Zx573

I think it makes for a good optional setting. That way the people that thrive on making the best out of whatever random start they get can play as they desire, and those that would like to have the opportunity to find a good home farther away from initial spawn can play as they want. As a world setting everyone gets to play the way they want.

I imagine that ideas exist for updating poisonous mushrooms once they implement the status system they are talking about.

I love the idea of some early game boats/improvements to the existing raft system. Plus the secondary idea of rawhide strips is really good too. The canoe I'd love to see would be a dugout. I'm not certain that the mechanic would be entirely worth implementing for just this purpose, but the idea of alternating burning a log and chopping at it to make the canoe is really engaging to me.

In addition to the pan idea, I don't see why there couldn't be a woodcarving mechanic, something like a cross between flint knapping and chiseling. Place wood on the ground, hit with a piece of flint just like in normal knapping, and make a shovel. It preserves the same limited crafting menu method while increasing historical accuracy. It's definitely a step away from video game norms, which usually just stick with the same material for tool tiers, but it is also a fun way to improve accuracy. Also, we just recently found the oldest wooden shovel on record at 3500 years old, which is cool.

To take something of a middle ground on this idea, I could see a simplified version of OP's idea nicely balancing the gamification, the realism, and the immersion. Add Annealing, it improves durability by a variable amount, with better gains the closer the player gets to optimal temperature timing. Then Quenching, improves power and reduces durability according to a similar variation Then Tempering improves durability and reduces power, once again working better the closer the temperature is to the correct temp. I don't think that the idea of the buffs being reset completely if the piece is heated up too much seems overly complicated either. Slap some diminishing returns on there so there is no need to repeat the process to excess in searching for optimal results, and the system itself will enforce player preference use cases. Someone that only cares about durability? Anneal and go. Someone that just wants the boost in power without spending the time to "do it right"? Quench and go. Someone that enjoys the process? Run it through. Someone that loves optimization? Run it through multiple times. Someone that loves skill based applications and optimized equipment? Focus on paying attention to the temperature and getting good at pulling pieces at the right time. That sounds like a good time to me personally.

I'd love to see further expansion on the mushroom system in order to bring them out of a fully foraged status into something that can be cultivated and farmed. There are a lot of ways this could be accomplished, with differing levels of complexity and modernity. The oldest recorded cultivation method for mushrooms involved chopping logs, scoring their surface and leaving them to sit near trees and stumps already growing mushrooms for a year or more until they became inoculated. Nothing new would really need to be added for this method except the interaction to score the wood to prepare it. Its a slow but historically effective method, and the inoculated logs could then be moved back to a players base for continued use, continuing to fruit for a few years before production stops, similar to the new berry mechanic but faster, since a log like this generally only lasted for about five years. More modern practice could involve gathering spores with parchment and making plugs that could be added to logs or trees (drills could be added for making holes, but just using the knife would work too) and then sealed with wax. For non wood growing mushrooms, substrate could be made with dry grass and grain that are boiled for sanitization and inoculated with collected spores. Substrate would be converted into mycelium blocks over time that could also be broken up and used to inoculate new substrate rather than left to fruit. Collecting spores could be as easy simply interacting with a given mushroom using parchment, or could involve mushroom life cycles under which the spore print would need to be taken at the right time in the process. Overall I just think it would be cool to be able to grow my own mushrooms instead of only foraging them.

Did a search to see if coppicing had been suggested already and wanted to second the idea. Willow trees would be fantastic as well, but even without them specifically, just the ability to create high density stick production in line with historical techniques is a fantastic possibility. It would be nice to be able to intentionally cultivate some stick production without needing to clearcut bushes or chop down a bunch of trees when you're only looking for sticks.