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Cement for buildings


Lothar

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I think adding the possibility of make concrete walls will be great.

 

It will aloud the player not only to build something better (and stronger) than plastered wodden walls, but also to build more high-big buildings. (you know woods and nails aren't good for that, if you want to keep a realistic touch to the game)

 

Also would be easy to add (I think) 'cause you will need only a "Bag of Cement Powder" (could be made like the "Plaster Powder Bag") a "Bucket with water" and a "Trowel". 

 

For all the youngest out there that's what I mean:

 

fc1x.jpgUploaded with ImageShack.com

 

The lv. of carpentery to use the cement should be around 3 or so. I think that because I'm a construction worker in real life and if you in lv.3 carpentery can make a decent stairs (that are hard as hell to do with wood, let me tell you that!) you must be able to use cement.

 

That's it guys.  Let me know if is not new or whatever.. thanks!

 

 

 

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Why not the addition of rebar while we're at it? :3 Well if you want it to be as realistic as possible.. That's mandatory isn't it? Or am I mistaken? (I'm no mason or anything) Or is rebar so for adding extra strength? Either way.. rebar would be awesome... And it would make hell of a melee weapon :P

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Why not the addition of rebar while we're at it? :3 Well if you want it to be as realistic as possible.. That's mandatory isn't it? Or am I mistaken? (I'm no mason or anything) Or is rebar so for adding extra strength? Either way.. rebar would be awesome... And it would make hell of a melee weapon :P

Why no?! that's good for me! but for buildings it's necessary only if you want to make reinforced concrete (and it's usually the best choice)..

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We already have the cement powder, it's just that you can't make anything with it for now :)

Glad to hear that!

 

 

Yeah, the problem here is : I have no clue how to make a cement wall... Hey, I'm a geek, not a construction worker :D

 

So I need to make some research on that (or maybe the team have already their idea on it, haven't talked about it with them...) to find a realistic solution to make cement wall...

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You need a lot of wood and also some steel sticks. With the wood and steel sticks you construct a "wall countainer" for the cement.

After you finished this construction, you can pour the cement in it.

This process takes a lots of time.

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We already have the cement powder, it's just that you can't make anything with it for now :)

Glad to hear that!

 

 

Yeah, the problem here is : I have no clue how to make a cement wall... Hey, I'm a geek, not a construction worker :D

 

So I need to make some research on that (or maybe the team have already their idea on it, haven't talked about it with them...) to find a realistic solution to make cement wall...

 

 

 

You need a lot of wood and also some steel sticks. With the wood and steel sticks you construct a "wall countainer" for the cement.

After you finished this construction, you can pour the cement in it.

This process takes a lots of time.

 

Pretty much what he said ^ Of course for larger constructions (or simply to cut the time for the concrete to harden down) the hoover dam comes to mind. For those of you that don't know, when the hoover dam was constructed (and finished two years ahead of schedule) they estimated it would take over 100 years for the concrete to harden. So, instead, they did something that was fairly unique. They ran pipes through the concrete that carried cold water, which in turn caused the concrete to cool much faster.

 

Of course I have no clue how you would do this in PZ... It would be kind of fun though. :3 And maybe for starters we could just have concrete floors, those aren't too hard to make are they? And it doesn't take nearly as much wood, just simple 2 by 4's would work right? Please correct me if i'm wrong. :3

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Your average concrete construction needs to be formed out of solid plywood or stacked planks, with framing and angled braces so that the weight of the liquid cement (especially at the bottom) doesn't cause the frame to burst open (seen it happen).  For any decent-sized construction like a wall or floor, you would create a rebar grid inside your wooden form to give the structure extra integrity.  Then you'd mix and pour cement (a very exhausting task by yourself) until the frame was filled, wait a day or two and pull the framework off.

 

Basically, cement structures are great but really hard to build. They take a lot of lumber, though you could probably re-use the planks after the fact.  Mixing the cement would take a HUGE amount of water though.  I don't know what sizes are standard in other places, but around here concrete is usually sold in 60-80 pound bags, the latter requiring just under a gallon (or about three liters) of water to mix properly.

 

Pouring concrete into a mold the size of a sheet of plywood (4 feet by 8 feet) and 6 inches thick would require about thirty large bags.  The resulting slab would weigh more than two hundred pounds.

 

Doing some quick math, to make a one-story concrete structure (that is, four walls only) roughly the size of my house you'd need about a thousand large bags of concrete and seven to eight hundred gallons of water (and you thought your crops were thirsty). That's the low estimate, and doesn't take into consideration the hundreds of feet of rebar you'd need.  :shock:

 

It's possible, of course, but it'd be a hell of an undertaking by yourself - and you'd better hope the water doesn't shut off.  :geek:

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Plywood and 2x4s. Build a frame to pour the concrete into. Pour no more than 2-3 feet a time.

There's your wall.

Much easier would just be cement bricks and mortar.

(See The Talking Pillow above for more.)

Edited by EnigmaGrey
pour! poor!
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Maybe you could craft a frame in your inventory out of some number of planks, then place that in the world where you want your wall to be.  Mix your cement and use it on the frame, and you get a drying wall.  After a day or two (maybe more depending on rain) you could use a hammer or crowbar to recover the frame item and leave behind a solid wall.  The frame could then be re-placed in the world and used to build the same structure again.

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Maybe you could craft a frame in your inventory out of some number of planks, then place that in the world where you want your wall to be.  Mix your cement and use it on the frame, and you get a drying wall.  After a day or two (maybe more depending on rain) you could use a hammer or crowbar to recover the frame item and leave behind a solid wall.  The frame could then be re-placed in the world and used to build the same structure again.

I do love this idea.

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Maybe you could craft a frame in your inventory out of some number of planks, then place that in the world where you want your wall to be.  Mix your cement and use it on the frame, and you get a drying wall.  After a day or two (maybe more depending on rain) you could use a hammer or crowbar to recover the frame item and leave behind a solid wall.  The frame could then be re-placed in the world and used to build the same structure again.

I like the idea but I'd rather have you build the frame from planks every time and just get your planks back when you use the crowbar (just like using the screwdriver to destroy furniture)... This is because I don't think you could just pick up the whole frame intact and then place it again somewhere else.

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If you were clever about building it I don't see why you couldn't remove the frame in easy-to-reassemble sections instead of disassembling it entirely.  Maybe it could depend on your Carpentry skill.

 

Also, requiring nails to place the frame item in the world might be enough to simulate re-construction.  I feel like forcing the player to craft the frame again every single time is an unnecessary step.

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Can you really make a wall out of just cement?  I know people use like Quickrete or whatever for small bits and posts into the ground and stuff, but for a wall wouldn't you need stone/gravel to make concrete?  Not really that important but I was wondering.

 

Overall, I'm not too sure about concrete/cement walls, like others pointed out with the framing and stuff it's a huge amount of work.  Making a wall out of some kind of stone pieces, bricks, blocks, seems like a more likely solution given the situation.  A solid concrete wall would be pretty badass, and so yeah like it's been pointed out it should take a lot of effort, wood, drying time, etc., be a pain to build.

 

The problem is, what benefit does it offer?  If we're building a wall to keep out zombies and NPCs, how strong does it need to be before getting any stronger is useless.  Against zombies, there's probably not any difference between a concrete block wall and a poured concrete wall, right?  Again, rebar would just be crazy overkill.  If we go by movies, zombies are often kept at bay with only large commercial style chain link fence.

 

The only thing I can think of right now that will really distinguish the strength of wall types would be NPCs (or other human players) using tools, weapons, or maybe even explosives, against it.  Explosives can probably be just ignored for now, and heavy weapons too.  So, how about tools like a sledgehammer?

 

So maybe you have a chain link fence, easily defeated by any human with any kind of cutting pliers type tool.  A wood wall, like say a strong wood fence, still not too difficult to bash through with a sledge or cut with a saw.  Now we move on to concrete blocks, pretty tough but again still wouldn't take too long to smash through.  Poured concrete wall, now we're starting to get tough,and rebar, well depending on the amount it might be impossible to a human with a sledge to make a hole big enough to get through.  So maybe that's the benefit of these strong wall types, not for zombies, for humans?

 

On a side note, this got me thinking about more advanced destruction of walls.  Currently a wood wall is just a series of "tiles" I guess you might say and each one is independent.  Maybe in the future we could have more complex structures that actually have points that if they are destroyed cause a larger section to collapse.  Nothing too crazy, maybe just something like fences where you can go up to the posts and work on them longer, take 2 out and the section between falls.  Or for chain link, work at the post and cut links to make a whole section fall.  It would take a lot longer to do this, so it's not really to gain entry, but rather to screw over the other person by making a big gap in their perimeter.  This is off topic, sorry, maybe it should be discussed in a new thread, although it's something that even if it was going to be added would probably be far off.

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Most fences don't fall if you take parts out of them.

Personally, while I know this is planned, I'm against it. I've actually done some cement work and its just not something remotely feasible for inexperienced people to build. I mean, most of the people here didn't know how to even build a cement wall - and this game is supposed to be about normal people.

To extrapolate further: I do like the idea of concrete, but it just doesn't make sense from a realism standpoint. Obviously realism does have to cede some points to gameplay, but this is just a touch over the line for me. There's a lot that can go wrong with cement if you don't do it right, too.

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- and this game is supposed to be about normal people.

 

Well, we do have professions such as construction worker who could possibly have such knowledge. I like to think the game is about normal people, but rather people who have a broad sense of knowledge in certain area's, or the lack of said knowledge at times. It's the prospect of the player creating their own sense of identity within the boundaries of the profession they choose.

Right now any player character within the game can farm, can use a firearm without training, and can simply construct a safehouse within the confines of the game. In terms of realism, the game has already stepped over that line. Hopefully professions will play a stronger role later so not just any joe-soap can become a jack of all trades.

 

I'm not entirely against the idea of adding cement but I personally don't see what purpose it will add to gameplay for now. If professions ever evolve to be more than just predefined traits along with the game mechanics and having cement will actually serve a purpose, then sure I can see it working.

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I agree and disagree with you Xydonus. We do have books in the game to help teach the professions, which is quasi-realistic. Many people at least have encyclopedias sitting around which could provide the basics. Most people when giving a pistol can figure out which way to point it and how to take the safety off, if not the specifics of taking it apart and cleaning it, etc.

 

I think differentiation is certainly key to a quality multiplayer experience, so with the advent of that we may see characters starting to be more specific and less jack-of-all-trades, as that increases the value of playing with other people.

 

Even for a trained construction worker it would take a good helping of luck (to find all the right tools, water, rebar, cement mix, boards, nails, hammer, etc.) and a lot of work for anything like this to be feasible. I mean, even mixing the concrete in a wheelbarrow, if you let it sit for more than a bit it will start to harden, and if you pour it after that your whole thing will crack and break apart so it would likely be at the very minimum a two person job.

 

I just... I don't mind the idea of it, but I really don't think it's all that reasonable.

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You need a lot of wood and also some steel sticks. With the wood and steel sticks you construct a "wall countainer" for the cement.

After you finished this construction, you can pour the cement in it.

This process takes a lots of time.

I've never worked with cement, but this is pretty much how I imagined it: molding slabs or panels, like you do with bricks. This shows that it wouldn't be rocket science to figure out (even if the quality was shoddy at low skill levels).

 

How much effort the material would require VS the benefits it offered is another matter. If it would take a massive amount of time and resources, it probably wouldn't be worth making the stuff, even for a small safe house. NPCs armed with sledgehammers could lay waste to your structure in minutes. Zombies banging away endlessly at your walls would drive you insane. Better to just leg it and find another safe spot.

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I've never worked with cement, but this is pretty much how I imagined it: making slabs or panels, like you do with bricks. This shows that it wouldn't be rocket science to figure out (even if the quality was shoddy at low skill levels).

 

 

Only issue being if you build a concrete slab with shoddy quality it cracks and falls apart, making it absolutely worthless.

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