farming Cotton

[GG Cannon]

I wanted to make this suggestion as a way to tie down a few previous suggestion I sent recently a bit more in depth.
The Sewing Machine and Pillows with a small detail for the Smoking Overhaul.

 

1- Plantable Cotton

• Simply put, a new seed in the game that when harvested would give a few units of "Raw Cotton" per plant when harvest.  

 

2- Cotton gin

• You'd need to find or make a device called "Cotton gin" that is needed for the "ginning" process to separate the fibers from the seed.
  To craft, this device would be made of wood planks with a few screws, a saw, a screwdriver and one pipe. You would need a some levels in carpentry and a few in mechanics as well to make the moving parts.
  It should also be found in the world and picked up like any furniture, learn the building recipe through disassembling or learn how to build through a new magazine "The history of clothing".
   

(After going through the ginning process you'd receive 1 unit of "cotton seeds" and 1 unit of "cotton balls" per "raw cotton". )

 

3- Spinning or Rolling.

• By right clicking "cotton balls" in your inventory, you'd have the option to "spin into yarn", which is the act of converting the cotton balls into "Yarn" (an item already present in the game as a miscellaneous, possibly renamed to "cotton yarn") or into thinner "thread". You'd need a pencil, pen, screwdriver or any such small and thin tool in order to do that.
  
  There could also be a "yarn spinning wheel" as a possible buildable that would make it take a 1/10 of the time needed to spin it by hand.
  It would need only a considerably small level of carpentry and mechanics, planks + "woodglue, nails or [screws + screwdriver]" + saw + file
  
  
  If you have a pair of scissors in your inventory or in the vicinity, by right clicking the cotton balls you'd also get the choice to "roll and cut into filters" to produce cigarette filters.

 

4- Weaving or knitting

• If using "Knitting Needles", another item already present in the game, with either the "Yarn" or the "Thread" and you could directly craft "Knitted" clothing pieces from the crafting menu or craft "Cotton Fabric" slowly. It would require 4 or 5 levels in Tailoring.
  It would have a low probability of producing "High-quality Cotton Fabric" that grows with your tailoring level to 50% with level 10.
  
  Another option would be to build a "Weaver" machine, that would require either to find it in the world (somewhat rare) or build with a high carpentry level and needing the building recipe for it to be available to build. (Also learnable through a new magazine "The history of clothing.")
  
  Similar to the previous, to craft it it would be mostly out of "wood planks" with a few "screws", some pieces of cut "metal pipe" needing a "saw", a "hammer" and a "screwdriver" as tools. Also needing carpentry and mechanics levels, just in higher values than the others.
  
  
  By weaving you'd produce fabric EXTREMELY faster and also a higher probability of making "high-quality cotton fabric" reaching 100% with level 10.
  The act of weaving with the machine would require a lot less knowledge level in tailoring than "Knitting" with only 2 or 3 levels of tailoring.

 

5- Sewing

• ("Cotton fabric" or "High-quality cotton fabric") + (sewing machine or needle) + (thread or yarn) = Clothes, Sheets, Bandages, Towels, etc
  Learn recipes through new magazines that unlock making clothes from the fabric. Some clothes could use exclusively high-quality fabric.
  
  ("Cotton fabric" or "High-quality cotton fabric") + Cotton balls + (sewing machine or needle) + (thread or yarn) = (High-quality) Pillow
  Increased effect if used the High-Quality version to sleep, as mentioned in the "Pillows" suggestion.
  
  "High-quality cotton fabric" + Cotton balls + (sewing machine or needle) + (thread or yarn) + wire + metal pipe + pliers = "High-quality mattress"
  (keeps the pipe. Needed only to make the wire spring for the mattress)
  [Suggested item needed to make any "good" quality bed and high in value for trade.]

 

All of these could be tradeable goods with NPCs of bases you visit or merchants who visit your base (if there are any, which should).
High quality goods would be 1.5x more valuable than common quality goods.

This together with what I suggested in the Sewing Machine post would make the Tailoring skill be a lot more valuable and be another option for producing goods for sale if there is trade with the NPCs through farming and processing the cotton alone, which would be a self sufficient process.

Extra: Similarly to my "Pillows" suggestion mentioned previously, sleeping with sheets in your inventory should make your character sleep better when the weather is cold.

Extra 2: More options with these same tools and process would be opened with the animals update if sheep and goats are some of the animals added to the game, both giving "wool".
The only difference being it would produce "wool yarn" and "wool fabric" to make wool clothes with high insulation and more valuable for trade near or during the winter.

Extra 3: It would also produce the "cotton balls" needed for making medicine and the bandages.
Add in a process to make alcohol and a few medicinal plants you can farm + a process to make suture needles from the common needle, to make common needle out of wire, tweezer, suture needle holders and other pharmaceutical medicines and this all adds together to be not only part of a grid of mechanics that supplies the clothes, but a considerable dynamic with the process to produce medicine late game as well, which would also be a very valuable good to trade and very needed for the NPCs (specially if they get hurt randomly within the base and need a doctor).

Edited October 12, 2022 by GG Cannon