Crappy tools can't do much

[GrimmSpector]

All my tools are rough, and create crappy things, and then I can't create better things, because my tools are so crappy it would take too long and the game decides it's impossible and doesn't let me start making an item at all.

Not sure how to get around this, and trade certainly isn't an option since I can't / don't have the means to trade. I can fish, but no way to smoke the stuff so I can't carry enough without it spoiling to get anything for it.

Would love some advice. I'm using BAC, though I'm wondering if some bits are broken.

[Dungeon Smash]

Well, if your character's skills are too low, and you are finding the game too hard, you could start with a more-skilled character, or a starting scenario that begins with items.

Barring that option, the best thing to trade for upgraded items in the early game is animal pelts.  Even with crappy tools, you can make traps.  If your trapping skill is too poor, you can make javelins, and approach prey with stealth.  If you have neither spear skill nor stealth skill nor trap skill, your character will have a hard time finding pelts.  If your character's skills are decent but you are having trouble encountering animals, you are probably in a low-game area.  Relocate to a different area.  If you travel enough, you will surely encounter squirrels, which even a low-skill naked character can easily kill with rocks.  If you obtain enough squirrel skins, you can trade for a decent-quality knife or handaxe and begin making finer tools.

If your fish are spoiling before you can reach town, you need to find a fishing source closer to town.  Some towns are located right near lakes or rivers.  Salmon and trout (found in rapids) are worth a decent price, and if you have decent cooking skill you can increase the price even more.  Cooking also makes them last longer.  If need be, you can trade for non-spoilable cheap items like arrows and then stockpile those, trading them back for a knife or handaxe once you've obtained enough.

Good luck!  Think laterally and don't give up, sooner or later you will surely succeed.

[PALU]

Starting without tools so you have to make stone tools yourself is a difficult start, and it's meant to, as that's the hardest way to start (apart from trying to survive as a slave fleeing out of a Njerp camp).
Pelts are non perishable, so you can slowly build up a small pile to bring to town while using your fishing skill to survive rather than trying to use it as a means of income. You can smoke fish in a "sauna" you've built yourself (which is rather hard with crappy tools) or use one in a village. During the winter you can dry fish against any wall (including a shelter one), but both processes require cords which are made from hides/leather/clothes in vanilla, but the mod may add additional options.

A cellar is a very valuable thing as it keeps food fresh for longer, although it takes quite some time to make one with crappy tools. It's still worth it, though.

[MigrantWorker]

You can also find a village with better quality tool(s) available for sale, and then use them without picking them up. Many if not most recipes also work when the required tools are on the ground next to you, rather than in your inventory. Then you can use those tools to craft tradeable items (fox traps work very well, but note that their quality is determined by your Trapping skill rather than Carpentry), and eventually trade them for the tools in question once you have accumulated enough. If you are using BAC mod, then all you really *need* is a handaxe; everything else you can make starting from that.

[GrimmSpector]

I did the fisherman’s start. So I get some stuff but no axe.

What can I craft in a village to trade?

I know I need a hand axe but I haven’t found one in a village yet and certainly don’t have access to the small axe head to make one.

Tutorials suggested that being a fisherman was the easiest start. And since I found hunting quite difficult and highly dependent on luck finding an animal I see why.

And if I can’t hunt I can’t get cord unless I use BAC to make fibre. Slow but works. So I can try trapping.

Also with the tutorial life goals but I am on the kill step but killing a squirrel didn’t trigger it for me.

[Labtop 215]

May not be a great idea, but you could trade one of your nets for a handaxe.  You might want to get something extra to go along with that handaxe though, like 4 arrows , a fur hood to cut into cord, or a small knife if you also don't have a proper knife.  You may have a hard time getting that net back before it cycles out though, since it will still be hard to produce items of high value, but a handaxe and a proper knife makes survival far more doable than it would be otherwise.

Alternatively, if you must live with a stone axe and a stone knife, you can try working with tree's that have already fallen down.  The ground sometimes has tree trunks of both regular and slender variety, that you can potentially craft things from.  Anything that takes longer than 12 hours will be rejected outright, but sometimes you can keep repeating the same task over and over again until your character starts working on it.  This can be a way to brute force the use of a stone axe if need be to do wood work.  You probably can't build any buildings with the stone axe however.

[Frostbit]

I started my most recent character with the runaway slave scenario in winter and only barely managed to escape with my life. Without even decent clothing, I spent most of my time hovering around tree trunks I'd set fire to to keep from freezing to death. Barely being able to stand and not having the full use of my arms, I lived on withering berries and club fishing until my wounds healed up enough that I could wear an elk down through sheer persistence. Then I picked up a nearby stone and bashed his head in. After that initial kill, I had everything I needed to make warm clothing, a few loop snares, and had plenty of meat to start trading for better and better tools. I crafted lots and lots of arrows, too, along the way and am now flush with wealth.

[Dungeon Smash]

I did the fisherman’s start. So I get some stuff but no axe.

What can I craft in a village to trade?

I know I need a hand axe but I haven’t found one in a village yet and certainly don’t have access to the small axe head to make one.

Tutorials suggested that being a fisherman was the easiest start. And since I found hunting quite difficult and highly dependent on luck finding an animal I see why.

And if I can’t hunt I can’t get cord unless I use BAC to make fibre. Slow but works. So I can try trapping.

Also with the tutorial life goals but I am on the kill step but killing a squirrel didn’t trigger it for me.

Blacksmithing is one of the most labor-intensive late-game activities.  You won't be making your own iron axe for quite some time.

Occasionally I have had issues with certain tutorial goals triggering as well.  My best advice is to try again. 

If there are no axes where you are, you must look somewhere else.  With fishing gear, you have the ability to obtain food anywhere you please.  Axes are far more common in the wealthy and well-populated south-western regions, although you can find them in the central and south-eastern regions as well.

[Tom H]

I tried, ONCE, to play as the fisherman. I think I was an Islander. Anyway, even with a crude axe I was unable to create a mere shelter because my building skill was so low. It let me try, of course, but I used all of the day and deep into the night yet collapsed from fatigue without finishing the shelter. Of course, I was then continually wakened by rain. Imagine, I have some poles and lots of branches but I'm too dim to make a lean-to? 

I COULD NOT make a javelin. Would not even let me try. Imagine, I have a stick but cannot put a point on it and fire it?

For the record, I died from exposure... heh. 

[PALU]

You can make a shelter with any axe, as building is one of the few activities that can be paused and resumed. However, if you're too tired when you start, you'll collapse, sleep, wake up, too tired to continue building the shelter (or at least stopping immediately, with no visible progress), ... regardless of skill and tool quality.
If your character ends up in that situation the best thing you can do is to try to make a fire instead (although you may well die during your failed attempts to light it, of course) and hope the rain stops eventually so you can get some sleep and then resume the shelter building.

[Labtop 215]

You can make a shelter with any axe, as building is one of the few activities that can be paused and resumed. However, if you're too tired when you start, you'll collapse, sleep, wake up, too tired to continue building the shelter (or at least stopping immediately, with no visible progress), ... regardless of skill and tool quality.
If your character ends up in that situation the best thing you can do is to try to make a fire instead (although you may well die during your failed attempts to light it, of course) and hope the rain stops eventually so you can get some sleep and then resume the shelter building.

Wasn't there an issue where if you couldn't complete something in 2 goes, your second round of progress would be lost?

[PALU]

Not that I'm aware of, but since I avoid the "desperate shelter" situation I rarely (if ever) use more than two sessions for building projects.

[Brygun]

Brygun of the BAC here

I can certainly sympathize with the issues of tool quality.

The way the underlaying code works is any object can only be reached by one recipe. Only the last recipe for that item will exist.

I recall in my prior standalone mod I wrote something for iron smithing under Rain's to make a second hammer and second anvil. These required having the first poor quality ones made. The new one recipes were tweaked for a [noquality] tag for an average output and/or a bonus to the quality check. At that time a user had to manually edit the files to on/off the recipes as, like stated, only one recipe for "hammer" could exist.

By the time of the BAC my coding skills were a bit better and as this was to be a larger mod introduced multiple hammers. In BAC there is a stone hammer, a flat hammer and a round hammer. Each has different quality output modifier thus the round hammer  hopefully comes out "fine" and the stone hammer "crude". This in turn would have their quality affect the quality of goods made with them. This was to reward a survivor making a larger collection of tools.  In my real life cold working car steel into armor I used several hammers. Actually practicing smiths have a line of hammers.

IF you are stuck on a javelin though that is pretty rough. That does seem a bit harsh. Ive generally not encountered that. There is now a way to get some training from villagers but AFAIK it would be hard to find someone with whatever skill you need. AFAIK it is also tied to the villagers own skill level so basic skill training should be more possible to find and youd have to go and do things to master.

The suggestion is the thread on shelter building sounds useful. You can dismantle it and put it back together.

Bear in mind that if a character is generated unable to make a javelin try to imagine such a person wandering off into the woods. It would be like a modern day city folk being put into the deep wilderness of Algonquin Park, a forest the size of some countries. It really might be better for them to spend a season or year close to town before their big adventure.

Brygun