I'd like to see more immersive log splitting

[Pyroteq]

Hi all, brand new player to VS and really enjoying my time so far. Apologies if this is a common suggestion, I didn't find anything with a quick search.

Something I found immediately odd is how firewood is made from logs. It's one of the first things you'll do in the game so I think it's important to make this mechanic engaging and set the tone for the rest of the game mechanics. As someone that has a woodfire and splits logs for winter each year, I found the method of dragging a log into the crafting menu and combining it with the axe to be a bit weird and disappointing considering the more in-depth knapping system to create tool heads. It wouldn't surprise me if the devs already realise this.

Manually chopping logs into firewood seems like a pretty easy goal that would create much more immersion and realism. Even in Red Dead Redemption you can cut firewood at the camp.

My suggestion would be that players should place a log on the ground to create a chopping block (alternatively the stump left over from chopping down a tree could be used as a chopping block as they're very difficult to remove in real life and often involves the use of machinery), then place another log on top and swing the axe to split it in half, then rotate around and swing the axe into those halves to make it into quarters. This is how most people split wood for fires in real life, the log underneath raises the log to a more comfortable swinging level and also provides a nice stable surface so the log you're splitting doesn't just sink into the ground or have the soft dirt underneath absorb much of the impact.

When using a sharp axe on dry logs, you can typically split a log in half with a single swing. Of course, unless VS plans to add wood seasoning to the game I think perhaps the dryness of the wood is probably not a fun mechanic as it can take a year for logs to dry out, so perhaps a few swings on each side with a stone axe would suffice so that later on in the game a sharp metal axe can split in a single swing.

I'd also improve the animations so that when chopping the wood on a chopping block it's an overhead swing.

To balance this out if players find this too tedious, the time to chop down a tree could always be decreased slightly to compensate for the extra time players would spend splitting logs.

It would be cool if wood cutting in general was a bit more physics based, kinda like Valheim but I'm not sure how well that would work in a block based game. I really enjoyed the fact that chopping trees down in that game provided just a little bit of danger and thought instead of just swinging into a tree without thought. Also the axe swinging animation could use a bit of work. A bit of wind up and slower more powerful swings would add to the immersion as the rapid swinging of an axe into a tree would do more damage to your arm than a tree. As the trees take a while to cut down you could make it take the same amount of time but have the animations play much slower and get the same result.

I'm still early on in the game so far and look forward to seeing how it progresses.

Edited January 8, 2025 by Pyroteq

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! The good news is this concept already exists in the mod realm, although I'm not sure how well it's working on more recent versions of the game(it appears to be slated for a 1.20 update): https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/8567

4 minutes ago, Pyroteq said:

To balance this out if players find this too tedious, the time to chop down a tree could always be decreased slightly to compensate for the extra time players would spend splitting logs.

The tedium is what I would be concerned about with a change like this, and I don't think decreasing the time it takes to chop down a tree really fixes the issue. Players need to chop a lot of firewood in Vintage Story--a LOT--and while it might not be too bad in the early game it's going to be a huge pain later on when you're trying to fill up a big charcoal pit. I could see it working if you added a way to automate the process with machinery, like a sawmill, but that's about it.

9 minutes ago, Pyroteq said:

It would be cool if wood cutting in general was a bit more physics based, kinda like Valheim but I'm not sure how well that would work in a block based game. I really enjoyed the fact that chopping trees down in that game provided just a little bit of danger and thought instead of just swinging into a tree without thought.

I would rather something like this instead, I think, though maybe without the tree-felling chaos that Valheim's system can result in(if I chop a tree, I don't want every tree next to it to be getting knocked over too). However, I'm not sure how much work it would take to implement as a replacement for the system we have currently; it seems like it would require more effort than it's maybe worth.

[Pyroteq]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't think decreasing the time it takes to chop down a tree really fixes the issue.

Currently the act of cutting down a tree is literally just stare at one spot and hold down the mouse button, so decreasing the time a player spends doing that is probably not a bad thing. I'm sure later on with a better axe it's much better, but with the stone axe it feels like an eternity and then when the tree eventually falls down your axe is broken so you have to craft a new axe head anyway. I think I went through 3 axe heads on a single large tree near my starting location.

The act of placing a log on another log and hitting it a few times on 3 sides would theoretically be much less involved than the current system as the logs are big and chunky so they're easy for a player to target as opposed to knapping an axe head which requires much more carefully aiming at the tiles, so swinging the axe at a log would be faster than knapping a new axe head over and over.

There should probably be a bit of automation as far as placing another log on the chopping block though. Eg, you could place a stack of 16 logs on a chopping block and after you split one and it breaks apart the next log pops on the chopping block so you're not constantly going in and out of the inventory menu as the entire goal should be having the player spend more time immersed in the world and the least time looking at the UI.

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, Pyroteq said:

Currently the act of cutting down a tree is literally just stare at one spot and hold down the mouse button, so decreasing the time a player spends doing that is probably not a bad thing. I'm sure later on with a better axe it's much better, but with the stone axe it feels like an eternity and then when the tree eventually falls down your axe is broken so you have to craft a new axe head anyway. I think I went through 3 axe heads on a single large tree near my starting location.

It does get a lot better--I have a steel axe and it only takes me a couple seconds to chop down a tree, unless it's a really big one. I would be inclined to agree that shortening the chop time wouldn't be an issue, but the idea is for players to acquire better tools. Stone axes get the job done for cheap; the slow chop rate and lack of durability provides progression incentive.

32 minutes ago, Pyroteq said:

The act of placing a log on another log and hitting it a few times on 3 sides would theoretically be much less involved than the current system as the logs are big and chunky so they're easy for a player to target as opposed to knapping an axe head which requires much more carefully aiming at the tiles, so swinging the axe at a log would be faster than knapping a new axe head over and over.

It's not just a factor of it being easy and quick; it's how often you'd need to be doing that task. Chopping a log or two for a fire pit is one thing, but filling a charcoal pit is quite another. Smaller charcoal pits don't require as much wood, but you'll need to fire them more frequently since they don't produce as much charcoal. A big charcoal pit will produce tons of charcoal, but may end up requiring several dozen stacks of wood to fire, which is an awful lot of chopping to do in one sitting. Automation like a sawmill would help, but one drawback to automation is that production of some parts usually requires a lot of charcoal/coal.

37 minutes ago, Pyroteq said:

There should probably be a bit of automation as far as placing another log on the chopping block though. Eg, you could place a stack of 16 logs on a chopping block and after you split one and it breaks apart the next log pops on the chopping block so you're not constantly going in and out of the inventory menu as the entire goal should be having the player spend more time immersed in the world and the least time looking at the UI.

Turning a quern by hand is also rather immersive, but that does not make it fun. More immersive wood-chopping seems like it would be nice, but I also think it would end up with results similar to powering a quern manually. Throwing stacks of logs into a crafting grid with an axe to get firewood might not be the most immersive thing, but it allows a player to get several stacks of firewood in a few seconds, rather than needing to sink a few minutes into chopping those same logs into firewood.

[Thorfinn]

Yeah, I would (well, actually, I do) hold off on the bigger trees until I have better tools. The taller pines are OK, but the massive oaks or walnuts (or redwoods) are just too much, unless maybe you remove all the leaves first. I've often thought that maybe it should not count the leafy blocks, only the branchy ones, and sometimes that it should only count the branchy ones that actually drop something, but as is, if you aren't defoliating before chopping, a stone axe isn't a great option. Unless you are building something like a hunting lodge, you should be able to get through on 8-10 stacks of logs until you have better tooling. That's only a little over one stack of flint axe heads.

And I would definitely agree with @LadyWYT that filling a large charcoal pit while having to individually split every log with 3 clicks would be tedious to the extreme. There are people who think it's too tedious as it is.