Why Plaster blocks and not layering?

[Lookstothestars]

Greetings! I just fell down the inevitable rabbit hole you fall into, when playing Vintage Story, which is ancient to medieval building techniques. One thing that confused me while reading through a lot of articles and pages on the Internet was Plaster, or specifically how it works in Vintage Story compared to how it was used and is still used in real life.

In VS you do go through the actual process of creating plaster which is mixing lime and sand together (I think a step or material is skipped but I don't really care about that) but you get a block out of it. This is confusing to me, especially after intently watching construction videos and actual construction sites because plaster is normally plastered on a foundation like brickwork. If I recall correctly a lot of older buildings from both medieval and ancient times used plaster like this too. The game Tiny Glade has a good example of that by having it's buildings be partially broken sometimes. Beyond a smooth surface, which is probably supposed to be plaster, you can see the brick foundation. It seems to work similarly to Wattle and Daub. I actually think a lot of Renaissance era castles and maybe even older castles used this to have sturdy brick or ashlar walls while also looking good with a colorful or painted on plaster surface.

Now, I'm not really asking for this to be added to the game just yet, which is why this post is posted in the discussions forum and not the suggestions forum. I fear it would look very similar to wattle and daub if done accurately, so it might be a waste of development time? I'm unsure. Maybe if the foundation actually mattered for insulation and stability, you could argue that there could be a reason to add similar looking blocks with very different build styles, but other than that I'm simply unsure.

If I got something wrong, please correct me and please share your ideas about how accurate plaster (If I got it correctly) could be properly added to the game. Be nice everyone!

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Lookstothestars said:

I fear it would look very similar to wattle and daub if done accurately, so it might be a waste of development time?

I think it's fine to just keep the texture of the plaster block as-is, but perhaps allow it to be acquired in the same manner as wattle and daub. That is, instead of daub, you're creating a plaster mix to apply to wattle. It could have three separate "finishes", like wattle and daub does.

As for why it doesn't work that way now, I'd wager it was just simpler to add as a block previously, instead of trying to figure out something like the wattle and daub system. But I'm not sure.

1 hour ago, Lookstothestars said:

I actually think a lot of Renaissance era castles and maybe even older castles used this to have sturdy brick or ashlar walls while also looking good with a colorful or painted on plaster surface.

Perhaps if brick or stone were used as the foundation block, then less plaster is used and instead of a plaster "block", it's just an overlay on whatever block is underneath. Though I would also say that if this is the case, daub ought to be an option as well to expand the color palette.

[TJ Pepler]

Could you develop a trowel tool or similar, and then have your ?barrel? ?bucket? of plaster and then just code it to switch your stone block to a plaster block when the 'loaded' trowel is used on the stone?

[Lookstothestars]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I think it's fine to just keep the texture of the plaster block as-is, but perhaps allow it to be acquired in the same manner as wattle and daub. That is, instead of daub, you're creating a plaster mix to apply to wattle. It could have three separate "finishes", like wattle and daub does.

Well, to wattle or, if they added them, brick and ashlar fences. I feel like they should be seperate from each other to highlight the building techniques used. The addition of brick and ashlar fences could make a great parralel to wattle and daub.

 

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

As for why it doesn't work that way now, I'd wager it was just simpler to add as a block previously, instead of trying to figure out something like the wattle and daub system. But I'm not sure.

Oh yeah, I remember wanting to built half-timbered houses in VS when I innitially installed it and back then it only had Plaster blocks with wooden beams and stuff. It didn't look great so I was happy I found out about the delight (and turture) that is wattle and daub with actual wooden beams (yearning for the teased crowbar). 

 

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Perhaps if brick or stone were used as the foundation block, then less plaster is used and instead of a plaster "block", it's just an overlay on whatever block is underneath. Though I would also say that if this is the case, daub ought to be an option as well to expand the color palette.

Might be because It's 1 AM and I should probably go to bed but what do you mean with color palette? Oh, do you mean that the tint of whatever is applied to a block shifts the color of the block? Like tinted glass color theory stuff. I can see that, though I feel like the color of plaster is way to strong for that. I did think about an overlay though since we already have wallpapers, as little as people use them (I remember them to be quite finicky).

[Lookstothestars]

Brick and plaster wall I made with the chisel.

[TJ Pepler]

oh, that would look so good with some random jagged holes in the broken plaster showing the underlying brick, right?

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Lookstothestars said:

Might be because It's 1 AM and I should probably go to bed but what do you mean with color palette? Oh, do you mean that the tint of whatever is applied to a block shifts the color of the block? Like tinted glass color theory stuff. I can see that, though I feel like the color of plaster is way to strong for that. I did think about an overlay though since we already have wallpapers, as little as people use them (I remember them to be quite finicky).

I meant that daub has a plaster-like finish, but with a wide range of colors depending on what one used to make the daub. Plaster, however, has a bright white color that daub cannot achieve. So if one wanted bright white walls with smooth texture, they'd opt for plaster, but if they want smooth walls in a different color they'd opt for daub instead. As for the block appearance--it's just the plaster/daub texture overlaying the blockface it's applied to, basically wallpaper and not a tint.

As to why they wouldn't just use wattle and daub to begin with? Stone blocks, unless it's cobblestone, require a pickaxe to break. It's also possible that the player in question might want the interior to have smooth walls, and let the exterior remain stone. Allowing the player to smear daub or plaster on the walls allows them to easily freshen up interior spaces, for a relatively low cost, without needing to use the chisel extensively. Of course the catch is that if the plastered/daubed block is broken, the player will need to reapply material to the wall to regain the smooth finish.