Don't class-lock the sling?

[DeanF]

Instead, let the Malefactor make a Crude Sling early on that can be made from flax fibers or maybe even just dry grass (I once made an excellent sling from jute), and let them make a more powerful Staff Sling later on, which is basically a sling on a stick.  This mimics the model of the Hunter with the class-locked Crude Bow and Recurve Bow.

Oh, and while we are at it can we add fired clay and cast lead sling bullets?  The fired clay ones are just more uniform than randoms stones, so thus would have an accuracy buff.  But the cast lead ones were both more uniform and denser, so buffs to both accuracy and damage.

Edited April 16 by DeanF

[Jacsmac]

I would love an addition like this that adds more depth to the Malefactor class, or any class in general. Giving the malefactor class a unique weapon of choice as well as introducing a new weapon and crafting recipes for other classes are good ideas!

The game seems well-suited for more weapon types, perhaps slings could be a stepping stone to more ranged and melee weapons.

[LadyWYT]

I like it. Though I would add that beenades ought to qualify as sling ammo as well.

[Slam]

13 hours ago, DeanF said:

Crude Bow

The crude bow isn’t actually class-locked behind hunter, well at least in 1.22

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

 

I like it. Though I would add that beenades ought to qualify as sling ammo as well

 

The poor bees while you’re spinning

[DeanF]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I like it. Though I would add that beenades ought to qualify as sling ammo as well.

Y'know, I had thought of that same thing?  Maybe for the Staff Sling- they generally launched much larger rocks than other slings.
So the Staff Sling should have better range and more damage.
 

Sling bullets should be recoverable like arrows, but of course they'll be much harder to spot.  Oddly, by "uniform" I don't mean round.  Evidently round sling bullets can spin unpredictably, like a curveball in baseball.  Instead they were shaped like a rugby ball (or American football), which made them tumble predictably.

The mold for casting lead bullets might be used with other metals.  Gold would work just like lead, but copper and bronze aren't as dense so I think they'd lose the damage bonus.

[ifoz]

Honestly, the sling is a bit of a weird item to be the Malefactor's exclusive anyway.
They're a class focused around scavenging, stealth, foraging and using what they have, and their exclusive is just a regular sling made from regular materials. In my eyes it really doesn't feel like an item that says "improvised" or "Malefactor" to me.
There's so much cool stuff that could be done with the idea of improvised things made by a ruin scavenger. The scrap armour that traders wear in 1.22, some kind of unreliable early-midgame Jonas devices, there's a lot of potential there and instead we just get a normal sling. 

I had an idea a couple weeks ago that instead, the Malefactor's exclusive item/s could be upgraded versions of the normal scrap weapons. That way, it'd tie in the "improvisor" trait's name, and encourage/reward Malefactor players looting ruins for metal scraps. In the suggestion thread I wrote about it, I proposed that the upgraded scrap weapons could be bronze tier, and require a soldering iron and solder bars to make. This was mainly to gate them behind a copper anvil (soldering iron needs a copper chisel, which needs an anvil), as well as to give more use to the soldering tools, since they are currently only used to make the brewing setup.
The sling also isn't a particularly useful weapon through the lens of the playstyle that the Malefactor encourages - raiding ruins. Ranged weapons aren't great in the close quarters of caves, especially the sling whose rocks can bounce off the walls unpredictably.

The most useful items I could think of that would play into this ruin-focused gameplay they encourage are melee weapons (like the aforementioned welded scrap) that are made from materials found inside ruins, an early-midgame hands-free light source (maybe a candle helmet that only has a weak light and goes in the head armour slot?) or some kind of armour that aids your stealth, though that last one would probably be too overpowered without a proper stealth system being implemented.

I think it would be nice if the sling was something all classes could craft, and the Malefactor either got an upgraded later-game sling or had the sling replaced as their exclusive item by something more fitting.

Edited April 16 by ifoz

[Slam]

36 minutes ago, DeanF said:

The mold for casting lead bullets might be used with other metals.  Gold would work just like lead, but copper and bronze aren't as dense so I think they'd lose the damage bonus.

My man just wants a gun in the game lol.

[DeanF]

On 4/16/2026 at 4:51 PM, ifoz said:

Honestly, the sling is a bit of a weird item to be the Malefactor's exclusive anyway.
They're a class focused around scavenging, stealth, foraging and using what they have [...]

I'd argue that's sort of why the sling does fit the Malefactor.  They're easy to improvise, and use easily scavenged ammunition.  I just argue that the sling shouldn't be completely class-locked.  It's such a cool weapon.

My problem with the Malefactor is that their signature weapon is ranged... but they have a ranged weapon debuff!

Edited Sunday at 11:09 PM by DeanF

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, DeanF said:

My problem with the Malefactor is that their signature weapon is ranged, but they have a ranged weapon debuff!

Only on the range; the damage will still be unchanged. They're similar to Clockmaker in that regard, in that they can't throw things as far but will still do full damage.

Which I've been wondering if the range debuff on Frail shouldn't be swapped with the Near-sighted debuff on Blackguard, or the Near-sighted debuff reworked to reduce accuracy rather than damage. I can understand why Near-sighted is the way it is, but it doesn't make a lot of logical sense given that it takes a lot of strength to draw and fire a bow, and being near-sighted just means that it will be harder to hit targets at a distance. The shot itself isn't going to do less damage if it hits the target just because it was fired by a near-sighted individual, but being near-sighted does mean that it will be much harder to aim accurately, especially at a distance. 

To be fair, it would be more annoying to miss more shots rather than deal less damage but hit shots more consistently. That being said, I do think it would make more sense, and tweaking the debuff in that fashion would still be a damage loss for ranged weapons since a missed shot does no damage.

While I'm rambling, Frail could be reworked to penalize range and ranged damage, since if the character doesn't have enough strength to fire the shot as far, there's obviously not going to be as much power behind the shot so it should probably do less damage. In that case, perhaps the Tailor should be the Frail one, and thus be worse in combat than the class is now, with Malefactor and Clockmaker being switched to Weak instead. Both classes keep the health penalty in that case, and neither one seems especially suited to mining either. 

[DeanF]

On 4/16/2026 at 5:22 PM, Slam said:

My man just wants a gun in the game lol.

There is a mod for that, if it were true.  But it isn't. 

[ifoz]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

While I'm rambling, Frail could be reworked to penalize range and ranged damage, since if the character doesn't have enough strength to fire the shot as far, there's obviously not going to be as much power behind the shot so it should probably do less damage. In that case, perhaps the Tailor should be the Frail one, and thus be worse in combat than the class is now, with Malefactor and Clockmaker being switched to Weak instead. Both classes keep the health penalty in that case, and neither one seems especially suited to mining either.

As much as I think Tailor should probably get some combat nerf (since currently they are actually one of the better classes for combat, though couple that nerf with some other buff so tailor doesn't get even weaker than they already are) I don't know about giving two other classes mining debuffs in their stead.
Malefactor and Clockmaker are already somewhat niche choices, and mining penalty to me at least is one of the most impactful and least interesting debuffs a player can have. It just means you have to spend more time clicking and holding every time you want to break anything, and that small amount of time adds up over the course of a playthrough. It doesn't really affect gameplay by disincentivising much either, just overall time spent.

Maybe if quenching was allowed to influence pickaxe speed again (I don't know if the fact it doesn't anymore is a bug or intended) then it'd be a more interesting debuff - players with a mining penalty would be incentivised to quench better tools to catch up to others.

Edited Monday at 03:15 AM by ifoz

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 4/16/2026 at 11:42 AM, Slam said:

The crude bow isn’t actually class-locked behind hunter, well at least in 1.22

the Crude AND Recurve bows, actually. Everyone else can only make the simple and long bows.

[ifoz]

8 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

the Crude AND Recurve bows, actually. Everyone else can only make the simple and long bows.

Survival goods traders can sell the recurve bow, meaning it isn't truly locked behind the Hunter class unless you are playing with traders not enabled.
(You can sometimes get it for as cheap as 8 gears, which seems like a bit of a bargain price. Even if you were playing as a Hunter, it might be less time/resource consuming to just buy recurve bows).

Edited Monday at 11:28 AM by ifoz