Topics

1

Development News / Summarizing shingles, showcasing tree species based timber

« on: July 10, 2024, 02:45:23 PM »

Let's sum up and showcase a few recently mentioned crafting related ambitions with some screenshots.

As mentioned earlier we'll be featuring a new light source, shingles. They are thin and flat oblong pieces of pine wood which were burnt to produce light - especially for lighting up houses during the dark time of the year.
         Shingles are lit by using [a]pply command. Once a shingle is burning you can drop and set it wherever the light is needed, or carry it with you. Traditionally shingles were burnt in a specific stand that kept them in a good angle for proper burning, but in the game the dropped burning shingles are imagined to be inserted between the wall logs or set firmly in place by some other means.
         One shingle burns for about 30 minutes in the game so for continuous lighting a new one needs to be lit before the previous one fades out. This sort of shingle replacement is done automatically if your character is located beside the burning shingle and there's a stack of new shingles nearby on the ground. You character then automatically replaces and lights a new shingle when necessary, and you don't need to worry about maintaining the lighting even if the task you were doing would take a long time.

Here a cabin is lighted up by two shingles burning in place. There's also a stack of shingles on the ground and if the character remains beside it a new shingle is automatically lit when the previous one fades out.


Shingles can be crafted by the player character, and they may be needed in quite amounts during the dark season. An axe and a knife and suitable block of wood are needed for splitting the shingles. The preferred tree species is pine so our shingle splitting requirements will look like this.

A block of pine wood is required for splitting the shingles.


Currently the felled trunks in the game are all of the same generic wood type, and tree species don't have much difference in crafting.
But now that is going to chance as we'll be adding tree species property for big trunks and assorted timber products. At the first stage this addition only covers big trunks and
slender tree trunks will remain generic, but in the future also the slender tree trunks will get the tree species property.
         So, upon felling big trees the tree species now gets derived into the produced tree trunk. As a result the tree trunks are now called as pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk or spruce tree tunk - depending on what species of tree was felled. There are also different tree trunk tile graphics for pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk and spruce tree trunk. The basic timber products made of big trunks eg. blocks and boards will now start to inherit the tree species resulting in eg. "pine boards" or "block of birch wood". And so the tree type will now start to affect to what type of wood is needed/preferred for crafting this or that. Some tree type preference adjustments based on this addition will be made to craftable items in the next version and it will continue to grow more detailed in the versions to follow.


Here our character has felled big spruce, pine and birch trees and they appear on the ground like this.

The coding focus remains in the pausable crafting transition, but it also seems to grow more complex and comprehensive as we advance.

These are future adjustments - not yet functional in current version 3.84.2

2

Development News / Summery summary

« on: June 30, 2024, 08:30:41 PM »

The summer and nightless nights have made it less attractive to sweat inside the development chambers, so I've been experiencing natural and seasonal downshifting periods with coding. Nevertheless, the new features are being pushed ahead slowly but steadily amid all the other intriguing summertime activities.
So, a brief summery summary from the development chambers goes as follows:

The work with the shingles is basically all done by now, except that there's one sidetracking idea that may delay wrapping up the shingle code. See, the shingles would actually need to be split from a block of pine wood, and as we know the tree species is not currently derived into lumber products. Well, I'd dearly would like to feature it now together with shingles but as it's somewhat complex addition we don't want to delay the next release too long either. So, this is being considered now, and yes, whenever the tree type will be featured in the lumber products it will naturally start affecting to many other crafts too.

The pausable crafting transition naturally continues and it's now considered and prioritized as the main sector of work until all the crafts are prone to pausable mechanics.
It won't be yet completed with the next release, but we'll be closer to the goal with every patch. When going through the all item definitions the bigger and lesser chances to some crafting recipes will follow. For example, as we're now getting shingles the concept and crafting of torches is being re-considered.

The idea of featuring separate key-command for modded items has been brainstormed and very lightly sketched amid the ongoing conversation and is likely to be first featured as a "beta-feature" which can be used/tested at will alongside the current way of adding modded items. The current system of simple diy_*.txt snippet additions is going to stay as it is, and easy as it is. We're hopeful, but can't quite promise, that the separate modded item key-command will be featured in the release - it depends on the favourableness of the spirits of priorities.

There are also several new arrow types being considered, eg. whistling arrow, together with introducing a separate ARROWMAKING skill. We're hopeful that these will be also feature in the next release - if the spirits be on our side.

And then, a brief summery summary of the past weeks from outside the development chambers goes as follows:








Cheers!

3

Development News / Light my shingle

« on: May 31, 2024, 12:35:32 PM »

A new light source is coming up as we'll be adding shingles to the game.
A shingle, or päre (in finnish), is a thin oblong piece of (pine) wood which were burned to produce light, and to make baskets as well. As a light source you may think them as all wooden candle of a sort.

It may feel like a just one small item for an adventurer in the dark cabin, but the required and atmospheric additions will make producing and using shingles a rather significant feature. Traditionally shingles were burnt in a shingle holder which is a stand that keeps the shingle in a good angle for proper lighting and burning. It may be that they were also sometimes just inserted between the logs in the wall - but one had to be understandably cautious without a proper holder.
      I don't know yet if a shingle holder will be required in the game but the idea is that you could leave a burning shingle in place eg. inside your cabin. And moreover, as the shingles don't burn very long we would want to feature automatic "replace a shingle" mechanism where a new shingle eg. from a pile next the burning one, would be lighted automatically if the character is beside the burning shingle when it fades out. This way you could light a shingle, put a pile of new ones beside it, and not need to worry about replacing the burning shingle in time even if the task you were doing would take a long time.

Here's an image of a shingle in a simple single holder.


More shingle news will be posted when the things have proceeded further. And in the background the transition to pausable crafting continues. Oddities with the pausable mechanics have been pleasantly scarce in the latest release so we're on good roll with it.

These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.84.2

4

Development News / Version 3.84.2 - second hotfix patch for version 3.84 released

« on: May 17, 2024, 07:16:10 PM »

A second hotfix patch has been released for version 3.84.
It's available for all the supported platforms on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers.

The following fixes/changes are featured:

Version: 3.84.2

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

 - fixed: pausable crafting item duplication

         In some conditions when you finished crafting an item the work in progress item still remained on the ground.

 - fixed: using TEXTILECRAFT skill displaying corrupt "Command:" prompt, eg. TEXTILECRAFTNETMAKING

 - changed: Staff item type and role

         Staves are now classified as timber type items rather than weapons, and considered mostly as raw material for crafting and construction purposes.
         There are no changes to staff making. They are made from slender tree trunks by delimbing and debarking the trunk and cutting it to
         suitable lengths. A common staff is thought of being about two meters in length with a diameter that fits nicely in one's hand.

         MIGRATION NOTICE: Weapon type staves obtained in previous versions do work in crafting the same way as the current version staves.

 - updated: STAFF game encyclopedia (F1) entry

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Happy patched adventures!

5

Development News / A small patch for version 3.84 released

« on: May 05, 2024, 02:01:37 PM »

A small patch has been released for version 3.84.
It's available for all the supported platforms on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers.

These two issues were cleared, and it may be that the majority of adventurers never noticed their occurrence.

Version 3.84.1

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- fixed: continuing pausable crafting with inferior tools caused erroneous production times

If inferior tools were used to start and continue pausable crafting tasks the remaining production times were not always set correctly. This glitch occasionally initiated conditions where continued pausable crafting required seemingly endless production times.

- fixed: wrong javelin item tile

------------------------------------------------------------

Happy patched adventures!

6

Development News / Version 3.84 (stable) released

« on: May 03, 2024, 04:55:32 PM »

Version 3.84 (stable) is now released and live for all the supported operating systems; Windows, Linux and OS X.

This version continues the ongoing transition to make all the crafting tasks pausable, features a good deal of related crafting requirement changes, adds BOWYER skill, introduces springs as a new water source and naturally offers a fistful of bugfixes too.

In the midst of big changes in regards to pausable crafting we hope for the bugs to be scarcer than average adventurer's nutrition levels.
And whatever is encountered we do our best to maintain a swift update cycle to overcome the issues as early on as possible.

Here's the changelog, once more:

Version 3.84 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- added: BOWYER skill

The bowyer skill is the ability and knowledge to make bows. Success in the skill determines the quality of the bows crafted. For migrated characters this skill is created upon the first load in this version.
Needless to say, the available craftable bows now call for BOWYER skill in their crafting.

- added: craftable Longbow

You can craft a longbow from [M]ake menu under "Weapons" category.

- added: pausable weapon crafting

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Weapons" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. These weapons are stone-axe, stone knife, club, javelin, spruce quick-bow, shortbow, longbow and bowstring.
To continue paused weapon crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item. Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: crafting times and requirements of certain weapons

Now that the weapon crafting is pausable the production times of certain weapons have been increased to more reasonable levels. There are also minor changes in some material or tool requirements.
The changes are as follows, but bear in mind that these are the average set values and poor tools and/or skills may very well double the actual production times.

* Stone-axe

Stone-axe gets the greatest time increase in the production time as on average it now takes 50 hours to make one. That's a lot, but it really is a slow process to get the stone blade knapped and grinded out to shape that is efficient for felling trees.
Thus, stone-axe now becomes a survival option which you won't take up too lightly, but only in extreme need. Crafting a stone-axe now also needs another stone for final sharpening and polishing. Also, the previous requirement for rope has been replaced with strong cordage requirement. This means you can also use for example spruce withes for securing the head in place in the handle.

* Stone knife

It now takes 5 hours on average to make and also requires a stone for final sharpening.

* Javelin

It now takes 2 hour on average to make.

* Shortbow

It now takes 12 hours on average to make. The time increase is signficant compared to the earlier, and only a skilled bowyer with quality tools may manage to craft a shortbow in one day. With mediocre skills and tools it's a process of several work days.

* Longbow

It takes 18 hours on average to make. Thus, crafting a longbow is a process of several work days even for a skilled bowyer.

* Bowstring

It now takes 2 hours on average to make a bowstring from strands of yarn, and 30 minutes on average from a ready-made cord. When using a ready-made cord it often needs to be thinned down to suitable thickness so it's not just tying of the knots.

- added: BOWSTRING game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- updated: SHORTBOW and LONGBOW game encyclopedia (F1) entries

- added: pausable haft crafting

Crafting of the spear, axe and shovel hafts are now pausable tasks.

- added: pausable item trap crafting and loop snare batch production

Crafting of the paw-board fox trap and loop snare are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Paw-board

Crafting time has been increased to three hours.

* Loop snare

Loop snares can be made in batches of up to ten at a time, and it takes 20 minutes on average to craft one.

- added: pausable lumber items crafting

Crafting of the wooden stakes, staves and wood slats are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wood slat

Crafting time for a batch of 20 slats has been increased to 200 minutes.

* Wooden stake

Wooden stakes are made in sets of 5 pieces from one slender tree trunk. Previously it was 8 pieces from one trunk.

* Staff

When crafting staves one slender tree trunk can yield 3 proper straight staves. Previously it was one trunk for one staff.

- added: pausable utility article crafting for some items in the category

Crafting of the wooden shovel, birch-bark box and birch-bark basket are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wooden shovel

It is now made from a board instead of a wooden block. The crafting time has been incresed to 8 hours.

- added: springs

Springs are water sources bringing groundwater to the surface. They can be found in the terrain on zoomed-in maps at varying environments in size of one to three map tiles.
Springs do remain unfrozen even in the winter which makes them very useful water sources. A spring found in the wilderness may provide a great spot for a homestead for those who like to live in the forest further away from the lakes or rivers.
From now on the village water supply ponds are also springs. As they don't freeze they are easier to maintain and spot even in the winter.
MIGRATION NOTICE: Water supply ponds in the villages you have visited in the previous version will automatically turn into springs in this version.

- added: "behind your back" reference to asking for NPC whereabouts

When asking the whereabouts of an NPC who is close by but not seen by the player character, the people will now point out that the target NPC is "...over there, just behind your back.".

- changed: pushing allowed to locations not visible to the player character

You can now [p]ush items around regardless of the location being visible or not. This helps to maintain character's daily life also in the pitch dark low visibility conditions.

- fixed: pausable crafts in process occasionally disappearing when finishing crafting something else beside them

- fixed: possibility to remove hafts from sickles

This was mistakenly allowed. Sickles are a special case and not yet included in the hafting mechanics.

- fixed: skin item duplication if tanning got cancelled at the requirements dialog

- fixed: villagers occasionally wandering impractically far from the village area

- fixed: low quality hafts not degrading the finished hafted weapon quality correctly

You pretty much always got fine hafted weapons even with the inferior hafts.

- fixed: "Of wolf and woman" quest related NPCs selection mess

There was a rare occurrence where the said quest dialogues didn't unfold properly due to the game engine picking the related NPCs incorrectly.

- fixed: paused craft remaining time checks

There was a rare condition where the remaining time to continue paused crafting was calculated incorrectly resulting in too fast completion of items at the end of the process.

- fixed: title song playback interruptions and cracks upon the game starting

The issue was with .ogg file loading. The troublesome audio is now loaded before the title song starts, and some .ogg audio has been replaced with .wav files.

- fixed: occasional white screen flash when player character goes to sleep

- fixed: attempt to haft an invalid target item made the item to disappear

- fixed: sickles weighted too much


Sickle item weight was mistakenly set to 3 lbs. This is fixed now, and sickles weigh 1 lbs as intended.

-----

Cheers!

7

Development News / Version 3.84 released for Windows

« on: April 30, 2024, 01:26:40 PM »

Windows version 3.84 has been released on Steam, Itch and for lifetimers.
Linux and OS X builds will be released later this week if the workflow goes as expected.

This version continues the ongoing transition to make all the crafting tasks pausable, features a good deal of related crafting requirement changes, adds BOWYER skill, introduces springs as a new water source and naturally offers a fistful of bugfixes too.

Here's the changelog:

Version 3.84 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- added: BOWYER skill

The bowyer skill is the ability and knowledge to make bows. Success in the skill determines the quality of the bows crafted. For migrated characters this skill is created upon the first load in this version.
Needless to say, the available craftable bows now call for BOWYER skill in their crafting.

- added: craftable Longbow

You can craft a longbow from [M]ake menu under "Weapons" category.

- added: pausable weapon crafting

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Weapons" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. These weapons are stone-axe, stone knife, club, javelin, spruce quick-bow, shortbow, longbow and bowstring.
To continue paused weapon crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item. Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: crafting times and requirements of certain weapons

Now that the weapon crafting is pausable the production times of certain weapons have been increased to more reasonable levels. There are also minor changes in some material or tool requirements.
The changes are as follows, but bear in mind that these are the average set values and poor tools and/or skills may very well double the actual production times.

* Stone-axe

Stone-axe gets the greatest time increase in the production time as on average it now takes 50 hours to make one. That's a lot, but it really is a slow process to get the stone blade knapped and grinded out to shape that is efficient for felling trees.
Thus, stone-axe now becomes a survival option which you won't take up too lightly, but only in extreme need. Crafting a stone-axe now also needs another stone for final sharpening and polishing. Also, the previous requirement for rope has been replaced with strong cordage requirement. This means you can also use for example spruce withes for securing the head in place in the handle.

* Stone knife

It now takes 5 hours on average to make and also requires a stone for final sharpening.

* Javelin

It now takes 2 hour on average to make.

* Shortbow

It now takes 12 hours on average to make. The time increase is signficant compared to the earlier, and only a skilled bowyer with quality tools may manage to craft a shortbow in one day. With mediocre skills and tools it's a process of several work days.

* Longbow

It takes 18 hours on average to make. Thus, crafting a longbow is a process of several work days even for a skilled bowyer.

* Bowstring

It now takes 2 hours on average to make a bowstring from strands of yarn, and 30 minutes on average from a ready-made cord. When using a ready-made cord it often needs to be thinned down to suitable thickness so it's not just tying of the knots.

- added: BOWSTRING game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- updated: SHORTBOW and LONGBOW game encyclopedia (F1) entries

- added: pausable haft crafting

Crafting of the spear, axe and shovel hafts are now pausable tasks.

- added: pausable item trap crafting and loop snare batch production

Crafting of the paw-board fox trap and loop snare are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Paw-board

Crafting time has been increased to three hours.

* Loop snare

Loop snares can be made in batches of up to ten at a time, and it takes 20 minutes on average to craft one.

- added: pausable lumber items crafting

Crafting of the wooden stakes, staves and wood slats are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wood slat

Crafting time for a batch of 20 slats has been increased to 200 minutes.

* Wooden stake

Wooden stakes are made in sets of 5 pieces from one slender tree trunk. Previously it was 8 pieces from one trunk.

* Staff

When crafting staves one slender tree trunk can yield 3 proper straight staves. Previously it was one trunk for one staff.

- added: pausable utility article crafting for some items in the category

Crafting of the wooden shovel, birch-bark box and birch-bark basket are now pausable tasks. There are also some changes as follows;

* Wooden shovel

It is now made from a board instead of a wooden block. The crafting time has been incresed to 8 hours.

- added: springs

Springs are water sources bringing groundwater to the surface. They can be found in the terrain on zoomed-in maps at varying environments in size of one to three map tiles.
Springs do remain unfrozen even in the winter which makes them very useful water sources. A spring found in the wilderness may provide a great spot for a homestead for those who like to live in the forest further away from the lakes or rivers.
From now on the village water supply ponds are also springs. As they don't freeze they are easier to maintain and spot even in the winter.
MIGRATION NOTICE: Water supply ponds in the villages you have visited in the previous version will automatically turn into springs in this version.

- added: "behind your back" reference to asking for NPC whereabouts

When asking the whereabouts of an NPC who is close by but not seen by the player character, the people will now point out that the target NPC is "...over there, just behind your back.".

- changed: pushing allowed to locations not visible to the player character

You can now [p]ush items around regardless of the location being visible or not. This helps to maintain character's daily life also in the pitch dark low visibility conditions.

- fixed: pausable crafts in process occasionally disappearing when finishing crafting something else beside them

- fixed: possibility to remove hafts from sickles

This was mistakenly allowed. Sickles are a special case and not yet included in the hafting mechanics.

- fixed: skin item duplication if tanning got cancelled at the requirements dialog

- fixed: villagers occasionally wandering impractically far from the village area

- fixed: low quality hafts not degrading the finished hafted weapon quality correctly

You pretty much always got fine hafted weapons even with the inferior hafts.

- fixed: "Of wolf and woman" quest related NPCs selection mess

There was a rare occurrence where the said quest dialogues didn't unfold properly due to the game engine picking the related NPCs incorrectly.

- fixed: paused craft remaining time checks

There was a rare condition where the remaining time to continue paused crafting was calculated incorrectly resulting in too fast completion of items at the end of the process.

- fixed: title song playback interruptions and cracks upon the game starting

The issue was with .ogg file loading. The troublesome audio is now loaded before the title song starts, and some .ogg audio has been replaced with .wav files.

- fixed: occasional white screen flash when player character goes to sleep

- fixed: attempt to haft an invalid target item made the item to disappear

- fixed: sickles weighted too much


Sickle item weight was mistakenly set to 3 lbs. This is fixed now, and sickles weigh 1 lbs as intended.

-----

Cheers!

8

Development News / Spring things, pausable things, future things

« on: April 08, 2024, 08:43:26 PM »

Springtime is busy time - both out in the nature and inside the development chambers. We're preparing for a new version release still this month.

Pausable crafting additions is proceeding strongly. Quite a batch of craftable items will be using the pausable crafting mechanics in the upcoming version.
At this point the pausable crafting mechanics will cover all the weapons, lumber items, hafts and  item traps such as paw-board fox trap and loop snare - and some more are likely to be added.  So, with the upcoming version more than half of the craftable items will become pausable tasks. And in the version after that we'll likely manage to have all the crafts pausable, allowing it also in all the diy_*.txt modding.

A new skill, bowyer, will be also added. It's quite self-explanatory that this is the ability and knowledge to make bows and the craftable bows now call for bowyer skills in their crafting. And longbow will be made available as a new craftable bow type for the player character.

So, for the next few versions we'll be working mostly on item related additions, and hope to have these released in decent pace. After that, when all the crafting is pausable, we'll move into adding new quests. Some of these will be small and casual, but some will be most exciting for the  players who'd enjoy the presence of marriage or permanent companions.
Let that be a sneak peek in advance further into this year's plans.

9

Development News / Pausable weapon crafting

« on: April 01, 2024, 09:09:47 PM »

The current pausable crafting mechanics have been tested quite extensively by now and only a few adjustments have emerged.
This is promising as eventually all the item crafting will be come pausable - and lesser the problems at this point, the sooner it happens.
For the time being we're still proceeding in small sections and next the crafting of weapons listed [M]ake->[W]eapons category will become pausable.
There will be some adjustments to certain weapon production times as they can be now increased to more reasonable levels.
Shortbows for example will get an average production time of 12 hours or so. A skilled character with quality tools may still be able to craft a shortbow in a day, but with mediocre skill and tools it's a process of several workdays.
Stone-axe will get the greatest production time increase - we'll be talking about 50 hours or so. It really is a slow process to get the stone blade knapped and grinded out to shape that is efficient for felling trees. Thus, stone-axe will become a survival option which you won't take up too lightly.
For other weapons the changes won't be that dramatic, but changes are still to be expected.

These are future features - not yet functional in 3.83.

10

Development News / Springs

« on: March 27, 2024, 12:12:18 PM »

Yes, it's springtime! (pun intended)
We'll be adding springs, water sources bringing groundwater to the surface, in the terrain generation. Springs can be found at varying environments on zoomed-in maps.
A spring found in the wilderness may provide a great spot for a homestead for those who like to live further away from the lakes or rivers. And moreover, springs remain unfrozen even in the winter.
   Some time ago there was also a suggestion to have village water supplies to remain unfrozen for easier spotting. Now we'll make it so the village water supply ponds will be actually springs from now on. And for the migrated characters, the existing village ponds will be turned into springs as you visit these villages.

I guess will also take a little browsing of the old Finnish spellbooks to see if there are inspiring magical means or remarks related to springs. Springs were traditional places of mystical powers and certain guardian spirits. New spells or quests potential is high.

These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.83.

11

Development News / Version 3.83 released

« on: February 29, 2024, 08:17:52 PM »

Just in time, we're happy to announce version 3.83 (stable) having been just released on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers.

Bugs found during the beta period were very scarce, so for those who were playing the beta version already the changelog doesn't bring any additions.
As you may know already, the most notable features in version 3.83 are weapon/tool hafting and the haft wear out mechanics, and pausable arrowmaking and tanning.

This version has also undergone upgrade of SDL and SDL_mixer libraries, which will hopefully prove stable and clear few rarely encountered audio oddities with some system setups and sound cards/drivers.

And here's the changelog.

Version 3.83 (stable) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

- added: hafting spears, axes and shovels - and their separate heads and hafts

Axe and spear items now consist of two parts; the heads and hafts. Shovel item now also consists of two parts; the iron blade and haft. Wooden shovel is an exception as it's made out of single piece of wood.
Haft refers to the wooden handle or shaft, which can break over time or upon damage. When the haft breaks the separate head remains, and can be hafted again. Hafting is a process of attaching axe or spear head, or shovel blade to a new haft, making it a complete working weapon or tool.
For hafting, there are now new craftable "axe haft", "spear haft" and "shovel haft" items. In reality the haft shape and proportions do vary depending on the axe or spear type, but in order not to make things overly complex the two generic spear and axes hafts work for all the different types of spears and axes.
The different axe and spear heads now also exist as separate items. For the axes there are handaxe head, carving axe head, broad axe head, woodsman's axe head and so on. And for the spears there are kaumolais spear head, northern spear head, and so on. Blacksmiths still sell these weapons readily hafted so the heads aren't commonly found on their own.
When the haft breaks the head and broken haft do drop on the ground, along with pause prompted game message. You can then carve a new haft and haft the head to assemble a working weapon or shovel again. The broken hafts are of no use and are best utilized as firewood.
Crafting hafts and the process of hafting can be found from [M]ake menu under a new [H]afting category. The following self-explanatory options are available there:
* Axe haft
* Spear haft
* Shovel haft
* Haft a weapon or tool
* Remove the haft
The first three options are used to craft a new haft, followed by the actual hafting option to assemble a working weapon or shovel. You may also remove the haft at will for example to replace worn out haft early on. However, removing the haft may damage it a little bit so it's not recommended to do unless necessary.
Both crafting the haft and hafting task itself require CARPENTRY skills. The haft quality and success in hafting has significant impact on the finished weapon or tool usability. Poor hafting may result in lowering the item quality even below the head quality itself. Thus the finished axe, spear or shovel quality now refers to overall usability with the used haft, and the success in hafting. On the other hand, you may also manage to raise the finished weapon quality higher than the head quality itself with a perfect and perfectly fitted haft.
There are new game encyclopedia (F1) entries for the relevant topics: AXE HEAD, AHE HAFT, SPEAR HEAD, SPEAR HAFT, SHOVEL BLADE and SHOVEL HAFT

- added: hafts wearing out in use

Hafts of the axes, spears and shovels now wear out in use, and will eventually break.
Axe hafts wear out in all the regular woodworking and timbercraft tasks where they are used. Shovel hafts and wooden shovels wear out in digging pits and preparing the soil. Spear hafts mostly wear out in combat.
In all the cases the wear is relative to the task the weapon or tool is used for. Thrusting a spear into a large moving animal such as elk or bear may put the haft under serious strain. Likewise, felling big timber is more strenuous for the axe haft than doing casual carving.
The haft wear out level can be noticed in character's inventory with the progressing wear bar.
Hafts are in the risk of breaking apart when they've worn to about 80% of the original condition. Accumulating haft damage can also lead to decrease in the axe or spear overall quality.

- modding add: new crafting requirement entries

{Hammering tool}
This defines requirement for a tool that is used to hammer things in place. It's used in hafting an axe.
The butt of an axe is commonly used as a hammering tool, but clubs, pieces of firewood or stones can be also used as a substitute.

{Axe or carving knife}
This defines requirement for a tool used in rough woodworking and carving. It's used in crafting hafts to carve out their rough shape from a slender tree trunk.
Axe is the preferred tool here and always the best option, but usage of knives is allowed as a substitute - even though they make the task significantly slower.
The common woodworking axes such as handaxe, carving axe, and woodman's axe are the most suitable ones. If a knife is used the sturdy ones such as skramasaksi, northern knife, kaumolais knife or hunting knife work the best.

Both of these entries can be utilized in diy_*.txt and biy_*.txt modding at will.

- modding add: [nowear] and [wearpct:num] tags to specify haft wear out accumulation rate

Axe, spear and shovel hafts wear out also when they are used as tools in crafting or building tasks.
There are these two new tags to customize the wear accumulation rate as the intensity of tool usage varies depending on the task.

[nowear] tag means that the used tool doesn't wear out at all.
[wearpct:num] specifies custom wear out percentage rate (1-100) in relation to the highest rate (100) where tool is used intensely during the whole task.

Examples:

{Axe} <Carving axe> [nowear]
Here an axe is needed, preferably a carving axe, and it doesn't wear out at all in the said crafting/building task.

{Cutting_weapon} <Axe> [wearpct:25]
Here a cutting weapon, preferably an axe, is needed. It wears out in 25% rate compared to the continuous intense axe work. Maybe the axe is needed only 25% of the time in this crafting/building task.

- removed: hard staff and throwing axe

These two weapons have been removed for being somewhat anachronistic and not that important.

- added: pausable tanning

Tanning is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused tanning simply use the tanning option again standing beside the partially finished item.
This applies only to the last and most laborous stage of the tanning process which is softening the hide with a beater. The preceeding, faster processes of cleaning the skin need to be done in one go.
Partially tanned hides will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- added: pausable arrowmaking and arrow shaft crafting

Making arrows and arrow shafts is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused arrowmaking simply use the same option to make arrows or arrow shafts again standing beside the said partially finished items.
For blunt arrows this means using [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Blunt arrow" option. For all the other kind of tipped arrows use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow" option. And for the arrow shafts you would naturally use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow shaft".
Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: maximum number of arrows or arrow shafts to craft in one batch

The maximum arrow or arrow shaft batch production quantity is increased up to 10 at one go.

- changed: arrow shaft crafting time

Now that the making of arrow shafts is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 90 minutes.

- changed: blunt arrow crafting requirements

Now that the blunt arrow making is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 2 hours. <br>
Number of slender tree trunks required is also modified so that you can craft three blunt arrows out of one slender tree trunk.
Blunt arrows are now also prone to outcome quality modifiers, so your tools and expertise determines if the finished blunt arrows will be curved or superior or something in between.

- modding add: [yield:num] tag

[yield:num] tag is used to specify for how many produced items the single raw material entry is enough for. Ie. how many finished items it can yield. The tag is used in diy_glossary.txt for making blunt arrows as follows:

{Slender trunk} [yield:3]

This means one slender tree trunk can yield three produced items ie. blunt arrows. So, for example to craft six blunt arrows you would need 2 trunks. Crafting 7-9 blunt arrows you would need 3 trunks, and so on.

- enhanced: rendering of the terrain type images

Terrain type images on zoomed-in map are now rendered directly to the screen using the available resolution. This makes the images appear more crisp and clear.

- fixed: being able to fish facing away from the water

- fixed: companions performing some tasks too fast

Due to miscalculations in companion time counters they managed to complete some tasks, eg. felling trees, all too fast. The issue was mostly noticed in woodworking tasks, but you may find some other companion performed tasks also to appear in slower more reasonable pace now.

- fixed: villagers not reacting if you attacked a hired companion of their own group in their own village

- fixed: villagers accepting too many items if they were offered in one go during the first trade

- fixed: terrain type image not updating when climbing across terrain boundary

This happened only when using the climbing skill.

- fixed: the fish splashing and spawning despite of the ice

Occasionally you might find fish splashing in the water even at locations with ice cover. This happened if the water froze again after the spawning had already started in the open water.

- fixed: Bewitched Wolf quest not generating correctly

This quest might have been missing for few versions, so enjoy if it now comes your way.

- fixed: triggered item traps remaining in set status

This might rarely happen with loop snares and paw-boards. The graphics also show the traps being set and ready, despite of the fact that they were actually triggered already.

- fixed: placing any items to a pine tree with bear skull produced the bear skull placement message

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers!

12

Development News / Version 3.83 beta for Windows released

« on: February 19, 2024, 07:14:40 PM »

The work with new version, 3.83, is soon finished and we hereby ease the anticipation with an early beta release for Windows.
Thus, version 3.83 beta for Windows is now available on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers.

Once the Windows version stability is confirmed, wrapping things up for Linux and OS X will follow and we aim to have have 3.83 stable version released this month.

The most notable additions in version 3.83 are weapon/tool hafting and the haft wear out mechanics, and pausable arrowmaking and tanning.
Here's the changelog:

Version 3.83 (beta) changelog

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

BETA NOTICE:

This is a beta release. There are likely bugs, things are still somewhat under construction, and some of the listed improvements will be tweaked and polished further in patches to follow.


- added: hafting spears, axes and shovels - and their separate heads and hafts

Axe and spear items now consist of two parts; the heads and hafts. Shovel item now also consists of two parts; the iron blade and haft. Wooden shovel is an exception as it's made out of single piece of wood.
Haft refers to the wooden handle or shaft, which can break over time or upon damage. When the haft breaks the separate head remains, and can be hafted again. Hafting is a process of attaching axe or spear head, or shovel blade to a new haft, making it a complete working weapon or tool.
For hafting, there are now new craftable "axe haft", "spear haft" and "shovel haft" items. In reality the haft shape and proportions do vary depending on the axe or spear type, but in order not to make things overly complex the two generic spear and axes hafts work for all the different types of spears and axes.
The different axe and spear heads now also exist as separate items. For the axes there are handaxe head, carving axe head, broad axe head, woodsman's axe head and so on. And for the spears there are kaumolais spear head, northern spear head, and so on. Blacksmiths still sell these weapons readily hafted so the heads aren't commonly found on their own.
When the haft breaks the head and broken haft do drop on the ground, along with pause prompted game message. You can then carve a new haft and haft the head to assemble a working weapon or shovel again. The broken hafts are of no use and are best utilized as firewood.
Crafting hafts and the process of hafting can be found from [M]ake menu under a new [H]afting category. The following self-explanatory options are available there:
* Axe haft
* Spear haft
* Shovel haft
* Haft a weapon or tool
* Remove the haft
The first three options are used to craft a new haft, followed by the actual hafting option to assemble a working weapon or shovel. You may also remove the haft at will for example to replace worn out haft early on. However, removing the haft may damage it a little bit so it's not recommended to do unless necessary.
Both crafting the haft and hafting task itself require CARPENTRY skills. The haft quality and success in hafting has significant impact on the finished weapon or tool usability. Poor hafting may result in lowering the item quality even below the head quality itself. Thus the finished axe, spear or shovel quality now refers to overall usability with the used haft, and the success in hafting. On the other hand, you may also manage to raise the finished weapon quality higher than the head quality itself with a perfect and perfectly fitted haft.
There are new game encyclopedia (F1) entries for the relevant topics: AXE HEAD, AHE HAFT, SPEAR HEAD, SPEAR HAFT, SHOVEL BLADE and SHOVEL HAFT

- added: hafts wearing out in use

Hafts of the axes, spears and shovels now wear out in use, and will eventually break.
Axe hafts wear out in all the regular woodworking and timbercraft tasks where they are used. Shovel hafts and wooden shovels wear out in digging pits and preparing the soil. Spear hafts mostly wear out in combat.
In all the cases the wear is relative to the task the weapon or tool is used for. Thrusting a spear into a large moving animal such as elk or bear may put the haft under serious strain. Likewise, felling big timber is more strenuous for the axe haft than doing casual carving.
The haft wear out level can be noticed in character's inventory with the progressing wear bar.
Hafts are in the risk of breaking apart when they've worn to about 80% of the original condition. Accumulating haft damage can also lead to decrease in the axe or spear overall quality.

- modding add: new crafting requirement entries

{Hammering tool}
This defines requirement for a tool that is used to hammer things in place. It's used in hafting an axe.
The butt of an axe is commonly used as a hammering tool, but clubs, pieces of firewood or stones can be also used as a substitute.

{Axe or carving knife}
This defines requirement for a tool used in rough woodworking and carving. It's used in crafting hafts to carve out their rough shape from a slender tree trunk.
Axe is the preferred tool here and always the best option, but usage of knives is allowed as a substitute - even though they make the task significantly slower.
The common woodworking axes such as handaxe, carving axe, and woodman's axe are the most suitable ones. If a knife is used the sturdy ones such as skramasaksi, northern knife, kaumolais knife or hunting knife work the best.

Both of these entries can be utilized in diy_*.txt and biy_*.txt modding at will.

- modding add: [nowear] and [wearpct:num] tags to specify haft wear out accumulation rate

Axe, spear and shovel hafts wear out also when they are used as tools in crafting or building tasks.
There are these two new tags to customize the wear accumulation rate as the intensity of tool usage varies depending on the task.

[nowear] tag means that the used tool doesn't wear out at all.
[wearpct:num] specifies custom wear out percentage rate (1-100) in relation to the highest rate (100) where tool is used intensely during the whole task.

Examples:

{Axe} <Carving axe> [nowear]
Here an axe is needed, preferably a carving axe, and it doesn't wear out at all in the said crafting/building task.

{Cutting_weapon} <Axe> [wearpct:25]
Here a cutting weapon, preferably an axe, is needed. It wears out in 25% rate compared to the continuous intense axe work. Maybe the axe is needed only 25% of the time in this crafting/building task.

- removed: hard staff and throwing axe

These two weapons have been removed for being somewhat anachronistic and not that important.

- added: pausable tanning

Tanning is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused tanning simply use the tanning option again standing beside the partially finished item.
This applies only to the last and most laborous stage of the tanning process which is softening the hide with a beater. The preceeding, faster processes of cleaning the skin need to be done in one go.
Partially tanned hides will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- added: pausable arrowmaking and arrow shaft crafting

Making arrows and arrow shafts is now pausable task allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on. To continue paused arrowmaking simply use the same option to make arrows or arrow shafts again standing beside the said partially finished items.
For blunt arrows this means using [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Blunt arrow" option. For all the other kind of tipped arrows use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow" option. And for the arrow shafts you would naturally use [M]ake -> "Arrows" -> "Arrow shaft".
Like the other partially crafted items these will remain on the ground and can be picked up only after they are finished. They are rendered with a different tint and described as "partially crafted", "half-crafted", "largely crafted" etc. when looking at them.

- changed: maximum number of arrows or arrow shafts to craft in one batch

The maximum arrow or arrow shaft batch production quantity is increased up to 10 at one go.

- changed: arrow shaft crafting time

Now that the making of arrow shafts is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 90 minutes.

- changed: blunt arrow crafting requirements

Now that the blunt arrow making is pausable the time required to craft one is increased to more reasonable level of 2 hours. <br>
Number of slender tree trunks required is also modified so that you can craft three blunt arrows out of one slender tree trunk.
Blunt arrows are now also prone to outcome quality modifiers, so your tools and expertise determines if the finished blunt arrows will be curved or superior or something in between.

- modding add: [yield:num] tag

[yield:num] tag is used to specify for how many produced items the single raw material entry is enough for. Ie. how many finished items it can yield. The tag is used in diy_glossary.txt for making blunt arrows as follows:

{Slender trunk} [yield:3]

This means one slender tree trunk can yield three produced items ie. blunt arrows. So, for example to craft six blunt arrows you would need 2 trunks. Crafting 7-9 blunt arrows you would need 3 trunks, and so on.

- enhanced: rendering of the terrain type images

Terrain type images on zoomed-in map are now rendered directly to the screen using the available resolution. This makes the images appear more crisp and clear.

- fixed: being able to fish facing away from the water

- fixed: companions performing some tasks too fast

Due to miscalculations in companion time counters they managed to complete some tasks, eg. felling trees, all too fast. The issue was mostly noticed in woodworking tasks, but you may find some other companion performed tasks also to appear in slower more reasonable pace now.

- fixed: villagers not reacting if you attacked a hired companion of their own group in their own village

- fixed: villagers accepting too many items if they were offered in one go during the first trade

- fixed: terrain type image not updating when climbing across terrain boundary

This happened only when using the climbing skill.

- fixed: the fish splashing and spawning despite of the ice

Occasionally you might find fish splashing in the water even at locations with ice cover. This happened if the water froze again after the spawning had already started in the open water.

- fixed: Bewitched Wolf quest not generating correctly

This quest might have been missing for few versions, so enjoy if it now comes your way.

- fixed: triggered item traps remaining in set status

This might rarely happen with loop snares and paw-boards. The graphics also show the traps being set and ready, despite of the fact that they were actually triggered already.

- fixed: placing any items to a pine tree with bear skull produced the bear skull placement message

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers!

13

Development News / Pausable tanning and arrowmaking

« on: February 09, 2024, 11:17:00 AM »

For the next version we'll also proceed with adding some more pausable crafting.
The last (and most the laborous and time consuming) phase of tanning - softening the hide - now becomes a pausable task allowing you take breaks and continue at will.
Arrowmaking will also be become pausable. Start crafting your batch of arrows, and then take a break and continue at will - finishing it in parts as you please.
As we know, tipped arrowmaking is harcoded due to sake of the complexity of multi-part item composition.
But the blunt arrow, found in diy_glossary.txt, will also become a pausable craft. With this we'll test and introduce allowing pausable crafting to be extended into moddable diy_*.txt files. Once we get these things going the mechanics will be built up to make all the crafting pausable in the near future.

These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.82.

14

Development News / Hafting additions completed with shovels

« on: February 05, 2024, 05:29:40 PM »

The work with upcoming hafting features is completed now. In addition to spear and axe hafting we added hafting and wear out mechanics also for the shovels.
This means shovel hafts will also wear out over time and will eventually break. And yes indeed, when the shovel haft breaks the remaining shovel blade can be then
hafted again to assemble a new working shovel.
Wooden shovels are an exception, as they are made out of single piece of wood and do not feature a separate haft.
Wooden shovels will wear out too, but when they break they are of no use anymore - other than maybe used as a firewood.

Now we'll move into some bugfixing and adding random lesser features and then start to wrap things up for a release.
Version 3.83 will be released this month. Stay tuned.

15

Development News / Haft wear out and breakage mechanics continued

« on: January 27, 2024, 05:01:18 PM »

As mentioned in the earlier post we're working on axe and spear haft breakage mechanics and re-hafting features.
To come up with separate spear and axe head and haft items was the easiest part of the process. And that's fully completed by now.
To add mechanics and features to combine head and hafts into fully working weapons, ie. hafting, was a bigger thing to accomplish but it's also done by now.

What's been more tricky was to add active wear out mechanics when these weapons are actually used in the game world.
Be it crafting, building or in the combat. But we've gotten there by now and your axe hafts will actually wear out when the axe is used.
And eventually, when severely worn out, they will break.
(This coding groundwork can be later on utilized for making edged weapons getting dull in use, so that feature is also one step closer now.)


Here's Olaus. He has been using his axe for a long time, and now upon felling yet another tree its worn haft breaks.

It was one thing to make the haft wear out mechanics work for player character, but we also needed to put in effect for NPCs. That wasn't a piece of cake, but it's done by now.
And that opens up an opportunity for variety of new incidents to take place. It's not likely, but theoritically possible, that one day a player character finds an old axe or spear head from the woods. Dropped and left there due to NPC activity.


Here's a bear fighting scene with a companion called Aimo.
Aimo's spear haft breaks at the critical moment, but he wisely proceeds to grab the fallen spear head.
If need be, spear heads can be used as sort of substitute for a weapon, although far less effectively than a proper spear.

These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.83.