Storage Piles for raw resources

Large stones tend to hog one's inventory whilst mining, and something about stuffing several logs into your back pocket and putting em into a barrel back home doesn't seem to mesh with Medieval Engineers' whole scene. Or maybe it's just me.

Something that might work are "pile" inventory systems. As an alternative to physics objects strewn about, lagging the server and murdering players when Lord Clang demands blood, raw resources such as logs and large stones can be stored in static inventories that - fittingly enough - appear as piles of said resource, which grow and shrink as items are deposited and withdrawn. In addition to convenience and being more thematically appropriate, they might introduce some unique challenges to logistics and storage, beyond just putting everything in chests.

They might take the following forms:

• Rock piles, which might form as you dig through terrain. Rather than going straight into your inventory, or spawning as loose physics objects, quarried stone could form in static piles on the ground near the player, which grow larger as more is mined nearby. The player can then take the stones, as they might from a chest, whenever they need it, rather than having to clean it up to protect server performance. The same might also apply for ores.
  
• Storage beds, which may be placed on carts and sledges to store logs (and maybe stone). This would be necessary if storing logs in player inventory / chests / barrels was disabled (which I think it ought to be), since having physics objects rattling around in the back of a cart is a hassle.
  
• Stockpile blocks might act as storage for raw resources. Rather than using chests or barrels, stockpiles take up a block's worth of space (ie: large stone cube) and can store significantly more items, but only of a certain type (logs, stones). They might be "invisible" blocks (appearing as patches of dirt and maybe some wooden pegs or something) that can be placed on the ground or other blocks, on which piles of stored resources might appear (think of the ones from Banished).

 

I remember playing stronghold (the original) I loved watching the stockpiles fill up. Tree trunks, timbers and stones being able to visibly stockpile would be great.

I propose an even simpler solution. Because piles would be dynamic objects that would be subject to despawning.

Perhaps we could be able to construct piles of materials.
Some examples:
1x1x1 pile of stones or ore (pyramid shaped pile of rocks/ore, nothing can be placed on top, takes 60 stones, no tools needed for construction and deconstruction. Build-stages per ten stones, can be built on dynamic grids)

1x1x1 log stack (cube shaped stack of logs, other log stacks can be placed on top, takes 25 logs, can be constructed and deconstructed without tools, build stages per 5 logs, can be built on dynamic grids)

1x1x1 timber pile (cube shaped stack of timbers, other timber piles can be built on top, takes 25 timbers, can be constructed and deconstructed without tools, build stages per 5 timbers, can be built on dynamic grids).

This is the most performance friendly way I can think of that allows stockpiling and transporting.

 

I love this idea; if nothing else maybe we can get a modder to make a container that only holds certain items and a lot of said item.

 

I heartily agree to something of this nature. I miss being able to stack logs and pile stones up in a shed and would love to see at least a representation of this again.

 

Me too