Strategic Silos

Ever felt that your settlement is too cluttered by junk just lying around the place? Ever felt that Stonehearth’s vanilla storage containers are just too small to handle your stuff, especially in early game? Fear not hearthlings! An amiable solution presents itself….

Strategic Silos is a content mod directed towards providing players with alternative storage containers and new ways of storing resources. The aim of the mod is to reduce the issues of limited-to-no storage often faced by early settlements or large farms, by providing containers with increased capacity at cheaper costs. In addition, the mod also adds a new resource necessary to these recipes into the world, as well as a series of mid-game devices which can spawn resources indefinitely.

The mod is currently ACE compatible.

Silos and Vaults

The core feature of this mod is a selection of new storage containers called Silos and Vaults. These objects store far more items than their counterpart vanilla containers, and look cool while doing so! Unlike regular chests however, Silos and Vaults can only store one particular type of item at any one time – meaning you’ll need a warehouse full of them to manage all your stuff. There are several types of containers:

• Tiny Silo
  Tiny silos store up to 64 items and are the smallest unit of storage. Dirt cheap, they can be easily stacked.
• Small Silos
  Small silos store up to 96 units of an item type, and occupy a slightly bigger volume for a relatively cheap price. However, they can’t be stacked upon each other.
• Medium Silos
  Medium Silos store up to 192 units of an item type, and take up a significant amount of space. Unlike small silos, Medium Silos can be stacked upon each other to increase floor space.
• Large Vaults
  Vaults store up to 512 units of an item type, but are shorter than medium silos, and can likewise be stacked upon each other.

Aquamarine Containers
In addition to these regular storage containers, there are also Aquamarine variants of the Medium Silo and Large Vault. These containers are crafted from a new type of metal, and allow of any type of item to be stored inside their inventory (like regular storage containers). In order to craft these however, you must first refine the necessary ore….

Aquamarine Ore
A new type of ore now spawns across your worlds – The mystical Aquamarine. Though this mineral is rarer than most other ores, it can be mined to produce large quantities of aquamarine Ore, a glistening colourful stone. This ore can also be produced by mining rock, though at a lower frequency.

Aquamarine Ore can be refined into Aquamarine Ingots by either a Mason or Blacksmith. Each recipe requires ore, as well as fuel, to produce the ingots, though a blacksmith does the job more efficiently. These ingots can be used to craft Aquamarine Containers as well as Lexicons.

Amalgamated Crops
Often, the biggest source of inventory clutter is large-scale food farms, which can produce large amounts of items you may not necessarily need at a given time. To aid in this issue, this mod adds a new form of storage: Amalgamated Crops. Cooks now have the ability to craft large amounts of vegetable crops into much bigger amalgamated crops, which can be stored as a single item. More impressively, these large vegetables may be placed on display for your hearthlings to see and enjoy, and can be returned to their component crops by using the harvest tool.

Lexicons
In addition to these storage objects, another core feature of this mod is the inclusion of Lexicons. These are mystical devices, crafted by your Mason from Aquamarine Ingots, which slowly produce new items over a period of time, and may be harvested by your hearthlings. Some of them may even store items!

Lexicons work best when paired with ACE or Pawel Malecki’s Autoharvest Mod, as they can be set to ‘auto harvest’, allowing your hearthlings to automatically collect these resources whenever available. Current Lexicon types include:

• Aquamarine Lexicon
  The pinnacle of storage technology. A small storage container which can store up to 1024 items, and can be neatly stacked with other objects.
• Healer’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates small healing tonics over a period of ~10 (in-game) hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new tonics.
• Paladin’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates stamina tonics over a period of ~18 hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new tonics.
• Knight’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates strength tonics over a period of ~22 hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new tonics.
• Druid’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates plant seeds over a period of ~20 hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new seeds.
• Fighter’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates courage tonics over a period of ~20 hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new tonics.
• Bard’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates energy tonics over a period of ~16 hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new tonics. Does not give you the ability to sing in tune.
• Miner’s Lexicon
  A device which slowly generates different ores over a period of ~14 hours. When its central core rises, it can be harvested for new ores. Occasionally, it won’t spawn any ores at all!

The timing and crafting-recipes for these are a WIP, so most of this content is subject to change.

I have several ideas for future updates of this mod, many of which are dependent on the time available to me. Creating good models and organising recipes can take a while. Regardless, here are a few ideas for upcoming content:

• Lexicon variants for other tonics
• Lexicon variants for stone/clay/wood/ore resources
• Alternative models for silos and vaults
• More “decorative” storage containers
• A new job called the "Quartermaster", responsible for crafting storage components and lexicons
• Integration with ACE. The mod currently works alongside ACE, but I may consider creating a branch of the mod which includes ACE content such as:
  • ACE crops
  • ACE drink-storage containers
  • Alternative wells
• Compact storage for other resources (similar to Piles Plus or Age of Giant)
• Aquamarine armour and weapons

A lot of these ideas are big “maybes”, but feel free to comment of these plans or suggest new ideas for updates below!

Strategic Silos has been tested with the vanilla game and with ACE, with no clear signs of errors. That being said, it should cause errors with any other mod either. If you do encounter an issue, let me know.