Ideas for primitive/old ways survival

[collinblaster]

I've finally reached over 100 days on a character with (almost) only crafted clothing, no rifle, and no prepackaged food, and I have some ideas of game options for living off the land more naturally, instead of scavenging old stuff from ruined civilization

1st, add a craftable hat or scarf! the most obvious is a rabbit skin hat that takes 3 or 4 to make, with similar stats to the rabbit skin mittens. People have been asking for this for a long time.

 

2nd, make new in game items and a new skill class for flintknapping. Maybe in certain areas there are pieces of flint or obsidian lying around. You take those, and with a rock, you can try to craft arrowheads, knife blades, or axe heads. At low levels, the chance of failure is medium to high, but with every attempt, success or failure, you gain flintknapping skill points. With these completed stone tools, you can make arrows normally, just with a stone point instead of metal, a stone knife with the knife blade and a piece of cloth, and a stone axe with the axe head and 1 piece of fir wood. These tools would be a little less durable than metal tools, but lighter.

 

3rd, add options for primitive firestarting! a bow drill kit can be made with 1 cured gut and 1 stick for the bow, and 1 or 2 pieces of cedar wood for the board, spindle, and handhold. The bow is a separate piece, and doesn't lose condition (or maybe degrades very slowly), but the 3 other pieces are treated as 1 item, and lose 10% to 15% condition with every firestarting attempt. The higher the level in firestarting, the longer the bow drill kit lasts.

 

Another thing, maybe make an option for a lighter bearskin coat or vest that takes only 1 bearskin to make.

[Mroz4k]

35 minutes ago, collinblaster said:

the most obvious is a rabbit skin hat that takes 3 or 4 to make, with similar stats to the rabbit skin mittens.

Ah, the most widely requested thing out there. I hope they make the cap crafting more difficult - by requesting more resources, rather then less. 5 hides, maybe even 6 - and the cap would provide a lot of protection - however, it wouldnt have very high durability, and at the same time, you could only carry one of this rabbit cap at a time - same as it is right now with balaclavas.

But this is a matter of opinion. More importantly, they simply need to have a craftable headgear in the game.

39 minutes ago, collinblaster said:

2nd, make new in game items and a new skill class for flintknapping.

Once again, very commonly discussed topic. And my stance here is the same as with Hinterland - no. Definite no to flintknapping. For reasons that should be obvious - it would be very easy to make renewable tools and arrowheads this way, without the need to forge them. Forging takes scrap, tools that you need to find first, lots of fuel and time, as well as a trip to a rather dangerous location - its supposed to be challenging. Any sort of other kind of tools makes things too easy. Talking about renewable tools, of course - not considering the fact that you can already find processed tools on your own.

45 minutes ago, collinblaster said:

These tools would be a little less durable than metal tools, but lighter.

That would make them wastly superior to metal tools. If they weight less, even with lower durability, it would be a better tool - because it would not be that difficult to replace them. So the durability is not an issue, but the light weight would be extra bonus.

47 minutes ago, collinblaster said:

3rd, add options for primitive firestarting!

And finally, once again, commonly discussed topic. I am highly against the idea of fire drill methods. If they were to be added, they need to be extremely unrealible - I am talking about working only in totally windless locations, requiring high firestarting skill, tinder would be mandatory, and still having high risk of failure - because it is not easy to build a fire using friction in dry, warm conditions, let alone in the snow and cold weather.

HOWEVER

We do need some reliable firestarting method that does not rely on magnifying glass - and that method could be forgeable flint and steel. It is far more realistic method then friction fire, its really not that difficult to make, even a simple smith should be able to fashion one. Requires forging so there is a challenge to acquiring it.

But community seems hell bent on friction fire so in here, I am in a minority. I dont mind it that much, if its done realistically. Could potentionally be a pretty okay indoors fire starting method.

[DaveMcD]

I've been thinking about this lately. I came to TLD late compared to most and found it mid 2017  through my real life interest in primitive survival and bushcraft (+ background as a game artist and vfx artist)

I've been playing it a lot during xmas holidays and have finally got a somewhat successful interloper run going (just over 60 days so far) so had started to think about my wish list of stuff which tbh is probably more linked to my primtive survival interests but would also apeal to my gameplay style.

For me I would really like more broad crafting options that would fit in to the idea of inventive desperation of survival. Don't have a hat - wrap a towel around your head. Dont have a knife - use a shard of metal from a tin can. Need an axe - smash some rocks together. All poor tools that take ages to use and ruin quickly but get you out of a bind. 

At the moment there's some very prescribed gameplay mechanics that bottleneck pathways to success. Ive seen people argue that without this narrowness the game would cease to be challenging and ruin the intent of the game. For me though I think more broad competing tactics and different survival styles would make for a more interesting and deep game.

@Mroz4k I love the idea of crafting a flint and steel set. I'd introduce rare horse hoof fungus as a tinder you'd need to make that work. I like the friction fire technique and have seen ppl get that going in cold snowy climates. I get that ppl think having it might make it too easy so can see the benefit of leaving it out in favor of a forgeable solution.

In general i disagree with forcing  players have to go to the forge to make arrowheads, axes and knives (but only because I think there should be some very basic and inferior craftable options for these - such as improvised tools from scrap or stone or deer antler or bone etc) having a forgeable firemaking solution as the ultimate lure to the forge is an idea I really like for some reason.

[Prestermatt]

22 hours ago, DaveMcD said:

At the moment there's some very prescribed gameplay mechanics that bottleneck pathways to success. Ive seen people argue that without this narrowness the game would cease to be challenging and ruin the intent of the game. For me though I think more broad competing tactics and different survival styles would make for a more interesting and deep game.

This.

[hozz1235]

On 12/20/2017 at 11:26 AM, collinblaster said:

1st, add a craftable hat or scarf! the most obvious is a rabbit skin hat

With a side-effect of making wolves more aggressive towards you! 

[dragonslayer587]

On 12/20/2017 at 4:21 PM, Mroz4k said:

We do need some reliable firestarting method that does not rely on magnifying glass - and that method could be forgeable flint and steel. It is far more realistic method then friction fire, its really not that difficult to make, even a simple smith should be able to fashion one. Requires forging so there is a challenge to acquiring it.

I like a lot that idea! I think that even in Interloper you can survive with mag glass/matches/firestriker found in the world until you can craft the flint and steel. And besides of the forging difficulty, I think that it wouldn't be that good as a firestriker but it is not a problem since by that time you should be level 3 + in firestarter so it compensates its downsides making it a balanced item and without breaking inmersion. I just hopes it is a bit lighter and that gets implemented soon cause it is a nice idea!