Messages

76

Gameplay questions / Re: WEATHELORE CAN INCREASE!

« on: May 02, 2023, 05:03:59 PM »

I carry a snare for fatigue recovery activities when I don't have anything productive to do. It doesn't sky rocket the trapping skill, though, but there is a trickle improvement.

Weatherlore can be used to determine whether to set up a rain shelter for the night while traveling, as well as to determine whether is seems like a bad idea to venture out in the middle of the winter if you haven't gotten hold of enough clothing items to deal with the coldest periods. It can also be used to try to determine whether you should try to cross frozen bodies of water during spring, assuming you don't want to risk getting caught on the other side after a day of intense melting.

I do agree with Tinker that means of improving the ability to light fires would be welcome, though, whether through skill or technology.

77

Suggestions / Re: The UrW Anti-RSI Campaign group. ARSI, for short.

« on: May 02, 2023, 09:14:20 AM »

I can give you one situation where you do want to smash ice repeatedly: Trying to reach a dead elk that went through the ice, but the ice starts to make cracking sounds even when you're crawling towards it. In that situation you can fetch a punt and smash your way through the ice to reach the carcass, haul it up into the punt, and smash your way back to shore.
Another case is when net fishing while the ice appears (or continue to net fish after the ice has appeared), as well as smashing your way to the shore if you're out traveling as the ice appears.

78

Gameplay questions / Re: WEATHELORE CAN INCREASE!

« on: May 02, 2023, 09:07:48 AM »

Yes, it can. I've had several characters who'd reached 100% (they lived a fair number of years). My standard routine is to use Weatherlore every time my character eats (and Herb Lore as well, until reaching 100%), apart from the very early game where I'm spending all available time trying to get food in one way or another.

You can also improve dodge by dodging a lot (but reaching 100% is a lot of work using cheesy techniques.

79

Gameplay questions / Re: [Spoilers?] Bird Thief Quest question

« on: April 30, 2023, 09:16:50 AM »

My experience is that it's bad for you to reveal yourself, so I've refrained from doing that. As far as I can tell, all that happens is that the perpetrator gets a low esteem of you, but there's no indication anything else happens, so just keeping it vague seems to be better.

One might have hoped that the perpetrator would have seen it as a lesson to be learnt from, but he acts like most criminals, i.e. blames those catching them rather than their own behavior. Thus, he acts in a realistic manner.

80

Gameplay questions / Re: Has persistence hunting been made more difficult?

« on: April 30, 2023, 09:11:12 AM »

I used to never run, but have shifted to selective sprints. I track prey walking to keep them bolting, and once they have gone from slightly fatigued to fatigued I run as soon as I see them again to get them to bolt as quickly as possible, giving them less time to recover. Once they start to run I stop.

Tracking in spruce terrain is a pain, and there's a high risk of losing prey that only requires a little bit more before they're breathless because you can't find the continuation of their tracks or their tracks just merge with a mess of older tracks, and when you finally do manage to find them again (if you do), they've recovered.
Being persistent when chasing prey is important, but you also need to know when to give up (or at least that you should have given up some time ago) because your character is too tired to realistically be able to catch the prey before falling asleep, or it's getting too dark to track the prey. One option is to leave a map marker and then return to try to find your prey again the next day, as animals tend to stay in the general area of some time.

A fast character is definitely a lot better at persistence hunting than a slow one, but it still isn't impossible for slow characters to succeed. A really annoying thing is when the prey's walking speed is higher than that of your character and the tired prey starts to walk in a straight line, without diverting into loops and whatever, so they recover while getting away from you. Fortunately, all prey isn't that savvy.

81

Suggestions / 3.80 (beta) Change trade item preferences

« on: April 29, 2023, 05:02:47 PM »

I don't think it's version dependent, but I've now had a lot of trade transactions where the person I try to trade with suggest trade of the clothes/armor off my character's back, as well as the weapons and tools carried, rather than the inventory of fur carried, which makes the option to ask for what the character wants in trade to be of rather limited use.

I believe the algorithm ought to resort to worn and wielded items only when carried items won't be sufficient, and select trade goods and (lower quality) duplicate items first, as that's likely what you're actually interested in trading.

82

Gameplay questions / Re: Nettle Harvesting

« on: April 29, 2023, 09:13:17 AM »

Yes. Threshing nettles now gives you both leaves and stems. The stems can then be soaked. Note that the game doesn't mark immature and mature harvested nettles differently, so try to thresh whatever you've collected and only then soak the stems as well as the unthreshable plants.

83

Gameplay questions / Re: Having trouble with trapping.

« on: April 29, 2023, 09:10:44 AM »

Yes, rock throwing uses the Club skill. Throwing other weapons is supposed to use the corresponding weapon skill, although I've never investigated if you can train the Sword skill by throwing swords (spear throwing is a "legitimate" weapon attack, and I've done that to hurt animals).
I suspect throwing non weapon objects would be using the Club skill. It could use the general skill, but that would give you a bit too good a chance to hit (I believe the general skill is fixed at about 50%.

However, I didn't throw the rock. Once the elk is totally exhausted I catch up with it and whack it in the head with the rock using melee attacks (i.e. I aim for the head, but many blows end up landing elsewhere until it goes unconscious, at which time the hits are guaranteed to hit the intended target).

The reason for using a rock is that it causes the least damage to the skin. Also, throwing rocks at birds can occasionally knock one out so you can run up to it and kill it. That's been a (meager) supplement for many of my starting characters. This means the Club skill is useful to train. When I get further I mainly switch to a javelin and then to a spear (using blunt attacks in melee against non hostile opponents in order to preserve the skin. It also doesn't hurt that killing the target that way requires more attacks, and thus more training).

84

Development News / Re: Version 3.80 (beta) released

« on: April 28, 2023, 09:59:23 AM »

I'm not aware of mud being used to any extent back then (and there). It seems to more of a tropical thing, when you're not (as) concerned with trying to keep warm and thus trying to use at least somewhat insulating walls. I'm not an archeologist, though.

85

Gameplay questions / Re: Injured Adventurer

« on: April 28, 2023, 09:48:43 AM »

It seems on of your problems is that you don't (yet) recognize what heath looks like. If you look at your first image, I believe the tile about 7 tiles to the east is heath (trees on a yellowish ground cover).

In the same image you have a lake, and to the west of the lake you have a couple of hills with three tiles of heath surrounding them.

86

Gameplay questions / Re: Can't trap cellars anymore?

« on: April 28, 2023, 09:37:03 AM »

I can confirm that it was possible to trap cellars in the past, although I rarely did it as the losses weren't noticeable. I haven't bothered trying in 3.80 (beta) either, but assume the report is correct.

87

Gameplay questions / Re: Snares need yarn now?!

« on: April 28, 2023, 09:34:57 AM »

The game's "yarn" includes the products from various plant based fibers, and so isn't limited to actual (animal sourced) yarn. Thus, you can produce it from nettles, hemp, and linen (I might have forgotten some source).

However, it's not a starting material, as nettles first have to be at least partially grown, and then has to go through retting and drying, which takes over a month.

88

Gameplay questions / Re: Roof Water Catcher

« on: April 28, 2023, 09:29:22 AM »

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not aware of any such thing in the game (and if you've found something in a mod I would suggest looking at the mod description to see what the author's thought on them would be).

If it's something intended to catch rain water I don't see the point of it in the game unless you, for some weird reason, decide to build your homestead some distance away from the abundantly available water sources.

89

Gameplay questions / Re: Injured Adventurer

« on: April 27, 2023, 04:27:04 PM »

I can't identify terrain with any certainty unless it's visible (i.e. lit up, but not the grey scale memory). I can see some heath and I can see something that's coniferous, but I'm always uncertain about whether it's forest or mire in that case. I use the looking function to identify the terrain of locations of interest.

Given how few heath locations there are, it ought to be fairly easy to look at each of them and find the ones that have coniferous forest to the north of them (where the shelter should  actually be) and walk into those few tiles from the heath tiles (you might even walk to each heath tile regardless, given how few there are). I've never had any trouble finding the blood scapes by walking through a tile they're present in (zooming in and then out can easily miss them in coniferous tree infested terrain).

In order to actually see each heath terrain tile and identify it and its norther partner may require you to walk there to get close enough to see them on the overmap.

Also, the F6 map is crucial to identify which terrain is within the search area rather than outside of it.

Another search method is to just walk across the overmap from each side to the other in a line, shift the line one step, and repeat until the whole area is covered, identifying the terrain of every tile that might be of interest (and its partner to the north/south), zooming in only on the tiles that are actually of the right type (and I would recommend zooming in on the heath tile and walk to the coniferous tile in order to reduce the risk of zooming in too close to the animal and risk triggering an immediate attack).

90

Gameplay questions / Re: Snares need yarn now?!

« on: April 27, 2023, 02:40:16 PM »

As mentioned, fords have a different overworld graphic tile, although I can't see any difference during the winter...

I generally settle outside of the cultural bubbles close to rapids (it sure is convenient to have easy access to water during the winter, and an escape route when hostile critters invade your turf (you need a paddle for that, plus a craft).

Note that sestas only work in shallow water, so you should be able to use a raft with a sesta to cross a ford without having to deal with the cold water (in summer the water temperature isn't a problem, so you should be able to wade across, even if you might get a little cold you'll heat up soon enough). A sesta won't get you across deep water, though.