What is wattle and daub good for?

[Phillip Susi]

It takes clay, sand, dirt, sticks, and grass to make one block.  Clay is somewhat valuable so if I'm going to burn that for a building block, it seems like it's better to use it to make cobblestone and get two blocks for the price of one, and without the dirt and sand, which are also useful and not renewable.

[EnbyKaiju]

Wattle & daub are period-accurate building materials that grant players ways to customise their builds through colour and texture in a way that other blocks don't. There's no other building block that comes in the same range of colors and stays consisted in material texture.

Vintage Story isn't about giving people infinite supplies of materials to easily make whatever they want (outside of creative) and w&b is an example of a building process that's both accurate to the technological availability of the 1300s, but also gives players a very solid sense of having earned what they built.

It's also very popular because it has a different building stages that can be used to great effect for newer or older looking builds. You can even use it to show a building in construction.

I love it, one of the best additions.

[Rainbow Fresh]

8 hours ago, Phillip Susi said:

Clay is somewhat valuable

I guess you need to look around a bit more closely then. Clay is by no means valuable, unless you are burning through your Fire Clay supply - which is rare, tedious to produce otherwise and needed for much more valuable late-game progression. So...

8 hours ago, Phillip Susi said:

it seems like it's better to use it to make cobblestone and get two blocks for the price of one

...as Enby already mentioned - it's not about the min-maxing of materials. If you think the look of cobblestone fits whatever it is you are building nicely, then use cobblestone. If you more want a texture like the w&d blocks, then you know where to spend your resources. Yes, w&d is 1:1 clay for blocks while cobblestone is 1:2; but it is much easier to just grab a stack of dirt, a stack of sand, a stack of clay and cut a bunch of grass to make a stack of blocks worth of daub, which could last longer if you don't fully plaster every single block than it is to grab a stack of clay and *eight* stacks of rock to make 2 stacks of cobble - especially since the latter *certainly* requires you to already have a pickaxe while w&d can be done theoretically day 1.

8 hours ago, Phillip Susi said:

and without the dirt and sand, which are also useful and not renewable.

They may not be renewable but especially dirt is something you should not think about. You'll more than quickly enough find that you'll get more than you'd ever *want* to store of that stuff if ever you do any kind of terraforming or excavation. If you *want* to think about it and be smart, you'll specifically use low fertility soil for crafting and keep medium+ for when you need to place some but that's it. Sand might become more of a dwindling commodity in your area if you use alot of it; but the only other thing you'll really need it for is mortar which is it's own very tedious and costly process just for an as in-efficient fancier brick. And usually there are patches of sand all over the place, especially near/in gravel deserts, and mortar isn't picky of the rock type of the sand so that's not really an issue either.

[Chrondeath]

This is an area where I envy Valheim's building system, for being able to mechanically incentivize putting stone / foundation type materials on the bottom and making the higher floors out of lighter materials.  I have no idea if that was a way that wattle-and-daub was historically used, but at least "why not use cobblestone for everything" seems like "because you can't stack it that high" would be a reasonable answer.

I would like a reason to mix building materials and do the weird "overhanging upper story" thing that wasn't just aesthetics, is what I'm saying.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Chrondeath said:

This is an area where I envy Valheim's building system, for being able to mechanically incentivize putting stone / foundation type materials on the bottom and making the higher floors out of lighter materials.  I have no idea if that was a way that wattle-and-daub was historically used, but at least "why not use cobblestone for everything" seems like "because you can't stack it that high" would be a reasonable answer.

This is why I hate Valheim's building system. It works perfectly fine until you want to use that material for some texturing where the game won't let you place it.

For what it's worth though, heavy materials aren't limited strictly to the lower floors of buildings. Notre Dame is one famous example of such. Additionally, a lot of stonework was often covered with plaster and then painted, I believe, so just because the structure itself is stone doesn't mean that the stones themselves are going to be visible.

[LedZeptallica24]

I find it to be an aesthetically pleasing block to use for interior walls.  It has a clean texture (if you want), and color variety to aid in complementing the exterior of your build.  Clay limitations 100% agree with in regards to blue clay and obviously, fire clay.  However, at least in my world, I almost have access to too much red clay (hint: you can see clay deposits from the map, using the colored option!) 

[Phillip Susi]

Is it possible to repaint the wattle and daub after the fact or is it stuck with the color it is crafted with?

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Phillip Susi said:

Is it possible to repaint the wattle and daub after the fact or is it stuck with the color it is crafted with?

Currently, it's not possible to repaint it. Likewise, it's not possible to return a daub block to a more "unfinished" state once you've added more daub to smooth the texture.