Have Bones Be Able To Replace Sticks Everywhere

[Crysta]

Currently it seems bones can only replace sticks for certain types of axes and knifes, giving a durability bonus, I think it would be more interesting if that was added to all tiers and tools. It would provide more variety and take advantage of that mechanic more. Though to avoid cluttering the survival handbook, maybe variants could be in the same menu as the tool that uses the normal stick.
To save development resources it could also be done procedurally if that is more feasible?

[Tom Cantine]

I would definitely like to see some more uses for bones, and I think bone handled knives beyond flint make some sense, but not spears. Remember that a spear's attack range is quite long, implying a shaft of at least a meter or more. There's no bone in any of the animals of the game that comes close to being suitable for a spear shaft. Indeed, most of the other tools have hafts too long to be made of bone, as well. 

[Crysta]

Fair, maybe though some could just take 2 bones instead of 1 per? just the option would be nice in my opinion.

[ifoz]

Things like bone-bladed knives, arrows, etc also would make sense.
Using a bone instead of a stone for the tool head.

Edited June 2, 2025 by ifoz

[Thorfinn]

On 6/1/2025 at 1:05 AM, Crysta said:

Though to avoid cluttering the survival handbook, maybe variants could be in the same menu as the tool that uses the normal stick.

That takes some extra coding. The handbook is generated at runtime so that it incorporates all the mods you have installed.

Unless you are playing the Phanerozoic (dino) mods, you will likely be using all the bones you have to keep your onion growth rate pegged. But, yeah, I can see bone-handled metal knives. I'm not much of a graphic arts kind of guy, but everything else would be pretty easy to do.

[Resserfi_YT]

the shovel could be made with a bone instead of stick because a femur has that lenght bone head arrows or the hoe because is just to use a kneecap (for head) and for the handle can be also a femur so yea mostly all tools could use bone for handle

[Maelstrom]

I disagree @Resserfi_YT.  Femurs of most animals have insufficient length for use in crafting shovels, hoes, spearshafts.  The stone age axe is more of a hatchet than a two handed chopping axe.

I would like to see bone handles for metal knives as a decorative option and provide no other benefit.

[Never Jhonsen]

14 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Femurs of most animals have insufficient length for use in crafting shovels, hoes, spearshafts.  The stone age axe is more of a hatchet than a two handed chopping axe.

I'm gonna second this. The average bone comes from pigs and smaller, and all of their bones just aren't long enough for most tools.

Now, the devs COULD add in a second bone from the larger animals, one that's long enough for the other tools, but that's just more complexity for multiple systems. One could mod it however

[Facethief]

16 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I would like to see bone handles for metal knives as a decorative option and provide no other benefit.

When used on stone tier knives, bone handles provide a small buff, IIRC, so that’d be a weird inconsistency. However, it’d also be weird if you had a steel knife with default + 20 odd durability. I can see why the devs didn’t bother.

[JYAR]

Kind of an off-note suggestion but longer bones had me thinking of an earlier suggestion where a guy was saying it's too infeasible to play homo sapiens in the arctic. Maybe like hides, bones can be different sizes based on the carcass. As a result, you might be able to use the largest bones and hides to construct tents. Said tents could provide passive heating due to body temperature but then again, I think this should be done with igloos aswell.

[LadyWYT]

27 minutes ago, JYAR said:

Maybe like hides, bones can be different sizes based on the carcass.

This is becoming somewhat of a thing in 1.21. Fish and other small animals, I believe, are getting changed to drop tiny bones, which can't be used to craft tools given they are way too small.

28 minutes ago, JYAR said:

As a result, you might be able to use the largest bones and hides to construct tents.

Unless you're hunting something like whales or elephants, I doubt it. The largest animals currently in the game are bears, and while they might have big bones, the bones still aren't long enough to really make things like spears or tentpoles or similar things. At a glance, bones are also heavier than wood, so when it comes to things like tents you'd want materials that are both strong and light for easier transport.

34 minutes ago, JYAR said:

longer bones had me thinking of an earlier suggestion where a guy was saying it's too infeasible to play homo sapiens in the arctic

I think the arctic is still somewhat unfinished, and will probably see some love later on. However, the arctic is also an extremely unforgiving environment, and not a place meant to be very feasible for survival. A player can choose to live there as a challenge, but it's going to be a lot of extra work and hold challenges that aren't present in other climates.

 

On 6/3/2025 at 3:04 PM, Maelstrom said:

I would like to see bone handles for metal knives as a decorative option and provide no other benefit.

I'd add falxes/swords to that list too. The handles are short enough that making one out of bone as a vanity option is feasible.

[Echo Weaver]

I've been digging up recipe mods to create more bone-handled tools. I disagree with @Thorfinn that all bones could be used to bonemeal P crops. (I think that's what you said? ) I have a pretty decent farm, but I think my only P crops are onions and parsnips at this point. I have two stacks of bones hanging around.

Bone blades seem reasonable too.

My reasoning on bone-handles is that if we're going to use a generic stick, and a generic bone has more durability than a generic stick, then we ought to be able to use them interchangeably for tool creation and get a durability boost. Sticks that one would gain from breaking branchy leaves wouldn't be long enough for a spear either. You'd need to cut an actual thicker branch, I think, and we don't have a mechanic for that. So all bones and all sticks are of arbitrary length, and I don't have a problem with that level of detail.

I guess the durability boost is a percentage though, right? It does seem like one isn't going to get that kind of improvement for higher metals. Seems like the durability boost ought to reduce such that a steel knife with a bone handle is almost the same as one with a wooden handle.

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

the bones still aren't long enough to really make things like spears or tentpoles or similar things.

You could if you have enough duct tape.

 

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

bones could be used to bonemeal P crops.

Yes, that and making TP. Bonemeal is the bottleneck. You will wipe out the better part of a chest making enough TP to bother with. 'Course, after your first flax harvest, you have a couple full windmills, your sailboat and gambeson. So why bother with TP again? It's not like you ever need to even fill all the farmland you already have.

I don't have any problem with using bones for, well, pretty much everything. It would have to be a pretty significant boost to overcome the opportunity cost.

[LadyWYT]

5 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Yes, that and making TP. Bonemeal is the bottleneck. You will wipe out the better part of a chest making enough TP to bother with. 'Course, after your first flax harvest, you have a couple full windmills, your sailboat and gambeson. So why bother with TP again? It's not like you ever need to even fill all the farmland you already have.

I don't have any problem with using bones for, well, pretty much everything. It would have to be a pretty significant boost to overcome the opportunity cost.

It took me entirely too long to figure out you're talking about terra preta here, and not toilet paper. Doh! I was so confused! 

[Echo Weaver]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

It took me entirely too long to figure out you're talking about terra preta here, and not toilet paper. Doh! I was so confused! 

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! 

[Echo Weaver]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Yes, that and making TP. Bonemeal is the bottleneck. You will wipe out the better part of a chest making enough TP to bother with. 'Course, after your first flax harvest, you have a couple full windmills, your sailboat and gambeson. So why bother with TP again? It's not like you ever need to even fill all the farmland you already have.

Yeah, I've just gotten well enough established on my base to start making TP in earnest, but now I don't know if I care. I have a mix of medium and high fertility soil and am producing more food than I can eat. Flax plus the overabundance of K crops is annoying, but that's really a crop rotation problem rather than a soil problem. I have enough variety of crops now that I'm only growing a couple of K crops and otherwise focusing on N and P to try to round out my rotation.

ETA: Really, I probably won't be needing to mass-produce flax much longer, will I? I'm currently using gambeson armor, so I need the flax to repair it. Starting to build a set of iron chain armor, and that will take iron and leather to repair. At least those aren't crops.

Edited July 11, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

'Course, after your first flax harvest, you have a couple full windmills, your sailboat and gambeson. So why bother with TP again?

I, too thought TP meant toilet paper and was wondering the mechanics of using flax fibers as toilet paper.

[Never Jhonsen]

Hey, it's good to make sure you're clean after a poop. Last thing our Seraph would want is to fight with dysentery

[Maelstrom]

Question is - do seraphim poop?

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

Question is - do seraphim poop?

Well...https://mods.vintagestory.at/scatatastrophe

[Maelstrom]

Just say no to GMO seraphs!  

[zand]

After reading this topic, my first thought was bone ladders. There are plenty of blocks other than tools (fences, doors, etc.) that could have a decorative bone version. It would be nice to be able to show off my collection to other players without it just being a pit full of skeletons and rotten meat. It may also help make other players less tempted to steal my collection in order to fertilize their lawn.

[JYAR]

On 7/10/2025 at 2:39 PM, LadyWYT said:

Unless you're hunting something like whales or elephants, I doubt it. The largest animals currently in the game are bears, and while they might have big bones, the bones still aren't long enough to really make things like spears or tentpoles or similar things. At a glance, bones are also heavier than wood, so when it comes to things like tents you'd want materials that are both strong and light for easier transport.

I think the arctic is still somewhat unfinished, and will probably see some love later on. However, the arctic is also an extremely unforgiving environment, and not a place meant to be very feasible for survival. A player can choose to live there as a challenge, but it's going to be a lot of extra work and hold challenges that aren't present in other climates.

Historically, paleolithic peoples used live mammoth bones around 25000 years ago, then transitioning into frozen mammoths and then finally transitioning over to using primarily bowhead whales. IMO, the concept of hunting whales is a very touchy subject and required whole parties to accomplish anyways, so the only real way I could see such a dwelling be made would be with the frozen mammoths.

I think the idea here is how can you survive without access to wood. "That" game has a similar issue. Therefore, i'd like to switch the horse i'm backing to Igloos. Maybe finally tying wolf domestication into being able to make a dog sled would provide an easier way to make an expedition into warmer climates for outside materials.

As a huge Arctic nerd myself, the idea of an arctic campaign sounds really fun if not challenging as I already love how oppressive and well developed the temperature mechanics are as is.

[Rudometkin]

Quote

Have Bones Be Able To Replace Sticks Everywhere

I can't wait to start a bonefire with these two bones!

Edit:

Why do I keep finding bones in tree leaves?!

Edited July 11, 2025 by Rudometkin

[Echo Weaver]

11 hours ago, zand said:

After reading this topic, my first thought was bone ladders. There are plenty of blocks other than tools (fences, doors, etc.) that could have a decorative bone version. It would be nice to be able to show off my collection to other players without it just being a pit full of skeletons and rotten meat. It may also help make other players less tempted to steal my collection in order to fertilize their lawn.

This is a seriously brilliant idea. At this point, I have enough bones to build a fence around my farm. +10 would totally do this.