Version 3.85 beta released

[Sami]

And now, the time has come and version 3.85 beta is hereby released on Steam, Itch.Io and for lifetimers. It's a beta version, so functionality of all the new features still remains to be confirmed.
But in few weeks time, if no serious showstoppers are found, we can expect a stable release.

Here's the changelog:

Version: 3.85 (beta)

** Saved characters from version 3.80-> are compatible with this version. **

BETA NOTICE:

This is a beta release. There are likely bugs, things are still somewhat under construction, and some of the listed improvements will be tweaked and polished further in patches to follow.

- added: tree species property for big trunks and some assorted timber products

Upon felling big trees the tree species now gets derived into the produced tree trunk. As a result the tree trunks are now called as pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk or spruce tree tunk - depending on what species of a tree was felled. Felling small trees still produces the generic slender tree trunks, but in the future tree species property will be added for slender trunks as well.
There are also different tree trunk tile graphics for pine tree trunk, birch tree trunk and spruce tree trunk. These have been added as separate columns within truetile/trunk.png tile graphics file.
When making blocks of wood or boards out of the big trunks these products now also inherit the original tree species property. As a result these basic timber products will be now called for example as "block of spruce wood" or "pine board", etc.

- added: some crafts now require wood material of specific tree species

Some crafts now require specific species of wood as raw material. This is indicated within the material and tool selection dialog the same way as all the other preferences. For example, you may be given a messages such as "You need a board, preferably of pine or birch." or "You need a spruce trunk."
In cases where certain tree species is preferred it's still possible to use material of any tree species, but if it differs from the preferred types the produced item will be of lesser quality. In that case the generic "...can't make good out of bad." message will be shown upon obtaining the finished craft.
A specific wood species is now preferred when crafting the following items. And this feature will likely get more widely utilized in the future updates.

* Longbow, pine or birch is preferred
* Shortbow, pine or birch is preferred
* Wooden shovel, birch is preferred
* Wooden cup and bowl, birch is preferred
* Wood slat, pine is preferred
* Shingle, pine is required
* Paddle, spruce is preferred

- modding add: preferred tree species requirement

Where applicable you can specify preferred tree species as a required material within <> tag. For example:

{Tree trunk} <Spruce, Birch> [remove]
{Block of wood} <Birch> [remove]

On the first line a big tree trunk is required, and it should be preferably of either spruce or birch. On the second line block of wood is required, and it should be preferably of birch. In these cases it's still possible to use material of any tree species, but if it differs from the preferred types the quality of the produced item will be lower.
If only a certain type of tree species is accepted you should specify it directly by its full item name including the species. For example:

{Pine tree trunk}
or
{Spruce board}

- added: shingles - a traditional light source

Shingles are thin and flat oblong pieces of pine wood which were burnt to produce light - especially for lighting up houses during the dark time of the year. In addition, shingles are also used as handicraft raw material in the making of shingle baskets - which is a new item featured in this verison.
Shingles are timber type items, and they are lit by using [a]pply command. Once a shingle is burning you can drop and set it wherever the light is needed, or carry it with you. Traditionally shingles were burnt in a specific stand that kept them in a good angle for proper burning, but in the game the dropped burning shingles are imagined to be inserted between the wall logs or set firmly in place by some other means.
One shingle burns for about 30 minutes in the game so for continuous lighting a new one needs to be lit before the previous one fades out. This sort of shingle replacement is done automatically if your character is located beside the burning shingle and there's a stack of new shingles nearby on the ground. You character then automatically replaces and lights a new shingle when neccary, and you don't need to worry about maintaining the lighting even if the task you were doing would take a long time. Your companions will also automatically set a new shingle burning if they happen to be beside the fainting one.
Villagers now also stock shingles and can utilize them to light up their cottage houses. Villagers set shingles burning only when necessary so this kind of lighting in the villages is mostly seen only during the dark autumn and winter periods.

- added: SHINGLE game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- added: crafting shingles

You can find the option for crafting shingles at [M]ake menu under [L]umber category.
Shingles are split from a block of pine wood. The process requires an axe, knife and hammering tool such as club. First the block is split into smaller pieces and then the shingles are split and pulled apart one by one by using a knife and hands. One block of wood yields hundreds and hundreds of shingles, but it is time consuming process that can take a full working day. The exact amount of shingles produced from one block of wood is based on the success of your TIMBERCRAFT skill.

- added: shingle basket, a new container item

Shingle basket is a rather large container made out of shingles. You can craft shingle baskets from [M]ake menu under Utility articles.

- changed: Staff item type and role

Staves are now classified as timber type items rather than weapons, and considered mostly as raw material for crafting and construction purposes.
There are no changes to staff making. They are made from slender tree trunks by delimbing and debarking the trunk and cutting it to suitable lengths. A common staff is thought of being about two meters in length with a diameter that fits nicely in one's hand.

MIGRATION NOTICE: Weapon type staves obtained in previous versions do work in crafting the same way as the current version staves.

- updated: STAFF game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- changed: Flail item type and role

Grainflail is now classified as a tool type item, rather than being a weapon. For a long time flails were considered weapons but that approach was foremostly generic medieval weaponry relic from the past and quite inappropriate for the game world. Naturally the FLAIL combat skill no longer exists either.
In addition, the small flail item has been removed completely so there's only one flail item in the game world now - the grainflail.

MIGRATION NOTICE: FLAIL skill gets removed from the migrated characters upon their first load in this version. The old flails continue to appear as weapon type items, but their usage as weapons is now unpredictable.

- updated: GRAINFLAIL game encyclopedia (F1) entry

- added: pausable arrowhead making

Crafting of the arrowheads are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.

- changed: bone and stone arrowhead crafting batch size increased from 5 to 10

- changed: blunt arrow crafting

Blunt arrow crafting batch size is now increased to a dozen (12). As one slender trunk now yields 3 blunt arrows this is more reasonable batch number considering the sparing material usage.
An axe or carving knife is now also required in making of blunt arrows - for efficient rough cutting. You can still craft a blunt arrow with any knife alone, but using an axe or sturdy knife makes things easier.

- added: pausable fishing equipment

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Fishing" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item.
There are changes to the crafting recipes as follows;

* Wooden fishhook

It now takes 30 minutes on average to make.

* Lippo

It now takes 6 hours on average to make.

* Netting needle

A wooden stake is now required as a raw material to carve the netting needle from.

- added: pausable tying equipment

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Tying equipment" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused tying equipment crafting use any similar type of crafting again - ie. any cord, rope or withe - standing beside the partially finished item. So, even if you had for example a leather rope in the making, trying to craft birch-bark rope beside it still continues the original paused craft. So with tying equipment we hereby have an exception to pausable crafting continuing rules. If you choose to craft any type of cord, rope or withe the existing paused cord, rope or withe at the location will be finished first.

- added: pausable textilecraft

Spinning yarn and crafting of the spindle in [M]ake -> "Textilecraft" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item.
There are changes to the crafting recipes as follows;

* Spindle

It now takes 2 hours on average to make. Moreover, in addition using a knife alone, an axe or carving knife is preferred for rough cutting of the initial spindle shape.

- added: pausable utility articles

Crafting of the items in [M]ake -> "Utility articles" category are now pausable tasks allowing you to have breaks and continue at will later on.
To continue paused crafting use the same crafting option again standing beside the said partially finished item.
There are changes to the crafting recipes as follows;

* Grainflail

It's now made of two staves instead of a slender tree trunk. The staves are carved smooth and the impact stave is joined to the handle with a piece of cord.
It now takes 3 hours on average to make.

* Wooden cup

They can be now made in batches of up to 5 at a time, and one block of wood yields five cups. Production time of one cup has been increased to 90 minutes. Previously it was 1 hour.

* Wooden bowl

They can be now made in batches of up to 4 at a time, and one block of wood yields two bowls. Production time of one bowl has been increased to 3 hours. Previously it was 2 hours.

* Torch

They can be now made in batches of up to 10 at a time. Some tying equipment is now also required to keep the bundle of branches tight and convenient to handle. The tying equipment can be anything from withes to cords.

* Bandage

To make one bandage 0.5 lbs of cloth is required, instead of previous 1 lb.

- removed: skin (ie. waterskin) item

This item was actually a remnant from the very early years of the game where wilderness exploration and abundance of water wasn't so obvious. Moreover, water containers made out of leather are also somewhat anachronistic for the game world.

- modding add: [sucmodqty] tag to specificy success modified quantity of obtained items

Using [sucmodqty] tag at the item header modifies the number of items to produce, specified as (num), based on how the crafting attempt succeeded. Very succesfull crafting produces close to or exactly the specified number of items, and failures produce that much less.
For example, if we had an item header like this:
.Club. (10) /5h/ *COMMON* [sucmodqty]

This would always produce 10 clubs if there wasn't [sucmodqty] in use. But now as there's [sucmodqty] tag it can produce something like 7-10 clubs based on how the crafting attempt succeeds.

- changed: wood slat production amount is now prone to success modified quantity

The number of wood slats you get from one board is modified by how the crafting attempt succeeded.

- added: yield information of raw materials, where applicable, is now indicated upon starting to craft something

For example, when starting to craft staves there will be a message telling that "You can make 3 staves from one slender tree trunk." This way crafting can be planned sparingly in cases where certain raw material yield has been set.

- adjusted: availability of small garments such as socks and mittens in the villages has been increased

The chances to find small garments such as socks and mittens from the villages has been increased. You still may have to visit several prosperous villages to find a spare pair of precious woollen socks or mittens, but there's noticeable increase to the previous.

- added: proper stocking of skis and ski sticks in the villages

Skis and ski sticks are now properly stocked in the villages and the equipment quality can vary depending on the culture. Ski equipment restocking, if needed, is based on the village population and season.

- fixed: start-up scenarios generated too close to the villages

Sometimes a new character's location and start-up scenario were generated too close to the existing villages which caused scenario effects to spread into the villages. This was noticed for example with scenarios like "Unfortunate hunting trip" and "Not all who wander are lost."

- fixed: two animals getting caught in the same trap

- fixed: holes in the ice refreezing in slightly above zero degrees celsius temperatures

- fixed: glitches with using village trade credit for blacksmith orders

If you had enough village trade credit to cover the whole blacksmith order, asking the blacksmith's opinion about preferred items to trade only used up your credit but didn't proceed with the order.

- fixed: crawling while skiing

These two movement modes were erroneously simultaneously allowed. Now the crawling character with skis keeps only crawling, with the crawling speed.

- fixed: running while skiing

These two movement modes were erroneously simultaneously allowed. Now running is not possible when skiing.

- fixed: felled saplings in darkness displayed incorrectly

- fixed: rare shovel disappearance potential when digging a pit was paused

- fixed: NPCs occasionally setting fires at unsuitable and random locations

- fixed: being able to shoot broken arrows with a bow

- fixed: shoreline waters at the village area converted into spring water for migrated characters created before the spring addition

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers!

[PALU]

I'm a bit puzzled by the removal of the water skin. While it's true there's a lot of water in the world, it's rather inconvenient to get at during the winter. A water skin kept close to the body should keep it liquid, so you don't have to spend a lot of time making a hole in ice each time you need water.
It would be fine if there was a corresponding closed container, such as a wooden flask, but now you'd have to resort to using an open container, which works in the game, but not in the real world. You'd have to move extremely carefully to retain the water inside a bowl in the backpack...

[Sami]

I'm a bit puzzled by the removal of the water skin. While it's true there's a lot of water in the world, it's rather inconvenient to get at during the winter. A water skin kept close to the body should keep it liquid, so you don't have to spend a lot of time making a hole in ice each time you need water.
It would be fine if there was a corresponding closed container, such as a wooden flask, but now you'd have to resort to using an open container, which works in the game, but not in the real world. You'd have to move extremely carefully to retain the water inside a bowl in the backpack...

Yep, I thought this change might be a bit hard to digest, but gameplay wise it doesn't hurt that much. But true indeed, immersion wise it does hurt a bit, as the current available containers are open ones. During the era closed wooden containers (eg. "kimpileili" (fin)) were used for carrying liquids, and those would be a proper substitute for a waterskin.
I was actually considering possibilities to introduce them already in this version, but the crafting technique is so sophisticated that it was too costly to start implementing now.
Hmm. Maybe we could first feature these as a village crafts.

[Plotinus]

Is this what kimpileili looks like? https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2021009/_98E4AAD269714EFB1406F3D605D349EB

[Sami]

Is this what kimpileili looks like? https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2021009/_98E4AAD269714EFB1406F3D605D349EB

Yes, that's it.
Here's more examples in a search from finna.fi database:
https://www.finna.fi/Search/Results?lookfor=kimpileili&type=AllFields&lng=en-gb

[Bert Preast]

I think most of us are in favour of keeping skins.  We're for skins. 

[PALU]

Interesting images. So these were essentially very small kegs or barrels with (mostly) unusual dimensions.

If it was my decision I'd keep the water skins until the replacement was fully available (I'd still miss them, but it makes sense to remove them eventually). There are two game play aspects that suffer from an early removal (if you're bothered by realism and thus open containers):
- You have to rely on villages to be able to carry water with you properly (if only available in villages).
- They're fairly sophisticated, and thus out of reach for the early game, because of lack of skills and equipment.

It can be noted that if, at some point, the ability to carry around liquids in open containers in the inventory is removed, care needs to be taken to still allow for it to be carried by hand (e.g. carrying water from the stream to the hearth for e.g. cooking) by carrying the container in the hand(s).

[Plotinus]

Interesting images. So these were essentially very small kegs or barrels with (mostly) unusual dimensions.

If it was my decision I'd keep the water skins until the replacement was fully available (I'd still miss them, but it makes sense to remove them eventually). There are two game play aspects that suffer from an early removal (if you're bothered by realism and thus open containers):
- You have to rely on villages to be able to carry water with you properly (if only available in villages).
- They're fairly sophisticated, and thus out of reach for the early game, because of lack of skills and equipment.

It can be noted that if, at some point, the ability to carry around liquids in open containers in the inventory is removed, care needs to be taken to still allow for it to be carried by hand (e.g. carrying water from the stream to the hearth for e.g. cooking) by carrying the container in the hand(s).

Maybe once this is implemented, open containers could be auto-emptied when you enter the world map, so you had to transport them while zoomed in. You'd have to be careful about soups and milk and other valuable liquids though

These days I'm mostly building new homes by springs so it's not that much of a hassle, before I used to build by rapids.

[Sami]

I think most of us are in favour of keeping skins.  We're for skins. 

It's always ever so hard to say what the majority of players think (of this),
but a simple mod snippet to allow crafting skins would be quite easy solution for those who crave them.

[Bert Preast]

I was clumsily making a joke - we're for skins/foreskins 

But I would like to back up Palu's point on the problem of having them in villages, I often start in winter in the far north-east and avoid human contact as best I can for at least the first year.  There are no rivers up there, so one of my first missions is to set traps for birds for leather for a skin, so I can go more than half a day's travel from my water source without dehydrating. 

I appreciate there are springs in the game now, but I don't look for them as I doubt they would exist in the far north-east - or at least they should be far less common than in the other regions.

[McKwack]

I think most of us are in favour of keeping skins.  We're for skins. 

It's always ever so hard to say what the majority of players think (of this),
but a simple mod snippet to allow crafting skins would be quite easy solution for those who crave them.

I think there's already a Canteen in BAC (the water bottle, not the food court ), which is made by tying 2 wooden cups together.
This should be sufficient for the need to have a 'closed container' to carry water around, although I'm not sure how much it would break the immersion by having a canteen in the game world.. 

[Galgana]

I have a mod with recipes that 1) reduce the weight of logs and slender trunks for the sake of easier transportation 2) revert these items to their normal weight.

Of course, these products remain generic in the current beta. But once the inheritance of tree species does become fully implemented, I wonder what support the modding syntax will have for specifying the tile graphic index?
I was thinking about using [name] to retain species identity in my modded crafts, but the result will be less than ideal if I'm unable to keep the products visually uniform with unmodded stacks.

[Matti-patti]

I'm a bit puzzled by the removal of the water skin. While it's true there's a lot of water in the world, it's rather inconvenient to get at during the winter. A water skin kept close to the body should keep it liquid, so you don't have to spend a lot of time making a hole in ice each time you need water.
It would be fine if there was a corresponding closed container, such as a wooden flask, but now you'd have to resort to using an open container, which works in the game, but not in the real world. You'd have to move extremely carefully to retain the water inside a bowl in the backpack...

Yep, I thought this change might be a bit hard to digest, but gameplay wise it doesn't hurt that much. But true indeed, immersion wise it does hurt a bit, as the current available containers are open ones. During the era closed wooden containers (eg. "kimpileili" (fin)) were used for carrying liquids, and those would be a proper substitute for a waterskin.
I was actually considering possibilities to introduce them already in this version, but the crafting technique is so sophisticated that it was too costly to start implementing now.
Hmm. Maybe we could first feature these as a village crafts.

Having them as village crafts would be good enough in my opinion, player crafting can come later. I always buy my waterskins (from village hunters) as is, since crafting them is rarely practical (either you need ton of bird skin or need to de-hair valuavle fur which you could have used to just buy the skin).

[Plotinus]

I'm a bit puzzled by the removal of the water skin. While it's true there's a lot of water in the world, it's rather inconvenient to get at during the winter. A water skin kept close to the body should keep it liquid, so you don't have to spend a lot of time making a hole in ice each time you need water.
It would be fine if there was a corresponding closed container, such as a wooden flask, but now you'd have to resort to using an open container, which works in the game, but not in the real world. You'd have to move extremely carefully to retain the water inside a bowl in the backpack...

Yep, I thought this change might be a bit hard to digest, but gameplay wise it doesn't hurt that much. But true indeed, immersion wise it does hurt a bit, as the current available containers are open ones. During the era closed wooden containers (eg. "kimpileili" (fin)) were used for carrying liquids, and those would be a proper substitute for a waterskin.
I was actually considering possibilities to introduce them already in this version, but the crafting technique is so sophisticated that it was too costly to start implementing now.
Hmm. Maybe we could first feature these as a village crafts.

Having them as village crafts would be good enough in my opinion, player crafting can come later. I always buy my waterskins (from village hunters) as is, since crafting them is rarely practical (either you need ton of bird skin or need to de-hair valuavle fur which you could have used to just buy the skin).

You can also use leather ropes, if you hit escape to see the rest of your inventory.

Once you have a full fur suit, it's worth dehairing an elk fur; they're not worth much to foreign traders in comparison to the lighter furs, and you can get a lot of leather that way

[Sami]

Interesting images. So these were essentially very small kegs or barrels with (mostly) unusual dimensions.

Yes. The dimensions would vary, but the usual medium size being around 40cm tall, 30cm wide, and 15cm deep they would hold several litres of liquid.

If it was my decision I'd keep the water skins until the replacement was fully available (I'd still miss them, but it makes sense to remove them eventually). There are two game play aspects that suffer from an early removal (if you're bothered by realism and thus open containers):
- You have to rely on villages to be able to carry water with you properly (if only available in villages).
- They're fairly sophisticated, and thus out of reach for the early game, because of lack of skills and equipment.

Yes, I understand these points, but as the player character can fashion eg. wooden bowls to carry water the gameplay without relying to village resources remains an option - which is of importance. And oh well, considering the realism, a proper waterskin would also be far more sophisticated to craft than how it was modelled earlier - and I don't know if that actually would be a trade of every youngster in the game world to be able to pull trough.

We don't actually even aim for player character to be able to craft everything, for the sake of realism. So in order to make one's life more comfortable in the unreal world relying on village resources is, and will remain, mandatory to some extent. Hermit life is, and will remain possible, but hermits need to accept that they'll be leading a little different lifestyle especially in regards to their gear.

It can be noted that if, at some point, the ability to carry around liquids in open containers in the inventory is removed, care needs to be taken to still allow for it to be carried by hand (e.g. carrying water from the stream to the hearth for e.g. cooking) by carrying the container in the hand(s).

I haven't considered this sort of restrictions. The inventory management is quite forgiving in many ways, for the sake of gameplay.
Characters can run, fall, crawl and climb trees while carrying delicate eggs, slippery fresh perches, fistfuls of tiny seeds, all sorts of containers, burning torches and all that