Stone hammer (as in primitive stone hammer)

[Lookstothestars]

Hellu, i had the idea for a commonly used neolithic tool that isn't in Vintage Story yet. A simple stone hammer, basically a rounded stone made from a hard rock which can be used to grind grain into flour, break only soft rock types and debark logs. I do want to say that for balancing reasons these should obviously take pretty long and the hammer itself could also break easily, but it would allow players to interact with more game mechanics earlier on, make building nice looking structures easier and could also help payers in difficult climates to have a greater chance at survival. It's also (as far as i know) historically accurate since bread was certainly made long before copper tools were commonly used, debarked logs were also used very early on and i recall that there were also peoples that basically dug themselves entire cellars while still being in the stone age. I think that was an entire reason to settle in a different area with softer stones for some people. So yeah, balancing would need to be looked at but i think it would be a cool idea, especially for people that don't want to haste themselves through ages just to interact with more mechanics of the game.

[Thorfinn]

Try out Primitive Tools mod. I got the impression that while "realistic" stone age picks and hammers were way OP.

[Lookstothestars]

29 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Try out Primitive Tools mod. I got the impression that while "realistic" stone age picks and hammers were way OP.

Yeah, that mod kind of falls down the pitfalls i imagined. While i can see primitive picks and woodsplitters being used in real life to easier aquire planks and stone and stuff, it's not really what i had in mind and it would definitely throw off progression. That's why i only suggested the stone hammer, because as far as i know it was the first real tool used by humans because in the end it's just a rock. That's mostly why i wanted specifically a stone hammer to be added. I might even go as far to say that when using a primitive hammer you wouldn't even get rather useful soft stone stones but instead either gravel or sand, if that makes sense. It's not supposed to be used for mining stone but to make space (because honestly, the amount of times i wanted to make a starter base and realised only way later that the ground i'm working on is only one dirt deep before you hit stone is rather much) and while you can make boards with stone tools in real life i don't think that's needed in vintage story.

But thank you anyways for recommending that mod. I hope a simple tool like i've described could eventually be added to the main game in a way that doesn't break progression completely.

[Thorfinn]

Sure. But try out just the hammer part of it, leaving all the rest alone. I suspect you will come to realize that a stone hammer simply breaks progression too much. And if you don't think it's OP, you can remove the knapping recipes for all the rest of the items. Or just choose not to use them. And that's before you've added things like milling grain or debarking logs or breaking stone.

Edited May 15, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Lookstothestars]

24 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Sure. But try out just the hammer part of it, leaving all the rest alone. I suspect you will come to realize that a stone hammer simply breaks progression too much. And if you don't think it's OP, you can remove the knapping recipes for all the rest of the items. Or just choose not to use them. And that's before you've added things like milling grain or debarking logs or breaking stone.

Might take a bit before i get to try it. I'm currently still on a vanilla playthrough that i want to stay vanilla until i finish the current story that is currently in the game. Even then, the mod you suggested is for an older version and i don't know how to install older versions of VS. And then i have to figure out how to install mods, but once i get there i'll tell you what i think about that mod. Again, i think it can be ballanced if implented correctly and considering i only really want aesthetic reasons to have a primitive hammer, as an example for carving small mountain homes (not even real cellars since you don't have access to boards and therefore no access to solid doors) or debarking logs, which as far as i know isn't all that useful without metal tools like a saw. And about the milling grain bit, i don't think it's all that useful. Maybe they could add something like rough flour which is only good to make early flatbread in something like a saucepan once they (hopefully) rework the games cooking system a little bit, but considering you have to find fire clay first to even make an oven which isn't likely to happen before you get copper tools it would literally be a useless feature. I guess that's not that great of a promotion for my idea but i'm sure it could be eventually once a few more areas of the game have been reworked lightly. I'm really not trying to make anything easier for myself, i just want to built historically accurate housings from across all cultures during their specific time frame (Don't get me to rant about my opinions of mud bricks in Vintage Story, haha. I have opinions about the way they look.)