Messages

76

General Discussion / Re: Geographical inspiration for the Unreal north

« on: March 25, 2021, 05:28:09 PM »

I always thought URW simply re-imagined Finland as a peninsula jutting into sea similar to the Baltic. So it's not quite Bothnia but a fictional extension of it eastward. My reasoning was that because the ability to drink sea water in URW is intentional per some old post by Sami (Baltic is more of a brackish lake than a saline ocean) then the north coast which is geographically linked to the west coast and also has water you can drink must also be surrounded by something akin to the Baltic.

77

Suggestions / Re: Live fish sometimes visible in nearby water

« on: March 25, 2021, 05:07:21 PM »

I'd love to see spear/club fishing elevated into seasonally effective fishing method. In Finland this is done in late autumn on a boat with a light source, so hopefully tridenting from your punt with a torch in Fall/Dirt month will be at least somewhat effective method of catching big fish someday.

78

Solved'n'fixed bug reports / Re: Impossible trade, foreign traders' carry limit.

« on: March 22, 2021, 02:37:09 PM »

This was deliberately introduced some time ago. The previous version was that when you overloaded a foreign trader's inventory with furs he simply dropped the extra to the ground. You could then pick them up and reclaim them as yours. I took to simply deleting the extra in such case.

You don't need to bother with foreign traders if you want fine armor though. The best places in URW to find fine armor are Sartola, Kiesse and Koivula. When they first spawn they don't have much if any metal armor, but after several months after having first visited them their stock gets refreshed and they get tons of metal armor, including many fines (and at least Sartola and Koivula get occasional masterwork). For example, in my current game I have one of those cabin, sauna and storehouse style small settlements where an Old Kiesseläis Man peddles fine habergeon and fine mail leggings right next to each other.

79

General Discussion / Re: Companions won't fell trees, why?

« on: March 21, 2021, 10:45:22 PM »

I have never seen this myself, but wasn't there some kind of problem with the companions derping out when there were some bear skull totem pines around? What about animals tied to a tree?

80

General Discussion / Re: Quest Reward Bugged?

« on: March 21, 2021, 10:05:27 PM »

You get nothing until you go practice the said skill, yes.

81

Gameplay questions / Re: Trading with Foreign Traders

« on: March 21, 2021, 09:09:41 PM »

Assuming the prices on the wiki are fully up to date: 80*1.25 = 100 for fine longbow, 14,4*5*1.25 = 90 for 5 fine broadheads, for total of 190. Decent reindeer fur is 200.

It does make certain sense to act as middleman though. For example, you could sell your food or extra weapons to villagers for furs, which would indirectly allow you to trade weapons and food to foreign traders. Or you could sell your bigger furs to villagers for winter lynx/beaver/arctic fox furs to make your fur stack more valuable pound for pound when dealing with foreign traders. Or if you see foreign traders near your settlement, you could go load off your large furs for jewelry and random weapons, then use those to buy stuff (possibly the said weight/value effective winter furs) from the villagers. It allows you to concentrate your wealth into more portable form generally. This is useful both because it allows easier management of long shopping trips or just allows you to always have that fat stack of wealth available when you meet foreign trader that has something you really want far out in the wilderness, or it allows you to get past foreign traders' carrying limits (they won't accept more furs than what they can individually carry).

82

Suggestions / Re: Buff metal armor, nerf leather and furs

« on: March 21, 2021, 05:03:52 PM »

Alright, I spent some time looking up how damage model works in Harnmaster. I am not previously familiar with the system and don't have any rulebooks, I just read someone's hopefully accurate player's handbook style rundown of it (here: https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-walk-through-harnmaster-combat-part-2.html). Previously only technical description related to URW's damage model I had read was the short bit on URW wiki which claims weapons get 1d2 damage dice per their damage value, but I knew this to be wrong from experience since weapons can regularly penetrate more then 2x their damage value of armor.

It seems what actually happens is that the relative results of the attacker's and defender's rolls are compared and then you get to roll 1-3d6 + weapon damage value vs. armor (with extra d6 if the defender counterstrikes or ignores). I'm not sure how directly this is translated into URW but it matches my experience of actually playing the game quite well. As I wrote before I think 10-12 represents well protected but by no means immune while 18 starts getting to the point a part is immunized. A Njerp with a scimitar with 5 edge would indeed struggle against 10-12 protection, though he could get through even 12 if he gets above average roll on 2d6. And a 3d6 roll with decent result would be required to get past 18.


That aside, why I'm really posting again here is that I put together some figures for comparing armors as systems with the various modifications I suggested here. I assume that both mail and iron currently get +1 to both point and edge protection at masterwork, just like leather does. I also assume that there is no hidden buff or anything similar specific to metal armor, in my experience a point of protection is a point of protection no matter where it comes from, but I admit I have not tested that and it's just an impression formed over course of normal gameplay. All furs will be regular quality bear furs, all other items are assumed to be masterworks, so this is intended to demonstrate maximum achievable protection with these sets.

The first set is the one I previously described and will be referred to as "battlewear". It consists of: Leather cap, fur hood, spectacle helm, long mail cowl, cloth cowl, fur shirt, leather shirt, leather cuirass, fur overcoat, fur mittens, mail mittens, leather forearm guards, coudes, leather belt, fur leggings, leather leggings, kneecops, leather shin guards, leather boots, woolen socks, woolen footrags and linen footrags. It weights 72 pounds.

The second set is what I call "mail set". It consists of: Leather cap, fur hood, spectacle helm, long mail cowl, cloth cowl, fur shirt, mail habergeon, coudes, leather forearm guards, fur mittens, mail mittens, leather belt, fur leggings, mail leggings, leather boots, woolen socks, woolen footrags and linen footrags. It weights 81,7 pounds, significantly more than the battlewear. It also has significant cost: masterwork mail habergeon and leggings alone cost 1000 squirrel furs. I don't think I need to count the price of every garment in the battlewear set to tell this is much more expensive. It is intended to represent a realistic heavy armor set, the kind which warrior would wear if he could buy it.

This is the protection that the battlewear currently has:

Skull: 22 point,  27 edge
Face: 12 point, 14 edge
Neck: 10 point, 14 edge
Shoulders: 16 point, 19 edge
Upper arms: 10 point, 10 edge
Elbows: 15 point, 17 edge
Arms: 13 point, 13 edge
Hands: 9 point, 12 edge
Chest: 14 point, 14 edge
Waist: 14 point, 14 edge
Hips: 21 point, 21 edge
Groin: 21 point, 21 edge
Thighs: 10 point, 10 edge
Knees: 19 point, 21 edge
Shins: 15 point, 15 edge
Feet: 7 point, 10 edge

Pretty decent right? If you are feeling silly (more silly than to use three pairs of socks as foot armor) I suppose you could throw couple of tunics or undershirts there as the upper arms and thighs are the weakest spots to which something can be done. This would give those areas 12 point and 14 edge protection. It would still be lighter than the mail set.

This is what the mail set currently has:

Skull: 22 point, 27 edge
Face: 12 point, 14 edge
Neck: 10 point, 14 edge
Shoulders: 15 point, 21 edge
Upper arms: 9 point, 12 edge
Elbows: 12 point, 14 edge
Arms: 10 point, 10 edge
Hands: 9 point, 12 edge
Chest: 9 point, 12 edge
Waist: 9 point, 12 edge
Hips: 22 point, 28 edge
Groin: 22 point, 28 edge
Thighs: 9 point, 12 edge
Knees: 9 point, 12 edge
Shins: 13 point, 16 edge
Feet: 7 point, 10 edge

The extra protection on the hip from the combination habergeon and leggings is more than a bit wasted since it was already so high. The shoulder is very iffy too. The upper arms and thighs are better protected, but the battlewear has enough free weight to more than make up for it. The torso protection is weak compared to the battlewear. This set is a downgrade: you pay and wear more for less.

In case of the suggestion from the opening post.

In this situation:

Regular fur/leather: 2 point, 2 edge
Masterwork fur/leather: 2 point, 2 edge

Regular/masterwork cloth of all types: 1 point, 1 edge

Regular mail: 7 point, 10 edge
Masterwork mail: 9 point, 12 edge

Regular iron: 10 point, 12 edge
Masterwork iron: 12 point, 14 edge

This is what the mail set would have then:

Skull: 26 point, 31 edge
Face: 14 point, 16 edge
Neck: 12 point, 15 edge
Shoulders: 20 point, 26 edge
Upper arms: 11 point, 14 edge
Elbows: 14 point, 16 edge
Arms: 6 point, 6 edge
Hands: 11 point, 14 edge
Chest: 11 point, 14 edge
Waist: 11 point, 14 edge
Hips: 24 point, 30 edge
Groin: 24 point, 30 edge
Thighs: 11 point, 14 edge
Knees: 11 point, 14 edge
Shins: 13 point, 16 edge
Feet: 5 point, 5 edge

This should hopefully make it clear what I meant when I said that overall buff to armor was not the intention. Even when mail is buffed to 9 point 12 edge at masterwork, the concurrent nerf to furs and leathers means that for the weight this still isn't really better than the current battlewear (though it would be better than the nerfed battlewear, which is the point). Much of the extra protection is again wasted on the already very heavily protected parts. The biggest benefit is probably that the face, neck and hands have now better possible protection. On the other hand the existing weak spot in feet is made more acute, while a new one is introduced in the forearms (needing either rare lamellar bracers or heavy double undershirt and fur overcoat to shore up). The torso is still worse protected.

It's not a problem of snowballing protection either from making the mail better. Both sets have lot that could be added to them, it's weight that determines how much can be added to either set.

In case of the minimal suggestion from my previous post.

In this situation:

Regular fur/leather: 2 point, 2 edge
Masterwork fur/leather: 2 point, 2 edge

Regular/masterwork cloth of all types: 1 point, 1 edge

Regular mail: 6 point, 9 edge
Masterwork mail: 7 point, 10 edge

Iron is left as it is.

This is what the mail set would have then:

Skull: 21 point, 26 edge
Face: 11 point, 13 edge
Neck: 10 point, 13 edge
Shoulders: 16 point, 22 edge
Upper arms: 9 point, 12 edge
Elbows: 11 point, 13 edge
Arms: 6 point, 6 edge
Hands: 9 point, 12 edge
Chest: 9 point, 12 edge
Waist: 9 point, 12 edge
Hips: 20 point, 26 edge
Groin: 20 point, 26 edge
Thighs: 9 point, 12 edge
Knees: 9 point, 12 edge
Shins: 11 point, 14 edge
Feet: 5 point, 5 edge

This is actually slightly weaker than the existing version of this set, so we are now talking about nerf to overall protection.

This is what the battlewear would have then:

Skull: 21 point, 26 edge
Face: 11 point, 13 edge
Neck: 10 point, 13 edge
Shoulders: 13 point, 16 edge
Upper arms: 6 point, 6 edge
Elbows: 11 point, 13 edge
Arms: 8 point, 8 edge
Hands: 9 point, 12 edge
Chest: 8 point, 8 edge
Waist: 8 point, 8 edge
Hips: 12 point, 12 edge
Groin: 12 point, 12 edge
Thighs: 6 point, 6 edge
Knees: 15 point, 17 edge
Shins: 8 point, 8 edge
Feet: 5 point, 5 edge

This is worse than the mail set now. Even if you throw in the 10 pounds worth of clothes, it's not enough to shore up the differences. However I think it's worse to rather marginal degree in comparison to the mail set, and again masterwork body armor and leggings are very expensive and rare. Even if the base mail is limited to 6 point 9 edge, I'd still consider giving metal armor +2 bonus to both point and edge at masterwork.

It's also worth noting that in the minimalist scenario regular, rough and possibly fine mail would remain questionable as I pegged this at best possible protection.

83

Suggestions / Re: Buff metal armor, nerf leather and furs

« on: March 19, 2021, 10:39:01 PM »

For practical experience, I think the first step you need to fulfill when fighting humans is certain level of protection to abdomen. The instant killing disemboweling attack seems to trigger quite easily with low level of edge protection. I think about 6 or so is generally enough to stop it, perhaps bit more. Should still be achievable with the nerfed leathers, though it needs one extra layer of protection.

Over the years my standard heavy battlewear has evolved to be this: Leather cap, fur hood, spectacle helm, long mail cowl, linen or wool cowl if I can find one, fur shirt, leather shirt, leather cuirass, fur overcoat, fur mittens, mail mittens, leather forearm guards, coudes, leather belt (it's light... so why not), fur leggings, leather leggings, kneecops, leather shin guards, leather boots and as many socks and footrags the game allows me to wear. 72 lbs all together, assuming a cloth cowl and all three socks. And a shield. Always a shield, even if I don't know how to block with it in melee (I normally use two hander anyway and take off the shield once I have an enemy as an arrow sponge in front of me). The fur is always bear fur, I don't feel the extra edge and blunt defense of masterwork generic fur is worth the loss of the point defense.

It's already very heavy protection, most characters will go over 10% encumbrance with weapons, I'm not quite sure I'd use even that much if there wasn't the opportunity to cool off and reduce your fatigue by backing off while dodging/blocking/counterstriking. As you might have noticed there is no cloak there as a modest weight saving, so I'm not about to use additional metal body armor there either. If the mail leggings had foot protection I'd definitely find room for them though, and that would allow me to use the high shield position more comfortably. Function wise I can pretty much guarantee that no single hit will really put my fight into unrecoverable state if I fight smart unless it is to the eye, though if I get dragged down fighting multiple opponents in melee alone I can get taken down by combination of fatigue and multiple hits in the 10-20% damage range. I have gotten damaged even through my hip, for couple of percentage or something. The hip has 18-21 protection depending on how many leather masterworks I find.

That being said I have not fought terribly lot in my current game since the Njerps apparently moved all east. I did clear one camp I saw near Reemi territory with couple of dogs but that involved only couple of hits on me, both minor and one of them was definitely one of those hip hits. That battle was really a series of several three-on-ones as the Njerps came to me in perfectly disjointed fashion always allowing me to finish off the one I was fighting before another one found his way to the melee (also only two archers and they came last and breathless, though one nearly killed my dog). I have fought quite a bit against wolves however, having killed at least dozen of them. The above setup seems fully immune to them.

I have recollection of two specific events in past versions (but both post Steam release) that disillusioned me about metal armor. One involved a Njerp stabbing me with a knife (can't recall type) through mail and at least one but probably two layers of furs and leathers. I recall wondering whether there is really only 1d2 damage die per weapon power. The second involved an arrow to the knee through probably couple of layers of leather/furs and a kneecop. This also taught me about the power of the shield. The introduction of the quality bonuses was another blow to metal armor to me. Masterwork metal armor only gets +1 point defense bonus, three masterwork leathers give you total of +3 (I'm way more exited to see foreign trader carry masterwork leather than masterwork anything else).

I'm fine with not giving as much extra to metal armor as I suggested. However even if leather and fur are reduced to 2 point and 2 edge max regardless of their quality, I'd still at very minimum buff mail +1 to both point and edge to keep habergeon (22lbs) and hauberk (25lbs) more clearly superior to fur cloak, fur shirt and leather shirt combination (about 25lbs).

84

Suggestions / Re: Buff metal armor, nerf leather and furs

« on: March 19, 2021, 05:45:47 PM »

Thanks for taking interest Sami.

I'm mainly concerned that there is no sense of progression in acquiring most pieces of metal armor, particularly the body armors which are together with the mail leggings the most expensive pieces of equipment available in the game. They are not weight effective protection compared to cheap and easily available furs, leather and clothing. There are currently three situation where you'd want to wear metal armor 1) It protects some critical body part (like the neck, which AI targets with called shots) that is hard to stack protection on with furs, leather and clothing 2) You have equipped every fur, leather and cloth garment possible but want to be even better protected 3) You are using it for sake of roleplaying, knowing it's suboptimal choice over just wearing same weight of furs, leather and clothing.

The lengthy historical part was ultimately more of a digression, just something to demonstrate that the suggested rebalance has some historical justification to it as this is a game that does tend to take history seriously. I did not really concern myself with absolute values there, the comparison between the 6xleather and 1xmail + 2,5xlinen was more looking at relative protection. This was also part of the reason I tried to maintain the existing armor-weapon balance in my suggestion, the intent is to buff metal armor and not to buff overall protection, indeed for most* part very heavy protection is nerfed since stacking leathers etc. becomes less weight effective.

That being said, while I did not mention it above, the 18 protection from 6xleather did seem way too much to me. In my experience value of 18 in URW starts getting into territory where that body part is immunized vs. human warriors, while the leather in the real life tests was consistently penetrated and still risked critical organ damage. My suggested values in the 10-12 range for these setups tend to mean, in my experience, well protected but by no means immune in the game.

Actually trying to balance URW around those Jones' studies in an absolute sense and with exactness would have many problems. It would be tons of work first of all, and I think there are more pressing improvements to make. And those studies, while some of the best of that kind I have seen (his detailed documentation is scholarly and he is aware of statistics) aren't really conclusive in my opinion. He still takes shortcuts like using mild steel as stand in for bloomery iron. I used them as basis because they were of good academic quality, topical (i.e. actual test on hyper thick organic armor) and translatable (he gives weight/area of the material he uses). That they were on arrows was incidental.

As for the quality bonuses (I address point and edge only), as far as I'm seeing leather currently gets nothing at fine and +1 to both point and edge at masterwork (becoming just as good as rough mail for point), furs get nothing at fine and +1 edge at masterwork, for mail I don't have fine piece available right now but masterwork seems to have +1 point while the edge protection is off the graphical scale of game's armor coverage screen (though I'm guessing it's at least +1). My suggested revision in my previous post follows it's overall theme and buffs the quality bonuses for point and edge protection for metal armor while nerfing the leathers etc. by completely removing their quality bonuses to point and edge protection. Are you saying there is some additional bonus to quality armors than what is apparent on the armor coverage screen (beyond being more resistant to wear and tear)?

*The big exception is where you manage to wear double layer of metal armor, which would basically immunize that body part with my suggested values even if you aren't wearing any backing. I'm not actually sure if it's possible to wear multiple mail/lamellar body armors currently, if it is I'd suggest removing that ability if those values I suggested or something similar to them are adopted (which is itself regretful, since it's historical to wear mail + lamellar, or even to wear two mail shirts, but disallowing that is better than leaving metal body armor weak).

85

Suggestions / Buff metal armor, nerf leather and furs

« on: March 17, 2021, 07:40:54 PM »

So as I'm finalizing my collection of masterwork mail set in my current game, I find myself wondering the same question that I always do: why bother?

Leather (or bear fur) gives you protection of 3 against point and 3 against edge. Point is I think overall more important since it includes normal arrows, and NPC archers seem more likely to carry them than broadheads. Two layers of this is 6 point and 6 edge. Mail is 5 point and 8 edge, which is at best slightly better. The problem is that mail is heavier for that protection. Leather shirt is 6 lbs, bear fur shirt is 7 lbs and together they are 13 lbs. Mail habergeon weights 22 pounds. It's simply not weight effective, and in addition to that you can repair the leather and furs yourself and they are easier to acquire.

But you can put the mail on after you wear the leather and fur shirts right? You can sure, but the trend continues. Bear fur cloak and overcoat are still at least as good as long mail hauberk. And after you have finished wearing every possible fur and leather garment, the next step after that is not the mail, but the linens. At some point along there you end up wearing heavier protection than early modern period cuirassier in bulletproof plate, all while not touching metal armor. And the northerner lightweights I like to play find themselves unable to bench press a squirrel fur.

Something is very very wrong here.

Now there are some useful pieces of metal armor, namely those that are otherwise hard to stack protection on: mittens, coudes, cowls (downright essential) and the spectacle helm. But other than those metal armor is a vanity project, equivalent to collecting silver accessories. If somebody has an argument why expensive (and at least in masterwork quality, hard to find) metal armor being for vanity makes for good gameplay I'm all ears but I can't figure why.

It doesn't strike to me as realistic either. Combatants used metal armor if it was available and affordable, and they wore it with ultimately fairly light clothing (equivalent to about single layer of furs here). If it wasn't available, people didn't wrap themselves into leather and fur balls.

One possible solution would be to make wrapping your joints in multiple layers of heavy clothing more penalizing than just the weight, but this would require new coding. However it seems more simple solution would work because the whole premise that leather is more weight effective than metal armor seems questionable at best.

Three links of interest:

https://todsworkshop.com/blogs/blog/arrows-v-s-armour-agincourt-myth-busting

Shooting late medieval warbow (i.e. something we arguably don't really have here in URW) with period accurate wrought iron and case hardened wrought iron arrows at period accurate 2,5-1,5mm thick steel breastplate. The arrows break and fail against the armor.

https://www.academia.edu/5520314/Arrows_Against_Linen_and_Leather_Armour

A study of arrows against linen and leather. Of particular interest because he actually stacks the leather so far it's heavier per square meter than 2mm plate. The 76 lb draw weight bow is also probably good approximation of our longbow.

https://www.academia.edu/7691143/Arrows_against_mail_armour

Study against mail by the same author.

What I first want to address is that I'm fine with plate being weaker than it should be. By all accounts it was tremendously effective and fighting styles evolved for getting around rather than through it. But we have only a few pieces of plate armor in URW, there is no mechanism for transforming non-penetrating edge/point hits into some blunt damage and there is no possibility for Njerp or bandit to grapple you while another stabs you into weak spot. Additionally the plate we have can be assumed to be weaker, e.g. helmets could be of segmented type with lots of holes in the plates and blade traps on the surface.

The comparison between the mail and the triple layer leather is very topical and I think something that can be translated into URW. I'm assuming it ​takes about square meter of material to make shirt covering torso, shoulders and upper arms. In practice it seems making a T-shirt tends to need bit more depending on the cut of the cloth being used and of course the person being clothed, but I'm assuming there is some wastage and that this figure is a good enough approximation. Using this assumption I convert the armor used in David Jones' linked studies above into URW terms and briefly examine whether the protective qualities of the materials in URW are reasonable in light of Jones' studies.

So the scenarios:

Three layers of thick shoe sole leather for weight of 16,4 kg per square meter, that is to say a theoretical (if utterly impractical) shirt made of them has weight of 16.4 kg or 36 pounds. This is 6 URW leather shirts for total protection of 18 point and 18 edge. All arrows penetrate this assembly, however the leather seems quite effective at reducing the depth of penetration. The bodkin does better than the broadhead.

Layer of mail (of 7-10.3 kg per square meter) with 8 layers of linen cloth to 2,92 kg per square meter or about 6,4 pounds to a shirt. I take this as representing mail habergeon and two and half linen shirts in URW, for total protection of 7,5 point and 13 edge. This setup does seem to do slightly less well against the bodkin (which consistently penetrates), however I think it's not nearly enough to justify 8.5 point difference, more like couple. Against the leaf shaped arrow it adopts completely different mode of protection, it reduces penetration much less than triple leather however it rejects 25%-33% of the arrows, something the leather doesn't do at all. This is hard to quantify, but I'd say it does not support difference of 5 points in edge protection. This armor setup is also hard to quantify in the sense that it's working like composite armor that is more effective than sum of it's parts, but since you aren't really supposed to wear mail without backing and mail is the expensive part I think it's worth attributing the effect to the mail. Worth also remarking that if you add 9 kg/square meter linen padding under the mail instead of the 3 kg one it becomes very effective.

For concrete suggestion (and start here for TL;DR) I think it's important that this is kept simple. It must not upset existing armor-weapon balance in the game. It should be quick to implement so it doesn't end up as something pushed a decade down the development plan. I do not touch any other numbers except edge and point except for the bear fur which needs to be kept as rewarding fur to get.

So here are my suggested numbers:

Furs/Leather

Reindeer/Elk: 2 point 2 edge
Generic fur: 2 point 2 edge (remove edge bonus from masterwork)
Bear fur: 2 point 2 edge 6 warmth (rather than armor fur, bear fur is re-imagined as alternative for fine+ generic furs, and it's now simple upgrade on elk/reindeer)
Leather: 2 point (remove masterwork bonus) 2 edge (remove masterwork bonus)

The non-functional furs (squirrels and such) and leathers don't really matter, just as long as they aren't better than above. That being said by weight leather and fur clothing here always represents rather sturdy clothing.

Metal (add to all +1 bonus for both point and edge at fine; add another +1 to both at masterwork for total +2 both):

Mail: 7 point 10 edge (or 9 point 12 edge for masterwork mail)
Lamellar: 7 point 11 edge
Iron: 10 point 12 edge

And for cloth go for 1 point 1 edge for all except the magic nettle shirt which is probably good as is (though I don't quite recall what that was as I don't have one right now).

I do get that 2-2 or 1-1 everything looks pretty boring, but there isn't really lot of wiggling room and single point represents a huge change at these numbers, particularly when stacked.

The basic idea is that every metal armor gets buffed +2, and leather and bear fur are dropped to 2 protection only. Hence, wearing mail and two layers of bear furs or leather gives identical protection as before, but it's made more mail centric. Mail alone is buffed and mail and extra thick padding is made weaker, this is really opposite of what it should be but the synergy is currently impossible to represent. Unarmored NPCs become slightly weaker protected, but they didn't wear much anyway. Clothing remains somewhat effective if you layer it enough due to being light. Since metal armor is heavy, the quality bonuses layer based (which is why I'm suggesting to remove them from everything else together with +50% being too much), the price difference in it considerable due to high base price, the sheer rarity of masterwork armor and the historically variable quality of metal armor I think +2 to both point and edge at masterwork is reasonable.

With these changes, the 36 lb leather coat would be reduced to 12 point 12 edge protection, while the mail plus 2,5x layer of linen would become 9,5 point and 12,5 edge. More reasonable I think?

Lastly it might not be bad idea to rename the leather cuirass into leather vest due to now being less of a piece of armor and more like clothing.

Thanks for reading.

86

Gameplay questions / Re: Active hunting tips?

« on: March 16, 2021, 12:06:01 PM »

I don't ever really go out to specifically hunt (unless I'm going after some animal I spotted near my settlement), instead I simply hunt animals that I encounter when doing my regular activities like trading exploring, gathering and small game trapping. I then load the meat and furs (or sometimes whole carcasses) on my dogs for further processing.

To find animals, climb on hills and mountains on the zoomed out (world) map. If you don't have any, the lichen forests are the next highest elevation. If you don't have any of those or have very few (Reemi territory and the area around it has problems with too low elevation, notably), I recommend hunting elsewhere. You don't often actually see the animals around from your high vantage point, but you sometimes do and this is the most hassle free way of finding them. If you don't at first see any try the next hillock or recheck ones you have already been to. If you are really desperate to find animals right now, don't just randomly walk around on the world map, but zoom in occasionally to check if you see anything. Almost equally important is picking the right terrain where to hunt: I consider hunting animals in spruce mires and conifer forests act of desperation (excepting bears since they hold aggro well). Open mires on the other hand are great places to hunt as you often find yourself cornering animals against the numerous ponds that dot this terrain and they offer clear lines of fire.

Character wise, speed and endurance are the most important stats, even more so than the weapon skills as active hunting in URW does ultimately come down to some variety of persistence hunting. Some animals like lynxes and badgers can be simply run down with fast, high endurance character and some educated guesswork, even in the summer when they don't leave tracks on most terrain. Also keep mindful of your encumbrance, for example the difference in fatigue buildup between 1-2% and 5-6% is already huge and apparently non linear.

For archery the most important thing to ensure is to have a clear line of fire: don't shoot the pines. If you are after some forest reindeer for example it's a good idea to hang back a bit so that they don't start running and wait for a good opportunity. Though if you encounter the reindeer via the sudden encounter type where the game pulls you in a middle of the herd, don't waste your opportunity for the close range shot. I think shooting (with bows, javelins are short range only) at the max range is not to be underestimated. You'll often miss sure but this often doesn't send the animal running yet and you can make several attempts. Just keep the line of fire clear. Since the changes to cord economy some time ago arrows are really cheap up to whatever level you can craft them at with even modestly successful bird trapping.

There are also some kinks to keep in mind that you can exploit: for example animals often like to run in diagonal zig-zag pattern that you can learn to predict to a degree, and herd animals in particular like to rebound back towards you after they stop running. This is particularly useful when persistence hunting forest reindeer. First you scare the animal, then you alternate between running and walking after it using both your observation of the animal, it's tracks and some guesswork to minimize time loss. You'll soon see the animal again rebounding towards you after it stopped running. Run towards it to scare it again and then resume your usual mix of running/walking and following it. Rinse and repeat and you'll soon have an otherwise unharmed breathless forest reindeer.

Ultimately successful hunting can take patience and the "I think I'm going to give up on this animal. Too much of a bother. But no, not just yet! And now I finally killed it!" is the greatest gameplay experience in URW.

Lastly, if you are getting fatigued from just walking around you'll need a pair of skis and a ski stick, or you'll need to practice your skiing skill. I don't actually recommend starting in spring as new player since it really starts you in the last days of winter, start in summer and autumn instead.

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Gameplay questions / Re: How do you take a sauna bath with the new fire mechanics?

« on: March 06, 2021, 04:00:19 PM »

4 branches and 30 firewood has been about the minimum for me. Mild steam after about hour and half of burning and proper steam for a while after three hours and the fire dies around the same time. Tested in end of Soil with temperature around zero, with a pre-existing burnt-out fire in the fireplace.

88

Gameplay questions / Re: 3.63 New fire mechanics

« on: March 04, 2021, 10:40:47 PM »

15 firewoods a day for how long?
This prevents from traveling and exploring the world.

 Well it takes less wood then that, like 3 firewood once per day.

I do agree that I felt much the same way about being lashed to my settlement. The old method was way OP, so I can't argue to much with the smoking change being more realistic/harder.

Next one up: cut the possibility of drying when the temperature is dry AND freezing. Or more generally, restrict drying to Swidden, Dirt and Dead months.

89

Bug reports / Re: Wool mittens don't spawn in shops

« on: March 04, 2021, 09:54:13 PM »

Ok, I completed my promised tour of newly generated Driik lands (actually two, just that the first one ended with a neck biting wolf right outside the first settlement ), 38 settlements in total. Final tally was 1 masterwork linen cowl, 1 masterwork linen footrags and two regular linen footrags. Maybe slightly less than what I expected and I was bit surprised they were all linen, but ultimately sufficient. Zero woolen mittens (though there were 4 mail ones...), undergarments, aprons or veils.

90

Bug reports / Re: Wool mittens don't spawn in shops

« on: March 04, 2021, 08:05:36 PM »

In my current game I have visited essentially every settlement in Driik, Koivula, Sartola, Kiesse, Reemi and many in Kaumo. Of those Driik, Koivulais and Kiesseläis settlements have been revisited once they have had their first major restock (happens after x amount of time, generally several months after you first visited it, rather more muted in Driik, but immediately obvious in Koivula and such when you suddenly see tons of metal armour around where none was before). I have seen maybe half a dozen pairs of regular woolen footrags (I bought two and have two more on my map notes, but I kinda stopped taking notes on that), one par of fine woolen footrags, two pairs of woolen socks at least two pairs of regular linen footrags and a pair of fine line footrags. I have also seen at least two woolen cowls, one masterwork and one fine, but since I found the masterwork early I might have skipped noting one or two regulars.

This matches my previous experience, which includes at least two other games of similar extent and few ones I started just to check on all Driik/Reemi shops. The socks/footrags are there, they may be as rare as masterwork tool axes but you can consistently find them. Cowls are occasionally around. Woolen mittens, never. I think I'll throw another Driik shopping test right away to see what I find.

It's quite possible I'm wrong and I have had unusually unlucky experiences, but at this point I'm kinda begging evidence of someone having a pair of (taken) or (unpaid) woolen mittens in their inventory. If I'm wrong, then take this as suggestion to increase spawn rate of woolen mittens in settlements.