a few ideas

[Dakon]

So I've only started playing recently, and there are definitely some things that could be added that I think would either greatly improve the game experience or just be a novel addition. first, for cooking would be a stone pit "pot", basically it would be a hole in a stone block(whether natural or hewn) that could be filled water. the way it would be heated is by heating stones on a fire and then placing them in the water. this method wouldn't be efficient but would be a good way to cook meals while traveling or early on. the next idea is hide clothing(and maybe some other primitive plant based clothing?). until you get a good source of flax going and a sewing kit, you pretty much have no way to make clothing, and the only other ways to get clothing would be to find or buy them(as far as I know). and the final Ideas(for now), would be stone chisels, wooden mallets, and mortar and pestles. chisels can be made of stone and used to carve softer stones and wood, but obviously they wouldn't be as good or durable as metal chisels. naturally to go with the stone-based chisels would be wooden mallets which would be need to use the chisels(and maybe having some other uses?). as for mortar and pestle, it shouldn't be the case that you can't grind things without a mill stone, and mortar and pestle are basically just a stone bowl(it doesn't even need to be stone, it could be wood(please give us wooden bowls), which you could carve with a knife and/or chisel) and a rock. btw the rock pit pot idea came from a book I read a long time ago, and if I remember correctly, it was something that actually used to be done in certain parts of the world.

[Facethief]

30 minutes ago, Dakon said:

hide clothing

This exists with the rawhide set, and if you’ve got fat, you can add the fur set on top.

32 minutes ago, Dakon said:

carve softer stones and wood

that actually plays pretty well with progression, given querns are gated behind a metal chisel. Of course, then the mortar and pestle would have to be restricted, probably to just grain, so that the quern has a use before mechanical power.

[ifoz]

37 minutes ago, Dakon said:

and a sewing kit,

By the way, you can repair clothes by just clicking and dropping regular linen onto them. Considering 90% of this game's clothing catalogue is gated behind ruins loot, that's how you obtain a lot of it.

(Also yeah, what Facethief said, there is rawhide clothes. Though I wish there was more primitive stuff too. Woven birch bark would be awesome for hats and sandals).

Edited August 24, 2025 by ifoz

[Facethief]

58 minutes ago, ifoz said:

Also yeah, what Facethief said, there is rawhide clothes. Though I wish there was more primitive stuff too. Woven birch bark would be awesome for hats and sandals

Basket hat!

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

2 hours ago, Dakon said:

for cooking would be a stone pit "pot", basically it would be a hole in a stone block(whether natural or hewn) that could be filled water.

It's a neat idea, but requires a pickaxe to mine stone. And if you have a pickaxe, then you have a cookpot, given that making a pickaxe requires pottery unless you happened to get very lucky with cracked vessel loot. Additionally, even if you could cook this way, you'd still need a way to actually eat the food, and bowls are also part of the pottery tier. 

I don't see it being all that useful for travel either. A cookpot you can easily carry on an elk, if you have one, but if not, then you'll need to sacrifice an inventory slot anyway to carry a pickaxe to dig a hole. Stone holes don't spawn very often at all, so it's not worth the time to try to search for one, or the risk either since you'd likely have to search a cave.

 

2 hours ago, Dakon said:

the next idea is hide clothing(and maybe some other primitive plant based clothing?). until you get a good source of flax going and a sewing kit, you pretty much have no way to make clothing, and the only other ways to get clothing would be to find or buy them(as far as I know).

As others have said, this already exists with rawhide clothing, as well as fur clothing. 

 

2 hours ago, Dakon said:

chisels can be made of stone and used to carve softer stones and wood, but obviously they wouldn't be as good or durable as metal chisels. naturally to go with the stone-based chisels would be wooden mallets which would be need to use the chisels(and maybe having some other uses?). as for mortar and pestle, it shouldn't be the case that you can't grind things without a mill stone, and mortar and pestle are basically just a stone bowl(it doesn't even need to be stone, it could be wood(please give us wooden bowls), which you could carve with a knife and/or chisel) and a rock. btw the rock pit pot idea came from a book I read a long time ago, and if I remember correctly, it was something that actually used to be done in certain parts of the world.

Early Chiseling: https://mods.vintagestory.at/earlychiseling

Ancient Tools: https://mods.vintagestory.at/ancienttools

Early Chiseling adds a mallet and flint chisel, so you can start making chiseled decorations much earlier in the game. I've not used that mod, but it seems a fair balance for those wanting to start decorating early. As for being usable in crafting recipes...no, something that cheap shouldn't be used to make querns, since a big part of that recipe change seems to have been for balancing purposes in the early game.

Ancient Tools(not sure it's working properly on the most recent version) adds a mortar and pestle, as well as a variety of other useful things. The mortar and pestle functions like a quern, but is very tedious and inefficient since it only grinds one thing at a time...and slowly. The upside is that it's very cheap and easy to craft--you don't need a pickaxe or anything fancy, which balances it well against the quern.