Messages

796

Development News / Re: Summery summary in the midst of upcoming version hype

« on: August 05, 2019, 07:12:45 PM »

A couple of Njerpezit follow on questions, then:
- Will they also benefit from dogs? That can make them a lot more dangerous than they are currently...
- I've encountered them felling trees. Will they also hunt? If they do, that means you don't know if the remains left by a hunter is from a friend or foe, which I think would be a good thing.

797

Suggestions / Re: But that villager died

« on: August 05, 2019, 02:36:53 PM »

Replacing NPCs and livestock isn't a huge issue currently, as most characters aren't played for even a single decade. However, if marriage, families, and the ability to play an offspring is implemented, there's a need to "restock" the villages at least for each new character generation (given that the parent probably died when the kid was at a single digit age, a time skip might allow for village population replacements through their kids growing up and new kids produced (and some old geezers kicking the bucket).

That said, robber quests are risky business, and villagers hired to participate do die in these clashes, causing a slow decline in the number of villages from which you can recruit (and the more villages lost, the more villagers die, as you have to settle for those who are willing to come with you, rather than those most suitable for battle).

798

Gameplay questions / Re: Is there a topic that discusses trapping in the winter, particularly elk?

« on: August 04, 2019, 11:08:36 PM »

You can catch elks with pit traps (out of season, as you noticed) and bear traps (the largest deadfall traps). The second largest is good for wolves, gluttons, and lynx, but not elks or reindeer. The bear traps can catch wolves as well, while gluttons and lynxes are too small.
Trap fences makes the two large game trap types more effective, as they herd the game towards the openings (where the traps are).

799

Gameplay questions / Re: Is there some way to grind your sword skill without actually fighting?

« on: August 04, 2019, 11:04:36 PM »

A slightly less cheaty method is to use the weapon for blunt attacks against targets in traps: you're going to kill them, so you might just as well get a (rather small) amount of training out of it. However, I wouldn't recommend using it against wolves, gluttons, or bears. You can also use that method against exhausted herbivores (Njerps may get a lucky strike in, which can happen with elks and reindeer as well, but the latter two are reasonably harmless if the PC is fully armored).

800

Gameplay questions / Re: I killed an innocent Njerpez warrior . . . will my settlement be attacked?

« on: August 04, 2019, 09:05:33 AM »

Njerps are the "goblins" of UrW, i.e. the evil bad guys. This means they can never be reasoned with and they are always hostile, although they can flee (and sometimes return to attack you after fleeing). I kill them most of the time as a kind of "keep the world free of scum" service. These guys are raiders from the east (there's a Njerp region on the map), and thus are worse than robbers. Outside of their area they are always* alone, although two of them can happen to appear close to each other.

You were lucky to kill the enemy, as they can vary significantly in skill and luck in a fight can cause even a skilled warrior to lose to an unskilled one, with the first connecting blow often dictating the results due to the penalties inflicted. Njerps can be killed fairly safely with appropriate (or cheaty) tactics, but any "fair" fight is risky. UrW does not favor repeated combat, as it's risky.

always*: It's said that Njerp camps can appear on the map, but I've never seen one except for the starting scenario where you start in one. However, people on the forum confirm they do exist.

Njerps will not retaliate, and villagers will not react to you killing them in any way (neither positive nor negative).

801

Gameplay questions / Re: Bird Thief Trap Location

« on: August 03, 2019, 03:43:04 PM »

That's the second worst area search quest. The visibility in a spruce infested forest is limited, and there tends to be just a small number of snares and feathers somewhere in the target tile. The only way to find the traps is to comb through all the matching tiles. I do this quest by walking inside the target tile all the way from start to finish for all the available stretches (i.e. zoomed in for each stretch). I try to walk so far in that I just can see the border line (when not blocked by trees). So far I've been lucky enough to find the traps, but it doesn't take much bad luck to miss them. Keep an eye out for both traps and feathers, and stop the search when it starts to get dark.

802

Gameplay questions / Re: Is there any way to slow down the wait timer when doing things like felling

« on: July 31, 2019, 08:18:00 PM »

There are no deserts in Finland...

There are settings for the game that allows you to be interrupted when detecting creatures, and there's really not much reason to break off tasks that can not be resumed, but would have to be started from scratch (basically everything except building, currently). If in doubt, don't start the task.

There is a setting for the timer speed: [SPEND_DELAY_ADD:0] in urw_ini.txt (the comment recommends changing 0 to 10 and not go above 100).

You wake up due to snow/rain if you're sleeping outside (including when falling asleep when trying to build a shelter, and you can't continue with the shelter because you're too tired...), but I don't know about cold.

803

Gameplay questions / Re: When it says, "you could have done better, but you can't make good out of bad."

« on: July 29, 2019, 10:03:11 PM »

You understood the message correctly, and no, you can't produce a result better than the material provides, regardless of your skill and your tools.

- Cutting trees always result in decent quality results. Your skill and tools affect the time it takes, but not the quality of the wood for that task. Different kinds of trees do not yield different kinds of wood in UrW (at least not yet).
- As I said, you can find staves in villages and in villager inventories, and you can, very rarely, find ones that are good and even masterwork quality (my characters look for those, but so far no character has been able to get better than good quality javelins, even in the rare cases where a masterworks staff was found).

Also note that even with masterworks materials, 100% skill, 0% encumbrance, and masterworks tools of the preferred kind, the chances of producing masterworks items are low, somewhere around 15-20% in my experience. The only way to push it up further is to use a rabbit foot, and I don't know how much the odds are improved: I know for certain that it doesn't guarantee success, as I've failed using it (with all prerequisites at the highest possible level).

Also note that you can't produce bowls and mugs of a higher quality than decent because of the source material always being decent.

804

Gameplay questions / Re: In the "Lonely Settler" start, is it possible to find out what happened to your

« on: July 29, 2019, 02:59:00 PM »

I don't know if it's possible to find out what happened (I've never played that start), but I very much doubt it is.

805

Gameplay questions / Re: When it says, "you could have done better, but you can't make good out of bad."

« on: July 29, 2019, 02:57:54 PM »

The crafting rules are somewhat complicated to understand sometimes:
- The quality of the source material usually* limits the quality you can achieve in items produced from it.
- Some material is always of "average" quality, such as tree trunks and slender tree trunks.
- In many cases the tools limit the quality of the product. I think the preferred tool may be of one or possibly two levels lower than the maximum result, while an "OK" tool has to be one level higher than the preferred one, and unsuitable tools (such as stone knives/axes) lowers the achievable further.
- Your appropriate crafting skill limits the quality of the result: you have to be good to create masterworks.
- Encumbrance reduces the value of the skill roll for tasks that rack up fatigue.
- Skills have limits, and the higher skill limit the better your chances to produce a good result, but the skill value within the level doesn't seem to matter.
- Good tools can provide a bonus to the roll, although I'm unclear if it's only masterworks, or if good helps as well (for combat only masterworks provides a bonus, if I understand it correctly).
- Some tasks use the "Common" skill, which is fixed and and cannot be changed in any way. Things produced using this skill are limited to decent quality and includes clothing. Thus, using masterworks quality furs for clothing is a huge waste, although I believe the source material quality provides a small bonus to the roll (meaning you might achieve a decent result even with such a poor roll that you'd normally get a poor result).

*Usually: Some "reactions" have a "noquality" modifier to the source material, which means it doesn't matter. Thus, you can make good and masterworks quality planks out of decent logs. Most reactions use a quality, though, so your only chance to get a masterworks (or even good) javelin is to find and buy a masterworks (good) staff to work with, as all staves you produce are capped at the decent level.

"Can't make good out of bad" means your skill roll was high enough to produce a better results than you got, but the material used limited the result. There's a corresponding message displayed when the tools are not up to the task.

This is an outline of the logic, not the full story...

806

Bug reports / Re: exploit: running while skiing

« on: July 27, 2019, 07:57:15 PM »

Yes, it's a known issue.

807

Gameplay questions / Re: Okay, so I have my first Elk skin, and I'm trying to figure out what I should do

« on: July 27, 2019, 08:28:00 AM »

Actually, you don't need a club to make hides. A stone or rock (I don't remember which one, or if either can be used) will do just fine.

808

Gameplay questions / Re: Okay, so I have my first Elk skin, and I'm trying to figure out what I should do

« on: July 26, 2019, 06:44:16 PM »

There are only a few, optional specific cases where you want to turn a hide into leather, and starting out is not one of those.

Since you start in winter you should be able to dry the meat using the wall of one of the partial buildings, or even a shelter (you can't dry meat in summer), and dried meat is lighter than smoked meat while yielding the same amount of nutrients. As mentioned, it takes longer for the process to finish, though.
As long is the temperature is below freezing, meat does not seem to go stale in a cellar, but I don't think you can build one during winter. It may be that meat won't spoil outside of a cellar either, though.

Thus, tan the hide, make cords from it to dry the majority of the meat, possibly smoke a little bit to act as a buffer while the drying takes place (but I wouldn't bother), keep raw meat for cooking, provided the temperature is below freezing to see you through while the rest dries. You CAN sell roast meat, but I'd rather keep it myself if I can keep it from spoiling (i.e. during winter).

It can be noted that spoiled raw meat can be fed to dogs, while spoiled processed (roasted) meat is completely useless, and spoiled meat doesn't deteriorate further, so you can just keep a pile of it for when you get a dog, if some if it spoils.

I'd probably use the hide that didn't get used for cords to make fur clothing, as you're probably going to need some to combat the cold.

809

Gameplay questions / Re: How do I zoom into where the tracks are located?

« on: July 25, 2019, 08:42:03 AM »

Well, the world tiles are 50 * 50 tiles (100 * 100 m), and you don't know where in the tile you zoom in, so it translates to 300 * 300 meters to comb through, unless there are terrain type borders that can assist you in getting your bearings.

810

Gameplay questions / Re: How do I zoom into where the tracks are located?

« on: July 24, 2019, 09:50:13 AM »

The latter. The overland report of tracks is completely disconnected from the zooming in logic. When zooming in you usually return to the location where you zoomed out the last time you zoomed out from the tile. I'm not sure about the logic for zooming in the first time, though, but tracks definitely have nothing to do with it.
Thus, it's quite possible to zoom in to a tile with reported tracks from one animal and end up on top of tracks from a different one (but usually none at all, of course).

Note that it isn't critically important to follow these precise tracks: you can use just about any tracks.