qualicabyss Posted August 13 Report Posted August 13 Currently when you make a tool that's it, until the tool breaks you never need to maintain it ever again, never need to think about it until it's gone (except for bladed weapons but that system is kinda weird). While the recent addition of forging and tempering made your tools feel more real I think more can be done to make tools an interactive experience. 1: Tool handles. from the most basic flint tool to one forged out of steels the handle is just a random stick you found lying on the ground. While this approach should remain usable, better crafted handles could add a lot to the game. Using an axe you can cut a log, or maybe firewood, into blank handles, which are then carved with a knife into the proper shape for the tool. After a period of drying you then attach it to your tool head with a hammer. Doing all this would reward you with a slightly more durable and faster tool, plus you could add the added detail of wrapping leather or hide around the handle for a better grip and slightly better mining speed! 2: Tool handle breaking. Typically the handle of a tool breaks long before the head, so what do you do when this happens? Add a new handle! This ties in heavily to the above suggestion, sticks would be quite frail as handles, though easily replace, while a properly made handle would last quite a lot longer. The durability of handles could additionally be varied based on what type of wood the handle is from (plus this would be nice for cosmetic reasons). Increasing the durability of tool heads a bit could help counterbalance the extra work needed for replacing the handles. 3: Tool recycling. when a tool breaks you are left with nothing, this could be changed. When a tool head breaks you are left with a damaged tool head, which could be used as a memento of an old tool, or broken with a chisel into some metal bits to be remade, though there would obviously be some loss in this process. This could also be extended to parts broken during quenching! While this would reduce metal spent on tools, you use frankly too much during the copper and bronze age and are unlikely to run out of iron from tools regardless. 4: Sharpening. While already present on weapons, this should be applied to tools as well. When created a tool is dull, and can then be sharpened with whetstones, files, or the grinding wheel. Tools dull with use, and dull tools have reduced mining speed, so keeping your tools sharp is very important. Don't over sharpen your tools though, as oversharpened tools lose durability faster!! 5: Tool decay. Tools could decay over time, handles rot and iron rusts (bronze and copper would be mostly safe from this though, giving them a purpose) tools can be oiled to prevent decay. Honestly this one is probably more annoying than it's worth and would definitely need a setting to disable it if added. 2
LadyWYT Posted August 13 Report Posted August 13 It's an interesting idea, but I think it probably works better as a mod rather than vanilla. Regarding tool handles, I think fancy handles should mainly be cosmetic, with handles otherwise being simple to craft. Instead of just a generic stick for everything though, I think the basic sticks should be relegated to short handles only, with longer handles/poles requiring young trees. This also gives trees a little more variety in general, as well as gives the player a bit of forest management to do. 2 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 2: Tool handle breaking. Typically the handle of a tool breaks long before the head, so what do you do when this happens? Add a new handle! This ties in heavily to the above suggestion, sticks would be quite frail as handles, though easily replace, while a properly made handle would last quite a lot longer. The durability of handles could additionally be varied based on what type of wood the handle is from (plus this would be nice for cosmetic reasons). Increasing the durability of tool heads a bit could help counterbalance the extra work needed for replacing the handles. 3: Tool recycling. when a tool breaks you are left with nothing, this could be changed. When a tool head breaks you are left with a damaged tool head, which could be used as a memento of an old tool, or broken with a chisel into some metal bits to be remade, though there would obviously be some loss in this process. This could also be extended to parts broken during quenching! While this would reduce metal spent on tools, you use frankly too much during the copper and bronze age and are unlikely to run out of iron from tools regardless. These are the main things that I don't think should be vanilla. The main purpose behind tool breakage, I think, is to require players to invest resources in new tools every so often, as well as push them to acquire better materials to make better tools. Otherwise, the player doesn't really need to seek out more resources on longer running worlds, and doesn't have as much incentive to invest in things like steel when bronze and iron start lasting even longer. Additionally, these proposals stand to be quite annoying due to inventory clutter. I doubt that many players really want to be replacing handles all that often, and in regards to tool recycling...I did tinker around with that concept via mod, once. The resources saved weren't worth the hassle of burning inventory slots trying to haul the broken pieces back home for re-use, especially when resources weren't particularly difficult to come by to begin with. Overall, I think both of these would also prove to be more annoying for players who do a lot of building, or otherwise use their tools quite heavily. 2 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 4: Sharpening. While already present on weapons, this should be applied to tools as well. When created a tool is dull, and can then be sharpened with whetstones, files, or the grinding wheel. Tools dull with use, and dull tools have reduced mining speed, so keeping your tools sharp is very important. Don't over sharpen your tools though, as oversharpened tools lose durability faster!! I do think this should be a thing though. The over-sharpening isn't really a concern, since it's currently not possible to oversharpen. But I do think players should have the choice of sacrificing some tool durability for a temporary boost to work speed. In that case, the player gets a clear benefit for paying more attention to their stuff, but if they forgot to sharpen their tools before going to do a job they're not gonna find themselves in trouble as result, whereas with points 2 and 3 they would. 2 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 5: Tool decay. Tools could decay over time, handles rot and iron rusts (bronze and copper would be mostly safe from this though, giving them a purpose) tools can be oiled to prevent decay. Honestly this one is probably more annoying than it's worth and would definitely need a setting to disable it if added. Much like 2 and 3, I think this one adds too much busywork for too little benefit. Additionally, the main strength of copper and bronze is that they're cheap and easy to work with, making them very good for early game tools and weapons. They aren't meant to be a staple in the late game, when the player should be pursuing better materials, hence why they don't last nearly as long, in part. 3
Facethief Posted August 13 Report Posted August 13 51 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Much like 2 and 3, I think this one adds too much busywork for too little benefit. Additionally, the main strength of copper and bronze is that they're cheap and easy to work with, making them very good for early game tools and weapons. They aren't meant to be a staple in the late game, when the player should be pursuing better materials, hence why they don't last nearly as long, in part. Ooooh but stainless steel! Still, I agree that mainly the sharpening point is worth looking into.
MKMoose Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 12 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 1: Tool handles. Stone-tier tools should remain mostly as they are for the sake of simplicity, to make things more approachable for newer players. The initial recipe could include some cordage, and potentially it could be possible to add some glue as well to increase durability, but as the first tools that the player will generally use they shouldn't be made too complex. If even cordage and glue is deemed to complex, then it may be reasonable to add simpler tools which would be just appropriately shaped rocks, with no stick or anything - it would also make more sense for a digging tool than a stone shovel. For metal tools, even without allowing tool handles to break, it would be very reasonable to allow or outright require more and better materials for handles - the current state where virtually 99%+ of a tool's cost is the metal is just kind of stupid. Wood and bone carving would be expected here, alongside adhesives. A more primitive attachment method with cordage and glue could remain an option for copper and maybe bronze, but it shouldn't be possible for iron and beyond. Some items could require or at least allow additional materials, for example a saw should take twine and a more complex handle, while a falx could take leather as well as nails and strips. 13 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 2: Tool handle breaking. I think this would be fine to implement, with a couple caveats. The most fundamental idea that I think tool handles should follow is that a handle shouldn't break more often than a player expects it to - which is a somewhat nebulous goal to aim for, but that is kind of necessary when trying to keep unnecessary frustration to a minimum. Stone-tier tools should remain simple and have very low durability, so it's fine if they break completely without allowing handle replacement. Especially at the copper and bronze tier, it would be strongly preferable for handle replacement to not be too common relative to the tool's main durability. It could even be an option to only allow handle replacement for iron, because copper and bronze still have fairly low durability which could cause handle replacement to become more frustrating than it should be even if it only had to only be done once at the halfway point. Replacing handles should be reasonably simple and intuitive even out in the wilderness, even at the steel tier, because it would feel pretty bad to have to carry clutter from broken tools and only be able to fix it back in an advanced workshop. Some way to repair or replace a tool handle before it breaks would be extremely valuable, to reduce the risk that the player ends up with low-durability tools which are too weak to take on a longer trip without having to also carry a replacement handle. This may require some changes to the inventory system to be implemented first, so that carrying extra handles or glue or whatnot wouldn't take up multiple valuable inventory slots. 13 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 3: Tool recycling. I tend to see this as a bit incompatible with the game, plus it can produce annoying clutter. Some way to recast copper alloys and reforge iron could be very nice, but it would have to be well-integrated into the gameplay loop, and it kind of fundamentally doesn't mesh with mining being as prevalent as it is currently. If recycling was as useful as it is realistically, then the player wouldn't really have to mine for almost any metals after a couple initial deposits, except maybe for decorations or whatnot. If recycling is made less useful to keep mining for new deposits more relevant, then the benefits of it could be easily outweighed by the negatives of added clutter - and unlike tool handles, broken toolheads fundamentally cannot be repaired out in the field. 13 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 4: Sharpening. Frankly, while what we have in the game is referred to as sharpening, from a realistic perspective it doesn't make all that much sense. Sharpening is a very fundamental component of toolmaking and maintenance, so I find it pretty baffling that it was gamified into a critical hit chance. Grindstones are simple, ancient tools, so I find it pretty baffling that it was gated behind mechanical power - an "uncompromising wilderness survival", which can't help but lock important mechanics behind infrastructure. I think it could be interesting to allow the player to carry a number of tools and utilities without taking up an excess of valuable inventory slots, making the player's personal bag into a general toolkit and effectively a tangible indicator of progress. Sharpening stones could be among the items which would be carried in this way, used to maintain tools regularly. Add to that some cordage, some medical items, a temporal gear, maybe an adhesive and a tool handle or two, and possibly some other necessities and useful tidbits. Would need to be a bit careful to not give player too many things to carry around, but as a general idea I think it would be interesting and very immersive. Regarding the effects of sharpening, I think it would be preferable to avoid excessive drawbacks, to make sharpening actually feel useful for tool maintenance. Increasing the speed or damage of well-sharpened tools would be quite fine. Reducing durability loss would be reasonable. Some more meaningful effects could be ideal, though they're less straightforward to think up and implement. Something like increased drop rate of certain blocks collected with a sharp scythe, or a slightly higher boost to soil fertility when tilled with a sharpened hoe. I don't quite see the point of reducing durability in exchange for power, because that's what quenching currently effectively does via the shatter chance consuming additional materials - unless quenching is reworked into an even less realistic system than it is now, then I think that sharpening probably shouldn't serve largely the same function. 14 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 5: Tool decay. At least for my preferred gameplay style, this would be kind of perfect, since I keep a couple tool racks at home and only take the tools I know I need with me, so it could actually be pretty fun to maintain the tools before putting them back. I think that rust would be fine, similar to tool handle breaking, but it also needs a couple considerations and caveats, primarily the following two: Rust shouldn't progress at all as long as the item is oiled and is not being used. This is primarily a concern for multiplayer servers where it would feel awful to log back in to all tools being rusted, but even in singleplayer it would be really annoying to have to maintain unused tools. Rust shouldn't be an immediate concern the moment a tool is used. It would have to take quite a bit of usage to wear out the oil, and after that there would likely need to be some kind of grace period, e.g. to allow the player to come back from a trip and coat the tools at home instead of having to carry oil everywhere - some things could be fine to have to carry around, but I think oil wouldn't really be one of them. One of my main concerns is also other metal items besides tools. It would be expected that if tools can rust, then so can all other items and blocks made of ferrous metals, at least visually if not with any drawbacks. For things like metal doors this wouldn't be too much of a concern - for simplicity's sake they could just be oiled once when initially crafted - but it is much less straightforward for something like the water wheel, which realistically should rust quite quickly due to contact with water. It is also tricky for things like chests, which take nails and strips but currently look the same regardless of which metal is used.
Ravensblade Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 (edited) There is a mod that basically do all that, with exception of 5 point - Toolsmith. A tools have heads, bindings and handles. All with they own values, and bindings and handles effect damages to head so even bronze tools can be quite long term. You can also disable tools or repair heads with bits. Heck, I would love if somebody did something similar for weapons, so you could make proper handles for swords and spears. Most weapon mods i see are more about adding weapons instead. Edited August 14 by Ravensblade a
Rainbow Fresh Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 39 minutes ago, MKMoose said: If recycling was as useful as it is realistically, then the player wouldn't really have to mine for almost any metals after a couple initial deposits, except maybe for decorations or whatnot. Take my input with a grain of salt, as I am playing with a huge variety of mods that add content and as such, naturally, add uses for most resources in the game that might very well skew the vanilla ratio significantly. But I really don't think recyclable broken metal tools would throw much of a wrench in the gears. As OP stated you would obviously receive less back than you put in, otherwise you only ever need a single tool all game and a little bit of time (fuel is infinite, so are sticks for handles). The details of how much you get back and whether or not this number may depend on the remaining quality/durability/whatever of the tool or not aside; I am currently playing with the Grindstones mod (which adds the one and only sensible thing I can imagine a grindstone to currently do, which is repair tools at cost of max durability, not this vanilla crit nonsense) which essentially replicates the same shift in resource usage as the ability to replace the handle separate from the tool head + recycling would achieve - a significant decrease in used metal for tools as each tool effectively lasts several times longer. And I don't feel like it has shifted my perception of resources and the quantity needed thereof in any dangerous "I don't have to mine for almost any metal anymore" way. Because tools are not necessarily the primary consumer of them. Sure, if your iron axe breaks every 5 trees and you have to craft a new one from scratch every single time it might be different but that is not a fun way to use those resources. I had a big pile of readily made iron ingots. Now I have an iron anvil, some fancier machinery, a full set of reasonably quenched tools and dangerously low iron supplies. All without accounting for any runtime waste due to tool usage. I'll soon have to look for a second iron vein (or check if more is hidden at my first one) if I want to go into Steel territory. Despite expecting these iron tools lasting me all the way until I upgrade everything to steel thanks to quenching and grindstones. I have to re-invest into copper and/or bronze to cover for things that need tons of nails or such which would be a waste to use iron for, or are outright only craftable with low-tier metals (I'm looking at you, chutes and distillery.) There is plenty to spend entire ore veins on that it feels like a safe bet to me to make the process of churning through tools a bit more fun and engaging. 52 minutes ago, MKMoose said: unless quenching is reworked into an even less realistic system than it is now, then I think that sharpening probably shouldn't serve largely the same function. I don't think quenching would become *less* realistic if we removed the shitty RNG gamble "all in or nothing" shatter chance and replaced it with either a time cost (work piece is useless, melt it again and start over) or atleast just a partial resource loss (break into less than 100% of used bits). Then again, I neither see a point to ever waste *more* durability through grinding so the sharpness of a tool/weapon (through frequent grindstone sharpening) being a secondary metric that passively influences the main durability (by slower/faster drain depending on dullness) or tool effectiveness (higher/lower yield/speed) would be very swell instead. 55 minutes ago, MKMoose said: Grindstones are simple, ancient tools, so I find it pretty baffling that it was gated behind mechanical power - an "uncompromising wilderness survival", which can't help but lock important mechanics behind infrastructure. Yeah. I understand needing more mechanical consumers in the game as there is barely any point to set something big up if all you need is to run a helve hammer and the occasional pulverizer (the quern is a bonus luxury for lazy people and the large bellows utterly useless) but this ain't it, especially if they grindstones themselves then don't even do anything useful. 1
SnapJelly Posted August 14 Report Posted August 14 19 hours ago, qualicabyss said: Doing all this would reward you with a slightly more durable and faster tool, plus you could add the added detail of wrapping leather or hide around the handle for a better grip and slightly better mining speed! I agree that this would be a fun addition, not as something required but something that would grand you a slight benefit if you bother to go through the trouble of making one 19 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 2: Tool handle breaking. Typically the handle of a tool breaks long before the head, so what do you do when this happens? Add a new handle! on the fence about this one, I agree that the tool handles breaking and needing replacing would be more realistic but considering a large portion of vintage story is gathering raw material to make your tools and progress the tools breaking as they do is a system put in place to get players to interact more with the rest of the game as it currently works. Less realistic sure, but it's how you get players to interact with the gameworld. 19 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 3: Tool recycling. when a tool breaks you are left with nothing, this could be changed. When a tool head breaks you are left with a damaged tool head, SImilar to the previous point, irl the metal from broken tools could be recycled but for a game like vintage story I personally don't think this is a good idea regarding it's game design. The more you can recycle your materials the less the player has to go out to find more or bother looking for ways to incread efficiency or durability. In a game like project zomboid being able to recycle the head of a broken hammer could be very usefull because you can't mine any new ore but in vintage story this would just lead the player to have do search for and dig for resources less, taking away huge chunks of the actual gameplay. So while I would argue recycling metal from old tools is realistic, in a game like vintage story I would voteagainst this addition. 19 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 4: Sharpening. Agree, sharpening would be a cool adition for axes and shovels 20 hours ago, qualicabyss said: 5: Tool decay. Tools could decay over time I would vote no on this one too, once again while I agree this would be more realistic it would kind of just be a pain in the ass gameplay wise with not much benefit, For example making an extra pickaxe preemptively to make sure you're never without only to find out it's already half gone by the time you actually need it? If something like this would be added I would generally be oke with that, it wouldn't ruin the game for me. But I will say that I have often not needed, looked at or cared for my irl tools and they were still fine when I needed them much much later (albeit a bit rusty) so tool decay irl is ofc a thing, it's not comparible at all to the amount of wear and tear tools get by actually using them, so little in fact I would argue adding it as a feature is done ''realistically'' doesn't really add much
qualicabyss Posted August 14 Author Report Posted August 14 8 hours ago, MKMoose said: I think this would be fine to implement, with a couple caveats. The most fundamental idea that I think tool handles should follow is that a handle shouldn't break more often than a player expects it to - which is a somewhat nebulous goal to aim for, but that is kind of necessary when trying to keep unnecessary frustration to a minimum. A lot of what you put here are things I considered and probably should have included. Stone tools are excluded from most of these mechanics tbh Using a stick for a handle would probably have a few hundred durability, while a proper handle would be around 1000. Actually didn't think of removing damaged handles before they break, that would be a good addition. 8 hours ago, MKMoose said: Some way to recast copper alloys and reforge iron could be very nice, but it would have to be well-integrated into the gameplay loop, and it kind of fundamentally doesn't mesh with mining being as prevalent as it is currently. As I said, you use frankly too much metal on tools during the bronze and copper ages, and most of your metal go to other things once you reach iron. 3 hours ago, SnapJelly said: on the fence about this one, I agree that the tool handles breaking and needing replacing would be more realistic but considering a large portion of vintage story is gathering raw material to make your tools and progress the tools breaking as they do is a system put in place to get players to interact more with the rest of the game as it currently works. Less realistic sure, but it's how you get players to interact with the gameworld. Tools would still break, this suggestion is having handles be able to break and be replaced before the tool head breaks. 8 hours ago, MKMoose said: Grindstones are simple, ancient tools, so I find it pretty baffling that it was gated behind mechanical power - an "uncompromising wilderness survival", which can't help but lock important mechanics behind infrastructure. A bit off topic, but this is probably one of my bigger issues with the game, gating things annoyingly late in progression. You're forced to get copper if you want things like leather, basic furniture, or a door that actually works!
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