I put them up against my exterior walls and toss a roof over them, it looks pretty nice, i might snap a pic and post if anyone is interested

Whenever I see movies that portray old blacksmiths they are in open type structures, for ventilation Im assuming.. So if I refurbish a Draugr villiage Ill put Blacksmith, woodsmith, Artisan each have thier own open stall. in one big open floor plan, looks very realistic.

But my go to is a 6 x 6 wood structure, fire in the middle, Bed, throne and table on one side, and Bench, Forge, and Barrel on the other side. So work on one side and comfort on the other. Effecient and looks good too

Originally posted by warrenchmobile:

I am an old soldier and prone to "war stories," so here is one of mine:

In January 1976, I was stationed in Germany but scheduled to leave one Monday morning for a new assignment in the United States. The flight wouuld be on a comercial passenger airliner chartered by the Air Force to move service members and dependents from Germany to the States. The local Military Personnel Office could not find my field personnel file. Their solution: take the scheduled flight and they would mail my field personnel file to my new duty station when they found it.

I rejected that because I had called that office every day for the preceding two weeks with no results. I doubted their efforts would be improved by the removal of daily reminders.
They did find my file but could not get it to me before my original flight departed so I had them schedule a later flight.

I made that flight with my field personnel file. It was, however, on an Air Force cargo jet rather than a chartered airliner. I sat in a pressurized, heated cargo bay. In a commercial airline seat clamped to the floor; an economy seat, mind you, not business or first class.

The flight attendant was an Air Force crew chief whose attentions consisted of giving me a box lunch with cold fried chicken, two slices of bread, a pickle, and a half-pint of milk before the flight took off. Oh, and hearing protection. That was a ball of beeswax to divide in half, knead to the desired shape, and stick in my ears.

No in-flight movie or music, no magazines. One could stare at the cargo, crated jet engines, coffins, and whatever else was being hauled; most of which would not have fit in the cargo bay of a commercial airliner.

Aesthetically, the worst flight of my life. But I got to New Jersey alive and in one piece with my field personnel file. Overall a success.

Sometimes just have to do the best you can with what you have.

Jesus man, no-one faking asked. And this story is so far detached from the persons issues that it simply doesn't relate....

I'm sure everyone has a story where they have to overcome some great ordeal only to eventually come out successful but they don't apply to everything. You don't have to 'suck it up' or 'learn to make do' with every single faking thing in life just because you had to stick bees wax in your ear once. Learn some perspective man.

Oh, thanks for your service.

I feel like the best solution is the radius expanding with each workbench improvement, so stuff that would logically be outside (like the chopping block) could actually be in a yard or somewhere outside.

Originally posted by J-&Dre:

Trying to build a sensible and aesthetically pleasing workshop is impossible, because some of the improvement objects needs to be so close they look like I am having a garage sale.

Would be better if the requirement was a bit more lenient. How about if the only requirement is if they were all in range of the same workbench circle instead?

I have rebuilt my mead hall 3 times now, trying to build it big enough for it not to be all stuck in a cluster that looks randomly placed near the forge.

Edit: Adze is the worst. It requires a forge but is really a wood working tool. Why does it need to be close to a forge anyway? And the collision box around it is way over sized.

I haven't had a problem with hiding the add-ons, but I'm more of a function over form builder so don't usually have to think much about it. Workbench on against the wall, equipment outside on the other side of the wall.

But still I can see how it could use a QoL tweak, I like the idea of just using the workbench radius. That would also allow for some overlap, with different benches benefiting from the same add-ons. (or, does that work already?)

I see your points, all all of you and I have used a similar solution, but can't imagine it is the intended way of doing it. Besides I think the models for them looks nice and want to use them as part of the decoration.

I would think the person/persons who used time and effort to make them would appreciate that their models is not hidden away under the floor, or on a shelf. Imagine how tall you'd have to be to use the anvil on the top shelf?

It is probably an easy fix to make the requirements a little bit less strict for placing them. Twice the range for each item would help immensely.

Edit: Actually it is both the requirement that is the problem.

1. That it needs to be close to the forge or workbench.
2. But away from the other improvements.

It creates a logistical paradox.

I put them under the floor if I have the space.

Just wondering...how many actual vikings put work benches and forges in their mead halls?

Originally posted by SubsidedLemon:

I put them under the floor if I have the space.

Yeah, I did the same at first as I didn't have enough space, except I placed them above, in sort of an attic. But I mean, that beats the purpose of placing them organically, doesn't it? =)

Originally posted by warrenchmobile:

Just wondering...how many actual vikings put work benches and forges in their mead halls?

Eh yeah, probably not many. But blasted that roof-over-them-to-repair-and-craft requirement. The Mead hall is my home and my workshop though. It is not the same building if that is what you mean.

I think they should make it so the current improvement it an ingredient for the next improvement. I know this would make them sequential but its an idea.

I am an old soldier and prone to "war stories," so here is one of mine:

In January 1976, I was stationed in Germany but scheduled to leave one Monday morning for a new assignment in the United States. The flight wouuld be on a comercial passenger airliner chartered by the Air Force to move service members and dependents from Germany to the States. The local Military Personnel Office could not find my field personnel file. Their solution: take the scheduled flight and they would mail my field personnel file to my new duty station when they found it.

I rejected that because I had called that office every day for the preceding two weeks with no results. I doubted their efforts would be improved by the removal of daily reminders.
They did find my file but could not get it to me before my original flight departed so I had them schedule a later flight.

I made that flight with my field personnel file. It was, however, on an Air Force cargo jet rather than a chartered airliner. I sat in a pressurized, heated cargo bay. In a commercial airline seat clamped to the floor; an economy seat, mind you, not business or first class.

The flight attendant was an Air Force crew chief whose attentions consisted of giving me a box lunch with cold fried chicken, two slices of bread, a pickle, and a half-pint of milk before the flight took off. Oh, and hearing protection. That was a ball of beeswax to divide in half, knead to the desired shape, and stick in my ears.

No in-flight movie or music, no magazines. One could stare at the cargo, crated jet engines, coffins, and whatever else was being hauled; most of which would not have fit in the cargo bay of a commercial airliner.

Aesthetically, the worst flight of my life. But I got to New Jersey alive and in one piece with my field personnel file. Overall a success.

Sometimes just have to do the best you can with what you have.

Originally posted by warrenchmobile:

Just wondering...how many actual vikings put work benches and forges in their mead halls?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they were with the portals.

Two tips:
1) build a workshop, it helps keep everything looking fancy, plus it'll double as a storage room (as you progress, not sure how far you are, you'll need a ton of chests for crap)
2) I make shelves for mine, it's easiest with the forge addons, I'll add the 1x1 square floor as a shelf above or beside my forge and drop the anvils, etc. up on that. Helps keep the area clear.
Fully upgraded, both my forge and workbench take up a single row of three standard floor units of space each.

Also, creativity can make it look really good: https://www.valheimians.com/build/simple-workshop/

I wouldn't mind a bigger range from the workbench though. If that works for more people :)

The only item that needs to be close is the blower thing for the forge. Frankly it looks pretty good when set up.

The other things do have a radius but it isn't too bad to work with. A lot of my workbench stuff ends up behind a wall or on a roof above it.

Tool racks can be hung and look pretty good as well.

Forge I started to place away from any walls. One close enough to hang boxes and stand between the boxes and the forge or use forge from other side if I am just repairing. Then again I build more for ergonomics than fashion.

Black Forest stone tower
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2552726554

Originally posted by jztroia:

Two tips:
1) build a workshop, it helps keep everything looking fancy, plus it'll double as a storage room (as you progress, not sure how far you are, you'll need a ton of chests for crap)
2) I make shelves for mine, it's easiest with the forge addons, I'll add the 1x1 square floor as a shelf above or beside my forge and drop the anvils, etc. up on that. Helps keep the area clear.
Fully upgraded, both my forge and workbench take up a single row of three standard floor units of space each.

figured I should post what mine looks like, too. Also, I was a little off with the space, but I think this is still totally acceptable.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2582161832