Stone

[MueckE]

I've seen it a few times here already but want to refresh this...

We can now gather food and hunt (no need for cangoods anymore) and we now can make clothes (no need to find them anymore), same with medicine.

The only thing left is the hatchet and the knife you actually have to find and are needed.

So i think its time to add stone as material to the game so we can craft a hatchet and a knife (and maybe other things later)

For crafting you will need stone or and scrapmetal, wood, a line (guts)

Anyway, the next thing should be a way to craft a knife and a hatchet.

I think than you could theoreticly remove all cangoods, clothes, rifle, hatchet, knife, antibiotics, painkillers, antiseptic, that can be found, from the game (at least in stalkermode)

PS:

The last thing (industrial) that should be removed than is kerosine/fuel. Maybe you can make your own by harvesting

animalfat + crafting or use some plants to craft a burning oil.

[octavian]

What sense does it make going to all that trouble of adding items just to remove them once you add other items?

[elloco999]

No, you can't remove all canned food, clothes, rifles, etc, etc. If only because you still need them in the beginning before you're set up to gather and create all the things you need.

Another reason why you couldn't remove them is immersion. It would be really strange to not find any of these items in the game world. A large part of the current game is going out and searching for items in the buildings etc you find. If you can't find anything there, that part of the game would disappear entirely.

[toebar]

Hmm.. stone hatchets and knives.. I'm not convinced this is something that should be added. Can they be made? sure.. but forgive me for getting visions of Rust and other survival type games.

Should we be able to craft a replacement for everything? I think not. To be able to craft absolutely everything you need removes the need for thought and care of how you use the resources you already have. (To some extent this is why I'm lukewarm on being able to craft a 'survival bow' that can take down a bear). It also decreases the need to explore in order to find all those resources.

Beside this, there's usually multiple knives and hatchets available... used wisely these will last a long time.

[AmericanSteel]

Hmm.. stone hatchets and knives.. I'm not convinced this is something that should be added. Can they be made? sure.. but forgive me for getting visions of Rust and other survival type games.

Should we be able to craft a replacement for everything? I think not. To be able to craft absolutely everything you need removes the need for thought and care of how you use the resources you already have. (To some extent this is why I'm lukewarm on being able to craft a 'survival bow' that can take down a bear). It also decreases the need to explore in order to find all those resources.

Beside this, there's usually multiple knives and hatchets available... used wisely these will last a long time.

I think knapping stone tools is absolutely the way to go. If we can make a bow, then a stone knife should be a no brainier.

I wish they would change the repair mechanic in the game for tools. A blade should go from sharp to dull, dull to notched, notched to unsure and unsure to broken. If a player takes off after a knife after every few uses with a wet stone or oil stone, it should last for decades. Cut down a tree, sharpen your axe. As soon as a weapon is unsure, then something major needs to be done. Probably fitting a new handle onto the tang or replacing the half of the axe. Being able to repair either of these with a piece of fir and the parts from a can opener is just wacky. I have the same gurkha knife and hand axe I took to Canada in 1995. I have the same dive knife I used on Johnston Atoll in 1998 and I used it on a dive last summer. I just clean them after each use and take a wet stone to them when they dull. You take care of your tools and your tools will take care of you.

Same for the rifle. I can field strip an M16A2, M4 Carbine, M9 Beretta, M60 machinegun and a M2 .50 cal blindfolded. I can shoot expert with every personal and crew served weapon I used. My common method for maintaining just about every weapon I used was CLP, a cleaning rod, tons of swatches and an oil rag. Did not matter if I was in the sand in Kuwait, the cold of Bosina or the humidity of Panama. I just left less CLP on my weapon in the cold and desert environments.

[toebar]

You take care of your tools and your tools will take care of you.

On this we agree for sure! (I am always rather nervous when someone asks to borrow my axe in real life even lol)

I think knapping stone tools is absolutely the way to go. If we can make a bow, then a stone knife should be a no brainier.

This one, I am not so sure. The bow is another discussion, and I hope it is changed from the current form.

A few things...

1. I know stone knapping is doable, but to be fair, a stone knife is a poor substitute for steel.

2. Resource management. There's no incentive to be careful or think about what you are doing if you can just easily craft a replacement. E.g. Now I can hunt bears with a bow, so it doesn't matter as much if I conserve bullets. Before, each bullet was precious, and represented a number of days that could be survived.

3. Exploration incentive. If you can make everything you need without leaving one area, there's no incentive to go. Ultimately I think this leads to boredom.. so, there is still incentive I suppose But, I think the player should need to explore to find resources (in this case, knives, hatchets) that cannot be crafted.

It occurs to me now, that one method to mitigate issues 2 and 3 is to require the knowledge or skill of stone-knapping to be learned (method to be determined), and not present by default at the crafting table.. Then, you'd be forced to to be wise, and explore-- at least until you can knap stone (for example). Exploration is less important later on anyway once everything has been visited, so this would not be a big change... (though perhaps a change is needed in this area!)

[Shanti]

I think another part of this that should be addressed is calorie requirements to make these tools. A hunting knife becomes a huge find if it is "worth" the 10-20k calories needed to find and assemble a stone tool. Also, a stone tool should not be as useful (take longer and more calories to harvest with), should be more delicate (dull faster), and the stone head should degrade and ultimately fail sooner.

Personally, I would love to see the hard tools degrade differently, and especially need to be sharpened / maintained, rather than repaired. If this was balanced by the fact that there might only be one or two of each tool in the entire game, I would be ok with that - it would keep the incentive to explore.

It's clear that stone age weapons are not as easy to use and effective as their modern equivalents - there is a reason why we use our high-tech solutions. So in my mind, stone equivalents are last ditch tools to try to continue to survive, and will require a more skilled player, with tighter margins in time and calorie management.

I think this would tie in really well with a butchering and wood foraging skill - which directly effects the time it takes to harvest meat, and the amount of meat that can be harvested from a kill. Early players start with low skills and the advantage of pre-collapse tools, and have plenty of time to get their skill up, so by the time stone age tools become necessary, their penalties (or just lack of bonuses) are offset by the character's skill. This way the game can preserve the sweet spot of not too hard, not too easy for longer, without breaking the suspension of disbelief.

[AmericanSteel]

While stone knapping is doable, it is still a learned skill. However, our fare avatar can repair a .303 rifle with a piece of lumber and parts from a can opener. I think he could figure out knapping. If we want to add a bit of risk, then knapping can be dangerous. Start the player out with 50% skill where a critical failure causes damage to the player, say 5% (smashing a finger to minor cut) or 10% + Bleeding (major cut). Knapping while using leather would reduce the chance of this (that is what the leather is for).

All that said, a stone tool is useful and can be just as sharp (or sharper) than steel. However, once a stone tool is dull there is no honing the blade. You must knap it again. The more you knap the more of the tool you loose. The heart of the matter really comes down to finding the rocks. The basic tools are a piece of leather and a dear antler. That will allow you to break off flakes of anything thinner than the bottom of glass bottle. So once you knap a large piece into a smaller piece you can start breaking down the bigger piece one small choice knap at a time. It is a great way to take something with a edge and make it serrated. However, you still need a striking stone to break off your bigger pieces into smaller pieces.

Bigger Work - Striking stone + stone to break

Fine Work - Antler and leather + stone flake

Right now a knife and axe degrades about 2% or 3% after each use, I would just say a stone tool drops at 10% per use. That still brings us back finding the rocks. You would find them near cliff faces, near streams, waterfalls, caves and mines. If you were at a particular location and foraged they would be added to the list. So in a cave you could forage for point material (akin to tinder in time and calorie drain), hand sized material for blades (akin to softwood) and strikers (akin to hardwood) like finding wood without an axe. If a player had a shovel or a prybar, they could use that as a tool just like a player uses an axe now. Some areas may have more points (like a stream) while a mine might have all three.

Not everyone gets all the tools in every zone. I searched all of PV on Stalker and found a rifle, hatchet and 3 can openers. On a stalker run on CH, I found a knife and a rifle. I know we are suppose to find at least one of everything if we search every nook and cranny in a zone but sometimes it just does not happen. It does not make any sense for a survivor to turn over ever stone in a zone to butcher a deer, if they can make a stone tool to get by.

Lastly, if we can find rocks to make stone tools then perhaps we can find flint. Making flint rare so it does not unbalance the game is one thing, but making it more rare than a diamond seems a bit unrealistic.