We're proceeding with slender trunk wood type preferences and their impact on the crafts using slender trunks.
In some cases selecting the preferred wood type for this and that craft is quite simple as the age-old traditions originating from the required wood type characteristics
are still alive and followed in the countryside, or among the people preserving the handcraft traditions.
For example, axe handles are best made of birch or rowan trees for the required durability.
But when it comes to items like blunt arrows, lippo poles or spear hafts we've relied on books and item collections of the National Museum of Finland -
which is conveniently available online:
https://www.finna.fi/And the sources have revealed that blunt arrows were almost exclusively made out of birch, and spear hafts of spruce.
A modern spear haft crafter might choose their wood differently but we use the historical sources as our basis, and sometimes it may remain a mystery
why the ancient preferred this over that. They had their reasons for sure.
One new aspect that comes into play now along with the slender trunk wood type is that some items that weren't previously possible to
craft in higher than decent quality will now reach higher quality levels. This will happen for example to lippo, ski stick and wooden stakes.
This comes in as a result of adding preferred slender trunk wood type for the crafting of said items. Using the preferred wood type is the highest quality material,
other kinds will be the decent average.
And as a curiosity for lippo, ski sticks and wooden stakes the spruce is preferred wood type for them all.
In case of lippo pole we can imagine the spruce is light, flexible yet resilient if needed, and maybe the color is also the kind that the fish are most tolerant with.
In case of wooden stakes the spruce is preferred because these are used in the game most often for fences and trap-pits. Of all the available wood types the spruce
remains intact within the soil the longest. Traditionally the spruce used even had to be of slow growing trees found on mires.
For sti sticks the spruce just was found being the most commonly wood within the old ski stick item collections browsed. On the other hand, its lower end hoop was usually made
of birch withe, so it maybe that some of the crafting recipes will undergo little additions as we proceed.
We'll still check and adjust these things before it's all settled but it's looking quite good with the slender tree trunk wood type preferences already.
These are future features - not yet functional in current version 3.85.