Axe haft and spear shaft repair, and alterations

[JP_Finn]

In the dev.plans, and Sami’s comments, we’ll get axe haft repair sooner or later.
I suggest to piggyback on that and alternate haft lengths, within reason. Short, medium and long hafts

Handaxe head with medium haft: handaxe, with short haft: hatchet, with long haft, hunter’s axe.

Woods man’s axe renamed to Felling axe. Felling axe head with long haft: Felling axe, medium haft: forest axe, short haft assembly attempt to suggest awkward setup, allow it and result in awkward axe*

Carving axe with medium haft: carving axe, with short haft: carving (or craft) hatchet. Long haft: awkward axe*

Broad axe with medium haft: broad axe. Short haft: hewing hatchet. Long haft: hewing axe.

Splitting axe with long haft: splitting axe. Short and medium haft: awkward axe*

Battle axe with long haft: battle axe, medium haft: war axe, short haft: awkward axe*

In general;
Long haft requires 2 handed grip or carry penalty, works faster, but lower quality output on tasks.
Medium haft works well one handed, can be used 2-handed. Average speed, average quality output on tasks.
Short handle works great one handed, doesn’t utilize free 2nd hand. Slow speed, high quality output on tasks.

*Awkward axe works slow and produces low quality output on tasks. Similar to stone axe, possibly faster, but not necessarily better.

If the throwing axe is still in-game (haven’t seen one in multiple plays), anything but given, presumably, short haft, gives awkward axe as result.

Please add/correct variations I might’ve overlooked.

E.g. making logs would benefit of using hewing axe, but remaking roundshield would benefit of using hewing hatchet.

Building shelter would be fastest with handaxe still, but using hunter’s axe or forest axe would be very close.

Edit: forgot about the spears: standard for all metal pointed spears would be long shaft. Alternatively could use short shaft with reduction in reach, possibly damage; but work well with one handed/with shield.

[PALU]

I'd remove the ability to make the awkward variants. The current menu system doesn't like a huge number of recipes, and there's little benefit in adding a number of variants that have no useful niche. The only situation I can imagine where you'd want to make one of those would be if you somehow acquired a mismatching head and haft and had no axe at all prior to that (and making an appropriate haft is either too hard with your stone knife/axe, or would take too long in your starving state).

[JP_Finn]

I’d envision the interface for replacing haft/shaft like:
Repair axe | select axe head| select haft | select wedge | have a work surface or even just a stone or a live (large) tree for tapping the haft against.

Recover axe head | select axe to recover head from | knife for easing the old haft out OR fire to burn the old handle off (not heated fireplace)

And recipes for long, medium and short hafts.

If that makes sense or is viable to code.

Rather than having recipe for every axe with every haft. In which case I absolutely agree about forgoing the awkward axes. Maybe allow haft carving with a loose axe head

[PALU]

The current recipes can take items and name the result based on the name of one of them, but not perform logic to select a name based on a combination of  input items. I believe your suggestion can be implemented using the current recipe system, but I don't think you'll get away from one recipe per head/haft pair with that.
Those better at modding than I am may be able to deny or confirm, though.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with suggesting enhancements to the crafting recipe logic either.

[JP_Finn]

It would require crafting logic change, but nothing more complex than if—then approach.
But the same logic change would then enable using salted/dried/smoked/raw meat in cooking stews and soups too.

[Tom H]

On this subject, I OWN the very ax that Abraham Lincoln used to split logs! The head has been replaced and the handle is new, but, it occupies the same space...

[JP_Finn]

On this subject, I OWN the very ax that Abraham Lincoln used to split logs! The head has been replaced and the handle is new, but, it occupies the same space...

I have one of them too.

[Sami]

In the dev.plans, and Sami's comments, we'll get axe haft repair sooner or later.
I suggest to piggyback on that and alternate haft lengths, within reason. Short, medium and long hafts

Handaxe head with medium haft: handaxe, with short haft: hatchet, with long haft, hunter's axe.

Woods man's axe renamed to Felling axe. Felling axe head with long haft: Felling axe, medium haft: forest axe, short haft assembly attempt to suggest awkward setup, allow it and result in awkward axe*.

We have no good reason to start renaming axes, and I'm not too keen to add new types/name either. Also, that would be a mess to do and hard to get adapted by the average players. Too much complexity over playability, in my opinion. Moreover, when there is zero shaft repairing in use yet and we haven't even introduced the system at all this is seriously going ahead of things.

[Brygun]

When putting axe head recovery into BAC crafting there came to mind some of logic complexities.

Imagine a a fine broadhead axe

Removing the fine axehead

Use a decent axe shaft (or worse)

Do you get a fine broadhead axe again?

Or a decent one?

And if you dehaft the decent one what there isnt any tracking of the original fine status of the original broadhead.

[JP_Finn]

@Brygun
There’s no need to remove haft, unless it’s damaged. And removing heft from axe’s eye; it’s either by drilling/material removal and then tapping, or by burning the wood haft.

As for repairing the axe, either keep track of the qualities of the head and haft separately.
Fine head and crude haft might cut the same as fine head and fine haft, but it’d likely break easier. Crude haft would likely cause other issues such as wrist sprain/fatigue, splinters and more prone to cause blisters.
Alternative, only track the axe head’s quality and make all hafts “decent” <<<KISS approach.

[Brygun]

@Brygun
There’s no need to remove haft, unless it’s damaged. And removing heft from axe’s eye; it’s either by drilling/material removal and then tapping, or by burning the wood haft.

The damage to an axe form combat is going to be the haft. Swords cut wood not the metal axe head.

Damage from use can be chips in the metal head but more likely cracked or broken hafts.

Axe quality can affect how long tasks take to make.

The point about the axe head quality issues is that the game doesn't allow tracking of subcomponents so well. IF you put a fine quality axehead in with a decent haft you might roll a decent output axe. You could [noquality] tag the haft. There is still skill checks involved.

Anyway, feel free to look at the BAC Mining and More section for my current version of dismantling axes.