Smarter sharpening

manolitode

By manolitode
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manolitode Pathfinder

manolitode

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Suggestion: It would be nice to have the option to sharpen your weary knife or hatchet to 100% with one click instead of the tedious 10-17 times click-and-wait to improve the condition from 50% to 100%. Especially if you, like me, use your tools a lot and perform this thumbaching action at every sunset. 

Other thoughts: At this point I'm not suggesting the same to be applied to repairs made with a tool and raw materials like scrap metal and cloth, because 1) it's less of a problem since you can improve clothes/cooking pot/hacksaw etc much more with one repair and is therefore less time consuming, 2) it introduces a couple of other problems and I like simple solutions. :) If it were applied to repairing clothes you wouldn't want to use up an extra piece of cloth for the last condition improvement of your red-and-white maple leaf hat from 98% to 100%. This problem could be solved by having the game block improvements that don't make full use of a piece of cloth. Using the case above it would simply not improve further from 98%.

But, I'm not looking for a snowball effect meaning that if you improve one mechanic you'll need to change too many existing and well-functioning ones such as sewing and other repairs. That's why I like to stick to the fairly simple improvement of fully sharpening a tool in one go. It appears to me a both realistic and timesaving implementation. 

What's your take?

Edited by manolitode
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Cranky Pathfinder

Cranky

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5 hours ago, Leeanda said:

Well as long as you can get scrap metal there really is no need for a whetstone anyway! As long as you get some aurora's that is!☺️

I agree, the cannery in BI does allow for a hell of a lot of tool repair. However the resource consumption to get to it can be a rather high cost. If for example you were in AC, TWM, HRV or MT, the resources required to make the trek to the cannery is also a hell of a lot. Getting to BI from far off regions does require a lot of food, water, wood, (most likely medical supplies), clothing repair,  as well as tool and weapon usage. 
 

If another region is to be introduced, it would be nice it there was another machinery workshop like the one in BI. Especially if that region was a connection between MT and TWM for example. 

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Leeanda Pathfinder

Leeanda

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2 minutes ago, Cranky said:

I agree, the cannery in BI does allow for a hell of a lot of tool repair. However the resource consumption to get to it can be a rather high cost. If for example you were in AC, TWM, HRV or MT, the resources required to make the trek to the cannery is also a hell of a lot. Getting to BI from far off regions does require a lot of food, water, wood, (most likely medical supplies) and tool and weapon usage. 
 

If another region is to be introduced, it would be nice it there was another machinery workshop like the one in BI. Especially if that region was a connection between MT and TWM for example. 

Maybe we'll get one at the prison? When it's on survival anyway! 

I normally make shorter trips and leave coal, metal etc  in mystery so I know where everything is I'll need and take it to bleak "in bulk" as it were! . Then I'll do as much as I can in one go! I've broken Astrid's back quite a few times with those heavy loads☺️

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manolitode Pathfinder

manolitode

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5 hours ago, Cranky said:

However the resource consumption to get to it can be a rather high cost. If for example you were in AC, TWM, HRV or MT, the resources required to make the trek to the cannery is also a hell of a lot.  

Indeed, the Cannery is some 5½ regions away from Ash Canyon. Without whetstones we'd not only become Bleak Inlet commuters en masse but we would have to carry sets of knives and axes with us on long excursions. E.g. travelling to TWM summit, AC gold mine, BR etc. With 3 knives and 3 axes in our backpack we'd be easily overencumbered.

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manolitode Pathfinder

manolitode

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That's a solid strategy and works well with stalker and interloper too, since you can craft as many knives and axes as you like. Other tools such as hammer and hacksaws don't last for a region each but close to. There are some 7-8 of each at least in interloper. 

Anywho, we are very likely to get to keep our whetstones (though removing them would certainly solve the problem I described in the original post ;)) but hopefully they develop the mechanic to become smoother. I would argue that it's less of a nuisance to sharpen your tool in one go than polish it for a few minutes, getting stuck and repeating.

Just imagine if the fishing mechanic was divided into forced 15 minute chunks. Immersive much? 

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Leeanda Pathfinder

Leeanda

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30 minutes ago, manolitode said:

That's a solid strategy and works well with stalker and interloper too, since you can craft as many knives and axes as you like.

I do the same with most of the gear, matches,(cardboard ones), some fuel etc but always have a bulk of items in one set location in each area so I can keep track of everything..if I use a lot of ammo, I take it all to mystery so I can pick it up on the way to bleak at a later date with anything else I might have found along the way!Like well hidden cartridges or the rare mag lens.

There's so much loot that places become cluttered if I don't try and organise everything!

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UTC-10 Pathfinder

UTC-10

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Keeping in mind that the actual intended duration for The Long Dark was a matter of a few weeks (Wintermute/Story mode) and not many years (Survival mode) the need to be able to create a whetstone from anything would not be a high priority.  Certainly if the intent of The Long Dark was the other way around, tools would be way more durable and items like whetstones and cleaning kits would last a whole lot longer and maybe even something that could be crafted. 

We'll have to see if there will be DLC that adds such things once Wintermute is concluded. 

Funny that my (and probably others) long-ago idea of a big immobile grindstone to serve as a permanent whetstone that characters could use, albeit not so conveniently accessible, showed up as the aurora-powered drill press that uses scrap metal to fix knives and hatchets, etc..   

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Leeanda Pathfinder

Leeanda

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14 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

Keeping in mind that the actual intended duration for The Long Dark was a matter of a few weeks (Wintermute/Story mode) and not many years (Survival mode) the need to be able to create a whetstone from anything would not be a high priority.  Certainly if the intent of The Long Dark was the other way around, tools would be way more durable and items like whetstones and cleaning kits would last a whole lot longer and maybe even something that could be crafted. 

We'll have to see if there will be DLC that adds such things once Wintermute is concluded. 

Funny that my (and probably others) long-ago idea of a big immobile grindstone to serve as a permanent whetstone that characters could use, albeit not so conveniently accessible, showed up as the aurora-powered drill press that uses scrap metal to fix knives and hatchets, etc..   

I don't recall even finding a whetstone on wintermute!  So if it wasn't necessity then why add it at all?

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UTC-10 Pathfinder

UTC-10

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What does and does not get added to the game in story or survival mode is up to the discretion of the developers.  So we have whetstones but cannot craft them.  There would also be a question of just how realistic/unrealistic the developers wanted things to be.  

The devs also had to face facts.  The change from a decay time line of 100 days to 1,000 days likely reflected the unexpected popularity of survival sandbox and so having a way to maintain tools such as knives and hatchets would be a reasonable decision (i.e. it would be unrealistic to not have something) and not being able to make more of the "way to maintain tools" would also be a reasonable decision (don't have too much of a good thing) too. 

One can also say maybe "a bit short-sighted" or "a momentary lack of imagination".  Happens to everyone. :)

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RustyNumbat Survivor

RustyNumbat

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It's quite a bad joke that using a whetstone only restores a few percent of condition. Ten minutes with a whetstone in real life will have a serviceable edge on any axe or knife! If you want to get it really nice and perfect sure, add another 10 minutes on. It's possibly the least true-to-life action in the entire game : ( Love the game but hate when the authenticity-to-setting is so terribly skewed because "game balance"

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