Teh Pizza Lady

Any argument you could make for thrusting a spear into the side of a bear should come with the requirement that it be made while actually thrusting a spear into the side of a bear in real life. Then and only then you will understand why throwing > thrusting. I have to side with the devs on this one, no matter what the graphs say. The human body isn't a hydraulic press. It's a bag of fleshy snacks held together with bony toothpicks all wrapped up in a convenient wrapper called clothing and armor. A mere hindrance to the determined predator, really. to be perfectly fair, he started it.

sees changes to hunger system has authored at least 2 mods that use said hunger system Welp I guess I'll go update my mods now! XD

"It's a solo game" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, because Vintage Story is not only a solo game. It has full multiplayer support, active community servers, and TOPS -- the official public test server -- is frequented by a large number of players as well as the developers themselves. Changes to base game mechanics don't exist in a vacuum where only one person will ever experience them. They ship to everyone. The concern wasn't hyperbole. It was a straightforward walkthrough of how the proposed change interacts with existing systems, using the game's own mechanics as the framework. Whether anyone would actually perform that specific sequence is beside the point -- the point is that the design space matters, because the devs have to consider it whether we do or not. I'm also not sure "fringe use" and "what is it to you" are really the counterarguments you want to be making here, because the answer to both of those is: game design. The reason we're all in a suggestions forum discussing whether a mechanic should exist is precisely because these things are worth thinking through before they ship. That's the job this forum exists to do: weigh ideas and demand better thought where they are found wanting.

hard to poke when the poking bit is pointing in the wrong direction, eh?

every source I could find said that wasn't feasible unless the wielder was charging with the spear. The thrust would only carry the mass of the arms used to thrust it. Also the speed would be slower around 3-4 m/s which is the average speed of a human male running with both hands occupied. KE = 1/2 * 80 * 3.5^2 = 490 J Even if it were a full fencing thrust, not all of the weight of the wielder would transfer. I would guesstimate somewhere between 30-40kg and a higher speed of maybe 6m/s instead. Plugging that in we get: KE = 1/2 * 35 * 6^2 = 630 J Both numbers are still lower than the thrown spear, which even if it slowed to 20m/s would still have 800 J of KE behind it at the moment of impact. KE = 1/2 * 4 * 20^2 = 800 J That's a lot of energy

Mistake on my part. In my defense I have a really bad headache that I've been trying to ditch since yesterday. But you are...more right than me. I actually considered this and see no issues with it. Only tall grass should yield the big handful that we use in that game.

In that case, let the player be rewarded for their efforts and ingenuity! There is no effort to be found in removing the basic requirement of a simple flint knife to harvest grass. It's not a genius solution to bypass the basic requirement of "cut grass; build fire" model that we have to advancing through the tech tree. Obtaining the items for trade will require a significant amount of luck and/or time. That's not nothing. Otherwise, I agree with you. Not everything has to start with the stone age, but the alternative path to iron and steel shouldn't be a shortcut.

I'd like to suggest the addition of moss as a harvestable resource in the game. It's something that genuinely feels like it should already be in the game given how grounded in realism the rest of the survival mechanics are. I think it has enough utility to justify adding it without breaking the other systems in the game. Where it grows: On trees, obviously, but I was thinking it could grow on the south side bark of large oak and maple trees or present as a wispy texture hanging down from tree branches like Spanish Moss does. This keeps it rare enough and situational enough that it's something you'd notice, bookmark and come back for later. Since it doesn't grow from new oak trees (similar to how resin won't spout from new pine trees) this keeps it as a finite resource and not something you can farm easily. Harvesting it would require the player to deliberately seek it out and its delicate nature means that yields would be small. Vanilla uses: The most immediate use would be as a replacement for grass in crafting a fire pit. Grass is used a tinder in that construction. Substituting moss would allow the player to get a fire going. The traditional firestarter takes one piece of grass and two sticks. Moss could also serve as a substitute for the grass component here. Both options would give players an alternative in situations where they haven't made a knife or are trying to conserve a nearly broken one. It's historically accurate, too. Moss has many well-documented uses as tinder and fire-starting material across many cultures. The Primitive Survival YouTube channel shows it being used as tinder many times. Moss also has antiseptic properties that make it a natural fit as an ingredient for poultices or bandages. It could also be used as an insulating material that could be sewn into clothing by a Tailor to give a small boost to cold resistance. Modding potential: Moss as a base resource also opens up interesting possibilities for the modding community. Mod authors could incorporate in ways that had smaller, niche uses such as water filtration, or as a material that could be tilled into the soil to boost nutrients or aid in water retention. Let me know what you think and whether you can think of any additional uses for moss that I hadn't considered.

Aren't sticks also a required component in pit kiln construction, along with grass? Because pottery is a pretty massive thing to allow the player to freely do without ever making or using a knife. I think the real issue here isn't the construction of firepits with sticks and grass harvested without a knife. The real issue is the fact that allowing the player to harvest grass without a knife allows them to ENTIRELY SKIP THE STONE AGE. With OP's proposed "simple" change, the player can now gather all the grass and sticks they need to construct a pit kiln which can be fueled with peat (or charcoal for faster firing times). And here's the kicker. Charcoal is now able to be freely produced without ever making a knife because it also has a grass requirement for getting the fire going and that grass requirement is now also toolless. Although charcoal is made with firewood which DOES require an axe...... .............But a copper axe head can be cast directly without ever picking up or using a knife. Here's how that would be done: Punch grass to harvest it Stuff into pit kilns with axe mold, pickaxe mold, hammer mold and crucible Pile on sticks Cover in peat Light with torch or firestarter and wait... and then.... Use loose bits of coal from the ground to smelt loose bits of copper from the ground Pour molten copper into axe mold Use axe to chop trees and make firewood and get a charcoal pit going Use pickaxe to harvest more copper Use hammer to crush ore bits Use charcoal to smelt the rest of the copper, fuel your pitkilns, make the rest of your molds (anvil mold anyone??) and get a proper smithing setup All without touching a single knife. And it can be done with bronze, too, allowing a player to skip right to iron, even, without touching a single knife. How is this a "simple" change? It isn't. It's game-breaking. I think instead of allowing tool-less harvesting of grass, a better solution would be to allow the player to pick moss off trees and rocks and use that as a replacement for grass when making a firestarter. Moss is historically documented as tinder and has genuine fire starting properties. It would, of course, be hard to find and even harder to obtain due to its delicate nature, making it a genuine last resort for survival rather than a convenient shortcut. It's an alternative for players who can't find flint to make a knife or who are looking for an additional challenge all without overtly affecting the progression chain for everyone else who plays the game. As a bonus, moss could have additional uses that make it worth seeking out at any stage of the game. Its well-documented historical antiseptic properties make it a natural candidate for wound dressing or the creation of poultices. It could also serve as an insulation material to be sewn into clothing for extra cold resistance. Moss would genuinely add something new to the game, giving it more depth instead of removing the basic need to rub two rocks together to make a knife.

the presence of ripe fruit wasn't enough?

I have to push back on this because realistically there is an inherent problem with using them to chisel handholds on a surface you're trying to climb. You need to already be on a stable surface before you can effectively use said tools. Realistically nobody is hanging off the side of a cliff, gripping the footholds with their toes while chiseling out more, at least not without some sort of climbing gear. That's a really good way to end up a pre-tenderized bear snack at the foot of the cliff. Some sort of scaffolding would allow this, but honestly I only see it being useful for shorter runs without.

It's an open forum. Anyone can respond. I would ask what is the purpose of being able to make a firepit without tools, but first I need to know a few other things: What is your exact definition of "tools". The game classifies a lot of items as tools, including firestarters. If no tools are required, what should be required then? Obviously resources, but what about a skill level in harvesting the resources? I've seen some comments suggesting that you should be allowed to freely gather grass with your bare hands. Have you tried ripping up grass with your hands? It's not easy. Who should be allowed to do this? All players from the start of the game or only those who've progressed enough to know how to build a fire in the first place the normal way? What stops this from making the existing requirements for building fires pointless? This also raises a question about how the game onboards new players. The game's tutorials guide you to making your very first knife and stone tools. Are you suggesting that this should be irrelevant? I largely agree with this. The knife is useful for so many things, cutting hides, harvesting animals, looting rotbeasts etc. It can even serve as a weapon in a pinch. A good quality steel knife is a godsend because it's long durability! You've already responded to this quote from LadyWYT here: I'm not sure we're using the same definition for "railroading" here. Can you define railroading for me, please? The point I'm trying to make is that nobody is FORCING you to carry a knife with you at all times. Nobody is forcing you to carry only one. The choice is yours to make at all times. Your player agency is intact. What you're bumping into and why you're making this suggestion isn't because the players are being railroaded into specific choices, it's game mechanics. Mechanics are coherent, deliberate design choices that define how players are allowed to interact with the game world to achieve the desired outcomes. The tool requirement isn't restricting your agency, it's defining the terms of how you are allowed to play the game. Furthermore, suggesting that fires be allowed to be made without tools is a bit of a contradiction to what the game is all about. Vintage Story is a game that markets itself as an "uncompromising wilderness survival" game. Difficulty building a fire because you need a knife to cut grass isn't an arbitrary restriction, it's a deliberate choice. Asking to remove this isn't asking for more agency, it's asking the game to stop requiring you to adhere to its rules. You need thing, you use tool to get it. Same for chopping wood, or smithing another knife on the anvil or grinding grains into flour. Yes it is a simple change to allow grass to be harvested without a knife. But a simple change in the wrong direction is still the wrong change to make. One final thought: Players who actually want the option to remain toolless already have that option. There are several things you can obtain throughout game play without ever crafting a single tool. You can forage for food, you can run around collecting rusty gears and eventually trade them to get your first lantern. But without that knife, a lot of the game's systems will simply be locked to you.

No, I really didn't. I copied and pasted it and explained the disagreement of which it had full context. AI is notorious for mistakes. Don't trust them even if they agree with you. They are not experts. In the future I would refrain from using AI in your responses. All of mine came from Googling the topic of projectiles in motion and my own basic knowledge of forces in motion. But to get back on track, I think perhaps where the disagreement is coming from is that I'm using simple models that would be reflected in a video game where you're asking the game to perform a full ballistics simulation model on every projectile. That is simply not feasible because you would have to account for variations in spear head weight, size, and even shape as some spears will do more damage than others. One one hand I can sort of understand your arguments, but the instant you perform a full thrust with the spear instead of the "poke" that we do in game, you're lodging your spear deep into a target that's going to be very, very angry about it. You're also equating a thrust with a continuous push which is closer to charging your target with the spear and is clearly not what happens in game. A quick summary of thrusting a spear shows that the force of the spear would travel about as far as the user could push it. The mass imparting the force would be equivalent to the mass of the spear and whatever limbs were carrying it. The force itself would be equivalent to the force needed to move the spear that distance at that speed. The velocity is much much lower in this case, and thus imparts a lower impacting force on the target than the sheer force of a thrown projectile. At that point, the limiting factor would be the user's grip and whether the target was able to retaliate. These factors will severely limit the user's ability to impart the "continuous force" you seem to think should be happening here. Sorry but even if you are correct on a technicality, the way you're trying to apply the concepts is incompatible with how the game actually works, which is poking with a one-handed thrust vs hurling the spear. I've seen enough videos of people standing too close to the Olympic javelin toss to allow the thought that a thrusted spear could deal more damage.

I copied and pasted our entire conversation for context with a brief explanation: "The OP of this thread and I are disagreeing on this subject. My claim is that a thrown spear will have a higher Kinetic Energy (KE) than a thrusted spear. He deflected with a knife comparison, I challenged him on this as throwing knives aren't part of the game we're discussing and tried to refocus the discussion back on spears. This is his final comment to me:" And then posted your last comment. So like... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Okay.... here's what it said verbatim: It is: thrust = lower peak velocity, longer controlled force application throw = higher peak velocity, shorter uncontrolled impact Those are different interaction models, not competing energy systems. In short, it sounds like the OP has a basic grasp of the fundamental concepts, but is missing the mark on how to correctly apply them. It then expressed an interest in ending the thread here: Then I asked if I could just copy and paste the response and it said: Well I copied and pasted it verbatim. lol. but hey you told me to ask it and I did.