Island Reflections

[Jojoya]

The thing is, "managing a factory" feels like it is a thing that the island was never meant to be.

On the one level, sure, they put it in there so it is what the content is. But it feels so much at odds with how the content was advertised (slow life, farming) that it feels like it must be the end product of some sort of feature creep where they started out trying to invent a crafting system for non-crafters and ended up far away from their intended big-picture concept, then never took a critical eye over it to make sure it lined up with the original vision.

It's not that it's a grind, but the story in which they've encased the grind doesn't fit the setting.

It is simply one piece of content out of many on the island, with the island itself being one piece of content out of many in the game.

Choose what you want to do based on what you enjoy.

For you it might be out of line for what you think the original vision was because you associate that sort of content with work. Others in very different career fields may find it relaxing because it's different from what they do at work.

The story does fit the setting. We're trying to establish new settlements in uninhabited territory. No settlements survive well or long unless they establish outside trade. In in more primitive societies, the most profitable ones have always been those related to refined goods (spices, metals, and the like) or manufactured goods (textiles, pottery, arms and armor, medicines, etc. - you know, the same items being produced by the workshops).

Even living in paradise, there are things that must be done to support life. In this case, the mammets in the workshops are doing most of that work. You don't want to do that work? That's fine, you don't have to.

Did you really want life on your Sanctuary to be like that of Tom Hanks' character in Castaway? Sure, it might be nice to have a Wilson minion for a companion but the rest of life would be very harsh.

Overall I see a lot of problems with it let alone why the heck the green cowries even exist.. and I do see a lot of good suggestions in how to improve it like maybe have the pasture not be a torturous boring expanse of pure sunburn, so when I see people grouse about how it either isn't perfect or is some sort of difficult to engage with and heavy timesink.. I like to review exactly what their problems are.

Fairly certain the green cowries exist so players don't feel like the normal gathered materials are going to waste. They still get something for any excess they end up with. As long as players don't focus too heavily on just one or two foraging sectors, there will probably be little need for any manual gathering with a level 10 island.

I've already made about 7k islanders cowries and bought up Hi-Cordial with them since I go thru that pretty fast when on my DoH gathering binges. That lets me save scrip for things the cowries won't buy.

For those who don't have DoH classes leveled or don't gather heavily, they can always get glamour prisms/dispellers with them.