Buoidda's crafts 2.3.6 [released 2021-01-12]

[Buoidda]

Buoidda's crafts 2.3.6
mod for UnRealWorld version 3.63
Developed with Windows 10, no testing on other ops
Release date 2021-01-12
https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=5865.0

So, one summer day your character thought: "I should clear out all these felled trees."



Buoidda's crafts 2.3


DESCRIPTION

This mod is for all those characters who want to be able to walk peacefully among blossoming trees, work their bark, pick their leaves, taste their flowers and berries... aaand to chop them down and make weapons of mass-destruction!!! Muahhahahahahaaaa (crazy laughter is obfuscated by birds' cheerful singing.)

It adds possibility to:

• make traditional wooden boxes sewn with quills
  
• make traditional sámi preserved sausages called "gurpi"
• find linden trees, a good source of bast fibre
• find two different willows, with various uses
• find big rowan trees, a source of berries
• watch the rowans flower in summer
• collect big branches out of the occasional huge spruce trees
• find slanted pine trees for compression wood
• find straight junipers, birches, rowans and elms
• chop bow staves out of them
• make bows out of spruce, juniper, birch, rowan and elm
• make those complex northern bows out of pine compression wood
• make bowstrings out of various materials
• extract linden and willow bast
• extract spruce bast by roasting spruce saplings
• make cordage from various fibres and rawhide
• make 3ft ropes by braiding cords together
• make 4ft 4-ply ropes out of birch-bark
• harvest blood, intestine and sinew from all your bone bearing kills
• make blood sausages and cakes. Yum! Tasty.
• fletch with various arrowheads of various materials. Forked fowling arrows!
• make necklaces out of bears' and seals' teeth
• ret nettle and hemp for fibre (Rain's retting process included)

QUICK INSTALLATION

• Place all the .txt files in the UnrealWorld game folder
• Place all .png image files and .bat files in the "UnrealWorld\truetile" subfolder. In most cases, simply unzipping this package to URW game folder does it for you.
• rename your original "diy_glossary.txt" to "ORIGINAL diy_glossary.txt"
• rename "ALTERNATE GLOSSARY diy_Buoidda's_glossary.txt" to "diy_Buoidda's_glossary.txt"
• If you have multiple mods you may have to check the hotkeys in menudef_*.txt -files. Each menu entry should have its own hotkey, including those in-game.
  

INSTALLATION DETAILS

This mod is in multiple files. They do not overwrite vanilla unreal world installation. But to achieve clean menus, you probably want to comment out some vanilla recipes from diy_glossary.txt.

• If you are upgrading, erase all files containing "*Buoidda's*.txt" in their name. I've renamed most to comply with Urw filename format. Sometimes I choose to reorder menu items with this letter: diy_l_Buoidda's_fibres.txt
• I'm providing a file to make those recommended edits, called "ALTERNATE GLOSSARY diy_Buoidda's glossary.txt".
• Rename "ALTERNATE GLOSSARY diy_Buoidda's_glossary.txt" to "diy_Buoidda's_glossary.txt".
• You'll want to rename your original "diy_glossary.txt" to "ORIGINAL diy_glossary.txt". This way it will not be read in-game.
• This mod will replace your rowan, alder, birch, and paddle graphics. Originals are provided.

ROLE-PLAY AND HINTS
There are number of things in this mod I couldn't force players to do

• I cannot mod trees to change leaf cover by season. You can change them manually with enclosed batch-files and then reloading graphics with 'F9'.
• The trees are not proper trees which you can cut down normally. Some of them you can harvest and they appear felled. Others can be picked such as lindens which give flowers (which can be converted to bast) and big rowans, which give  berries.
  
• Harvest: slanted pine, juniper, all willows, straight elm, rowan and birch.
  
• Pick: elm (or harvest and tresh), big rowan (pick young leaves to get lumber), lindens and spruces.
  
• Whatever the method of harvesting, you are supposed to immediately use an appropriate crafting recipe to process the harvestables into proper items.
• Linden flowers and willow leaves can also be used as herbs. Note linden are found mostly in the south-west.
• When harvesting carcass produce, use a bone on the ground: due to a bug the bone will not be consumed. You are supposed to do it as soon as you get the bones from butchering - not later: that's cheating.
  
• They are cooking recipes and demand fire for no obvious reason. This is due to modding constraints.
• For same technical reason blood can only be collected in a pot.

See the txt files for detailed comments!

FILE LIST

ALTERNATE GLOSSARY diy_Buoidda's_glossary.txt
BC_changelog.txt
cookery_Buoidda's_NF.txt
diy_k_Buoidda's_crafts.txt
diy_l_Buoidda's_fibres.txt
diy_m_Buoidda's_bowying.txt
diy_n_Buoidda's_cordage.txt
diy_o_Buoidda's_fletching.txt
diy_p_Buoidda's_jewelry.txt
flo-turnip.png
flora_Buoidda's_trees.txt
menudef_Buoidda's_crafts.txt
*this readme file*
truetile\av-hare*.png       (3 image files)
truetile\bc-*.png           (52 image files)
truetile\it-paddle.png      (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ter-alder.png      (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ter-birch.png      (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ter-ndalder.png    (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ter-ndbirch.png    (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ter-ndrowan.png    (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ter-rowan.png      (overwrite warning!)
truetile\ORIGINAL *.png     (8 image files, 71 image files total)
truetile\bc-leafsum.bat
truetile\bc-leafwin.bat     (2 batch files total)
                            (85 files total)

LEGAL

This mod contains modifications based on UnReal World game tiles and may be used with UnReal World game only. Using these tiles in any way for any other game/project is forbidden.

I have made some of the graphics, but this was mostly just cut and paste of vanilla tiles with some retouching. The juniper is a prime example. I'd very much welcome some of my tiles redrawn by some more skilled of an artist.


CREDITS

Credits for individual work are found in code comments.

My deepest gratitude goes for trowftd. His patient help with the various tree graphics was invaluable.

Thanks for Rain for making his original retting code.

Huge thanks for Kaaven and Atwood for their art. I may not have used much of theirs in this version, much is found in the BAC.

I have reviewed Brygun's fine community mod (BAC) and how some of my old code has evolved in the hands of others. https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=4712.0 and found some ideas like not using only staff in Northern staff-bow's name. My code is well commented, but hopefully I haven't overlooked anything important I borrowed. I'm glad how this community has evolved over the years.

All work not otherwise marked, is mine and free to use and redistribute as you please without attribution. Claim it as yours if you feel like it. Make money! Riches! Wohou! Oh? No money? Dang. Maybe this wasn't so special after all.

[Buoidda]

Important: Characters from previous updates will not have flora updated - at least not in explored areas. Sometimes out-dated flora will also find their way in new areas too. That's why safest is to start with a fresh character whenever flora files are changed. I will note this in changelog and also cover how meaningful the changes are. Doesn't usually matter that much.

About version numbering that I follow:


Buoidda's Crafts 2.3.1
2. <----- Major version number (not all that interesting)
3. <----- character compatibility number (likely big flora file change): if this changes, previous characters are not recommended
1  <----- new crafting recipes, bug fixes, graphics etc.: characters are compatible


Game balance appraisal

• being able to start making rope (first cord, rope from 3 cords) for stone-axe is important. Shelters and trees are done with far quicker, which is a boon if you are barenaked in the winter wonderland. Also they are made in 3ft lengths, not 15. Time consumed is realistic-ish as in very long. Expect to twist for days if you want 15 ft of spruce-bast rope.
• willows and lindens become harvestable in early summer season, when many other plants are still growing
• during summer, sources for plant cordage are abundant
• in winter you can't spam bast cordage indefinitely. Spruce saplings are the only source. In summer sources for plant fibre are almost everywhere.
• willows make tanning compounds abundant, but only harvestable during summer season
• with harvested willow roots you can make withes. Also season dependent
• plant cordage is slower to make, but available in winter (finite resources on islands)
• arrows and bows are a lot slower to make
• elm for "longbows" are available around south-west
  
• once you have the food and gear to make Northern bows, that makes for a lucrative trade
• teeth sell well as jewellery
• some increase in food from carcasses if you (are able to) make intestine foods
• fletching and bowying are a pain compared to vanilla. Muah. Making elm bows, northern bows and tooth jewelry is a lucrative way to make trade goods.

Running commentary

Version 2.3

This update brings big changes to the way players look at the surrounding forest. It's easy to miss a useful tree individual and the best ones are not so common. Thank you @trowftd once more with helping me out with the graphics. Your help was welcome indeed. The reason I'm bringing so many trees in one update is future character compatibility: I try to update the flora*.txt as seldom as possible to ensure best play experience. That's why we had to work extra hard for the new trees to need as little changing as possible in possible future releases.

2.3.3. Now the trees can also be 'felled' by harvesting, with the exception of big rowans. The produce doesn't feature normal lumber, the outcome is tree spesific.

Making short- and longbows has now an added step, inspired by the BAC. It now takes a few days to dry a bow preform before tillering and finishing the bow can start. It is also possible to make bows in a week or so in real world too. If one manages to make the bow very close to the final measurements without bending it too much, there is little wood left to dry. The important thing is not to strain the wood before it is dry enough or it will take permanent "set" or compression damage. The heat treating in the recipes is partly to reflect quicker drying too, though there are so many little things that just are better not to overthink about.

I left drying out of the Northern bow. It's a 'curiosity' of not needing to do it. It kinda makes sense since compression wood is so ridiculously strong in, well, compression. The backing is not likely to fail because of excess moisture content. But actually in real life it is especially important to have appropriate moisture content in compression wood since its length changes about 25 times more with moisture content changes than it does with 'regular' wood. So while a 'wet' bow might work for a while, once dry it might actually be uselessly weak in the shot. On the other hand, making a too dry compression wood bow might result it becoming impossibly strong (with ears almost touching each other) to even survive bracing in once piece once it reaches outside moisture equilibrium. This is more likely with modern replicas. The pine bellies must be roasted to eliminate some of these moisture content length changes. So it naturally brings some drying to it too. Ok enought with the spesifics: I might add it later, but lately I've been all about trees!

I really like how the trees are working now. They are not perfect, but do make a more vivid and lush atmosphere, especially in groves. Most tree produce you just pick up and process on the spot. Willow leaves and linden flowers are herbs on their own, but can also be conveted into bark and bast, respectively. You are supposed to make the decision of which ones to convert on the site. For willow roots you need to 'h'arvest and it destroys the whole tree, then 't'resh. For willow baskets you use whole willow bushes. Big rowans bear mainly berries, but before they are ripe, you can also "cut the tree down" by picking young leaves and process them into a bowstave. For other trees I doubt explanation is needed. Happy lumberjacking!

Version 2.2

Spoiler: show

Most important comments are in the code but I have to say this was an interesting one for a tree-lover. Also I noticed some significant curing times for timber in the BAC. While that's pretty much how I cure my bow-staves irl, it is possible to make bows quickly irl too. Maybe in a week or so. It just needs more care and expertise. And I don't want to wait in game for months.

Also about pricing. I noticed low prices in BAC bows. That's fair balancing. I didn't include that because now finding the material is a lot more work and also because I don't like the idea of identical things having different values. Like clothes do nowadays. It still does allow to make the valuable Northern bows as trade goods (smaller bows are considerably harder to make than in vanilla). Also the tooth jewelry is valuable in my mod, for roleplay.

The tillering gear in BAC felt modernish. Dedicated tillering gear was presumably a more central European castle / city-dweller thing. But it is perfectly true that bow-making should take more time. I try to keep menu bloating to minimum to increase my own immersion.

I was tracking elks the other day (irl) and was thinking how different elk and reindeer strides are. I edited the in-game elk tracks by removing half of them. Now seems more accurate long steps. Reindeers do that annoying going about in circles irl too, messing all other tracks.

Version 2.1

Spoiler: show

I thought I put out this thing I've been working on lately. Bark cordage in the original Buoidda's crafts 1.x has bothered me since I only knew about lime and willow cordage at the time. Now I've learned the proper word: "bast" and researched and rethought parts of my old mod. Alder bast is too brittle for cordage.

One novelty is that while over the years various branches and stuff have been modded to be soaked to make cordage, it isn't always necessary to ret wood (I'm not talking of grasses) to obtain bast. It can be of help, though. But modding it is a problem since retting in winter would take totally different time than in summer. (Maybe abuse spoiling time?)

Anyway, during sap rising you can just extract the bast straight on from trees. Or during winter one can roast the wood gently to break down the 'glue' that holds bast fibers together.

I've tested it but not as punitively as back then when I was younger and full of enthusiasm. Please report any problems and of course welcome to ask and discuss. This is a fairly simple mod though. And before anyone asks, I do not plan to update or publish all of my old mods.

The majority of the original Buoidda's crafts is engulfed in Brygun's community mod (BAC: https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=4712.0) and I'm happy of it. They can stay there. I warmly thank Brygun for his stewardship. Here I'm only presenting new (for me, at least) techniques I came up with, like using animals' bones to calculate blood volume and intestine and sinew weights.

Cord quality

Spoiler: show

I'd want to mod cord quality modifiers as: fragile, weak, (normal), strong, very strong. That's how I think of them.

I've tried to mod hemp to produce the best quality fibers, then nettle, sinew, rowan and lastly spruce. But I wasn't completely happy with it. Tags like %-50% don't seem to affect output strongly enough.

The reason sinew is not the best fibre is the climate. While sinew does have exceptional qualities, they are greatly reduced in the cold and damp Finland-like climate. Sinew-backed bows could break in sub-zero conditions.

So in unreal world, I reckon plant-based fibres will produce the best, least elastic bow strings. Go for hemp. Flax would be best, it's featured in BAC.

[Dungeon Smash]

Great to see you still making mods your old crafting mod was one of my favorites.

[Buoidda]

Thank you! I wonder where the like button is...

[Dungeon Smash]

Thank you! I wonder where the like button is...

Only in the other sub-forums for some reason, I'm afraid.

[Brygun]

Hey Bouidda,

Just noticed this thread. Great to see you are back. Your mods have continued to be with us as chunks of them are in the BAC mod. The fletching mod draws from your extensively.  There is crediting for you is in the fletching diy. Thanks for all the contributions over the years.

Brygun
caretaker of the BAC

[Buoidda]

Thank you! I've noticed. I'm happy they live on

My current interest in Urw is in things I can't mod, as you see in my suggestion spree. 

[Brygun]

Thank you! I've noticed. I'm happy they live on

My current interest in Urw is in things I can't mod, as you see in my suggestion spree. 

 

Right there with you. Saami and Erkka have given us an amazing game. The long term interests will always lead to more suggestions. They have added in some of the additions, like more NPC tasking, and big changes like the revamp on the cordage.

[Brygun]

Working on a partial integration of your new ideas into BAC.

Query:
If we can get fibres from spruce saplings couldn't we use full grown spruce or spruce twigs?

[Buoidda]

Code: [Select]

// The best bast is obtained from young trees cut in early summer,
// though collecting it at this time implies a retting process lasting
// several weeks, to degrade the soft tissues and separate the bast
// from the outer bark. Bast can be processed more quickly in early
// spring as the sap is rising, or in winter, in which case the bast can be
// separated rapidly over a fire."
// Hardy, Karen 2018. "Plant use in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: Food, medicine and raw materials"
Yes in real life. Though it would be much more tedious from branches/twigs since the bast is thinner there and more knots too.
The game doesn't distinguish wood species in (slender) trunks.

In the mod I'm thinking game balance, since finding saplings does need extra work and on islands at least are a limited resource.

Maybe BAC could use an additional, even more time-consuming roasting recipe for twigs something like (3 twigs/ 2hrs / 0.1lbs fibre).

[Brygun]

trying things out with Tuukka.

The yield form a spruce sapling was 0.1 lb of fibre. This seems... light. Obviously its not the whole weight of the tree. Maybe the yield should be 0.3 or 0.4. A rope has 1 pound so you would need 4 or 3 spruce saplings to make one.

[Buoidda]

10-1 ratio is reasonable in the game, imho. Total bast yield of a tree would weigh seriously less than 10 to 1 irl.

This also reflects the expense of making quality cordage. Our real life foremothers were constantly making cordage, for its applications were endless.

Note that you can make 3x 3ft cords from clothes and twine them into 3ft rope quite quickly.

[Brygun]

mmmmkay

I need many more spruce saplings now. 

Thought occured to me about having a braiding of the withes into rope strength item. It would mean being able to use both birch and spruce saplings.  Not sure if they are strong enough.

[Buoidda]

My island is empty of saplings. I'm making more forestry damage here than a starving elk in winter. 

Sure one could do that irl. I've towed a car with braided willow bark (strips of the whole bark, not just bast). Just a few meters to test it. Worked fine. 

The possibilites in real life are pretty much endless. The thing is, ofc, whether it would bring value to the game feel or its balance.

Never mind. Rereading your comment, I see it usable in an island setting, yes. The strength of such a thing is a complicated question, for sure it would weigh more at least.

In case you missed my edit earlier:

Maybe BAC could use an additional, even more time-consuming roasting recipe for twigs something like (3 twigs/ 2hrs / 0.1lbs fibre).

[Brygun]

believe the quality of the bast like "fine" can interfere with the recipe calls so they should be *fibre calls

Testing now