Utility knives and axes in 3.50

[mlangsdorf]

The wiki is a little confusing on this topic, so I am asking which utility knives as useful for what tasks in v3.50? And same with axes?

As far as I can tell:
Broad knife - Best knife for skinning, butchering, and tanning. Good knife for most tasks - having a masterwork broad knife makes everything go smoothly.
Small knife - Best knife for ?? Rarely available in masterwork
Hunting knife - Best knife for ?? Sometimes available as fine.
Fishing - Best knife for nothing.
northern, kaumaolais - tribal knives for fighting.

Axes seem to be somewhat better defined:
Hand axe - general utility axe that is used when no better axe is available. A masterwork hand axe is almost like having fine versions of all the other axes.
Wood axe - Best axe for cutting down large trees (small trees are cut with a hand axe) and cutting logs into blocks.
Carving axe - Best axe for carpentry tasks (and building cabin walls?)
Broad axe - Best axe for turning trunks into logs and building cabin walls
Splitting axe - Best axe for turning trunks into boards

A wood axe and a hand axe will let you do most wood work at a reasonable pace, but if you want to build a big cabin, having all the specialty axes at high quality will make a huge difference in the amount of time it takes.

Has anyone measured the amount of improvement each type of axe, at each quality, gives for each type of task?

Also, does anyone know how the carving axe is useful for cabins? It seems like the broad axe is useful there.

[Privateer]

 Inside of the task(s) there is an optional property which more or less controls this.
a task with {Knife} as a requirement does not care what knife is used.
a task with {Cutting weapon} <Knife> will allow any edged tool but knife is preferred.
a task with {Knife} <Fisher's knife> will use any knife but fisherman's knife is preferred.

TBH I don't know if there is bonus or disadvantage to using preferred and if so how much.

Inside the game are some additional bits; you get more cuts with a knife than an axe, etc.
The news file has some details

** Changelog for 3.15-beta2 released on Dec-1-2012
~snip~
* tool usefulness

       Some tools are more handy for certain tasks than the others. This is
          a good old, and clear game mechanism, and player is always informed
          when certain type of tool is preferred for the task.
          Usefulness of the tool foremostly affects to how long it will take to
          complete the task, but now it also affects to quality of crafted item.
          If an item is crafted with an unhandy tool the maximum possible
          quality is degraded according to tool used. The more unhandy the tool,
          the less perfect the resulting item can be expected to be.

          For example: you can't carve fine wooden bowls with a stone-axe any
          more. However, with a good quality stone-axe you may still succeed
          better than with one of average quality.

[PALU]

The small knife is used for a number of handicraft task, I think, and is rather essential in Buiodda's Crafts mod.
The hunting knife is a fighting knife, essentially, and can be seen as a generic alternative to the Northern or the Kaumolais knife.
The Fisher's knife isn't preferred for anything in vanilla, as far as I know. I guess it would be good for cleaning fish, but there's no such task in UrW currently.
The "knife"(i.e. without any specific purpose) isn't preferred for anything, unsurprisingly.

The splitting axe is also used to make fire wood (which you don't really need in vanilla).

As far as I understand, using a non preferred tool counts as using a preferred one of one quality level less. You're informed that your tools are to blame, not your skill when you would have succeeded had the tools been up to the task.

There was recently a thread where quality effects was touched upon, and that indicated you received a success roll bonus from masterworks quality tools, but nothing from fine quality (while fine and masterworks gave increasing bonuses for fighting). However, I can't say I've noticed any increase in the number Superior skins gained with a masterworks broad knife compared to the fine one when I finally was able to upgrade.

It can also be noted that the change log quote provided by Privateer is somewhat misleading, as you can't make wooden bowls with a quality better than decent anymore, because the resulting item quality is capped by the quality of the input item, and wooden blocks are all decent. The item quality logic still applies, though, and you can still produce poor and leaky bowls.

[mlangsdorf]

Not all tasks have config files. You can't look at the game files to see how the various axes affect timbercraft tasks or how knives affect hidecraft tasks as far as I know.

[MrMotorhead]

From my reading of the logs it seems that some crafting projects have different steps.  I think producing a wooden shovel and building a wooden wall both  both have 2 different "best tools".  When producing a wooden wall from logs, you need to carve out the notches where the logs will fit together (I picture Lincoln logs) as well as smoothing the overall shape of the log so it sits flush with its neighbor.  This makes sense to me, where you would want a broad axe to shave down the overall surface but a carving axe to make the notch.

The time taken depending on the tool seems to vary wildly as any poor sod making a shelter with only a stone knife will tell you.

Small knives are preferred for peeling the bark from trees, and they seem to be selected over any other available when making clothes or bandages.

[aat]

The small knife is used for a number of handicraft task, I think, and is rather essential in Buiodda's Crafts mod.
The hunting knife is a fighting knife, essentially, and can be seen as a generic alternative to the Northern or the Kaumolais knife.
The Fisher's knife isn't preferred for anything in vanilla, as far as I know. I guess it would be good for cleaning fish, but there's no such task in UrW currently.
The "knife"(i.e. without any specific purpose) isn't preferred for anything, unsurprisingly.

Just to add, the encyclopaedia states that the hunting knife is best for butchering, but the broad knife is preferred over it. is this intended?

something strange is occurring in my game:
fine shortsword is preferred for cutting branches. if I don't have it, the game chooses a fine broadsword.
but in the inventory I have handaxe, broad knife, northern knife and hunting knife

[PALU]

It would make some sense if a hunting knife was better for butchering than a broad knife that excels at skinning, but I don't know if different types of knives have different effects. It might be possible to test by having both a hunting knife and a broad knife of the same quality when killing a large animal (elk ideally) skin it, and save the game (with a copy).
Thereafter you'd drop one of the knives out of reach and butcher the animal and check how many cuts you received. You'd repeat that 10 times with each knife (exiting UrW, removing the save, make a copy of the copy and restore that as the save each time).
In the long run it probably doesn't matter much, though.

What's needed for cutting branches is a cutting weapon of any kind. UrW will select the one of the highest quality, and if you have multiple weapons of the same quality it will select the one highest up in the inventory list (I don't know whether things at the ground are selected before or after inventory items). You can test this by cutting branches once, note the item used, drop that item and pick it up again (which usually results in it ending up at the bottom of the list), cut branches again, and note that a different weapon is used (assuming you had multiple ones of the highest quality ranking).

[Dungeon Smash]

Does anyone know what type of knife the broad knife represents in real life?  Why is a knife with a wider blade preferable for hideworking?

[PALU]

Does anyone know what type of knife the broad knife represents in real life?  Why is a knife with a wider blade preferable for hideworking?

Given its usage I'd say it would be some kind of skinning knife. As I don't hunt and am not a butcher I have no real life experience of skinning.