The minimum viable economy for a settlement in the first week of EE

I have been working on a basis economy that works for a settlement to start off and that can be achieved quickly without relying on any hand-out.

Here is what I came up for Emerald Lodge / Fighter/Wizard settlement

Needed as they decay:
Melee weapons (Sword)
Armour (Soldiers Chainmail)
Mage Weapon (Apprentice Staff)

Gathering needed:
Miner:
Coal, Iron Ore, Lesser Vital
Forrester:
Pine log, Yew sapling
Dowser:
Antithesis Essence
Scavenger:
Beast Pelts

It took me 1 hour to scan 5 hexes around and find everything apart of yew saplings. I have seen loads of these before - so that wouldn't be a problem. You can get all of these as gatherer 1.

Bottleneck: Beast Pelts. I have only see them (or alternatives) as drops or from trash piles which seem rare and unreliable in what they offer. As such this is the one problem - reliable supply of beast pelts that I have not yet worked out.

Training needed:
Gathering 1 (or better) - cost 15 XP each
Tanner, Gemcutter, Sawyer 1 - cost 229 XP each
Sage, Artificer 2 - cost 1145 XP and you need to have made 3 crafting items
Weaponsmith, Armoursmith, Smelter 3 - cost 3205 XP each - needs 3 ranks in craft, needs some previous crafting in the class

Total of 12652 XP or 5 1/2 day of gaming

Some of it can be split between characters. So if you split this between 2 characters to also take advantage of dwarf/elf bonus you can be up and running after 3 days into EE and produce the bar necessity for yourself and your alliance.

As said - the only unsolved issue is a reliable source of hides. I haven't found yet a way to get enough of them (I talk 20-50 in one hour of gameplay if this is the only think you are after and not 2 or 3 that randomly drop)

I have not yet done this for rogue (bows) and clerics. And off course after 3 (6) days you want to improve, get better recipies etc. But I thought I share this as a bare minimum.

And this can be done by a single character in the first week or one player with 2 characters (destiny twin) in 3 days.

So what does it take to extend the minimal economy to rogues (bows) and clerics (introductory holy symbol)

The longbow is bowyer 2 - 1145 XP and 3 crafting achievements - the simplest arrows are bowyer 1.

Unfortunately yew shafts (for the simplest arrows) need a sawyer 4. Can be done - but unikely in the first 3 days. At the moment arrows are not yet needed - but there will be a rude awakening when they are needed and hardly anyone is able to produce them. So better be prepared.

The sawyer 4 adds 3 more levels on sawyer as you should be already on sawyer 1 anyhow.

The longbow needs
Yew Staff - sawyer 1 and already in the basic fighter/wizard economy
Hemp twine - a weaver 2 (1145 XP but more crucial a resource for hemp. Still looking for one but I'm told they exist)
Weak varnish - Apothecary 5 and weak acidic, weak flammable and weak adhesive

Several issues here:
Currently there is a cleric teaching in the apothecary - at least in Phoenix Pass. This is a bug that will be solved and will go away.
Weak acidic and weak flammable are readily available as far as memory serves me. Weak adhesive was a real issue to get by.

So bows need a little bit more research to make it possible in a reliable manner (where to get hem and weak adhesive) and a bug fix. And I need to check how long it takes to get to apothecary 5 and what prerequisites might be there before I give an estimate how long I feel it takes to have this working reliable.

Cleric
Right now I think the introductory holy symbol is handed out. But you have everything in the fighter/wizard economy apart of
Iconographer level 1 - 229 XP
Copper bars - haven't seen them and copper ore might need a basic miner level >1 - more research needed here
So provided you get copper ore, then this is simple as well (did find silver and gold in 7.1 - so guess it just needs the right miner skill and place)

Hemp does occur, like wool, in 'several interesting plants'. Harvested some within two hexes NW of the south central settlement in Alpha.

I was going to mention that the ability to craft bows wasn't included in your MVE recipe when they should be, but you did address that farther down.

More of a concern is weak varnish, IMO.

Why aren't beast pelts coming from beasts and not trash piles?

Why aren't beast pelts coming from beasts and not trash piles?

They're easier to skin when dead than alive?

I've got lots of copper. Think I got it out of the mountains south of Thornkeep

Why aren't beast pelts coming from beasts and not trash piles?

I don't know how treasure drops work internally - but wolfs should have a VERY high rate to drop pelts.

Unfortunately I guess the treasure drop is a global table right now and you don't want to have wolfs drop armour or other stuff.

But if it is by creature type then yes - they should drop hides/pelts as additional resource.

@Being
It has taken me about 15 minutes to scout out a hex when I tried to make notes. I haven't seen hemp anywhere close to Phoenix path doesn't mean it isn't elsewhere.
But mapping out all resources close to the later settlement will be 1-2 days work - possibly being repeated later when skills are higher. You also want to try several plants to ensure you cover uncommon resources and don't move on too fast.
I also think the tooltips are soooooo helpful in this respect. That way I was able to check in the inventory that I had gathered weak acidic (two different plants and one rarer find from rocks did qualify) as well as weak flammable (one find from rocks) and I know where to get more.

I'm still looking for a plant that can be used as weak adhesive - and then where to get it from. But at least with the tooltip I will know as soon as something new shows up in my inventory how I can use it.

...I think the introductory holy symbol is handed out.

It's the Acolyte's Battle Focus one can get from the Focus Supplier. The Introductory Holy Symbol's a drop or trade.

@Being

It has taken me about 15 minutes to scout out a hex when I tried to make notes. I haven't seen hemp anywhere close to Phoenix path doesn't mean it isn't elsewhere.
But mapping out all resources close to the later settlement will be 1-2 days work - possibly being repeated later when skills are higher. You also want to try several plants to ensure you cover uncommon resources and don't move on too fast.
I also think the tooltips are soooooo helpful in this respect. That way I was able to check in the inventory that I had gathered weak acidic (two different plants and one rarer find from rocks did qualify) as well as weak flammable (one find from rocks) and I know where to get more.

I'm still looking for a plant that can be used as weak adhesive - and then where to get it from. But at least with the tooltip I will know as soon as something new shows up in my inventory how I can use it.

Part of my thought was that Stephen has said there would be imbalances in resource distribution which will promote trade geographically. My preference is that those imbalances should be predictable just looking at the map, the same way we know there is more ore in a mountain hex than in a swamp hex.

I think it should be a high priority to determine what can be expected to be available in which landscape.

To make a determination or even to check whether the idea that we could do so has merit we need to heavily sample specific terrain types and compare to see whether the samples corroborate, or are they more random than I presume?

Copper bars - haven't seen them and copper ore might need a basic miner level >1 - more research needed here

So provided you get copper ore, then this is simple as well (did find silver and gold in 7.1 - so guess it just needs the right miner skill and place)

Copper bars are a common smelter 2 recipe. They need only copper ore, which can be found in the entire mountain range sw of Thornkeep easily (first time I tried that was with a dwarf miner 3, no problem there)

My preference is that those imbalances should be predictable just looking at the map, the same way we know there is more ore in a mountain hex than in a swamp hex.

I think we're looking at a design that has at least a couple of layers, and that's the first: some things we'll know from terrain-type. The second layer's going to be pure investigation, such as whether the wood-piles in a hex drop pine or yew.

We'll know it's a woodland hex, so we won't send the miners there in force, but we'll have to ask the wood-cutters for their reports when they come home, and use what they've learned to plan the next expedition.

My observations seem to support that the same interesting plants yield yew or pine depending on your forestry skill. Anyone have a different result?

...yew or pine depending on your forestry skill.

Aha, I'd missed that. I remembered only the reports from earlier in Alpha of folks seeming to get only one from a given hex, and the other from another; I'd not thought of the variable of gathering-skill.

I don't know how it works but it would be strange if a higher skill prevents you from finding a type of resource.

My observations seem to support that the same interesting plants yield yew or pine depending on your forestry skill. Anyone have a different result?

I have found it to be regional. I kept getting yew so I ran out to the area where pine was in the original Alpha and found pine a plenty. No change in skill.

Good info. Thanks!

I figure we're getting pelts from scavenging as a representation of trap lines and other harvesting. They are readily available, outside of mountains. More common in open hexes.

Thod wrote:

Copper bars - haven't seen them and copper ore might need a basic miner level >1 - more research needed here

So provided you get copper ore, then this is simple as well (did find silver and gold in 7.1 - so guess it just needs the right miner skill and place)

Copper bars are a common smelter 2 recipe. They need only copper ore, which can be found in the entire mountain range sw of Thornkeep easily (first time I tried that was with a dwarf miner 3, no problem there)

Thanks for the information. I will send an expedition out. In 7.1 I found silver and gold but never copper. But as someone observed higher up - resources are bound to the hex you gather in (not sure about scrap heaps - but everything else).

I assumed that you can get copper easily enough - just not where and how good the miner needs to be.

All your scrap heaps are belong to us.