Messing with measures

[Sami]

So, the length property has been added for tying equipment, and I've been working on to update item conversions and crafting requirements to accept this brand new addition.
Adding measure of length is a perfect example of seemingly simple, yet fundamental addition which extends all around the code and has brought up numerous related features.
Here's where we are at now with tying equipment additions, and now I hope to be able to catch up with more NPC stuff - where I was before getting entwined by ropes and cords.

 - added: measure of length for tying equipment

         Appropriate items, such as ropes, now have a length property. The unit of length we use
         is foot (ft), and should an item have a length property it is displayed both in inventory menu
         and when looking at items on the ground. This addition foremostly affects to crafting material
         requirements which can now be length based.

  - added: new crafting category under [M]ake menu: "Tying quipment"

         This category contains the usual ropes and cords, which are now removed from their previous
         location in "Utility articles".

 - added: Join and shorten options to manipulate tying equipment lengths

         Under "Tying equipment" category within [M]ake menu there are options for joining and shorterning
         ropes and cords as sometimes specific length is desired. You may not want to spend full length
         rope on something that requires only a short piece, or you may need to join cords together to
         come up with long enough string for a specific craft.

 - changed: tying equipment requirements in crafting are now length based

         Instead of requiring certain number of cords and ropes all the tying equipment requirements
         are now length based.

 - reasoned: required tying equipment types in some crafting recipes

         For example:
         When making arrows, previously you could use any "tying equipment" in the process - including
         ropes. Now arrow making requires "cord", a little finer and more specific tying equipment.

 - added: tying equipment used in cookery do not disappear in the process anymore

         You can pick your ropes and cords back after the smoking and drying processes are done.   

These are future additions, not yet functional in current version 3.52.

[Ezezaguna]

Love this!

[ModernNorseman]

Super excited about this! Will change alot of dynamics in the game (at least for me) now that we can reuse materials for smoking and drying.

[Titanium]

I am trying knot to make any puns.

[Ara D.]

Will there be any loss off length due to the knot or is it so small as to be negligible, is there reduction in quality due to multiple knots, can we choose cord length when crafting or will it be a set length that we will then add to or shorten?

[DrJonez]

Awesome!   

[Sami]

Will there be any loss off length due to the knot or is it so small as to be negligible, is there reduction in quality due to multiple knots, can we choose cord length when crafting or will it be a set length that we will then add to or shorten?

In many cases knots are a bad solution, so we imagine joining is done by opening and untwisting the strands and twisting them back together with reasonable lenght of the added piece. This of course should lose some length, but not so much the quality... But in order to get things done and not to stay in loop of perfecting mostly trivial things the loss of length and quality changes are not featured (at the moment).

When crafting it's said eg. you need "10 feet of rope" and sometimes you can come up with this from smaller pieces, and sometimes you need the full length. When crafting nothing is cut or joined automatically.

This all may be fine tuned in the future.
 

[Purplemate]

Awesome!