraft station/timber station/stonework? Can timber, brownstone, and iron really be considered "low tier"? What does "high tier" even change? What makes some materials better than others besides the preconcieved notion that rarer is better?
Do I want certain workshops to be certain elements, and will my workshops have a tier assigned to them, and will all of this effect the output?

None of this was explained in any guides or discussions I saw.

Basically, what I'm asking is why exactly my [iron node and brownstone room] would be worse than a [igneo copper room with an earth node].

Should I have water element (ice) around my fields to promote growth? Does it work like that?

[Farrowmorne]

All the guides say that brownstone and iron are just what you have to put up with, and that you should change it as soon as you can, but never explain why

[SDSkinner2011]

I can't answer for quality, but for the rest...

Feng shui means you need a primary element and the correct supporting element. (stone) supports (metal) which is why people recommend brownstone and iron stations.

The reason this is chosen over other combinations is that (water) drops temperature and (fire) raises temperature which means any other combination can lead to disciplines being frozen or cooked. So for early starting setups you spam brownstone and iron for everything.

(water) does not promote growth. If you put your fields inside a room it allows you to drop the temperature. This is not usually needed; the reverse (raising temperature with (fire) in the winter) is more common.

[kasnavada]

Basically, what I'm asking is why exactly my [iron node and brownstone room] would be worse than a [igneo copper room with an earth node].

=> From what I've been able to test in game, they have "more" elements.

For example, I've been able to make a room with iron stuff "auspicious" with brownstone, and when I replaced the supporting items made of brownstone by supporting items made of marble, it became "very auspicious". I suspect it's the same effect everywhere.

[GGLoner]

Originally posted by Farrowmorne:

Basically, what I'm asking is why exactly my [iron node and brownstone room] would be worse than a [igneo copper room with an earth node].

My guess is this is partly due to the 'default' floor's element. If you check the feng shui of an area you haven't build anything, you'll see :

Wet Earth = 1/3 Water
Soil = 2/3 Earth
Fertile Soil = 1/3 Earth 1/3 Wood
Rocky Terrain = 4/5 Metal
etc

If I'm not wrong, flooring either has no effect or very little effect. Which is why when the weather changes the soil (e.g. Drought), your Feng Shui can change quite a bit because the 'floor' element has changed.

Also I believe the tier of materials might affect the strength of feng shui influence but I might be wrong on that.

[Crimson Bolt]

So floors replace (though not 100%) the element of the ground tile with whatever it is.

As for the actual question the main issue with brownstone and iron is that it has a low attractivenes score. This can make disciples unhappy as well as inner disciples will not get a "cozy" bonus when practicing.

Otherwise they are cheap, efficient, and easy to maximize the feng shui of rooms.

The issue with things like cold or hot rooms is that they will cause your disciples to have bad moods if they can't tolerate it and in the worst case scenarios they will give them frostbite/heatstroke damage.

This is why you build a ton of bedrooms and what not with just iron and brownstone and then you make the actual cultivation rooms with the highest quality materials you have.

[Kasa]

also certain items have default elements attached to them no matter what you make them out of.

Forges and furnaces have fire element so it's best to make them out of earth materials since it will feed into itself.

Wells have a water element so make them out of wood to feed into itself

A neat trick is to have wooden wells and wood chopping station next to each other so that they will feed into each other.

here is a guide to Feng shui:
https://docs.google.com/document/u/2/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7BV9Pyt4TVv56U7fVAJaPYQAvbHzRJ6uyX-mxbE8fPceI9yFd5pT6kuWfOan-5YmYOLBKMnAiia4C/pub#h.n564h3psmwtk

[igoyeb]

Originally posted by Kasa:

also certain items have default elements attached to them no matter what you make them out of.

Forges and furnaces have fire element so it's best to make them out of earth materials since it will feed into itself.

Wells have a water element so make them out of wood to feed into itself

A neat trick is to have wooden wells and wood chopping station next to each other so that they will feed into each other.

here is a guide to Feng shui:
https://docs.google.com/document/u/2/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7BV9Pyt4TVv56U7fVAJaPYQAvbHzRJ6uyX-mxbE8fPceI9yFd5pT6kuWfOan-5YmYOLBKMnAiia4C/pub#h.n564h3psmwtk

Thank you so much for this. I've been looking for this sort of guide, but google failed me.

[Kasa]

np, join the discord. We have a help channel.