MassiveHobo

No metallic tools should be lashed together IMO. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Bronze_age_1700-1200BC_IMG_1015_bronze_pickaxe.JPG All the ancient bronze pickaxe heads I've seen have hollow eyes for a wooden handle to fit into. If I had to mod in my own less primitive tools I'd require a hardwood log, resin, bone, the tool head, and a knife for crafting tools. The resin and bone are for making a tapered spike to pound into the handle when its tight in the tool head so the handle fibers are forcefully spread apart to make a permanent fit to the handle, today we use wedges for that. You also could heat the tool head up so the metal expands and then put a handle in it so the metal shrinks to the handle.

With regards to hunting I want to see better animal AI because currently you can crouch and keep shooting them from afar and they just obliviously eat the arrows.

I appreciate the responses. What makes rusty gears special to me with their metal and craftsmanship is specifically the fact that one cannot cast them in a mold as stated in the lore, which means they require advanced manufacturing. They have to be made from a carefully controlled alloy by machine, machined on a 4+ ton precision machine tool powered by a steam engine or electric motor by a highly skilled craftsman, and then heat treated. When mass producing them you need an advanced large scale operation involving arc furnaces, heat treating ovens, and a precision machining industry. If our civilization disappeared in a flash and our rusty gears were left behind they would be thought of as magical relics despite being quite possible to reproduce. Nothing in the lore other than superstition points to them being supernatural, and they really are a terrible currency by weight and value relative to what they are exchanged for. About jewelry and portability these gears are huge, machine teeth/carbide inserts are the size of a thumbnail and they'd be much better jewelry items and they are infinitely more durable and usable as tools and weapons. They are obscenely difficult to produce as well even today. Repeating myself they are unworthy as money because you have to carry 5kg of gears to buy a 5kg pickaxe, speaking in estimation.

Imagine an enemy that swings a giant adjustable reamer at you Or another one that uses ranged attacks to shoot you with darts that are morse taper drills One that crushes you with a hand or head made of a mill vise or lathe chuck

Since drifters are an amalgamation of biology and machinery in some lovecraftian horror fantasy, newer mobs could look like 18th and 19th century machine tools that have rusted, melted, and fused into a horrific biological form worse than any drifter or Eidolon. One could look at old black and white photos of machine shops and with some imagination it could become a very original art style for lovecraftian mechanical horrors. Lots of iron, leather, bronze, brass, fabric, cruddy grease, and mangled flesh.

I don't think they fit in the lore and world as some irreplicable relic of the past world as we can create steel, and hardening/heat treating steel gears cut on a machine tool is not some occult enough and far off technology for the world of VS. As a currency they are very hard to store and transport due to their size so they aren't great as a currency, nor are they useful for crafting as they are too rusty to be of mechanical use. Nobody is going to be making jewelry out of them either. I suggest they be replaced by another currency item; Machine teeth. A mysterious item to vintarians that is a relic of the past. It will never be replicable in vintage story as its a relic technology made many generations ago by a much more advanced collapsed civilization so its a better currency. However vintarians have found it extremely useful for building machines, drilling rock, creating weapons and tools, utilizing magic, or using as ammunition for ranged weapons more advanced than bows. Or making jewelry out of. It needs to be soldered with a solder made of nickel, silver, copper, and zinc to be usable in crafting recipes. To us its just a modern cemented carbide machining insert but nobody knows that in VS, its just a mysterious, incredibly hard, dense, magnetic, temperature and erosion resistant metallic object that is seemingly indestructible. Its very small and so its easier to carry and store.

New mechanical power uses: Automated panning Ore pulverization by helve hammer or pulverizer Automated smithing via use of various tier manually smithed and expensive forging dies. Powered mixers for mass producing identical food recipes, healing items, glue, magic, or explosives Drifter macerator Firewood splitting Powered saw, could be a vintage power hacksaw or a circular saw Powered chisel for cheap mass production of stone bricks, can also split wood Powered loom Powering blower for forging, forge with blower heats up material faster Juice press Pottery wheel Lathe, an absolutely necessary machine for more advanced machinery and items which mods will certainly add. Absolutely required for many items such as axles, gun barrels, hinges, gears, even furniture items, clocks. Does not need to be an engine lathe that cuts metric and imperial threads in advanced alloys. Rock drill, necessary for boring holes deep in rock so they can be filled with blasting powder for more efficient mining. Grinding wheel, necessary to work iron and steel without forging. Turns forged blank tool heads into sharp mountable ones. Many might be redundant in current gameplay as much crafting is done instantly in minecraft style. Mechanical power will kill the player and entities should they walk into moving parts. New mechanical power blocks 2x2 gears that introduce 1:2.5 ratios Spur gears, large, medium, and small for more compact vertical power transfer without need of angle gears. Bronze pulley and leather belt pulleyboxes, get >3 speeds to select in a single 1x1x3 multiblock structure that enables hiding mechanical drives behind a wall. Features a clutch to disengage power to then change pulley ratio without any tools. Dog clutch, 1x1x1 version of transmission & clutch that handles more power.

Glass blowing