Topic: Craftable punts ? And what should the limitations be ?  (Read 12665 times)


Petike

« 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.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2020, 03:27:54 PM by Petike »

PALU

« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2018, 11:12:38 PM »
I think the crucial issue is the crafting time. Currently UrW supports pausing and resuming of only a rather small number of tasks, but once pausing/resuming has been generalized, this kind of time consuming tasks would be reasonably possible to implement.
I don't think there's any need for a specific tool restriction, as the standard effects of using poorer tools should be cause enough of an incentive to get appropriate tools.

Tom H

« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2018, 12:46:35 AM »
Perhaps it's an assumption on my part but I thought a punt was like a coracle, possibly made with skins?

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?

PALU

« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2018, 10:00:23 AM »
The game contains a quest where you're tasked with providing a log for the construction of a punt (for the quest giver, not for your character), so I think it's safe to assume it's intended to be a dugout craft.

Petike

« Reply #4 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.

Tom H

« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2018, 10:01:55 PM »
After getting an in-game close-up, it seems clear that it's a dugout. And Palu reminds me of the quest requiring a trunk cut down in the rain. 

On reflection, it's puzzling that a raft made up of 3 500lb tree trunks winds up so comparatively light! heh

Privateer

« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2018, 10:13:28 PM »
On reflection, it's puzzling that a raft made up of 3 500lb tree trunks winds up so comparatively light! heh
Some have reset the weight of their raft(s) to 1500 lbs.
To help is it's own reward.
Mods:
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;sa=attach;u=10 Player Quests, Arrow quiver, Bee hives honey & mead, Massive menus, Fish Farmer, Combat trainer, Player made markers, Weaving, Wood stacks, Chicken coop Fish cuts, string&bone.

Brygun

« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2018, 01:36:05 AM »
Ye old Brygun here, once again travelling the Unreal World and forums.

The base game punts we see in the vanilla game are/were/taken-to-be leather skin over wood frame.

Purchasing one was a big deal as the only other vanilla watercraft was rafts which you really can't portage with. Or if you do are greatly burdened. The punt was something you could carry in lieu of a pair of grain sacks leaving you quite well armed, dressed and with trade goods.

Trimming down the weight of treetrunks slightly could be taken to be removing excess branches or other bits but I don't see it as a huge difference from 1200 to 1500. I still can't bench press it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

IIRC the game code is linked that the weight of the watercraft x N is how much it can carry. So limiting the raft to 1200 may have been needed for that. I would rather the carry load wasn't dependent on the craft weight. The leather punt has a light structure for a large displacement while a dugout canoe is very tough keeping structural weight with comparatively less load capacity.

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

Brygun

« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2018, 01:39:00 AM »
The video on ship technology around the time and place of Unreal World

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


Brygun

« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2018, 01:47:59 AM »
Sorry for the many posts.

Found on the old forums the dugout canoe recipe from Endive's Self Sufficiency who in turn credited thefinn

This recipe is quite old and doesn't take advantage of new commands added to the game.

[SUBMENU_START:transport]
.Rough Dugout Hull. "Tree Trunk" *TIMBERCRAFT* /4h/
{Tree Trunk} [ground] [remove] [noquality]
{Axe}<Broad axe>

.Burned-out Dugout Hull. "Tree Trunk" *TIMBERCRAFT* /3h/  \12h\
{Rough Dugout Hull} [ground] [remove]
{Fire} [ground]
{Shovel} '+for moving hot coals'

.Dugout Canoe. "Punt" *TIMBERCRAFT* /5h/  |1|
{Burned-out Dugout Hull} [ground] [remove]
{Axe}<Carving axe>

[SUBMENU_END:transport]

JEB Davis

« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2018, 03:10:04 AM »
On reflection, it's puzzling that a raft made up of 3 500lb tree trunks winds up so comparatively light! heh
Some have reset the weight of their raft(s) to 1500 lbs.
Here's what I did:

.Raft.  [effort:3] [phys:stance,arms]   *COMMON* /20/
{Log}   (3)    [remove]   
{Rope}      (3)   [remove]
{Cutting weapon} <Axe>          
[WEIGHT:1200]
// JEB: VANILLA was {Tree trunk} added [WEIGHT]
// JEB: was /80/ (reduced because logs had to be carved beforehand)

Brygun

« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2018, 04:18:35 AM »
This is a possible recipe for the vanilla punt.

Warning: untested as of 2018-12-01

The build time is a full high as this is both a major item and condensed into a single menu item (to save precious menu space).

//Brygun's presentation of a leather punt
//https://www.unrealworld.fi/wiki/index.php?title=Punt
// I see the half the stakes used to make the U shaped ribs. The others are used to make the rim.
//The leather is sewn into a big sheet, tied around the rim and under the U ribs. Leather is trimmed. In a circular punt the seat is near where the U ribs come together. In a box punt the seat is often higher to help keep the ribs spread. I like to use Bark as sticky sealant though other mods might use their local pitch_glue or whatever they have to seal the seams against leaks.


.Leather Punt. "Punt" *CARPENTRY* /6h/  |2| [phys:arms, stance] [EFFORT:2]
{Leather} #30# [ground] [remove] '+shell'
{Tying equipment} (3) [ground] [remove]  '+attach leather'
{Wooden stake}(16) [ground] [remove] '+supporting rim'
{Board} (1) [ground] [remove] '+seat'
{Bark} #3# [ground] [remove] '+sticky sealant'
{Axe}<Carving axe>
{Knife}<Small knife>

« Last Edit: December 02, 2018, 04:49:41 AM by Brygun »

Brygun

« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2018, 04:32:27 AM »
Some vid links

Black and white 1930s fishing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7NXVXUeJ5Y

A coracle built using willow woven together (different then the build I suggested)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcAzWOBAfo8

Erkka

« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2018, 03:35:34 PM »
There's actually a video of making an UnReal World -style punt. The footage is from 1936, so they're making a somewhat more modern version than the simple punt used in UrW. I'd assume UrW punt comes without those extra added boards to the sides, which they start attaching at 4:09 in the video.
UnReal World co-designer, also working on a small side project called Ancient Savo

Petike

« Reply #14 on: December 05, 2018, 05:25:05 AM »
Thank you, all ! So many great comments since my last visit. :) Even by Erkka ! ;D 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 !  8) And thanks again for the code you've already posted. I really appreciate it you looking into this to such an extent.   8)
« Last Edit: December 05, 2018, 05:52:25 AM by Petike »

 

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