See likes

See likes given/taken


Posts you liked

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4
Post info No. of Likes
Lots of angling improvements on their way Fishing with a fishing rod is going to have if not a complete overhaul, a lots of improvements at least. I've been tweaking the angling code for a good while already, and the work just seems to continue and continue, but when it's all done we're going to have something like this featured:

- fishing rods will be craftable by player character, with slender trunks, cordage and hook.
- wooden and bone hooks will be craftable by player character. (If I get really carried away there might be some special hook types for special occasions.)
- baiting will be featured. Worm digging is under consideration but we can also start with scraps of food and using small fish to catch bigger fish.
- wear and tear of fishing rod parts will be featured eg. hooks snapping off eventually, when they've been nibbled enough. (Gotta add possibility to add new hooks as well.)

These are future additions. Not yet functional in current version 3.63.

November 17, 2020, 05:40:14 PM
1
Season's Greetings and Iron-Age feastings The midwinter and holiday season is at hand so let us send you our very best and most delicious Season's Greetings - as it's time to celebrate the period with Iron-Age feastings.

Over the years we have practiced and experimented with many different survival, bushcraft and traditional skills and techniques to gain firsthand knowledge of the ways of the ancients, and to add a special touch of realism to the game mechanics. Practise what you code, so to speak.

This midwinter we tried out quite ambitious Iron-Age cooking as well.
We tried cooking some of the recipes of also doable in UnReal World, and they surely tasted good in our time too.


Roasting turnips on embers.


Flatbreads and cooked turnips.


Tasty bits of broadbean-turnip-mushroom stew.


Let the Iron-Age feasting start.

This is not our first go with traditional food for traditional devs, but the first time it's been carried out and documented this precisely. The reason for this delicious study is an exciting upcoming exhibition.
In 2021 Suomen Pelimuseo (The Finnish Museum of Games) is arranging an exhibition about the food in videogames. In addition to insight about the subject in various videogames there shall be a publication presenting different menus from different games with recipies you can try out yourself. UnReal World is one of the titles included. We'll let you know when the exhibition starts.

But now let's survive the midwinter, feast as everyone prefers, and see you again in 2021.

Cheers!

December 22, 2020, 07:07:13 PM
1
Re: Suggestion reply marathon | Apr-Dec 2020 Suggestion reply marathon - Apr-Dec 2020 | part 6/6



A few ideas after playing quite a lot:

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5510.0

Quote
I have a few suggestions that I think would be nice.  Keep in mind, everything herein is my opinion, and I'm welcome to criticism as long as it's constructive.  At the end of the day, developers develop at their own discretion.

It's always far better to pinpoint one crisp suggestion or idea than to provide list of things. Also, having the suggestion title to clearly say what it is about helps us all.
But here we go:

Quote
More modular modding support

I get it, this is so generalized that it's probably been suggested before in various ways, but the skinny of it is this:  A lot of mods struggle to accomplish what they are going for because a lot of the game is locked behind C (Or C++) and the build process.  Every item and every use and attribute of that item should, more or less, be plaintext.  Some examples would be things like more types of trees, more types of animals, tools, etc.

Modding is very simple and limited yes, but I've said it many times over the years that my intention is to develop a game rather than game creating or modding syntax. There are games that have very detailed modding possibilities, and everything is free to edit, but these have been often started up with the modding in mind. UnReal World was never designed for modding in mind, and the few possibilities we have are only quite recent additions. (Heck, even the concept of everything should made editable by the developer is somewhat recent player approach within the lifetime of the game.)
The syntax will likely grow over time but it's enchanced fore mostly based on the game's need, and the possibilities then follow. Heavily moddable game development is a different game development genre in my opinion, and I have never had strong to lead such project.

Quote
"Vehicles"

I'm not suggesting the addition of a pearl-white Volvo 240 but a nice travois or "Purilaat" would be nice.

Yep. This sort of traditional means of transport are planned.

Quote
A "[CRUTCH]" tag

You've just lost the use of one of your legs (or both!) and this slows you down or stops you from using your legs completely.  Having weapons or tools with a [CRUTCH] tag allows you to walk as long as they are equipped.

Yep. Crutches, or the kind, have been suggested before and it's something that we could think of adding indeed. Not considered high priority, though, so maybe some day when time allows.

Quote
Smoke

Smoke!  I can use my sauna as a smokehouse, which kind of defeats the purpose.  You wouldn't want to stand in a smokehouse, and fish wouldn't get preserved in a sauna.  My idea is, just a simple 'smoke' tile that fills up and dissipates whenever there is no roof above the tile.

This would nice, but it would be also something that most players wouldn't fancy if we stay historically accurate. There are no chimneys in the cottages either, so every time you heat up the fireplaces you really want to stay outside. You'd be spending lots of time outdoors during the wintertime. We would kind of like to make it that demanding and accurate, but it wouldn't necessarily be fun addition at all. We'll postpone this, once again, for future consideration.

Quote
    Cultural Traits

One thing that currently exists is that certain cultures get a minor boost to a few skills.  The biggest boon to picking certain cultures is their starting weapons and skills.  I think it'd be interesting if they also had some specific traits, like maybe the Seal-Tribe gets a 10-15% skill bonus to skinning seals, or Reemiläiset take a 30% less penalty when using awkward tools for house building. 

In general all that would be beneficial although the level of detail, where the culture background shows, would need to be considered. There's some cultural knowledge already for example regarding plants, but it could extend basically to all the sectors of the game world. Spells, diet etc. NPCs in the village follow culturally specific things with their game animals, for example, but currently players aren't really mentioned of their background.

Quote
    Long term projects

In Dwarf Fortress, people have accomplished 'everything'.  As an open ended game, you have to keep yourself entertained by coming up with 'megaprojects'.  Things like a huge farm field, or a cabin so large you could house an entire village under its one roof.  It would be nice if things like this could exist in the current game.  Maybe a shrine made of 10 bear skulls, or a way to create your own 'village' that attracts settlers (and thieves!) and 'retire' once certain conditions are met.  As there is no endgame, it wouldn't hurt to give major optional goals and objectives.  Things that would take between 2-3 winters.

Yep. This is something to consider endlessly. Big topic, in all the open world games. End-game comes sooner or later, even after all the possible major goals and objectives are reached.



all random character creation

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5509.0

Quote
Quick & Easy always creates Kaumo tribesman. Is there a way to get other random tribesman by Quick & Easy?

And.. random naming.

Quick & easy always selects Kaumo, as they are often the easy to get started.
More randomness is sometimes suggested, and random names also, and it's likely we'll tweak the character creation to that direction at some point.



Round shields (once spear & axe shafts repair is added)

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5506.0

Quote
Once tool/weapon repair "goes live", can we also get round shields repairable?

I don't know, it hasn't crossed my mind. All I know is that we'll start with the basic shaft repairs first, and can think things further only after that has been implemented.
In any case I don't see we'll ever have a system where you can repair just everything.



Additional "trophies"

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5500.0

Quote
It'd be nice if we could get skulls of taken: lynxes, gluttons, wolves.
Get tusks of wild boars. Claws from bears and lynxes, gluttons and badgers.
And maybe even Njerpez's/human skulls.
"Have skulls, build a grimoire"

And it'd be pretty nice touch if we could apply pair of antlers or a predator skull above the door on our cabins. Or ask for optional "trophy" when building door.

I think more skulls will be added in time, maybe even claws, but these foremostly would have to serve the setting and game world purposes i.e. to having magical and practical value within the game mechanics etc.

Trophies on the walls is maybe part of more modern hunting culture, where you want to show off with your achievements. It kind of contradicts with how we imagine the ancients having respected the game. Magical usage, and hunters status necklaces, and practical applications is a different kind, but we'd like to have strong historical background to this.

But yep, more skulls eventually, after some more browsing of my spell books too.
However, playing with human skulls then again doesn't quite fit the world. The dead, and their parts, were feared rather than collected.



Roads and creeks, brooks. Springs!

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5502.0

Quote
Suggest to downsize road tiles from 100m, full zoomed-in tile 50x50, entire Wilderness map tile, -wide to mere 3-5tiles wide on zoomed-in.
Likely a massive programming task for world map generation.

While that is done, add creeks / brooks. To run between lakes and rivers. And from springs to lakes&rivers.
Width anywhere from 10 tiles (20m) to mere 1tile (2m) width.

Even the narrowest brooks should be traversable with punt. Only larger creeks or after winter (thawing snow) or heavy rainfall they should be traversable with raft.
And they should be shallow enough for ford, with maximum of 2-3 tiles (4m-6m) swim across.

As much as I'd love to have this kind of additions, there are user interface related questions which are more or less unclear for me.

Let's imagine we would have brooks some 1 - 12 meter wide, criss-crossing the terrain. And you're travelling on the overland map. Would you like to get notified every time you automatically cross a brook? Or get zoomed-in every time? Or just simulate on a higher level, assuming that your character figures a way to cross the brook without asking player decisions? Or allow the player some setting or configuration to be switched based on need? For example, if you are thirsty, you'd probably like to be notified whenever your character spots a small brook?

Or, you are just covering a longer distance, travelling on the overland map, using the high-level simulation of automatically crossing brooks without interrupting your gameplay with constant notifications like "you cross the 23rd brook of the day, again". But then, that one time the simulation, RNG and skill checks would determine that when auto-crossing a brook you slip and fall. Now what? You then get zoomed-in into the situation?

(also, I have to say that adding small paths and brooks would require a lot of additional data to the world-map, to keep track on how these smaller-than-a-world-map-tile features go, something like "this tile is mainly forest of type X, but there is a brook running from north to south, and then there is also a east-west path", and should the data structure allow only one brook and one path per world map tile, or are the occasions we would need two creeks near each other? It would be an interesting coding task to inflate this data so that when you travel in the zoomed-in map these creeks and paths would run uninterrupted but with natural curves.)

I'm not saying these are reasons we won't implement these features. It is just to affirm that, like JP_Finn says, this would be a sizable change, requiring a lot of re-coding the map routines and re-structuring the entire map data structure.



Crayfish

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5501.0

Quote
Please consider adding crayfish in-game (astacus astacus) and "˜rapumerta' a crayfish trap.

We have considered, and didn't find it too important years and years ago.
We'll re-consider when time allows.



Quivers

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5498.0

Quote
Suggestion to add quivers.

Before that multi-item containers would need to be done. We'll see in the future. But ...

Quote
Hand held 2 arrows, the fastest for follow up shot (ask which arrows, from single stack, to hold when wielding bow, with marginal reduction on Bow/Xbox accuracy. Selecting none results in slower follow up shots, but highest accuracy) If these 1-2 additional arrows are held in bow hand, they need to be shot first, or dropped if taking arrows from quiver or ruck.

We have something along these lines already in use, and it can be assumed to resemble the fastest loading style for the archer, wherever they prefer to hold their next arrow.

I think how fast one loads and shoots depends on the style they have practised meaning that holding an arrow in the bow hand doesn't automatically make you faster than loading from the quiver.

Code: [Select]
How fast your character reloads and shoots an arrow is now dependent on your
BOW-skill. The effects of this are clearly shown if your BOW mastery level is
lower than 25% or higher than 70%. Otherwise all the characters shoot pretty much
with the same speed. The first shot is still fastest to perform if you have an
an arrow already wielded ie. you are carrying the bow and arrow readied for a quick shot.


Quote
Belt quiver, 2nd fastest for follow up shots.

Back quiver, 3rd fastest for follow up shots.

If there were quivers in the game they would need to be back quivers as that was the type used. (Although, with belt quiver I assume you mean hip quiver.)

Quote
*whenever character runs, falls through ice or falls down (regardless if being struck, tired, voluntarily going prone ...) should have a chance of none, some or all arrows falling out the active quiver.

Hmm. I think all the quivers that have practical value are designed so that the arrows don't fall of very easily. Also, I'm quite sure poeple really wouldn't want to constantly be afraid of arrows falling off when running in the game.



"Raw Meat" recipe change. (was 'pea soup recipe change')

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5497.0

Quote
Traditionally Finnish pea soup is made with leftover ham, but URW recipe for pea soup asks, optionally, for 1 lb of raw meat.
It'd be... thematically appropriate, if we could use "left over meat" ... or in other words, preserved: salted, dried or smoked meat.

I don't know if the leftovers were the traditional thing back in iron-age, but nevertheless allowing preserved meat & fish to be used in cookery recipes is something that should be taken care of at some point, and to allow it. It's been suggested few times before. With dried meat & fish I'd like to either add soakig options, or to auto-lengthen the cookery times when such ingredients are used.



Shelter(s), rain&snow cover, mobile winter hunting.

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5496.0

Quote
I can't come to accept that people 1,000, 2,000, 3,000... even 6,000 years ago would've not used some hides (tanned hide, fur coat, fur cloak in URW terms) to set up overnight shelter during inclement weather. To be taken down in the morning and heading back on the unknown wilderness.

So the suggestions:

1) 'Loue' shelter
2) fur ... bivouac?
3) More than 1, moddable shelter/world item type... ( this could be a PAIN to code... ick)

What was used commonly was to rest under big thick spruce trees, or to fell one spruce to lean against other to form so called "asentokuusi". Nothing more complicated was necessarily required, and that's what we'd like to feature.
I'm not sure if textile shelters in loue fashion will fit the era.



Auto select withes when building fences.

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5495.0

Quote
Stakes are automatically selected from nearby&inventory when building fences, but withes need manual selection from inventory.
It’d be easier if the game would auto select the withes nearby. If no 4’ withes nearby, then ask to select cord or rope sections from inventory.


Yes, it's a bit cumbersome. Upon first adding withes I kind of wanted to have fences to be built with withes alone. That would streamline fence building
as only number of withes could required, and would also be true to the tradition. But as we've allowed using other cordage too, in length based units, this is how it goes.
Easiest solution would be to always withes in fence building, other solutions are more demanding. One way could be to add preferred tying equipment mechanics
which would then select withes automatically if available.



family ties in the village?

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5494.0

Quote
Hmmm ... there are children, old people and girls in the villages. It is obvious that they all have a family connection with each other. I would also like to know the age of the hunter from the neighboring village, whom I help. This could be a separate issue in the dialogue: Tell me  about their family / about themselves. Residents could answer: I am a son (name) and (name) to me (age) and I have a wife (name) I am a hunter. They can only answer if they have a good relationship, if they are bad they will probably answer:  I am not talking to you about this, traveler

We'd like to feature this, the family relationships between the villagers. We've always wanted to feature this, but it has gotten buried under the...well...the usual evergrowing workload of other things. The age and other little details would also bring in more depth to NPCs.

Quote

NPCs consuming food

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5473.0

Quote
This would likely be a massive overhaul.
But it’d be F’n amazing if NPCs would consume food.

I'm under impression all the NPCs do consume food already, and village communal food consumption should happen as well.



Dog size to affect prey they’ll engage

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5483.0

Quote
Suggestion to change how dogs corner or engage targets

Keep “regular” size dogs as is.
Change small dogs to only engage squirrel/marten/weasel size and corner fox/badger/beaver and bigger. No attacking Njerps with small Fido.
Change large dog to engage all but bears, elks except calves, big and regular forest reindeer.

I don't know if it's good to have the dog hunting behaviour linked to their size alone, but there could indeed be difference in their effectiveness as hunting companions. What I'd like to do would be that you need to train you dog to go after the prey. They wouldn't all be equally courageous and obedient from the start. Well, villagers surely would have their hunting companions trained but certainly wouldn't want to sell their best ones too easily.



NPCs to use exactly same movement rules as player character.

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6177.0

Quote
Be it walking or running in snow or swimming, paddling on raft, enable exactly same movement for NPCs as character deals with.

No more skiless robbers running in waist deep snow to catch up to grandmaster skier.
No more character peppering Njerpez from watercraft without chance of the hostile to swim over and climb or capsize the vessel.
No more NPCs waltzing through traps. Have them at least kick the trap 1st to trigger them.

Skiing NPCs and snow penalty for NPCs has been suggested and talked many times before and it would be justified, good and reasonable, and surely to-do when time allows.
From coder's point of view, the magical "allow" button doesn't exists, and many NPC movement related enchancements need to be approached as separate and often surprisingly complex additions.
NPCs always triggering the traps they can avoid ie. walk past them has been discussed before and the conclusion is and still remains that it's not the best approach but would be sometimes only annoying.




The End

January 05, 2021, 06:58:30 PM
1
Suggestion reply marathon Apr-Dec 2020 accomplished. We've had a habit to do suggestion reply marathons, which means giving a reply to each suggestion from a longer period of time. This time the marathon covers nine month period from April to December 2020.

Suggestions are something we've always tried to read and reply, because there's really no reason for suggestions section to exists if developers aren't really paying attention to it.  However, this time the marathon was quite laborous task and took few weeks even to accomplish. The time is limited, and  we'll see how it goes in the future, but at least 2020  is wrapped up now  and the development roadmap hopefully that much more clearer to those who follow the section.

There were 110 suggestion in total, ranging from simple ideas which can be done in few hours to massive descriptive visions that would require months, if not half a year of work. If someone imagined all the suggestions from the period being put to effect it might very well take a year, or  two - or more.
    Well, of course that is not how it goes, and we have always had neverending to-do list by ourselves too. For us the suggestions section serves as a place to give more detailed insight about the mechanics and future developent, and at their best the suggestions occasionally cross, boost and enchance the roadmap and to-dos at the development chambers. We hope to have time to participate in discussion in the future too.

The majority of suggestions during the period were about the game interface, character skills & related mechanics, and NPC behaviour & interaction. 9% of the participating posters did write 52% of all the suggestions.

The results are compiled in one forum thread which you can find here (pinned at Suggestions section):
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6202.0

January 05, 2021, 07:03:33 PM
1
Auto-cutting and other tying equipment additions Bunch of tying equipment related additions are being worked on. It's a sector of code where meandering from one feature to another is quite easy, and sometimes required, but these main blocks are on the table right now:

* Auto-cutting tying equipment to required lengths in crafting/building.

For example: If you'd need say 5 feet of cordage and select a 15 feet rope for the job it's auto cut to required length and the remaining portion (10 feet) stays in your inventory.
With this new condition in effect the cordage minimum lengths however will come into play. So with the above example you need to select 5 feet long cordage minimum, and would need to join the cordage manually first if only shorter pieces are available. In any case it makes more sense, and is less of micro-management, than the current system.

* Few cordage classifications as crafting requirements

Currently the actual tying equipment properties aren't that much checked in crafting processes. Almost any tying equipment works for any job. Now we'll see about adding a few requirement classifications such as "strong cordage", "thin cordage" or "thread". These would work so that for example "strong cordage" requirement accepts ropes and spruce withes - which are the strongest type of withe. Crafting for example a raft would required "strong cordage" for tying, and now you could use ropes and spruce withes that, but not the other kind of cordage outside the classification.
Arrow making would require "thread" type cordage. Loop snares could be only made from "thin cordage". And so on.

Classification is still under construction so different wordings can be suggested, and ideas posted here. It's can be quite tricky to find terms that would open up easily, and not to end up with too many categories. Naturally the game will also display messages about this-and-that requirement accepting this-and-that items.
Strong cordage - ropes, spruce withes
Thin cordage - strings, cords
Thread - yarns (or sinew threads, whenever we get there)
etc.

* Nettle processing

We'll add the steps to be able to make nettle yarn, and then see where it goes after it's working ok.
In addition to retting and beating the fibres out of the stems, there would be preferably also the easy early summer method where you can extract the fibres by hand and make primitive yarn fast - eg. for survival fishing rod line.


February 15, 2021, 01:29:40 PM
1
Re: Auto-cutting and other tying equipment additions
February 15, 2021, 05:49:59 PM
1
'Asentokuusi' - simple shelter under a leaning spruce tree A few essential wilderness accommodation options for rough wanderers are coming up.

'Asentokuusi' (can be freely translated as "post spruce") was the simplest form of shelter for resting and spending a night protected from the elements - and in the next patch we'll be featuring a possibility to set up a 'post spruce'.

Post spruce is made simply by felling a young spruce to lean against another spruce tree. Some of the lowest twigs are removed to create space, and these are then laid on the ground for some insulation and cushion. Simple as that.
This was the usual method of spending a night in the wilderness condition when more permanent camp wasn't necessary.
Setting up a post spruce will found in "Building options", and it does felling the tree and covering the ground with twigs all together. Tools needed for the process are the same as for felling young trees in general.

With this addition we'll also feature general usage of spruce twigs as ground cover for insulation. If there are no furs to cover yourself into sleeping on spruce twigs, instead of bare ground, now keeps you a bit more warm during cold nights.

These are future additions, not yet functional in current version 3.63.

March 12, 2021, 06:39:15 PM
1
Textilecraft continued Fibre processing is on the table.
We'll be featuring a new skill, TEXTILECRAFT, which determines the success and time required for several work phases of processing fibres into yarn.
For migrated characters textilecraft will be initiated to the cultural defaults upon first load. 
All the textilecraft options - retting, drying, spinning etc. - will be found in the general [M]ake menu, and can be also accessed simply by using the skill.

Spinning fibres into yarn is now pretty much competely done, the productions times and yarn yield carefully considered.
Textilecraft mastery, and using a spindle or not, naturally affects to outcome and spinning times.
The actual mechanics of getting fibres spun works so that when "spin yarn"-textilecraft option is chosen you'll be asked to choose from the inventory which fibres to spin.
After that you'll be informed how much yarn you can expect to get from that, and can select how much you wish to produce now.
And then the spinning starts, with a spindle or by hand.

During the playtest I've spun (magically generated) nettle fibres, but we'll be also making hemp as fibre source. The fibre processing keeps track of the master plant so the plant identity is easily turned into resulting yarn. Nettle yarn, hemp yarn, and so on. Flax is naturally something to think of. We'll see if it fits into this version.

Now as the yarn generation from the fibres is working we'll be also adding yarns as village items, so instead of spinning your own you can also trade your yarn from some cultures.
The big question still being pondered is how expensive yarn should be? It's hard work to spin yarn with a spindle, takes about minute to produce three feet (or a meter).

Next up, coding and testing the preceeding steps; retting and drying and extracting fibres.

A few screenshots follow.


Skills screen with TEXTILECRAFT in place.


After choosing the bundle of fibre to spin there's dialog asking how much of yarn Kuitu Kaumolainen wishes to produce on this go.

March 24, 2021, 07:08:44 PM
1
The Moon and The Crust Erkka was visiting me last weekend and some really exciting weather engine achievements and accompanying real life adventures were made.
Now there are two new essential weather features on the table - both still somewhat under construction, but most likely to be seen in the next version.

And the features are...

* The moon.

Our weather engine now models the moon in detail, with its' changing phases and moonlight affecting to the nighttime visibility and brightness.
Lots of tuning is still pending, but we can already see that the full-moon nights in the game will be a different experience.
Especially during the darkest seasons moonlight can be a of great help and extended the available hours for working, hunting or travelling.
Just have a look at the screenshot compilation below.


Left: A casual midnight by the lake in dirt month as it appears currently in the game.
Right: The same scenery with the new moon code in action. It's full moon and our nighttime visibility is a much different.



* Snow crust

Snow crust is a springtime phenomena where surface of the snowpack becomes so hard that it can completely support a walking or skiing person.
The crust results from partial melting of the snow surface by warm spring day sunlight followed by re-freezing when the temperature drops again, usually after the sunset.
The crust normally only lasts for part of the day, but being able to travel on snow without sinking in there at all is a great asset for a hunter.
Elks were traditionally hunted on skis during crust as it can't support the heavy animals and hunter gliding on crust with skis now became much faster than their prey.
Lots of work is still needed before snow crust support is all coded, but that's the intention. Now it also requires proper snow penalty to be added for NPCs and animals, and reworking the skiing code to some extent too. (And if you were thinking of skiing NPCs so were we.)


The last weekend it was both full moon and snow crust possibility, so we also went experiencing these things in real life.
Naturally these both are familiar experiences already, and as countryside kids we've learned possibilities of snow crust for work and leisure all the way from our childhood.
But if you'd like to see the magic of skiing in moonlight without any artificial light, or get an idea about difference between skiing in slushy spring snow compared  to the crust, we've got a short videoclip for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOcb_cm5UkE



March 29, 2021, 05:36:42 PM
1
Sneak preview of textilecraft system with screenshots and additional insight Time for a little sneak preview with our textilecraft test character Kuitu Kaumolainen.
Some of the stuff mentioned here has been mentioned before, but a summary about textilecraft is in place now. With some sdditional insight and sidetracking included.

So, the biggest single addition to the upcoming version is featuring mechanics to extract fibres from certain plants and process them into yarn. For this, a new TEXTILECRAFT skill was created, and lots of spin-off features regarding fibre processing and cordage also followed. Fibres can be extracted from nettle, hemp and flax - which has been added as a new cultivated plant. Let's start from there ...

Flax

Flax is an old cultivated textile plant, but in Iron-Age Finland it wasn't even as commonly grown as hemp. One reason for this is that flax doesn't survive in the very north so in the game it's grown only by certain cultures south of Kaumo. As a curiosity, the finnish word for flax ('pellava') originally meant the nettle plant ('nokkonen') which speaks about importance of this age-old wild source of fibre.
But nevertheless, flax is in the game now and it can be grown, harvested and processed for fibre.


Kuitu Kaumolainen has found his way to Kiesse, a region where flax is grown. At Kaumo where he's from they only produce nettle or hemp fibres. Blue flowering flax is easily spotted from the field, and it could be harvested for fibre already.


Textilecraft options

Processing plant fibres into yarn involves several stages of work, and it's all done by using your TEXTILECRAFT skill. Character's expertise in textilecraft affects to required working times and the amount of usable fibre or yarn produced.

After the plants are harvested the fibres must be then separated from the plant's stalks. This process is called "retting", and it is done by soaking the plants in the water for several days. Sufficient soaking time depends on the water temperature, with the warmer being faster.


Kuitu Kaumolainen harvested 100 flaxes and headed by the lake to start retting the stalks. Here you can see all the textilecraft options to proceed with fibre extracting and spinning them into yarn.


Extracting fibres is hard work

It took two weeks for Kuitu's flax to soak properly. After that it took one more week to dry them. And only then Kuitu can start extracting the actual fibre from the stalks.
Extracting fibres is done by breaking the dried retted stalks so that the woody core shatters and falls away leaving the loose fibres free. The stalks are beated for example with a club on a solid working surface. Extracting fibres is hard work and commonly carried out with several people working together.
Traditionally there has been a custom to arrange specific work parties for processing fibres of each village together with the neighbouring people. And in the game your companions can actually help you with the task.
Obtained bundles of fibre are then scraped free from remaining coarse parts. Traditionally special tools were used, but it can be also done by rubbing and whacking the bundles against a hard surface, or with tools at hand.


Kuitu starts extracting fibres from the dried retted flax stalks at his shelter. He is about to beat the stalks with a club on top of a log. These dried retted stalks could have been also stored for future and the fibre extracted when there's time and need for that.


Spinning yarn

It took lees than half an hour to extract the fibres from his 100 flax stalks and Kuitu got 16 bundles of flax fibre. Fibres can be then spun into yarn either by hand, which is slower, or using a spindle. Spindle is also a new craftable item, and very easy to make. So Kuitu crafts a spindle and starts spinning. He decides to go for full length yarn. When starting spinning it is possible to choose how long yarn you wish to spin on one go.


Kuitu manages to spin 80 meters of linen yarn in less than two hours. It could be then used in crafting of different items such as loop snares, arrows - or fishing rods.


Nettle specialities

In the next version it will be also possible to craft fishing rods, and hooks out of wood or bone. And a working fishing rod naturally needs a line too. Now Kuitu has his linen yarn which could be used as line, but the whole process of extracting flax fibres with retting and drying took weeks. That's quite a long time if there's an urgent need for little piece of yarn.
Luckily there's also faster wilderness condition option for utilizing plant fibres - and that is a nettle.
Nettle fibres are a speciality as they be extracted directly from the fresh plants without retting and drying processes. To do it you can simply use "extract fibre" option directly to freshly harvested nettles. This method takes more time, but is an useful option when only a small amount of fibre is needed.
The nettle stem is crushed by hand, and the fibres carefully stripped off.
It doesn't take long before Kuitu finds some nettles. Textile plant harvesting is made possible for fibre even when they are still growing.


Kuitu harvests some nettles. Then he simply extracts the fibres by hand, and spins some nettle yarn. If he would like to produce a lot of yarn, this would be too slow to be practical, but now he's only after fishing rod line,


Wooden hook, nettle yarn - and baits

Kuitu finds a slender tree trunk, fashions a wooden hook out of a branch, and proceeds to assemble a fishing rod. Now we should mention that In the upcoming version usage of baits in fishing is also  featured. Using baits is not necessary, but naturally highly recommended. Catching a fish every now and then without a bait is still possible, but for reliable rod fishing and decent catches baits are now quite essential.
         You can use pretty much every food item as a bait and portion of the selected item will be used during the fishing attempt. Pieces of raw meat and fish can be considered decent baits for predatory fish, but for example crumbs of bread may also work for some fish. You can also use a whole small fish, eg. roach or perch, in order to attract a bigger predatory fish.
        With this addition in effect the type of fish caught with rod fishing is now more dependant on the baits used. It's not likely that you'll catch a pike with an empty hook, but having a small roach as a bait might work. And that little roach might have been caught with quite moderate bait such as bread crumb, or even with some tasty vegetation.


Kuitu makes his survival fishing rod, with a wooden hook and nettle yarn.

The work with the several less laborous features continues but we're getting closer to release every day. It's always quite impossible to say when everything is completely wrapped up and working, but maybe - just maybe - we might have this version out in june.

Cheers!

For those who are more curious about the real life practises here's a short documentary in Finnish showing how the flax is processed. Having read the above I trust you will understand what is happening even without subtitles. The gear used differs slghtly from the more primitive method of the game, but the steps are the same; sow, harvest, ret, dry, extract, spin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNFD_CUlxZU

May 11, 2021, 03:52:38 PM
1