Quality Questions

[GrimmSpector]

Is there a way to tell what crafts and items I can find or make in higher quality levels? Like what I can get to fine or superior levels? It isn't clear from the stuff I've seen on the wiki, if I am capable of it, or if some of it just appears in the world in those formats, etc.

[JP_Finn]

Finding any level item is technically possible. But don’t expect foreign traders hauling below decent weapons or armor with them.
Pro-tip: if you see masterwork leather garments for sale,  traders or villages, consider getting them.

You can craft certain weapons to fine, even superior. Clothing by character is capped at decent. Lower level resources limit the max level of output.
Superior fur will make at most decent clothing.
Fine staff can by used to make fine javelin.
Arrows pre-3.80 Stable could be made to superior, above the quality level of yarn used. I haven’t tested arrow making with high enough Carpentry yet to see where the levels are with arrow shaft blanks and arrow head levels.

[GrimmSpector]

Finding any level item is technically possible. But don’t be Percy foreign traders hauling below decent weapons or armor with them.
Pro-tip: if you see masterwork leather garments for sale,  traders or villages, consider getting them.

You can craft certain weapons to fine, even superior. Clothing by character is capped at decent. Lower level resources limit the max level of output.
Superior fur will make at most decent clothing.
Fine staff can by used to make fine javelin.
Arrows pre-3.80 Stable could be made to superior, above the quality level of yarn used. I haven’t tested arrow making with high enough Carpentry yet to see where the levels are with arrow shaft blanks and arrow head levels.

That's a bit disappointing that if I produce a superior bear fur I can't make it into a superior piece of clothing -.- or even fine ... that sucks! We have a textilecraft skill now, why not limit the quality by that?

[JP_Finn]

I think Sami mentioned sometime ago that textilecraft is not his perception of tailoring. Compare to Timbercraft and Carpentry when dealing with sourcing and refining wood. At the moment the game uses Common skill (that doesn't improve) to make clothing (and some other tasks)

Here's the topic

Now that I looked up the post, it was about hideworking. Not wood working.

[GrimmSpector]

I think Sami mentioned sometime ago that textilecraft is not his perception of tailoring. Compare to Timbercraft and Carpentry when dealing with sourcing and refining wood. At the moment the game uses Common skill (that doesn't improve) to make clothing (and some other tasks)

Here's the topic

Now that I looked up the post, it was about hideworking. Not wood working.

Interesting ... I wonder if he has plans or if he's deliberately wanting the player to not be able to make quality clothing.

[JP_Finn]

I’ve been playing URW for well over 20years. If anything, things go bigger and better. Cloth making/tailoring from yarn, leather, furs will be updated. Eventually.

Meanwhile, modding is pretty easy. Copy and rename original diy_glossary, then open and look for clothing items you think should use hideworking, change COMMON to HIDEWORKING. Save and see if your skilled skinner/tanner can then make fine or even masterwork garments.

[PALU]

It's probably known by most, but it might be worth mentioning here anyway: Quality of a product is capped by the quality of its input, and that means some things can't normally be made to have a quality higher than Decent, such as things made out of logs and small trees. There is a small number of exceptions where the input material quality is ignored, letting skill determine the quality of the result (planks, for example).

As mentioned able, it's possible to find staves of higher quality than Decent out in the world, even though it's only possible to make them to the Decent level at most yourselves. These higher quality staves can then be made into javelins of higher quality, although I don't think I've ever managed to get a Superior one.

When it comes to high quality clothing, it's been discussed in the past. The argument is basically that high quality clothing production is a time consuming process that the current system cannot really handle as products have to be possible to make in a single session (making the work possible to pause and resume would help, while additional production steps quickly results in menu cluttering that may well require menu logic rework).

[GrimmSpector]

It's probably known by most, but it might be worth mentioning here anyway: Quality of a product is capped by the quality of its input, and that means some things can't normally be made to have a quality higher than Decent, such as things made out of logs and small trees. There is a small number of exceptions where the input material quality is ignored, letting skill determine the quality of the result (planks, for example).

As mentioned able, it's possible to find staves of higher quality than Decent out in the world, even though it's only possible to make them to the Decent level at most yourselves. These higher quality staves can then be made into javelins of higher quality, although I don't think I've ever managed to get a Superior one.

When it comes to high quality clothing, it's been discussed in the past. The argument is basically that high quality clothing production is a time consuming process that the current system cannot really handle as products have to be possible to make in a single session (making the work possible to pause and resume would help, while additional production steps quickly results in menu cluttering that may well require menu logic rework).

Gotcha. I feel there's precedent in how tanning works for this, where the Tanning command runs you through multiple steps, but yeah the single session crafting does really make things tough. Not the only game to suffer from it, but some games (Catacylsm is an example), instead change their item logic, where an item is a % complete while working through all the relevant crafting steps affected by each relevant skill.

[JP_Finn]

One way to complicate the clothes crafting (with mods, sadly no skills can be modded), separating steps in to “measure, cut and sew sleeves”x2, “measure, cut and sew body”, “sew the shirt together”

When working with flat pieces like leather, fur and cloth, it’s pretty straightforward and not overly complicated in real life. But one does lose portion of the material from cutoffs, which can be used elsewhere, but that adds additional sewing.
Nalbinding, knitting and even crochet doesn’t waste yarn, but takes an experienced craftsperson to produce anything in decent time.

Once “pause any task” from development plans gets implemented, that’ll also hopefully include tasks longer than 8h.

(There’s an exploit* to utilize the rare masterwork staff into multiple masterwork javelins: have 8 staves of any quality on ground/adjacent, then select to make 9 javelins and last choose MW staff from your inventory, do not have the MW staff on ground!
*last tested in 3.63, might not work in 3.72 or 3.80)
Is it unfair to use such exploit: maybe. But one could contest that a grand-timber-master should be able to produce MW and Fine staves themselves.

[JP_Finn]

Some updates with 3.80:

Masterwork staff and 8 Decent staffs, got 5 Fine, 4 Decent and 1 Rough javelin.
The vanilla recipe uses COMMON with no skill modifier; so flat 50.
So there's been some rebalancing in last 3-4, 5? years.

With Carpentry 64-68, using Fine wood slats I get about 90% Fine arrows with Decent heads. Using Fine heads and Decent shafts I get about 75% Fine arrows. This character's Timbercraft is not high enough to produce Perfect boards. Using masterwork heads only yields Fine arrows, regardless if using Decent or Fine shafts. (that was expensive experimentation)
I think I need to wait for late winter, then go start a new cabin. Timbercraft should go up nicely. I'm sort of expecting to get Superior arrows with decent heads and Perfect arrow shafts. Carpentry might hit 70 over the winter, which can skew the testing results.
All arrows were tied with Fine linen yarn.
Might need another toon to test with. Higher Timbercraft, Carpentry in 40-50 range.

[JP_Finn]

I've not had any noticeable difference using Perfect, Fine or Decent yarns.

I'm waiting for smith to finish few more batches of decent arrowheads, then test with Perfect shafts.

[NiCool]

Some updates with 3.80:

Masterwork staff and 8 Decent staffs, got 5 Fine, 4 Decent and 1 Rough javelin.
The vanilla recipe uses COMMON with no skill modifier; so flat 50.
So there's been some rebalancing in last 3-4, 5? years.

With Carpentry 64-68, using Fine wood slats I get about 90% Fine arrows with Decent heads. Using Fine heads and Decent shafts I get about 75% Fine arrows. This character's Timbercraft is not high enough to produce Perfect boards. Using masterwork heads only yields Fine arrows, regardless if using Decent or Fine shafts. (that was expensive experimentation)
I think I need to wait for late winter, then go start a new cabin. Timbercraft should go up nicely. I'm sort of expecting to get Superior arrows with decent heads and Perfect arrow shafts. Carpentry might hit 70 over the winter, which can skew the testing results.
All arrows were tied with Fine linen yarn.
Might need another toon to test with. Higher Timbercraft, Carpentry in 40-50 range.

I have tried producing superior arrows with masterwork arrowheads, fine arrow shafts and fine yarn and i seem to be able to do so about 25% of the time

[JP_Finn]

@NiCool
What's your character's Carpentry?

[NiCool]

carpentry 100

[NiCool]

Update: Another character of mine with carpentry 76 was able to produce superior arrow in 3.81 using masterwork arrowhead, perfect arrow shaft and perfect nettle yarn.