Empirical Evaluation of Fences

Aim: To answer once and for all the age-old question: which fence type to build?

• Wooden fence
• Stone wall
• Tall stone wall
• Palisade

Wooden fences and stone walls are easy to build. Palisades, while hard to obtain material for, are not noticably more difficult to build. Tall stone walls take an immediate penalty because even with 20 masonry the success rate for attaching bricks is less than 20%. Past experience shows that they are similarly hard to repair. Bricks aren't exactly easy to make either.

All 4 fences were created on Golden Valley at 20:00 09/06/2010 (UTC+1), using 20QL components and 20 carpentry/masonry skill, resulting in 21QL fences. Multiple characters were used for simultaneous construction. Due to the extreme difficulty the tall stone wall was completed last, but still within 10 minutes of the other fences.

Note: Golden Valley decays 3x faster than the premium server.

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM systemparadox on GV or on forums.

Results

We have learned that:

• The difference in decay between fence types is negligible.
• Wurm has nonlinear decay. The more damaged an item is, the faster it decays, so repair often.

All times are UTC+1. See below for a graph.

Date	Fence	Stone Wall	Tall Stone Wall	Palisade
2010_06_09 20:00	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
2010_06_10 20:20	0.47619048	0.47619048	0.0	0.47619048
2010_06_10 23:50	0.47619048	0.47619048	0.47619048	0.47619048
2010_06_11 02:32	0.47619048	0.95465934	0.47619048	0.47619048
2010_06_12 00:15	1.4354396	0.95465934	0.47619048	0.95465934
2010_06_12 14:23	1.4354396	1.4354396	0.95465934	1.4354396
2010_06_13 14:08	2.4040701	1.918565	1.4354396	1.918565
2010_06_13 21:45	2.4040701	2.4040701	1.918565	1.918565
2010_06_14 23:40	2.8919907	2.8919907	2.4040701	2.8919907
2010_06_15 15:00	2.8919907	2.8919907	2.8919907	3.3823626
2010_06_16 13:55	3.3823626	3.8752234	3.3823626	3.8752234
2010_06_17 17:15	3.8752234	4.370611	4.370611	4.370611
2010_06_18 00:01	3.8752234	4.868565	4.370611	4.370611
2010_06_19 00:50	4.370611	5.369126	4.868565	5.369126
2010_06_19 18:04	4.868565	5.872334	5.369126	5.872334
2010_06_20 21:25	5.369126	6.8868647	5.872334	6.3782325
2010_06_21 21:10	5.872334	6.8868647	6.3782325	6.8868647
2010_06_22 20:15	6.3782325	7.9125104	6.8868647	7.3982754
2010_06_23 15:40	6.8868647	8.429617	7.3982754	7.9125104
2010_06_24 02:36	6.8868647	8.949644	7.9125104	7.9125104
2010_06_25 01:05	7.9125104	9.472641	8.429617	8.429617
2010_06_26 00:50	7.9125104	9.472641	8.949644	8.949644
2010_06_26 18:10	8.429617	9.998659	9.472641	9.472641
2010_06_27 13:40	8.429617	10.527752	9.998659	9.472641
2010_07_07 18:00	14.322269	16.567505	15.437484	16.000607
2010_07_09 17:10	15.437484	17.712934	16.567505	17.138254
2010_07_16 01:43	18.87442	22.462414	19.4614	21.248388
2010_07_19 02:30	21.248388	24.319668	21.248388	23.6956
2010_07_21 03:45	22.462414	24.948881	23.076555	24.948881
2010_07_22 00:10	23.076555	26.223269	24.319668	25.58337
2010_07_23 17:24	24.319668	27.519861	24.948881	26.868717
2010_07_26 03:00	25.58337	28.839859	26.868717	28.839859
2010_07_30 01:20	28.176855	32.251175	29.50904	31.555445
2010_07_31 01:30	28.839859	32.954052	30.184574	32.251175
2010_08_02 00:25	31.555445	35.10785	32.954052	35.10785
2010_08_08 14:10	36.583878	39.642796	38.09467	39.642796
2010_08_10 16:00	38.09467	41.23115	39.642796	42.041428
2010_08_20 14:40	47.159336	49.910625	50.861305	50.861305
2010_08_26 03:10	52.81895	56.99464	55.91449	58.10192
2010_09_02 17:50	64.131584	65.45919	65.45919	71.350174
2010_09_05 16:00	69.774704	71.350174	68.273766	76.66466
2010_09_08 14:30	74.77676	78.7053	73.01228	86.31562

Fence decay graph