Inconsistencies/problems with rope?

[AlexanderMason]

I’m a new player, looking for some help. I’ve found myself in a situation where I want to start smoking meat (fish mostly). In order to craft a rope (which is required to smoke meat as far as I know) you need leather. In order to get leather, you need to hunt. In order to hunt (effectively) you need a bow, and in order to get a bow you need rope (or leather I don’t remember).
Am I the only one who finds this a huge problem? In order to get leather you allready need leather. This is a huge problem for my hermit character living far from nearby towns. Is there another way to get a bow/rope?

EDIT by Erkka: argh, this one was another spam-bot posting a copypaste of an old topic. I deleted the spambot account but I'll let this post remain here, since it attracted some good replies which are up-to-date with the current version. Just in case some real new players are browsing the forums to seek help with similar questions.

[princebunnyboy]

I’ve found myself in a situation where I want to start smoking meat (fish mostly). In order to craft a rope (which is required to smoke meat as far as I know) you need leather. In order to get leather, you need to hunt. In order to hunt (effectively) you need a bow, and in order to get a bow you need rope (or leather I don’t remember).
Am I the only one who finds this a huge problem? In order to get leather you already need leather. This is a huge problem for my hermit character living far from nearby towns. Is there another way to get a bow/rope?

To smoke the fishes and make a bow you can just use cord, cord can be made out of almost anything. If you choose a starting scenario that starts you off with clothing you can cut a little off to make how much cord you need to make the bow or to smoke the fishes. Many players have started hunting however with self-made javelins and using the skin of their first kill make better weaponry and trade much of the flesh (If cut from a large animal like elk/stag/reindeer) for trade items as in the start of the game you won't have the means to store/cook it all.

Remember you craft cords that are 15 ft long. You are able to cut or combine these by using the ingame menu. Smoking meat and crafting objects tell you how much you need exactly so no need to waste cord! For example if you are making a fence you only need 4 ft of cordage but you make 15 ft sections when you make cord. So you can cut the 15 ft down by 4 ft multiple times for more fencing than if you used the whole 15 ft on one fence section! Also cords require less material overall than ropes do, so if you can use cords versus rope!

For hunting you can use the above method, and many players develop playstyles on how they decide to deal with early game. I do not only use javelins at the start of game because I have a very low patience for tracking a hurt animal for hours so I'll trade anything for a dog and make a couple javelins out of slender tree trunks. When I find an animal large enough I'll throw the javelin hope it hits then send the dog after them. Some players would advise against this as you can lose a dog, however I have never lost one of my dogs doing this by following the barking. Doing this the dog does all the work and you get all the skins/meats!

Tl;dr Use cords to smoke fishes, and craft a bow. Cords can be made by cutting clothing, furs, or combining the little trees called withers. Remember to shorten the cords for however much the recipe calls for, do not worry about cutting a bunch off as you will keep both sections of cordage!

[PALU]

As princebunnyboy mentioned towards the end: you don't need cord for smoking/drying/fence making, as withes work perfectly fine for these purposes, and withes are fairly easy to make from reasonably abundant material. You don't really need to bother about splitting and splicing withes, as you get them back after smoking/drying, so you build up a sufficient stock reasonably quickly.
"Real" cord and rope should be cut to the desired length, however, in order not to waste this precious resource.
You can also make rope out of bark for making a raft, although you have to harvest the bark in spring.