Craftable birch-bark items and associated ponderings

[Sami]

Craftable birch-bark items are a thing now.
You can make boxes, and baskets, and shoes and caps - and also birch-bark ropes.
Character's CARPENTRY skill determines the success of birch-bark crafting.

And while I was at it, leather/fur cloth crafting times and material requirements were also touched a bit. All the material requirements have been increased to slightly exceed the finished cloth weights, and crafting times of smaller clothes have been reasoned by increasing or decreasing the required time.

And while I was studying the nature and construction of birch-bark shoes, I found a remark that if birch-bark shoes were used in a field work they lasted in usable condition for maybe two weeks. So in real life birch-bark shoes should wear out pretty quickly if used extensively.  And as our characters usually tend to walk ridiculously excessive distances on almost daily basis it got me thinking of adding wearing out mechanism for shoes and boots so that you would need to replace them every once in a while.
So...something like that is also very likely to be added now.

[PALU]

Nice additions.

The only downside I can see to have footwear wear out is that it would be rather pointless to put in the effort to try to hunt down Masterworks quality (or even Fine) ones, as they'd wear out and you'd be back to the ones you can craft yourself. It's bad enough when the only "wear" is battle/injury damage...

[koteko]

@Sami could leather boots be made craftable? This would pair perfectly with the wearing-out.

Also probably leather should last more than fur, I wager. And quality should factor in, shouldn't it?

[PALU]

I believe the logic behind player made clothing being capped at decent quality is that higher quality items would require a considerably larger work investment, and the current system supports interruption/resumption of only a few tasks, so higher quality items would need support for working on the items for several days.

[Titanium]

Maybe for footwear there should be a new quality type, or rather rigidity, durability factor,...

To elaborate, footwear could deteriorate at a constant rate for each "step" you take. Better "quality" footwear would take far longer to go down on the scale. But also different materials would affect this rate, for instance using one would take longer to deteriorate than using another of the same starting quality.

For this, the quality levels could go, for instance, from best to worst: durable, dependable, (no tag), basic, shambles/wrecked

As for why you would want to have better footwear, maybe having durable would just take longer to degrade, but having lowest quality ones would make you go slower (same as would having no shoes, but you could maybe have a chance to get a cut if walking barefoot on certain type of terrain?).

Just my two squirrel hide cents.

[Saukko]

The only downside I can see to have footwear wear out is that it would be rather pointless to put in the effort to try to hunt down Masterworks quality (or even Fine) ones, as they'd wear out and you'd be back to the ones you can craft yourself. It's bad enough when the only "wear" is battle/injury damage...

With leather boots or shoes it shouldn't matter, as they are repairable - there would still be an incentive to track down quality footgear as you can repair them before they get worn out too much. Maybe, if this change is introduced, the ability to repair footwear (and clothes?) could be extended to cover all items, regardless of material? Then the amount of wear wouldn't matter that much - unless there are other factors at play that would throw the game balance out of whack.

[Sami]

Good points here and there, and we try keep things covered.
See...
as we can see with combat related wearing out it's so that clothes and armour do not come down in their quality upon wear. 
So masterwork boots will appear as masterwork boots, even if they are seriously worn out masterwork boots. The same principle applies to footwear wearing out in use.
With weapons and tools it's already so that higher quality items are more durable. Now quality based durability will be extended to cover armours and clothes as well.
As a result your fine boots will last longer than the rough ones. 
And while I'm at it, the quality of armours and clothes will be extended to cover their protective values as well. Finer furs are warmer furs, and so on.

When it comes to repairing clothes, it really should be made so that you shouldn't be able to repair things infinitely.
This could be easily achieved by lowering the quality on each repair, finally forbidding rough clothing to be repaired at all.
Just pondering for now, though, as there are these other things in line first.

[koteko]

> And while I'm at it, the quality of armours and clothes will be extended to cover their protective values as well. Finer furs are warmer furs, and so on.

NICE!

[Tom H]

Maybe this idea is worthless, BUT, instead of grading clothes/footwear with decent/etc descriptions, perhaps just the name of the item with a number of 'x's that indicate wear? Maybe 6x is badly deteriorated while 1x is newly made? Deterioration could also be indicated with \ as the step before a full X? Heh...As I said, maybe the idea is of no value to you.

[Bärentill]

What makes URW so great for me ist that its ideas and concepts are usually great. Ideas that are bad are usually not added to the gameplay and so I must say that I think some ideas for the clothing are just bad. In my opinion, if an idea is illogical or bad implemented it shouldn't be part of the core gameplay. It's true that there are two kinds of quality affecting clothes: the quality modifier and the durability. This means these are completely different things, the durabilty might influence the protection value but not the quality modifier which seems to represent if the clothes are fancy or not. If this is a problem that there are two kinds of quality, my suggestion is just to remove the quality modifier for clothes!

Another reason why I don't think the quality modifier should influence the protection value is as follows: 1 lbs of rough leather is just as protective as 1 lbs of fine leather. Why? Bad hides might have holes in it and this is represented by obtaining less hide when skinning. Holes weigh nothing! You only use the useful parts when making clothes so it doesn't matter if the fur/leather is fine (beautiful) or rough. This way it might take more time to make clothing though. If it is important to keep the quality modifier for clothes then there should be a skill associated with it. But that the quality fur/leather is the only thing that determines the quality of the clothes is just wrong and part of the problem.

As it might be that shoes wear out more quickly than others clothes, there should some kind benefit of wearing shoes and of spending ressources on shoes. Otherwise most people will cease wearing shoes when it is not necessary. The benefits could be a higher walking speed, more endurance or even the ability to run (just a few ideas).

[Ara D.]

It has been mentioned other ways and places but I would like to see village craftsmen actually craft. Similar to the punt quest. For example Tom H. Brings his superior leathers that he's been keeping in his cellar plus some squirrel furs to the village cobbler and a week later gets new master work boots or his old pair repaired.

I could see a mechanism similar to hire a companion, I would like to make you boots but I need more leather and my fee.

[Tom H]

Ara- Very cool idea! For that matter, why not some quests for 'X' amount of superior leather/furs? Or, quality cured furs the crafter wants, like wolf or arctic fox? Or 10 pounds of seeds, which those playing farmer probably eventually collect by the bagful. Sorry, Sami, if you ever wonder if starting this game was a good idea! heh

For the record, I have at least 60 pounds of BIRD SKIN leather of Fine and Superior quality. I cannot imagine what working such a tiny skin would be like...lol

[PALU]

Any quest of the type "bring me volume X of resource Y" would be problematic in that there is no chance a character would be able to actually collect the resource within a reasonable quest duration, but rather would be a request for something the player may have available, and so would be reasonable only for mid to late game players.

It would be rather annoying for a new player to be asked for impossible things and thus have to turn the quest down, and at the same time have to wait for a new quest cool down before a new one was offered. I'm not saying that kind of quest is a bad idea, as it is a good one, but that it would need some care in the implementation so the quests would only be offered to players "known" to at least have the possibility to deliver (someone who doesn't farm shouldn't be requested to deliver seeds, new characters and characters with insufficient skill shouldn't be asked for skin, etc.).

[Ara D.]

Very true PALU, in my head I see craftsmen working like modified companions. Tell me about your skill? Oh I am an expert Cobbler or a skilled boat builder. I would like you to make me some boots or can you repair my boots