I would really appreciate some feedback on where to go from here.
It crossed my mind after posting this mod that people probably mostly use fertilizer to make explosives, not in their gardening/farming. Personally, I don't make explosives much. My primary need for fertilizer has been in making planters, which isn't even in vanilla it's from another mod. Obviously it doesn't make a lot of sense to use ash from burned books to make explosives. So, I am thinking to further develop this mod and take it in a bit of a different direction.
I am still thinking to have the paper based items burned at the fire, but instead of resulting in fertilizer, it would actually result in ash, which would be a new item.
What I need feedback on is what could I have ash used for that would make it worth the trouble for the player to haul back the books and comics etc. and go through the trouble of burning them to obtain the ash?
Thanks for the suggestion! It's a cool idea, though I think armor mods in general are going to be a no go for this. To do that I would need to either make a new mod with ash as an ingredient that adds stealth, but then it would compete with other mods like shadowed, pocketed, etc, for the armor's mod slot. Or, I could add an additional mod slot to all armors that accepts the new ash based mod and it can be put in addition to all other mods but then I'm going to run into compatibility considerations with all the other armor mods out there. It's just too far out of scope for this mod I'm thinking.
The face paint idea would be a bit easier in that I could make a stand alone invisible mask to represent the face paint that would increase stealth. The trouble there is you would use your ash to make the "face paint" mask, you would have it, then you wouldn't ever need ash again.
Ideally I would like to work it into something consumable or that you always need to be making. It could even be an alternate recipe for something, or several things. As a completely made up example:
You can normally make Mentats with Lead, Brain Fungus, and Abraxo. Now you can make Mentats like that OR you can make it with Lead, Brain Fungus, and Ash. Now you have an alternative if you are short on Abraxo.
That was a totally made up example but one type of possibility. It could even be multi-step. Something like, you can make lye using purified water and ash, then you can use lye and something to make... something else.
Using ash in alternative recipes to craft things that you can already craft, but have it give you an alternative way to make it is probably the more straightforward solution.
Nice mod! I'd stopped collecting books and folders, and had to resort to the console to get rid of the ones in my inventory. Nice to have a use for them, instead.
Just FWIW, paper money in the U.S. is actually more cloth than paper, mostly cotton. (Some other countries also add plastic.) Of course, if you were to burn cash IRL you would still get ash.
Also want to echo the comment about NX Pro, definitely coordinate with them if you get the chance. I'd be happier with only one ash resource in my game, not two.
Thanks, I went over and checked that mod out. They do it right as far as ash to amend compost as fertilizer for the garden. It would be easy to make ash created with this mod to be usable by that mod as an alternative to making it with their ash recipe. I will send them a note to see if we can make that happen if they do return.
Also, I've been looking into it and one of the main old time uses of ash is in making lye for soaps and cleaners. I'm considering also putting in a recipe that lets you make Abraxo from ash and purified water. This way you can turn burnt books and the like into an alternate, limited source of Abraxo which is used in a bunch of chems as well as if you use any of those cleaning old things mods like doing dishes or laundry day.
You could also sell it to merchants. The down side is you could also turn around and scrap it for Antiseptic (which does make sense), fiberglass, and acid, which doesn't make sense since lye is a strong base.
Although, I'm probably going to just make myself crazy by overthinking it too much.
I think this is a great idea. However I think you should take it a step further. The ash should be an ingredient to be used in a recipe for Fertilizer and soap. Laundry detergent, Ash and maybe some organic food items for fertilizer. laundry detergent (not Abraxo) for Phosphate which was common in old style laundry detergents. Ash as an ingredient in soap: So Ash, Lye or its equivalent and Fat (perhaps from Brahmin meat) should do the trick and I'm sure there are other possibilities. The real problem though is (like so many other things in this game) there is no real world connection. We have fertilizer in this game but it has nothing to do with planting crops. We have fuel in this game but Diesel/Gas generators require no fuel. So in order for this to be useful a real world connection must be made. In other words Crops when planted require fertilizer.
I think fertilizer was a pretty good choice. I've thought about it many times myself and haven't come up with anything better. Paper = cloth always bothers me. Adding a scrap component = paper seems like the best idea. That's been done in another mod, btw. IDK why Beth didn't just do that.
You already mentioned lye and soap, which is about all I can think of. Ash is good for some soils as a soil amendment, so fertilizer makes sense. It's a very good insect barrier too, but I doubt it would work on radscorpions, let alone giant flying bugs. Creosote isn't exactly ash, but it's got some uses - none come to mind for the game though.
I think problem is, ash just isn't that useful. I doubt you could sell ash to merchants. IRL you have to pay to have it hauled away.
Obviously books and paper stuff could be used as fuel. IDK how you'd use that in game though. I guess you could call it bio-diesel, but it's quite a stretch to extract useful quantities of oil from a 200 yr old burned book. Or you could say it was wood; after all it is a wood product. It's better than scrapping into cloth, imho.
After much consideration and contemplation, the solution I came up with in my game was to make books and paper scrap into - nothing! Works perfectly, very immersive. I see 200yr old burnt books and I say "that's worthless," and move along. Completely realistic.
I had a possibly better idea, but not for books or ash. A new component = chemicals. Good old chemicals. You can make chemicals out of just about anything, and make just about anything out of chemicals. It would fit nicely into the retro-future fallout world. While we're at it, a kid's chemistry set would be a cool new item. (Man, I'm just giving away my mod ideas today. Anyone's welcome to them.)
I think that for now I'm going to avoid over complicating things and leave it as it is, producing fertilizer.
In my own game I actually went a bit further with it, where burning the books or wood produces ash, then ash can be composted with various fruits and veggies to create soil amendment, then one soil amendment is required to plant all crops. The idea being that the wasteland soil has become barren and acidic and needs to be amended to grow good crops in.
I'm not sure I will publish that version though, as there might not be much interest. It makes farming more involved and require a lot more work.
Give Feedback
14 comments
It crossed my mind after posting this mod that people probably mostly use fertilizer to make explosives, not in their gardening/farming. Personally, I don't make explosives much. My primary need for fertilizer has been in making planters, which isn't even in vanilla it's from another mod. Obviously it doesn't make a lot of sense to use ash from burned books to make explosives. So, I am thinking to further develop this mod and take it in a bit of a different direction.
I am still thinking to have the paper based items burned at the fire, but instead of resulting in fertilizer, it would actually result in ash, which would be a new item.
What I need feedback on is what could I have ash used for that would make it worth the trouble for the player to haul back the books and comics etc. and go through the trouble of burning them to obtain the ash?
The face paint idea would be a bit easier in that I could make a stand alone invisible mask to represent the face paint that would increase stealth. The trouble there is you would use your ash to make the "face paint" mask, you would have it, then you wouldn't ever need ash again.
Ideally I would like to work it into something consumable or that you always need to be making. It could even be an alternate recipe for something, or several things. As a completely made up example:
You can normally make Mentats with Lead, Brain Fungus, and Abraxo. Now you can make Mentats like that OR you can make it with Lead, Brain Fungus, and Ash. Now you have an alternative if you are short on Abraxo.
That was a totally made up example but one type of possibility. It could even be multi-step. Something like, you can make lye using purified water and ash, then you can use lye and something to make... something else.
Using ash in alternative recipes to craft things that you can already craft, but have it give you an alternative way to make it is probably the more straightforward solution.
Just FWIW, paper money in the U.S. is actually more cloth than paper, mostly cotton. (Some other countries also add plastic.) Of course, if you were to burn cash IRL you would still get ash.
Also want to echo the comment about NX Pro, definitely coordinate with them if you get the chance. I'd be happier with only one ash resource in my game, not two.
Sadly the mod has been inactive for a while. The Authors did mention in a sticky that they planned on coming back.Maybe shoot them a message?
Just a thought that maybe the two mods could work together.
Also, I've been looking into it and one of the main old time uses of ash is in making lye for soaps and cleaners. I'm considering also putting in a recipe that lets you make Abraxo from ash and purified water. This way you can turn burnt books and the like into an alternate, limited source of Abraxo which is used in a bunch of chems as well as if you use any of those cleaning old things mods like doing dishes or laundry day.
You could also sell it to merchants. The down side is you could also turn around and scrap it for Antiseptic (which does make sense), fiberglass, and acid, which doesn't make sense since lye is a strong base.
Although, I'm probably going to just make myself crazy by overthinking it too much.
The real problem though is (like so many other things in this game) there is no real world connection. We have fertilizer in this game but it has nothing to do with planting crops. We have fuel in this game but Diesel/Gas generators require no fuel. So in order for this to be useful a real world connection must be made. In other words Crops when planted require fertilizer.
I think fertilizer was a pretty good choice. I've thought about it many times myself and haven't come up with anything better. Paper = cloth always bothers me. Adding a scrap component = paper seems like the best idea. That's been done in another mod, btw. IDK why Beth didn't just do that.
You already mentioned lye and soap, which is about all I can think of. Ash is good for some soils as a soil amendment, so fertilizer makes sense. It's a very good insect barrier too, but I doubt it would work on radscorpions, let alone giant flying bugs. Creosote isn't exactly ash, but it's got some uses - none come to mind for the game though.
I think problem is, ash just isn't that useful. I doubt you could sell ash to merchants. IRL you have to pay to have it hauled away.
Obviously books and paper stuff could be used as fuel. IDK how you'd use that in game though. I guess you could call it bio-diesel, but it's quite a stretch to extract useful quantities of oil from a 200 yr old burned book. Or you could say it was wood; after all it is a wood product. It's better than scrapping into cloth, imho.
After much consideration and contemplation, the solution I came up with in my game was to make books and paper scrap into - nothing! Works perfectly, very immersive. I see 200yr old burnt books and I say "that's worthless," and move along. Completely realistic.
I had a possibly better idea, but not for books or ash. A new component = chemicals. Good old chemicals. You can make chemicals out of just about anything, and make just about anything out of chemicals. It would fit nicely into the retro-future fallout world. While we're at it, a kid's chemistry set would be a cool new item. (Man, I'm just giving away my mod ideas today. Anyone's welcome to them.)
Hope that was helpful lol.
I think that for now I'm going to avoid over complicating things and leave it as it is, producing fertilizer.
In my own game I actually went a bit further with it, where burning the books or wood produces ash, then ash can be composted with various fruits and veggies to create soil amendment, then one soil amendment is required to plant all crops. The idea being that the wasteland soil has become barren and acidic and needs to be amended to grow good crops in.
I'm not sure I will publish that version though, as there might not be much interest. It makes farming more involved and require a lot more work.