Sharpening Skill

[UTC-10]

Although the aurora-power drill press mitigates the scarcity of whet stones (being the equivalent of a fixed, permanent grindstone), in the category of making more work for the development team  😁,  I would like to suggest a skill for sharpening knives and hatchets. 

Currently, skill nominally starts at some low number though with 100% chance of success and a tool condition improvement that starts at 4% and rises to 5% with some practice.  The whet stone with each act of sharpening loses 5% condition.  This means that a whet stone, an item in short supply and otherwise irreplaceable (mitigated by the presence of the aforementioned drill press), can at best produce a cumulative positive change of +100% in condition (of one or a combination of knives and hatchets) before being worn out. 

The proposed skill would have five tiers per the usual way the skill levels work in TLD.  Level 1 is, of course, the default starting skill with +0% bonus effect so a uniform starting of 5%.  Every level increases the bonus by 1%, so level 2 is +1% (so +6% item condition improvement) to level 5 at +4% (+9% condition improvement). 

Alternately, the improvement might be in reducing the impact to the whet stone's condition.  At level 1 the whet stone loses 5% condition, level 2 it loses 4%, all the way to level 5 where it loses 1%.  Sharpening condition improvement can remain largely as currently in the game starting at 4% and increasing to 5% with practice. 

If, at level 5, a +9% condition improvement in the sharpened tool or 1% condition loss of the whet stone is considered too beneficial, some combination of the two benefits might be worked out such as maybe the condition improvement of sharpening might occur at level 2 and 4 (so +7%) with a 25% and 50% reduction in whet stone condition loss at level 3 and level 5 skill or something like that.

Anyway so, at an assumed level 5 skill,  in the resulting +9% improvement category a whet stone would generate +180% total condition improvement (20 uses of a whet stone) while the -1% condition loss category a whet stone would produce +500% total condition improvement (100 uses of a whet stone).  Whet stones currently are a limited resource so I leave it to the devs to which might seem more worthwhile or in what combination. 

I would suppose that there might be applicability to hacksaws in which the character sharpens the cutting blade with a whet stone (a bit of a stretch perhaps) for small improvements to the hacksaw's condition (at the cost of taking a lot longer per % improvement) versus using scrap metal and tool kit for a larger repair or scrap metal and drill press for a complete repair. 

Just a thought.  😀

[UpUpAway95]

100% agree... although there is a second mitigating factor in that one can always forge a new improvised knife or hatchet, which will start its life at 100%.

Edited January 24, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Lexilogo]

Not really in favor of making Sharpening a major skill. I think that distinguishing between Minor and Major skills is important and I just don't see why Sharpening would justify being upgraded to a Major skill. Making Whetstones more efficient cannot be the ONLY thing a skill is good for to justify it being a Major skill. IMO Major skills need to be genuinely interesting and stuffing the game with too many of them with minor effects would be a bad idea.

One could try and merge the current minor skills into a Major skill, like "Maintanence" (combining cleaning, sharpening, and repair under one umbrella) but the community/Hinterland seem to like the idea of skill development being more realistic/specialised instead of being homogenised, hence why Rifle/Revolver Firearm use are also completely different skills.

 

Having Sharpening levels make Whetstones more efficient isn't disagreeable, I just don't see why it wouldn't just be implemented into the minor Sharpening skill, though.

[UpUpAway95]

2 hours ago, Lexilogo said:

Not really in favor of making Sharpening a major skill. I think that distinguishing between Minor and Major skills is important and I just don't see why Sharpening would justify being upgraded to a Major skill. Making Whetstones more efficient cannot be the ONLY thing a skill is good for to justify it being a Major skill. IMO Major skills need to be genuinely interesting and stuffing the game with too many of them with minor effects would be a bad idea.

One could try and merge the current minor skills into a Major skill, like "Maintanence" (combining cleaning, sharpening, and repair under one umbrella) but the community/Hinterland seem to like the idea of skill development being more realistic/specialised instead of being homogenised, hence why Rifle/Revolver Firearm use are also completely different skills.

 

Having Sharpening levels make Whetstones more efficient isn't disagreeable, I just don't see why it wouldn't just be implemented into the minor Sharpening skill, though.

There are only 3 secondary skills.  I don't see why all three (Cleaning, repair, and sharpening) can't be added to the Gunsmithing Skill (making it possible to level that skill outside of Bleak Inlet beyond what you get from just reading the books) and would give skill credit to using the mill in Bleak Inlet to repair and sharpen basic tools.  The skill could be renamed to Tool and Weapon Maintenance to reflect the tool-related components.  This would make it possible for Loper players to level up the skill without having a gun.  Further, the Cleaning skill is already included in the Gunsmithing skill according to the Wiki, which means that it has already become redundant.

I'd also be in favor the two firearms skills being combined, but I understand them wanting to affect aiming and critical hit chance for the rifle and revolver separately.  Still, I'd even combine Archery in it and  just call it Weapon Accuracy... moving the arrow crafting component into the Tool and Weapon Maintenance category to end the "complaint" of how players can level up archery by crafting multitudes of arrows and never shooting the bow.

ETA:  As an aside.. I'd also rename Mending to Sewing and count crafting clothing towards leveling it up.

Edited January 25, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Old Hermit]

I'd rather be in favor of including player-crafted whetstones (even already exists a letter about it somewhere ingame)

[AdamvR]

making clothing to also level the mending skill makes sense, although it is about 1% of all mending/sewing activities, thus the change would not add too much of a difference. (i.e. you craft a new item much more rarely, than repair the existing ones)

I do see the logic about sharpening, but given how the devs are thinking about these I do not see it very likely to be added:
e.g. in the end what you'd get is that whetstones have a potential to improve condition by +180-+500%, instead of the current +60-+100% per whetstone. the same effect could be reached by simply adjusting the current level of improvement within the same system from 3-5% to say 5-9% along the skill. Or even more simply: increase the number of available whetstones in the world for the exact same effect. that is, based on the premise that there needs to be more sharpening availability in the game in the first place. I believe this was the idea behind adding the milling machine, as a sort of "unlimited" sharpening; while also creating a trade-off between sharpening on the spot (limited by the # of whetstones), and sharpening with an investment in a dangerous trip. Given the same, it does create a game for you to balance between sharpening your "fighting-weapon" on the spot (and keeping it in top condition), and sharpening your "breakdown-weapon" only when it nears the lower threshold of breaking, taking it to the milling machine. I do personally like this balancing requirement, as it adds challenge to the game.

As for increasing the possibility of on-the-spot sharpening options, some could argue whether the current setup is balanced or needs rebalancing (by adding more whetstones/increasing the amount one use sharpens/decreasing it degrades/or adding a way to craft new whetstones somehow). I personally find it well balanced right now, and having unlimited on-the-spot sharpening would take away the importance (and the game) of making sure it is used wisely.
Never really played it to very late game of 1000+ days though, so might be a different experience on that end.

Also, I do see the logic of merging skills on a theoretical level, I personally see it would take away from the game as-it-is right now, rather than add, and could even make it less realistic. i.e. Having to search the books on ammo making separately from shooting animals with a revolver: also in reality, i would not think one would help the experience with the other. Also, the quick to use revolver in defense situations is different from the patience-game rifle used for hunting down big guys both in physical and mental skills, so I see the point being separated, and having to level them up separately.