Messages

16

Suggestions / Re: Snowshoes

« on: December 05, 2018, 05:36:46 AM »

As someone's who made attempts to manufacture snowshoes at home, in the most traditional way possible, I'm also willing to speak up for snowshoes. Though we might need to look into potential historical accuracy issues (I know URW isn't historical, but it is Finnish-inspired), I think snowshoes would be a wonderful addition to the skis.

The ancient Finns are likely to have used a sort of a swampshoe to walk on swampy ground, and this type could be used as a snowshoe as well. You can find a picture of a swampshoe and swampskis here - as you can see the swampshoe bears strong resemblance to the "bearpaw" type of snowshoe, but would carry less weight, being more open design to avoid getting stuck in a swamp. The gap between a swampshoe and a proper snowshoe looks like it's quite short, but it does seem that the type of snowshoe that developed in North America was never really developed in Europe. But it would not be completely anachronistic.

Very interesting, thank you ! Especially for the link.

Looking a bit further back than the Iron Age, at the European Neolithic, we also have some evidence of "ice-shoe" footwear accessories, created as a means to prevent skidding while walking on icy or frozen-over surfaces.

One such type, a sort of detachable outer cover for the simple straw-filled shoes underneath, was found among the equipment and clothing that belonged to "Ötzi", the remains of the famous Chalcolithic era man found in the Alps back in the early 1990s. You can have a look here, I've put a timestamp on the spot where his clothing and footwear is discussed. (A thing that amused me was that his outermost layer of clothing was a cloak made of grass. Reminded me immediately of the cloaks made from nettle fibers we have in URW. )

17

Suggestions / Re: Craftable punts ? And what should the limitations be ?

« on: December 05, 2018, 05:25:05 AM »

Thank you, all ! So many great comments since my last visit. Even by Erkka ! Feels like an outright privilege.

Genuinely fascinating discussion and some really interesting ideas with the code. I might test it in the game, just out of curiosity.

There is no evidence of Iron Age Finland using birch bark canoes but as I am Canadian have a lot of imagery regarding canoes. There is a birch-bark canoe in my mod. Each major step takes a precious menu line which are limited in number.

Haven't heard of that boat type used in Fennoscandia either. Native American style canoes probably never really occured in European prehistory.

Birch-bark canoes are certainly cool bits of material culture, of course. I don't bemoan any modders who try to bring them into the game. It's still setting-friendly and adds more options to the watercraft roster, along with more traditional solutions (leather boats, dugouts, rafts, etc.).
 

IIRC the self sufficency mod had a recipe for a dugout canoe. Due to their ease of making just about wherever mankind was someone at some point made a dug out canoe.

There is evidence of the era and geography having leather skin boats and dug out canoes.

I'm not that surprised about this, it seems logical these would be the resources they'd have readily available for building small, general purpose boats.

Having read about archaeology conducted in Europe alone, the dugout is a design that's been a perennial mainstay in virtually any culture - even inland ones - that need regular use of boats, if only to cross rivers or lakes. Though dugouts are hefty, they are fairly practical when it comes to the resources available.

Bouidda and thus Nyxz have a "punt" that appears to be built up of boards. That to me seems to be a clinker built boat.

There is evidence of clinker built boats being used by the Anglos and Scandanavians in the 600s. I was watching a documentary on that today actually.

I don't think the punt we see is a clinker boat it is however the only vanilla graphic we have.

From what I know, clinker-style construction was more of a medieval era approach, or at its earliest, maybe a method developed in late European antiquity. It would be a bit modern for what the player could build, and I've always thought of it as a method more suitable for large boats or ships, rather than small, one- or two-man vessels.

There was an old mod which had a recipe for making a leather punt. I think it was Rain or Endive but Im not sure. I have been meaning to look that up.

I've been thinking rewriting or finding the old leather punt recipe too.

Nice !  And thanks again for the code you've already posted. I really appreciate it you looking into this to such an extent.   

18

Suggestions / Re: Craftable punts ? And what should the limitations be ?

« on: December 01, 2018, 01:40:44 PM »

Perhaps it's an assumption on my part but I thought a punt was like a coracle, possibly made with skins?

I myself am unsure at this point, but from what I remember, some older releases depicted it as a dugout.

As for other boat types, coracles would be quite plausible one-man vessels for limited small cargo loads. You could make those from slender trunks and enough outside leather covering, I suppose, and they could be carried by the character, instead of just dragged ashore. Though I'm not sure if there's any evidence for them in Fennoscandia in the period that URW is trying to loosely depict.

I never got the impression the punt is a coracle. Though non-circuclar coracles are possible, the punt has a very specific, boat-like shape. A real elongated coracle would have to have a roughly regular shape on both ends, or have the even more common circuclar shape (or a rectangular shape with highly curved, non-pointy ends). Real life coracles are rather limited in terms of the shape you can give them, given their construction. Even birch-bark canoes are more flexible in terms of how you can design them on the outside.

If it's a dugout type, that would require controlled burns for days and a tool like an adze for working the inner hull down. I suppose it could be some type of bark-hulled boat, like a canoe?

Ah, good point !

You're right that the inclusion of an adze in particular (or similar tool) would necessitate new assets.

19

Suggestions / Re: Snowshoes

« on: November 30, 2018, 10:53:55 PM »

Every char should get skis or SS (can be improvised from few spruce twigs) in winter. How get the njerp there in the first place and why is he so pantsy in winter after few steps?

As someone who's made attempts to manufacture snowshoes at home, in the most traditional way possible, I'm also willing to speak up for snowshoes. Though we might need to look into potential historical accuracy issues (I know URW isn't historical, but it is Finnish-inspired), I think snowshoes would be a wonderful addition to the skis.

They'd be slower (basically average walking speed, no speed bonus), but maybe they could help diminish a player character's fatigue from walking in deep snow. That seems like a logical in-game justification for them, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Concerning what cultures you could find them in and buy them from, I think it's rather predictable they'd be the most common among the Northern Region tribes. I don't know how common or uncommon skiis are among all of the cultures in the current game, but if there's already some variation in the quantity of ski usage by the different cultures, it could make sense for there to be some variation in snowshoe usage as well.

20

Suggestions / Craftable punts ? And what should the limitations be ?

« on: November 30, 2018, 10:23:20 PM »

I've noticed that punts are only acquirable by quests or by buying them for adequate barter material in a village. This wouldn't be bad in terms of game balance, but from a realism perspective, it has me scratching my head a bit...

Unless I'm mistakened (and feel free to correct me), the punts in URW are basically dugout boats (monoxylons). They're a single tree trunk carved into the shape of a small, usable boat, and often propelled by a sesta (punt pole), or a paddle. At least that's the impression I've had from some of the photographic illustrations provided for these simple vehicles.

If they're made from a single tree trunk and are dugouts, wouldn't it make some degree of sense that the player could manufacture one ? At least a smaller, one-man version, perhaps ?

Not without limitations, of course. I think a natural potential limitation could be the type of axes (e.g. a carving axe) and other tools (e.g. knives) at the player's disposal. Unless the player acquires a small array of very specific tools, he/she can't hollow out the tree trunk on a whim, as if it was no hard work and no effort at all.

I just find it strange that you have to go to a lot of trouble finding material for a raft - three separate tree trunks, then tying equipment you have to manufacture over a long time - when it's a simple vehicle only at first glance, but requires a lot more material investment. The punt looks far simpler in comparison. Granted, I think that if craftable punts were to be included, another limitation for them would be the length of time needed for manufacturing.

For rafts, you'd need to gather a lot of materials, but the assembly time would be short, while for punts, you'd only need a tree trunk as material, but it might take a good long while until you hollow it out into a suitable punt shape. At least as long as it takes to build three or four segments of a log cabin ("Wooden Building") wall in the game, with an average character. This would help prevent the crafting of punts to become easily abusable, and instead make it into something more of a long-term goal.

Additionally, maybe another way to make punt crafting a bit harder is the need to gather information on the process first from particular villages. You go to a village, meet the local who sells fishing and watercraft related goods, and you have to be on good terms with him/her and sell them something before they decide to tell you how to properly build a punt. Only then, and with the right tools for the job, could you start hollowing out a tree trunk. In essence, you could still craft a punt, but it would require some effort to become skillful at this sort of task, and this would in turn guarantee that people wouldn't avoid crafting rafts. Rafts would still be useful and necessary until the player learns how to build his or her own punt.

Just some thoughts on the subject. I'd love to hear others' opinions on this, the pros and cons.

I know there are already some good mods out there or in development that add more craftable watercraft, especially of the simple variety, but I was wondering whether punts could be given a similar treatment. One that wouldn't make the game much easier, but would still give the player slightly more options when trying to fish or travel across water.

21

Mod Releases / Re: Chicken coop for the homestead

« on: November 19, 2018, 08:04:55 PM »

You can just place the file(s) to URW folder, and drop the images (Truetile folder) into the image folder

Thank you. I've already tested it before noticing your reply. It seems to be working fine. Unfortunately, I found 7 grouse eggs with my character, but had him carelessly eat 3 of them. Now I can't build the grouse coop because I need just 1 egg to build it. I suppose I'll have to look around the island I'm stuck on.

22

Mod Releases / Re: Chicken coop for the homestead

« on: November 19, 2018, 04:48:00 PM »

Bird Coop

Nice little mod.

As a newbie to mods for the current iteration of URW, I'd like to ask if the code from the "diy_coop" .txt file needs to be inserted into the "diy_glossary" .txt file or whether the "diy_coop" should just be dropped into the main URW folder, among the other files ?

23

General Discussion / Re: How did you discover UnReal World? -- 10 choice poll

« on: November 18, 2018, 10:09:09 PM »

Hello all. I'm new to this forum, though I've been playing URW on and off for quite a while.

I first discovered UnReal World over three years ago, on an external site intended for its promotion - the URW profile at IndieDB.com. Then I came over to the official site, downloaded the then-new version 3.19 and started learning the ropes. The shortcut commands were a bit intimidating at first, but I soon made sense of them and the rest went quite smoothly.

I played Unreal World most heavily in 2015 and 2016, but I intend to return to playing it and finally try out some mods, at least for the latest version of the game (3.52). I still have version 3.19 on my computer and I intend to keep it installed (just for nostalgia's sake and to continue a bit of my existing playthrough), but I'll also do a separate install of the latest version and keep updating that one. Though I like the newer graphics a lot, there was something cute about the 3.19 (and previous) graphics that keeps me coming back to that older version.

I like all the new modding that's sprung up around the latest releases. I was impressed by the depth of the sim when I first played in 2015, but I love the fact URW's players still want to add more depth and detail. My kind of people.