Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Buoidda

Pages: 1 2 3 [4]
46
Stories / Island challenge stories
« on: October 25, 2020, 11:19:20 PM »
Hi, I posted about an punitive island challenge in the general discussion: http://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5841.0.

Here we can share stories about it.

Writing prose is entirely optional, I'm more interested in how ppl fare.

Here's a little something from the character in that challenge thread.

X#X##X#X#X#X#X#X#

Ukko Driikiläinen was dumped on a remote island, completely nude and without any tools. Luckily the Njerpez had left him with pretty light injuries. Starvation hit, but was manageable with birds and hares from light traps. The traps dotted almost every corner of the medium sized island. He has also caught couple of pikes while warming up early in the mornings. While fishing, Ukko heard a seal splashing about and had still some rope for a heavy deadfall trap.

Unfortunately most lingonberries withered while he was building the heavy trap. Even the Tellervo's gift mushrooms spoiled that he had been sacrificing for Ahti in hopes of a catch. He had planned to collect an ample storage of bait for birds, but there had been too much work with the traps and birds. Ukko had also seen a badger lurking in the distance. He had been eagerly improving the setting of bigger deadfall traps on a bottleneck part of the island. But the clever thing never touched the traps, even when Ukko surprised it sniffing about just next to a big deadfall trap. Even the smaller trap seems to be too suspicious for it. "Picky thing, aren't you? Is the bird smelling too bad?", Ukko had shouted after the escaping badger.

But then, upon returning to camp, from atop the high cliffs, he could see an enormous bull elk who had blissfully swum to the island. Upon sight of Ukko, the poor beast ran itself to exhaustion along the beach, refusing to return to the icy waters again. Soon he met the blunt end of Ukko's bird-and-hare-leather-bound stone axe and the bull fell into oblivion from the very first blow to its hip. The second blow secured its passage. "This was a miracle. Maybe it had swum a long way and was already utterly exhausted. I wonder whether I should sacrifice to Tapio or Ahti. I know no stories about swimming elks." After couple of days toiling, 48 lbs of the unfortunate critter is drying. Ukko is laying patterns for his new outfit, wondering where all that elk meat went. It will feel good to wear something before winter brings it's worst weather.

47
It was moving pretty slow, and my character isn't an olympic sprinter either.  :o

48
General Discussion / Punitive island winter challenge
« on: October 25, 2020, 08:00:17 AM »
After discussing it here: (http://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5836.0), I thought to repost the island challenge from few years back. The original was about Njerpez camp, but it has way too much supplies should you manage to kill them.

STARTUP:
Driik (this culture having worst stats), no rerolling attributes (unless to get them worse). Randomize start for as long as it takes to start on a offshore island*. Might take a good while. Winter. Hurt, helpless and afraid. Survive to mainland village. No game-courses or essential help from mods**. Discard everything on game start.

You can even mod ini_skills.txt to have 0 in all skills.  :o

Too small an island may be impossible. See above link.

Be warned. This is not easy, possibly not even fun.

ORIGINAL CHALLENGE:
Same as previous, but tiny island (pref 1 tile) required and Islander allowed (easier to get a start needed since you'll die many times quickly) and Njerpez camp.

Be warned. This is fun, but you'll die. Many times.

**EDIT: Of course you can and should play as you want, but in order to qualify for the harshest level of this challenge: Do not benefit from mods. Essentially helpful things include: ability to make boards/paddles without an iron axe, extra ways to keep warm such as clothes and easy wood items, extra tying equipment harvestable in winter, improved food sources etc. Basically anything that makes survival and getting to mainland easier.  Easiest way to convince your fellows is of course not using mods at all.

You are most welcome to report your challenge progress (or horror stories) at the stories section: http://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5843.0.

*HINT: Use Night's magnificent little software to choose starting location: https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=6072.msg16429#msg16429

A few pointers to any newcomers who wish to try:
- When still naked - obsess over fire.
   - Gather firewood rather than cut it - it is far quicker. Always have enough ready for at least one night, preferably several.
   - Branches and other small wood burn too quickly. Light branch fires to cut slender trunks. Light slender trunks to cut groups of young trees.
   - Always be on a lookout for groups of young trees. Light a slender trunk fire near them to be able to cut three or at least two young trees with one fire.
   - Do not waste big trunks for fires that burn longer than you need them to. The winter will be much colder later. You also need them for traps when you get rope.
   - Learn to use torches.
- Do not waste time on wooden stakes/fences and javelins. Throw rocks unless your club skill is much worse than spear.
- Fish with rocks. With stone tools you get crude javelins which are -10 skill in fights, I don't know but possibly in fishing too.
- From the start, you are in a real hurry to have plenty of food, firewood and fur clothes before the mid winter strikes.
- EDIT: Try to a make wooden shovel and dig the pits you need before the ground is too frozen.
- Reindeer, elk and bear have the warmest fur. Good for hoods, footwear and mittens, areas on which you can't have many layers.
- Mind the spirits. You can sacrifice mushrooms and grasses. Use lingonberries for bait. Low energy meat is also better as bait than one sorry meal.
- Stay the F*** out of the ice! If you must brave to a carcass, drop everything but a wielded knife and crawl. You can test the ice by pushing stuff on it.
- Swimming guide: https://www.unrealworld.fi/wiki/index.php?title=Swimming_(Skill)

49
I long thought penalties don't apply when setting traps, because lack of message about it like in say, fishing. Now I'm told they do apply.

50
Suggestions / More usefulness for curing
« on: October 24, 2020, 06:16:17 PM »
Ok ok I know I've been spamming suggestions, but I still have to speak on the other part of hide-ousness: curing  ;D

The first part was about tanning terminology:
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5835.msg15624#msg15624

I don't cure skins in this game. Curing makes skins stuck in place and tanning is far quicker overall anyway. And you still have to clean the skin which isn't required for drying IRL. Fleshing is easier on dry skin anyway. (The membranes break off more easily on dry skin.) Doesn't really work when travelling, either. Really curing should be the thing to do when travelling and little time. The skins will continue drying hanging from the rucksack anyway, once they've initially become a bit dry.

I'd like to see curing as the default procedure for storage just like IRL. Tanning is a lot of work. Not every skinned hide will be tanned, only those that need to be. Also I don't think the fur trappers of old IRL tanned the hides themselves. The woodsman would definitely bring cured hides home first, maybe tan them then. Tanning is primarily concern of the craftsperson who gets their skins from hunters/herders, because only they know what qualities (how thoroughly tanned (hard), for instance) they want from the tanning for the work they are planning to use it for. Of course on commercial scale is different - I don't know how foreign traders would have wanted their furs.

Also, not every hide in use is tanned. Nowadays snowmobile-sled-hides aren't and old-days kota covers most likely neither. The skin is relatively cheap to replace in kota cover if its only dried (cured). A valuable-in-working-time tanned hide wouldn't have been wasted for something so trivial.

So, getting finally to my suggestion:

1) Curing should be immediately available for fresh skins
2) shorten curing times to max overnight or allow picking up of skins with curing still continuing

3) accept cured hides for kota covers and "sleeping in furs"
3) complicate tanning to make it more realistic and to encourage curing to be used more
4) make cured skins available in villages and for trade - preferably much more commonly than tanned hides. I understand this would affect game balance significantly and prices would need to be adjusted accordingly, with tanning lifting the cost especially of big hides - not so much of the valuable small furs.

EDIT: reordered priorities and added '1' from the terminology thread linked above

51
Some of you remember the island challenge, no?  ;D

I'm trying to survive with Driiks on a few tile island on winter start, discarding all starting gear, with hurt, helpless and afraid, and ofc no game courses.

Fishing as a primary tactic is a suicide because of injuries. When injuries are gone, starvation is too high. When fishing, the game informs about it being difficult because of penalties. I still fish on spare time to train and warm up. Never catch anything. Mostly sweating time is about cutting young trees for firewood.

So that leaves trapping. Setting traps doesn't say anything about penalties, so I've been thinking they don't count. But I've gotten only one catch - a bird - with three characters. One froze, other drowned. The second character got a hostile forest probably because of spamming a lot of traps and cutting wood without enough sacrifice.

My third character has been sacrificing lingonberries or heather each day and gotten "at ease"-messages and once "you feel peaceful and safe". So I think the spirits should be appeased with all the felling of trees.

I try to use long lines of light traps as 'fence' with the occasional big deadfalls. Actual fence might strain less the spirits but making stakes with stone knife takes forever and I lack enough saplings on the island.

Still no catch. I have following theories of why not:
1) I made a line of traps from sea to sea across diagonally connected land tiles. Are too many of the traps are situated on 'sea'-tiles (zoomed out)? Does that prevent spawning of birds and land animals even on very successful trap set?
2) Do the penalties (39% starvation currently) still apply, even though the game doesn't warn about it? EDIT: No.
3) Running around naked in winter requires practically continuous fire. Even with the daily sacrifice, am I still cutting too much young trees on the same area?
4) Is a three-tile island too small even for trap-initiated spawning, in other words am I always too close? Or, does the spawning occur only on neighbouring tiles, which are sea and therefore fail?

EDIT: Penalties don't apply to setting traps. See bug report below.

http://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5838.0

52
Suggestions / tanning terminology + rinsed should not spoil
« on: October 23, 2020, 12:03:21 PM »
I have had several thoughts about the tanning of skins in this game for a long time. Here's my suggestions on how to make the tanning feel more right - at least in my experience.

I updated this post after I wrote a suggestion about curing:
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5837.msg15649#msg15649

1) Rename the 'rinsed' * skin to 'hard' * skin and remove it's ability to spoil. Rotting at this already-tanned stage doesn't make any sense to me. Also the 'hard' adjective describes better what is expected to do next. Also IRL this is how we refer to skins at this stage.

2) Remove the need for water for cleaning skins. When I do that IRL, don't require water.

3) Curing should be immediately available for fresh skins, not after laborious cleaning (fleshing), which is easier on dry skin. (The membranes break off more easily on dry skin.) Moved to the curing thread.

4) Rename all fur-bearing fresh skins to 'pelt' (ie: "cleaned ermine pelt") with the exception of:

5) Rename all big fur-bearing skins to 'hide' (of the size available to use in kota construction, for example, so 8lbs in my understanding)

6) Dehairing seems to have an odd step after it. A dehaired skin is not dry, but very wet. It doesn't need to be soaked, quite the opposite. The membranes are scraped off or at least broken when they are dry. A thorough wash and salt water are beneficial after dehairing, to slow the rotting which caused the dehairing in the first place. I'd alter the soaking step to a wash and dry. (I'm aware of many methods of tanning, but in this rubbing method the game uses this would be appropriate.)

7) Make dehairing process rename previous 'pelts' and 'hides' to 'skins':

Like so:
Spoiler: examples • show

fresh snake skin
(wait too long and it becomes spoiled snake skin)
(optional step: cured snake skin)  no spoilage
clean fleshed snake skin
tanning snake skin
hard snake skin                    no spoilage
snake leather                      no spoilage

fresh hare pelt
(wait too long and it becomes spoiled hare pelt)
(optional step: cured hare pelt)   no spoilage
clean fleshed hare pelt
tanning hare pelt
hard hare pelt                     no spoilage
hare fur                           no spoilage
 
fresh hare pelt
(wait too long and it becomes spoiled hare pelt)
(optional step: cured hare pelt)   no spoilage
dehaired hare skin
cured hare skin                    no spoilage
clean fleshed hare skin
tanning hare skin
hard hare skin                     no spoilage
hare leather                       no spoilage

fresh elk hide
(wait too long and it becomes spoiled elk hide)
(optional step: cured elk hide)    no spoilage
clean fleshed elk hide
tanning elk hide
hard elk hide                      no spoilage
elk fur                            no spoilage

fresh elk hide
(wait too long and it becomes spoiled elk hide)
(optional step: cured elk hide)    no spoilage
dehaired elk skin
cured elk skin                     no spoilage
clean fleshed elk skin
tanning elk skin
hard elk skin                      no spoilage
elk leather                        no spoilage

8 ) No cutting weapon needed in dehairing.
9) Tanning by smoking, in the same style as smoking meat.

My reasoning apart from what already been said:
a) one could instantly recognize which animal skins become leather and which fur
b) currently one cannot distinguish a dehaired "tanning elk skin" and a fur bearing "tanning elk skin" before the whole tanning process is finished
c) curing is not very useful nor realistic atm. Suggestions would help that. Moved to the curing thread.

d) using 'hide' only for bigger skins is more proper English in my understanding. English is not my mothertongue, but I understand all these terms are a bit vague and interchangeable at least to some degree. I would love the get some native English feedback on this. Anyway, IMHO it would be good for the game interface to establish a terminology anyway to easily distinguish between fur-bearing and non-fur-bearing skins and their states of progress.

EDIT: after reading this: https://www.newlifeonahomestead.com/tan-hides-using-traditional-cheap-easy-methods-part-2/ I find using the 'fleshing' term is indeed more appropriate

53
I've trapped hundreds of birds, gluttons, hares, bears, seals, wolves and foxes during my experience with Urw. But the times I caught trapped one of the three in the subject: only very, very rarely.

I really feel these small predators should be much more commonly encountered and more easily trapped. In fact, more than any of the above.

I'd like to see trapping small predators a lot easier and harder to trap the valuable big predators. For realism and game balance. I'd reduce the value of big herbivore hides too.

Also I think it would be an idea worth considering if birds would be only possible to be trapped with loop snares. That way one could focus more on birds and hares or small predators.

Almost since the beginning of URW I've had one dream: to make myself a coat of self-caught pine-marten or ermine.  8) My current char has perfect eyesight and otherwise well rounded too. I'm trying to yet again become a small predator hunter but it really seems to be next to impossible.  :'(

54
Bug reports / Dark spot on river
« on: October 19, 2020, 07:49:29 PM »
There is a black tile of water near my settlement. When the waters froze, it became called ice. But no tile graphic, just a black spot.

A save behind the link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jhyaqrrk6btls7x/ASLLAT%20%E2%80%93%20kopio.zip?dl=0

55
My char practically lives on a kota doorway tile next to a water tile, because it's so much less tedious to do all that drinking, tanning and whatnot when you don't have to think or look which container to pick up and choose. I imagine many do the same.

If the game would simply use water from containers on ground automatically (for example from largest first) or at least include the water containers on the ground on the inventory menu. This would be a *huge* interface improvement. Why are the tubs so small anyways?

Relating to this - it would be cool for table top contents to appear on the list menu when 'e'ating or 'q'uaffing. That way having a table in one's cottage would really be a lot of help as in real world as well.

I also noted the older suggestion about drinking from containers on draught animals. https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5552.0

Pages: 1 2 3 [4]
anything