Craftable sticks

[Lunyaru]

Sticks seem to be the bone of almost every crafting recipe, and its a bit frustrating how the only way to get a bunch of them is to destroy leaves.
It would be cool if you could use an axe to split firewood into sticks or an alternative for crafting purposes.

[Thorfinn]

There are dozens of mods that provide a way to craft sticks. I've changed things on my server to give a 50% chance of a regular old leaf block dropping a stick, too, because some were too impatient to wait for the shears.

[Dilan Rona]

And once you get shears, you are absolutely drowning in sticks to the point a lot of players just toss the sticks away, cause they got too much at their base.

[Broccoli Clock]

16 hours ago, Lunyaru said:

It would be cool if you could use an axe to split firewood into sticks or an alternative for crafting purposes.

I literally wrote my own mod because while I don't mind the early game struggle I was frustrated at the lack of sticks mid game. I made it use an axe and a plank (board),as I felt at the point you are able to make planks it's just a matter of splitting those planks into sticks.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/21934

[Never Jhonsen]

On 6/12/2025 at 12:27 AM, Dilan Rona said:

And once you get shears, you are absolutely drowning in sticks to the point a lot of players just toss the sticks away, cause they got too much at their base.

I like to see how fast I can fill a crate with Stick Layers

I've gotten over a crate before, but not quite to two crates

[Dilan Rona]

You'd be suprised at how fast that can go before you start filling your second.

[grunt700]

Honestly, I think a better solution would be to use a different item for later game objects, a stick really shouldn't be used for high quality tools and machinery. I think adding a draw knife to make rods and handles from planks or squared beams would be a better solution, making mid to late game rely less on grabbing sticks and focus more on industrialization. If I make a concerted effort to grab sticks, than I find enough for my purposes, but it feels less rewarding and more like I've gone back to square one.

[hstone32]

I think sticks are fine as they are. Shears can get you all the sticks you need.

maybe what needs to happen though, is the guide should be clearer about how players should use shears to collect sticks.

[Thorfinn]

On 10/21/2025 at 4:49 PM, grunt700 said:

Honestly, I think a better solution would be to use a different item for later game objects, a stick really shouldn't be used for high quality tools and machinery. I think adding a draw knife to make rods and handles from planks or squared beams would be a better solution, making mid to late game rely less on grabbing sticks and focus more on industrialization. If I make a concerted effort to grab sticks, than I find enough for my purposes, but it feels less rewarding and more like I've gone back to square one.

I'd be fine with that, but wouldn't look forward to all the complaints about not being able to craft bronze knives or copper axes. And we'd be linking those people to mods that add the old way back in. 

[MKMoose]

On 10/23/2025 at 4:02 PM, Thorfinn said:

On 10/21/2025 at 11:49 PM, grunt700 said:

Honestly, I think a better solution would be to use a different item for later game objects, a stick really shouldn't be used for high quality tools and machinery. I think adding a draw knife to make rods and handles from planks or squared beams would be a better solution, making mid to late game rely less on grabbing sticks and focus more on industrialization. If I make a concerted effort to grab sticks, than I find enough for my purposes, but it feels less rewarding and more like I've gone back to square one.

I'd be fine with that, but wouldn't look forward to all the complaints about not being able to craft bronze knives or copper axes. And we'd be linking those people to mods that add the old way back in.

I feel like a simple solution to this issue is kind of already in the game - make it so that you can keep using sticks, but using a better haft slightly increases the durability of the item, the same way bones do for stone knives and axes.

Alternatively, though at higher dev time cost, make it so that a handle has its own durability independent of the tool, returning a toolhead with reduced durability when broken. A better handle would last longer or even all the way through the tool's lifespan and beyond. This would be arguably much more realistic and immersive, and could also open up a bunch of adjacent possibilities like bowstring durability, separate armor layer durability and so on. Granted, it might get complicated and annoying, but the first solution is always a possibility as well.

[Thorfinn]

25 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I feel like a simple solution to this issue is kind of already in the game - make it so that you can keep using sticks, but using a better haft slightly increases the durability of the item, the same way bones do for stone knives and axes.

Another of those things I've modded into my server. Bone handles. They aren't as large an increase as they give for stone, but then again, how long a blade holds an edge has very little to do with what the handle is made of. They just don't have their own artwork. For a while, I had hardwood handles, too, but the only good wood for it is ash and hickory, neither of which are in the game, and neither of which I care enough about to create models for. It's just not a big deal, particularly when durability starts reaching 4 digits. A bonus 50 durability is kind of in the same vein as "You won a free oven mitt!"

[Tabbot95]

wood turning should be a thing; basically a wood lathe.

could add wooden bowls, various decorations, as well as more accurate arrow shafts etc.

[Єгорія]

On 10/23/2025 at 5:02 PM, Thorfinn said:

I'd be fine with that, but wouldn't look forward to all the complaints about not being able to craft bronze knives or copper axes. And we'd be linking those people to mods that add the old way back in. 

Just allow using either sticks or hafts, like you can wqith bones, for where they are interchangeable, and not do that where they aren't lol.

[gromit190]

A huge +1 to this

Sticks should be craftable from logs. From what I can tell this would be a very small (cheap) thing to fix that would have a big impact on the immersion of the game.

Anything we'd use a stick for (tinder, shaft for tools, etc), we could have improvised with a log and an axe/knife.

 

Edited February 19 by gromit190

[V1ncent]

Am I the only person who find shear is a blessing to axe durability, as directly cuting down tree without destroying most leaves just dooming the axe durability with really low gain ratio on sticks? That's why I found the reverse need to find mod to craft sticks into firewood because those sticks in crates are too many to fit all the roles.

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, V1ncent said:

Am I the only person who find shear is a blessing to axe durability, as directly cuting down tree without destroying most leaves just dooming the axe durability with really low gain ratio on sticks? That's why I found the reverse need to find mod to craft sticks into firewood because those sticks in crates are too many to fit all the roles.

You're not.  Shears provide more than enough sticks, in my experience, plus they're great for clearing out shrubland and thick forest. Shearing leaves also increases the drop rate of tree seeds, I do believe, which is very important if one wants to replant the forest after they cut it down.

[V1ncent]

Indeed, clearing out all the leaves makes me feel satisfied for all those efforts being put into planning the forest farm. It is like maxing out all the life power from these leafy lives.

3 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Shearing leaves also increases the drop rate of tree seeds, I do believe, which is very important if one wants to replant the forest after they cut it down.

Is that drop rates increase still the case? I do have the memory of the increased drop chance of both sticks and seeds with shear when I last played in 1.20, but the tool tip now says "drop rate is unaffected by tool used to harvest the leaf block" for all vanilla seeds and sticks.

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, V1ncent said:

Is that drop rates increase still the case? I do have the memory of the increased drop chance of both sticks and seeds with shear when I last played in 1.20, but the tool tip now says "drop rate is unaffected by tool used to harvest the leaf block" for all vanilla seeds and sticks.

Interesting. I'm not sure, in that case. It always seems like shearing the leaves yields more seeds on average.

[PineReseen]

I agree. I have a mod that allows this since it's rather annoying having no sticks while it's dark outside your dirt hut and you want to make some clay vessels, or tools, or a tool rack, or torches, or very many things in general.

[Єгорія]

to be honest i feel like neither vanilla, nor any availible mods, provide the true scope of early woodworking.

stocks are everything cmaller than logs, and logs are everything between the crude door and the full block. this so so so so not enough imo

there should be wattle - thin, flexible branches used for weaving of baskets and such. next up sticks - relatively thin branches used for structural elements of lowe weight, such as fence posts, doors, sticklayers, windows, racks > which cooking meat on a firepit should require you to build a rack first!! and also knife handles and hilts. next up stakes, collected from small trees, and branches of larger ones, which could be used for early handles of heavier tools and crude oars, and heavier structural elements like roof frames and palisades. and then thin logs, that would make for quarter log blocks, and things like the raft, could me made to support beams. but only the proper block-thick logs could be used for boards, but also with better tech be carved into higher quality versions of all the previoous things, while in early game they'd be used raw for building or as a byproduct for firewood.

early game should also allow the splitting of blo-logs with an axe into halves and quarters, that could be used for building. 

wood lamelar would be made of wattle in this hypothetical btw, cuz need be flexible. 

[Broccoli Clock]

Just for reference, I wrote my mod (posted above) when I was playing 1.20 which I found not to be overly generous with the sticks. However, in 1.21 (cannot comment on 1.22) there are lots more sticks on the ground in the forest, and it seems like there are more sticks produced by using shears. Despite it being part of my mod list, I don't think I use it all that often these days.

I understand gatekeeping progression, we all accept there is a certain amount of grind, but sticks is a bit of an odd one. The vast majority of time you'll need them for pit kilns, or perhaps fences, and I really don't see a downside to allowing stick crafting. 

 

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Just for reference, I wrote my mod (posted above) when I was playing 1.20 which I found not to be overly generous with the sticks. However, in 1.21 (cannot comment on 1.22) there are lots more sticks on the ground in the forest, and it seems like there are more sticks produced by using shears. Despite it being part of my mod list, I don't think I use it all that often these days.

I think it depends on world generation, really. I've seen forests that had plenty of sticks, and forests that did not, across several versions.

 

3 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

I understand gatekeeping progression, we all accept there is a certain amount of grind, but sticks is a bit of an odd one. The vast majority of time you'll need them for pit kilns, or perhaps fences, and I really don't see a downside to allowing stick crafting.

Eh...I dunno, stick crafting in Vintage Story just doesn't quite feel right, to me anyway. Stick crafting is more of a hallmark of the other block game, and sticks in general don't really feel like a resource that should be craftable. Certainly not with a axe--I would say if craftable they ought to at least require a saw.

I also suspect that the lack of stick crafting is meant to gently push the player to acquire and use shears, and build a beehive kiln for pottery firing rather than rely on pit kilns throughout the game. Not that pit kilns are bad, but they get rather expensive to run for mass-firing pottery due to the stick demand, in addition to taking up more space.

[Broccoli Clock]

18 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I think it depends on world generation, really. I've seen forests that had plenty of sticks, and forests that did not, across several versions.

This is purely anecdotal, and with the caveat that I've learnt more efficient ways of gathering sticks, but there definitely felt like a bump from 1.20 -> 1.21, whether on the ground or from trees. At the time I was far more sceptical about the shears, which didn't help with collection.

Just to confirm, I really dislike the way everyone min/max's the other block game. Automated farms for everything, despite almost everything already being easy to do in bulk, so I'm all in favour of gatekeeping (if that's the correct term) certain elements. It does seem an odd choice imo, but as it is in 1.21 it's not a soft lock in any way.

However if, as you say, it's meant to lean the player into a beehive kiln rather than stick heavy pit kilns, then it's failed with me. 1000s of hours and I've never built one!