Crafting (and Wages)

[Choinski, Burton]

||>In a related note, I was checking on the stats for a laborer.  In effect:
||>"Working in teams with good equipment, 250 cubic feet of earth or sand or
||>125 cubic feet of rocky soil can be excavated per man per day."
||
||That's cool.  If its based on something :)

Well, the problem is that it's second or third derivatives...the above quote
was from someone's GURPS rules for constructions, and I have no idea where
his numbers come from.  On the surface it seems reasonable, although to my
wimpy-computer-science bones it looks like a backbreaking pace that I would
think would burn out the labor pool very quickly.

If anyone here (especially in the rural areas or internationally) knows
people with real-hand experience that can be extrapolated, all the better.

||>250 cubic feet is a ditch 2.5 feet deep by 10 feet wide and long.  Does
this
||>seem like a lot to you (perhaps not, given a 10 hour day...could I
||>personally dig out about a cubic yard of earth in an hour?  I think I
could.
||>I'd be pretty beat by the end of the day, though.
||
||I forgot about the medieval 10 hour shift thing.  Was thinking in modern
||times.
||Good point.  Also with the ditch good point.  See when its explained
||like that it makes more sense :)  Course you have to figure out substance.
||Like Granit, hard rock, volcanic rock, plain sand..etc..

Yea, although when you get to rock you leave the realm of excavating and
into quarrying.  There may be some way to figure out a unified rule that can
be used, with differing multipliers as the material gets harder.

I think, as a rule of thumb, going from vertical to horizontal will cut the
production rate in half, since you no longer have gravity to do some of the
work.

||>However, given this, 250 cubic feet of soil is about 13 TONS of earth.
Good
||>Lord, could I actually dig out that much dirt?
||
||Does seem high.  I get pooped doing a pickup truck load of dirt :)
||But I'm a programmer not a laborer :)

I think this rate and weight only qualifies for getting it out of the
hole...another set of labor is required to haul the excavated material
offsite.

||I was reading that very article at work today among others...
||Could you do a bit on nevy?  ie sailors for the mass combat conversions
||and troop strength?  i could but not sure if you've done that already
||or not...:)   Sailors...etc..

That's probably a reasonable idea.  Since soldiers are figured as S & St,
while scouts are figured as A & D, what do you think is best to base marines
on?  St & A or S & A?  

And actually, I had revised the rules I had a bit (removed the multipliers
for cavalry and archers, instead putting in an additive cost).  When I get
the marines in I will re-post.

I might as well put in an appendix based on the cultural notes I had
before...some cultures have improved stats or combat abilities which would
differ them from the "normal" units (i.e. In my cultural notes I give the
Kazi a +2 OCV and DCV bonus, just because they are supposed to be so nasty.
And being from the Kaz, they will probably be tweaked up a tad.)
      -- Burton



Burton Choinski
Principle Software Engineer, Quality Engineering
email: burton.choinski at matrixone.com

phone: 978-322-2135
fax  : 978-452-5764

MatrixOne, Inc.
Two Executive Drive
Chelmsford, Ma 01824
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