6.15 Production
Production is the act of processing raw resources obtained through various methods (see HELP AGRICULTURE) and turning those items into usable commodities. The first stop for you as an individual getting involved in Production is the local warehouse. Each of the four cities has one, and they can be found at the following locations:
Bloodloch: v66546
Duiran: v66547
Enorian: v66545
Spinesreach: v66548
You can also PATH FIND WAREHOUSE while within a city to easily locate its warehouse.
Getting resources to the warehouse
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You must first obtain raw resources in some way, generally through one of the methods outlined in HELP AGRICULTURE. These raw resources can then be shipped to one of the city warehouses via caravan (see the caravan section below), and it will be delivered into your warehouse storage at that city upon arrival. Once in the warehouse, items will begin to accrue a holding tax so don't delay on making use of them.
What counts as a raw resource?
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Right now, the only raw resources available are through Farming or Mining. They are:
- hemp (turns into rope)
- cotton (turns into cloth)
- cow hide (turns into leather)
- wheat
- trunks (turns into wood)
- gold ore
- silver ore
- iron ore
- lignite coal
- bituminous coal
I have raw resources in my warehouse, now what?
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You can send the resources to the appropriate production facility in the warehouse's city. The production facility will take some time, and gold, and turn your raw resources into processed commodities before sending them back to your warehouse. Raw resources that have been sent from the warehouse to a production facility will not accrue holding tax, but the processed commodities will do so when they have been sent back to the warehouse.
Great, I've processed resources into commodities. What can I do with them?
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There's a few options:
1) Leave them in the warehouse until you need them. This will cost you a holding tax, but the warehouse can hold an unlimited quantity of your commodities.
2) Sell them to a city. There should hopefully be a city willing to buy a commodity at their commodity shop. Or, you could sell them in a shop or on the market.
3) Use them in crafting and other such things that require commodities.
You keep mentioning holding tax. What is it?
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Holding tax is a fee charged every Aetolian day (four real life hours) for each item you have stored in the warehouse. This fee is drawn directly from your bank account in the warehouse's city, but if your bank account doesn't have enough to cover it you will instead accrue debt. Any outstanding debt on items in the warehouse will prevent you from using those items in any way (withdrawing, processing).
Holding tax is charged at 0.50 gold per raw resource per Aetolian day, and is always rounded up (so if you have just 1 resource, it'll be rounded up to 1 gold). Processed commodities will accrue a higher tax of 1 gold per commodity per Aetolian day. This is the baseline, and actual tax may be lower depending on if the warehouse's city has the specific research perk activated.
The gold spent on holding tax is given to warehouse employees and maintenance fees - the city receives none of it as profit.
Warehouse Command overview
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WAREHOUSE SUMMARY
Can be done anywhere. Shows you a summary of total resources/commodities stored at each warehouse, the amount of gold per Aetolian day they're costing you, and how much gold debt you currently owe, if any.
WAREHOUSE SHOW [<city>]
Can be done anywhere. If no city is supplied, it will show the warehouse you're standing in. This command will give you a full breakdown of the commodities you have stored at a warehouse.
WAREHOUSE LOG
Can be done anywhere. Review a log of recent activity you have had across all warehouses.
WAREHOUSE PROCESS <amount> <raw resource>
Must be done at a warehouse. This will send the specified amount of raw resources from the warehouse to the appropriate production facility, and enter them into the queue. Gold will be deducted from your bank account when your item comes up in the queue, so be sure to view the production info for that facility beforehand to see how much it will cost you so you can ensure your bank account has the funds to cover it.
The taxes you will be charged for processing will always be whatever it was set to at the time you ran this command, even if the city changes the tax amount while your items are in the queue.
Refer to the section on processing for more information.
WAREHOUSE WITHDRAW <amount> <item>
Must be done at a warehouse. Withdraw the specified amount of an item from this warehouse. Be warned, you cannot return them to the warehouse once they have been taken out.
WAREHOUSE PAY OWED <item>
Must be done at a warehouse. Pay any outstanding gold owed upon the specified item at this warehouse, the gold will be taken directly from your inventory.
**NOTE: You cannot process raw resources while owing an outstanding fee. This must be paid before processing can begin. **
WAREHOUSE CLAIM <bag>
Claim a bag of pillaged goods for yourself, depositing the item into the warehouse.
WAREHOUSE EXCHANGE TICKET FOR <commodity>
If you have a commodity ticket, obtained from undertaking a quest at a production facility, you can exchange it for 15 of a commodity of your choice.
How does processing work?
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A single operation is considered to be the time it takes to convert one batch of raw resources to their commodity. For example, if the facility converts 1 trunk to 12 wood, that is considered a single operation.
The facility processes orders on a round-robin basis, i.e. it will complete a single operation from the topmost order in a queue and then push that order to the bottom of the queue. The facility will only process a single operation at a time unless there are apprentices hired. Each apprentice will process the next order operation in the queue in parallel to the other operations, but at a speed that is 50% slower. When the main operation finishes, it will overtake an apprentice's operation if there is one. When you send your raw resources to a production facility, it will be added to the end of the queue to await its turn.
You will be charged a gold fee that the city can determine for each operation - this gold will be given to the city as profit. The gold will be taken directly out of your bank account with that city when an operation for your order begins processing. If you don't have enough gold in your bank account to cover the fee, your leftover raw resources will be returned early to the warehouse. Otherwise, processed commodities will be sent back to your warehouse as their operation is completed. For example, if you have an order for 50 trunks, each operation that is completed from that order will send the wood commodities to your warehouse as they are finished in a steady trickle.
Your order can also be returned early if you don't have enough raw resources left in your order to convert to a processed commodity. For example, you might need 14 cotton to make 10 cloth, you send in an order of 20 cotton and will get 10 cloth and 6 cotton back.
The amount of processed commodities you will get from this process depends on the facility's level. A higher facility level will have a better yield. You can check tax info, raw:processed conversion ratio, and the time it takes to complete an operation while standing in the production facility's main room and checking its info. Refer to commands in the below section.
Productivity and weekly quests
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If a facility has any stored productivity, it allows the facility to complete a single operation instantly per point of productivity. Productivity can be accrued at a facility by speaking to facility's main worker and undertaking a quest to help them.
This quest can only be done once per real-life week (check COOLDOWNS QUESTS after completion), and this cooldown is shared across all the facilities. i.e. if I do the Clothier's quest that week, I can't do that Lumber Mill's.
Upon completion, the facility will gain productivity points and you will be rewarded with a commodity ticket. You can exchange this commodity ticket at the city warehouse for 15 of a commodity of your choice.
Production facility commands
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Most production commands are in control of the Ministry of Development, and will be covered in that ministry's HELP DEVELOPMENT file. The following commands, however, can be done by anybody.
CITY PRODUCTION LIST
Lists each production facility for the city you are standing in, or your city if you aren't standing within another city. Tells you their location and current status.
CITY PRODUCTION INFO
This can only be done while standing in the main room of a production facility, and outputs something similar to this:
--- THE LUMBER MILL OF ESTERPORT ---------------------------
Level: 3 TPI: 35m 2s
Apprentices: 0/3 Productivity: 0
Trunk Tax: 90 gp per item.
The lumber mill will convert 1 trunk to 11 pieces of wood.
--- PRODUCTION QUEUE ---------------------------------------
Pos. Item ETA Owner
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1. 0/3 Trunks 55m 41s >>> You
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Total time remaining: 55m 41s
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Level - current level of the production facility
TPI - Time per item/operation, i.e. time to complete a single conversion of raw:processed
Apprentices - additional apprentices the facility has hired
Productivity - how much stored productivity this facility has
Taxes - the amount of gold you will pay per operation
The production queue will list each item that is awaiting processing, and the estimated time it would take to complete their batch. Only the Ministry of Development can see the owner names of each item in the queue, though you always be able to tell which items belong to you.
Caravan deliveries
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Raw resources must be shipped to a city's warehouse via a caravan, the way in which you do this will be determined by the specific agriculture skill. Refer to the agriculture skill's AB files for more information.
A caravan will depart its origin point to its destination city only once every 48-72 hours, the Ministry of Trade at the destination city can look up the exact departure time. If the caravan is blockaded (HELP WAR), it will fail to depart and try again in 8-12 hours. The Ministry of Trade can also order a caravan to depart immediately, at a cost, so long as there is no blockade.
The caravan will travel room-by-room at a slow pace (roughly two minutes per room) after departure until it reaches its destination, and is vulnerable to pillaging this time. Pillagers can kill the guards escorting a caravan and once it no longer has any guards, they can PILLAGE CARAVAN as a channeled action to steal one raw resource from its shipment. The guards will yell for help on their city channel when initially attacked, and the city can send defenders to stop the would-be pillagers.
A successful PILLAGE action will give you a bag of pillaged goods. This bag cannot be given away, counts as a 'heavy' item meaning it will slow your movements, and will fall from your inventory if you die. A pillager can take this bag back to their local warehouse and use the WAREHOUSE CLAIM syntax to deposit the resource it contains into the warehouse under their name. A defender who recovers a pillaged bag can instead PUT BAG IN CARAVAN before the caravan finishes its route in order to restore the resource to its rightful owner.
Once 15% (or 10% with the Riposte perk) of the caravan's total load has been lost to pillagers, the city will send a regiment to secure the rest of the shipment. This regiment will take 30 seconds arrive, and a message will notify both the city and the caravan's current area of the regiment's impending arrival. Pillaging can still be done during this window, but once the regiment arrives they will begin to decimate any hostiles that remain in the room with the caravan. After the regiment has arrived, pillaging is no longer possible.
Caravans cannot move while their guards are in active combat, nor within 30 seconds of a pillage attempt. Their movement cannot be obstructed in any other way. Once a regiment has arrived to guard a caravan, its movement will continue regardless of combat or pillaging.
There is no global announcement when a caravan departs towards its destination city, unless the Minister of Trade forces an early delivery. However, an attuned aegis with the observation glyph will detect if a caravan has entered its room.
Ministry of Development responsibilities
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- Construction/Upgrade of production facilities.
- Closing or opening production facilities.
- Hiring or firing apprentices.
- Assigning a tax fee to production facilities for citizens/non-citizens.
Refer to HELP DEVELOPMENT for further details and syntaxes.
Ministry of Trade responsibilities
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- Checking caravan departure times and informing city so they can be vigilant of pillagers when it departs.
- Ordering caravans to depart early, if necessary to ensure a safe, guarded travel.
- Managing the price the city will buy commodities for.
Refer to HELP TRADE for further details and syntaxes.
Ministry of Research responsibilities
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- Unlocking the new Production research tree and investing research into it.
Refer to HELP RESEARCH for further details and syntaxes.
