Whittling: Branches, Sawdust and the Stick Problem

[seraph of candles]

So, my idea has a few branches to it, but the core is this: Split sticks into sticks (sometimes found on the ground, extremely versatile for crafting) and branches (commonly found on the ground or in large amounts from leaves, useful for early-game crafting and bows but generally worse than sticks, can fit in your offhand slot).

So, how do you get sticks? Well, there are three main roots you can take.

1. Sometimes you'll find the perfect stick just laying right there on the ground. Any kid knows this.
2. Yes, fine, you can probably saw boards for sticks. It's one of those threads. You've been stickrolled.
3. But the real way you get sticks, early on, is from whittling.

How does whittling work? Well, you could make it a knapping system, but I don't... really want to. I think whittling can be a very immersive activity if it functions more like panning. You sit down by the campfire, get out the branches and a knife, and get to work with a cute, simple animation. The odds are randomized, because some branches just don't make good sticks, but this is still the best way to get sticks early on, and sticks are extremely useful. You could potentially make branches extremely common and tweak the return ratio however yew like.

It's also the first way to get wood shavings, which is admittedly a peripheral suggestion but one my partner is obsessed over. She's very into mycology, see, so the idea of gathering bags of wood shavings and inoculating them for mushroom farming really excites her. Wood shavings could also be an alternative to dry grass in campfires, pit kilns and egg boxes.

The Case Against (and Against That)

• Wait, if you made sticks rarer, didn't you just make the problem of stick scarcity worse? (The problem to me seems to be "sticks" occupy two roles in the game. One of those roles requires them to be fairly limited, a useful resource for specific recipes. The other requires them to be extremely plentiful, since you need them en masse for stuff like improvised fences and pit kilns. My solution is to let sticks be slightly rarer at the start, but easily-replenished, and let branches be plentiful in the gathering stage but less useful later on.)
• Splitting an item creates more inventory clutter. (This is partially why I suggest letting branches fit in the offhand slot. You could also make sticks properly stackable like firewood, or create some sort of "bundle storage" option. I think this is solvable. You could also prevent players from gaining tree seeds until they whittle the branches, reducing inventory clutter abroad.)
• Splitting the item creates greater confusion for new players. (Sticks and branches share a lot of the same recipes early on, so the differences will mostly come up after the players have gotten used to the game already. I also think it would actually be clearer to Other Game players that you can't hew branches from logs, so it could create less confusion, not more.)
• Whittling would be boring. (Correct! But I'm that girl who really likes panning. You're barking up the wrong tree. Sometimes it's kind of nice to gather around the fire and do a calming, monotonous task, especially in the wintertime or during drifter sieges. The slight random chance element adds some small excitement, too. Time-filler tasks are not inherently a bad thing.)
• There are too many tree puns on this thread. (That's knot true. )

Conclusion

Look, I know people complain about stick scarcity a lot. I'm not blowing any minds here. I also know that the team has very deliberately separated "sticks" from "logs" in the resource bar, and I don't want to dismiss their reasons for doing so. That being said, I think I have an original angle here, and I personally would absolutely adore the ability to whittle as a nice busywork activity. I think splitting the item up gives the team more freedom to set the scarcity where they want it while improving overall immersion.

It's just something I'd like to see in the game, and that's all there is to it.

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forum, @seraph of candles!

Not sure I'm understanding. Sticks are used for, what, exactly? Evidently not tool handles, since that's the earliest use for most people. Probably not torches, same reason. If not fences, presumably not ladders? So what? Higher tier bows? Anything above crude arrows? Barrels? Machinery? When do sticks become useful?

Wood shavings are a great idea! 

 

Edited September 21 by Thorfinn

[seraph of candles]

Thank you, Thorfinn! Super excited to be here, trying very hard not to post five different Suggestions threads on the same day now that I've arrived. I'm trying to pace my hubris a little bit.

I think that anything above the "crude"/"makeshift" blocks--fences, doors, etc--would be a great start. Anything that requires boards should probably also require sticks. Glass blocks, too. Sticks could be used for stuff like tools and rough-hewn fences (and might be a bit better than branches), but would generally be an unnecessarily pricey substitute.

I'm not wholly wedded to branches being usable for fences and ladders, either. Fences, ladders, torches, tools, bows/arrows, barrels, barrels, doors and pit kilns were just examples of the many things you use sticks for, and I think splitting some of those off to be cheaper might reduce the stick strain.

I'm avoiding pinning down the details too much, admittedly, because that's... sort of the hard part. How exactly to divide the item is much more complicated than the simple idea of "maybe we could divide this item", and I think it's a question better reserved for people whose first post on this forum wasn't this exact thread. XD

EDIT: An idea I've sort of hesitated to bring up, because I think it's a little less-than-immersive, is being able to very inefficiently (like, 1->1 or 1->2) whittle firewood into sticks as well. If the whittling idea turns out to be the only idea here worth salvaging, I think that's a viable way to address the stick frustrations. Just, you know. Kind of a boring one for me? Alternatively, you could drop the stick shortage concern and turn whittling into purely a method of getting wood shavings.

Edited September 21 by seraph of candles

[Thorfinn]

Ladders are going to be deal-breakers, I'm afraid. People already usually use planks where they can because sticks are rare enough, even with shears. A stack of ladders, which doesn't go very far, takes about 150 sticks.

[seraph of candles]

6 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Ladders are going to be deal-breakers, I'm afraid. People already usually use planks where they can because sticks are rare enough, even with shears. A stack of ladders, which doesn't go very far, takes about 150 sticks.

Good to know! No reason ladders can't be branches, really. Or you add a "crude ladder" option, although I'm pretty sure that's what rope ladders are for. Like I said, the exact dividing point feels a lot fuzzier for me, personally. This part's just brainstorming!

[LadyWYT]

Honestly, I'd just let whittling be a quick, simple method to turn sticks into wood shavings, that can then be refined into wood pulp(paper), used to start fires, used to grow mushrooms, etc. It'd also be a decent way to pass the time during winter, or whenever you just need something easy to do while waiting on something(or someone!) else. Assuming that Vintage Story adds a proper sawmill to its list of machines to build, a sawmill would mostly replace whittling with sawdust as a byproduct.

The main issue with requiring branches/sticks to be further refined before they can used for things like tool handles, ladders, etc. is...a lot of those things you need to make quite a lot of, quite often. Especially in the earlier stages of gameplay, when it comes to tool handles. While it might be kinda fun for the first few items, it's going to get very tedious, very fast if you need to constantly stop your progress elsewhere just to make sticks, and unlike other tedious gameplay loops I don't see that kind of loop being very rewarding to complete.

[Thorfinn]

Right, @LadyWYT. Early tool handles would be nuts. You need a stick to make a knife, and you need a knife to make a stick. If sticks in nature are uncommon, you need to both find a forest and get lucky before you can really start the game, a knife being essential to, well, everything.

Whittling could be used for tool handles, sure, but I'd think they need to be better than bone handles to make them worthwhile. As for growing mushrooms or replacing grass in lots of recipes, sounds great!

I don't know what else. As a Bear Scout, we whittled wooden knives, which were fine for skinning and cleaning rabbits, probably for reeds, too, but we started with a steel Boy Scout's knife to do the whittling. 

It does sound like a cool idea. Just not sure how to make it practical.

[Thorfinn]

8 hours ago, seraph of candles said:

Good to know! No reason ladders can't be branches, really. Or you add a "crude ladder" option, although I'm pretty sure that's what rope ladders are for. Like I said, the exact dividing point feels a lot fuzzier for me, personally. This part's just brainstorming!

Rope ladders are actually worse. You either need 6 vines or 12 reeds, plus  3 sticks to make 3 rope ladders, vs. 7 sticks to make 3 regular ladders. Unless you have an unusual start, I don't think rope ladders are worth the effort. Don't know if there was a reason to make them that much worse, but what is, is.

[Deaderpan]

looking at this ladder discussion, what about rock climbing gear?

you need to have a rock climbing pick in your off hand, rock climbing shoes with spiked tips equipped and then you can climb any rock/stone face if its flat enough. would require a rock climbing animation. obviously doesn't resolve the stick issue but it gives a game friendly alternative for some of ladders uses.

[LadyWYT]

On 9/22/2024 at 5:40 AM, Deaderpan said:

looking at this ladder discussion, what about rock climbing gear?

you need to have a rock climbing pick in your off hand, rock climbing shoes with spiked tips equipped and then you can climb any rock/stone face if its flat enough. would require a rock climbing animation. obviously doesn't resolve the stick issue but it gives a game friendly alternative for some of ladders uses.

Absolutely yes! If nothing else, just a method to climb vertical surfaces in general(without ladders). The drawback could be that it has a very high stamina cost to use, and perhaps you have a limited amount of time that you can actually move while clinging to the surface; ie, a minor stamina bar similar to the breath bar while underwater, in that you can't climb while it's empty. Climbing gear could help offset these effects. Climbing in general would be super useful for exploration, and more fun than just sticking ladders everywhere(although ladders would be a safer option). The main drawback to climbing like that though, aside from high stamina usage, is that it leaves you a sitting duck for ranged(or flying?) opponents.

[CrazyGrape]

On 9/22/2024 at 1:09 AM, Thorfinn said:

Early tool handles would be nuts. You need a stick to make a knife, and you need a knife to make a stick. If sticks in nature are uncommon, you need to both find a forest and get lucky before you can really start the game, a knife being essential to, well, everything.

Perhaps branches could be broken into sticks with one's bare hands (holding right click) at the cost that it has a slight animation and gives you a 1:1 or 1:2 output and no byproduct. Getting a knife and sitting down to whittle branches into sticks would serve the dual purpose of getting two useful supplies at once: the sticks and the shavings. I think it would be fair to allow branches be used directly as handles, but give a durability bonus for a proper handle as mentioned elsewhere

On 9/21/2024 at 9:39 PM, LadyWYT said:

Honestly, I'd just let whittling be a quick, simple method to turn sticks into wood shavings, that can then be refined into wood pulp(paper), used to start fires, used to grow mushrooms, etc. It'd also be a decent way to pass the time during winter, or whenever you just need something easy to do while waiting on something(or someone!) else. Assuming that Vintage Story adds a proper sawmill to its list of machines to build, a sawmill would mostly replace whittling with sawdust as a byproduct.

The main issue with requiring branches/sticks to be further refined before they can used for things like tool handles, ladders, etc. is...a lot of those things you need to make quite a lot of, quite often. Especially in the earlier stages of gameplay, when it comes to tool handles. While it might be kinda fun for the first few items, it's going to get very tedious, very fast if you need to constantly stop your progress elsewhere just to make sticks, and unlike other tedious gameplay loops I don't see that kind of loop being very rewarding to complete.

Counterpoint: if the sound design is good, the sound of a knife shaving a stick can be very satisfying. This helps a lot with the tedium of collecting dry grass with a scythe.

Branch processing could also be a big reason to push for a sawmill or similar automation. That doesn't address the early game issue, but branch whittling could easily be something one just does to pass the time while waiting for food to cook. Perhaps we could build firepits with branches directly instead of needing firewood. That would be a reason to collect them passively while also reducing the need to have an axe in one's inventory while exploring. For balance reasons, perhaps branches burn for a little less time and a little less hot, like 80% that of firewood, but still more than enough to cook food and be a reasonable fuel source.

 

While this wouldn't serve as much of a purpose, I think it would be really fun to have a little whittling interface to let players make a lot of stuff beyond bulk processing, including decorations and figures (though I guess there is chiseling for that). Perhaps these handcrafted wooden items could be something artisan traders offer to buy for a few gears. I think it would be neat to make knife handles, which are typically more complex IRL to accomodate the tang than just being a stick. There would be a ritual to whittling down a long branch into a bowstaff, or just a plain old walking stick! You could make pointy wooden spears which break almost instantly but do more damage than flint. You could use the pointy wooden sticks to make fortifications which keep bears out!

While this doesn't require whittling specifically, I'd like to see a lot more tool handle options in general. Let me make handles out of exotic woods! Allowing bones as handles and any igneous rock as tool heads has opened the door to this sort of customization already. Forgive me, but I do find it a little silly how even steel tools are fastened via rope! A more processed handle in exchange for a slight percentage durability bonus would be more than enough reason to make them.

[seraph of candles]

Ooh, I really like your ideas! If we want to do whittling for decorations, here's a thought: It's like a chisel, but you can only do it with something like firewood. So, wood-only, small shapes only. Could be cute to add soapstone later on, too, with similar limits.