Flint knapping and bone/antler usage


Dan_

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I find myself fascinated with primitive hunting lately and the extensive use of antlers as flint knapping tools have me wishing we had this feature on TLD. Given the amount of threads covering many other uses of a carcass I guess this one could add a lot of useful gameplay mechanics that fit with the game as it is today. 

Ryan Gill did a test video on where he compared a well made stone point with an equivalent sized steel point penetrating a boar shield. Both arrows were fired with primitive hunting bows ( no recurves or backing ) and the stone point could not penetrate the boar fully when fired with a primitive bow, but it would pass through a deer like it was made of mashed potato. 

So, could we have the possibility of using deer antlers for flintknapping arrow heads that we could then use to hunt deer and rabbit, but not wolf, moose and bears?

I feel this would provide a good trade-off in gameplay balance where you can use stone arrowheads to feed yourself, but you can't use them as a means of self defense. Predators would still rule the land much like early interloper games and you would literally just survive and not thrive like we do now. 

Also bone hooks and needles would fit into this category, grinding a bone knife on coarse stone should yield a usable albeit clumsy and frail crafting tool but not a useful combat weapon. 

My pipe dream is that Hinterland would whip up an Otzi the iceman challenge next update and leave us in a 100% wild pleasant valley with only bone tools and friction fire to survive. 

Edited by Dan_
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Also, velvet antlers of young male deer, elk moose and caribou can be dried sliced and even powderized and boiled in water and drank like a medicinal soup or dietary supplement according to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_antler 

Otzi the iceman, is that the ice man that was found with birch polypore and a birch conk worn as a pendant and used as survival tool? 

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I've been wanting a lot of things like this for a while now, starting with using the marrow in bones as a food source (but a heavy one if you transport the bone with the marrow inside, keeping it fresh), and ending with using the bones for tools.

Note that antler is only used in fine, delicate stone knapping after the main shape is achieved by using a hammerstone. 

As for the use of stone points and tools, as metal arrowheads in the game are reusable and AFAIK don't deteriorate, there is no need for stone arrowheads. But anyway, one can use bone for arrowheads and fishhooks and tools, and bone is readily available. Bone points would be a LOT easier to make than a stone tool (trust me, I've knapped.) Stone points and tools deteriorate very quickly (they dull, though can be resharpened, making them smaller) and points have a chance to snap in half upon impact (this includes spear and atlatl points).

Mostly, I'd love the chance to make hooks and needles from bone.

Edited by reginaphalange
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On 3/26/2019 at 6:41 AM, XAlaskan_420X said:

Otzi the iceman, is that the ice man that was found with birch polypore and a birch conk worn as a pendant and used as survival tool? 

He also had a copper axe, stone knife and a quiver with some flint tipped arrows. Fascinating stuff that shows how we must never doubt human ingenuity even in dire circunstances. 

38 minutes ago, reginaphalange said:

Note that antler is only used in fine, delicate stone knapping after the main shape is achieved by using a hammerstone. 

As for the use of stone points and tools, as metal arrowheads in the game are reusable and AFAIK don't deteriorate, there is no need for stone arrowheads. But anyway, one can use bone for arrowheads and fishhooks and tools, and bone is readily available. Bone points would be a LOT easier to make than a stone tool (trust me, I've knapped.) Stone points and tools deteriorate very quickly (they dull, though can be resharpened, making them smaller) and points have a chance to snap in half upon impact (this includes spear and atlatl points).

Mostly, I'd love the chance to make hooks and needles from bone.

I wasn't specifically asking for stone tools ( a simple bone knife, or hide scraper is what I was aiming for) since knapping large points, for javelins, knives or atlatl spears is incredibly difficult. I'm inclined to believe Hinterland would never implement stuff like this in the game for the very reasons you outlined. There is truly no need for any primitive tools of any sort since materials are available everywhere in great bear and all tool making materials are indefinetely renewable ( cloth, scrap and fir ). That said, it could present awesome new challenges and Van Lierop himself alluded that primitive firestarting will eventually make it's way into TLD, when it's actually needed ( story mode driven development, as I perceive the current state of affairs). Who knows how the story will develop and in which predicament would our survivors be on which firemaking material would not be readily available?

 

Imagine a challenge on which you are dropped into an completely wild and 100% unexplored region ( like HRV, but without any man-made items or even traces of human activity ) and you had to survive there for 100 days, the lack of resources for obtaining tools or any means of self-defense would suit the mechanics proposed by everyone in this very thread. It doens't fit in any shape or form the narrative arc for story mode, but it would make for an awesome total conversion mod. That is, when modding support and tools are finally available, of course. 

Edited by Dan_
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I have spent the last few days looking more into knapping, that is awsome stuff they create. Those opal knives 😍 . I actually want to do knapping now. I have a lot of rocks that we collected from last year too - did a lot of digging with the fence building. So it looks like you can reshape antlers or certain bones into boppers and some antler tips into pressure flakers. If they added knapping into the game, I think that is how it should work and it would actually give the antlers a practical purpose for the player. The throwing stones can double as a grindstone. I think you make a good point about knapping possibly becoming a need in the more rural parts of the great bear like HRV.

One thing that I noticed is that the improvised hatchet and knife... that is smithed which requires a furnace. If they have smithing knives and hatchets, then they might as well add knapping a knife or hatchet as an alternative since they already went that far or elaborated into improvised crafting or whatever you call it.

What do you think about adding flint stones in caves? The flint can be used as a fire starter, but can also be knapped into arrowheads or knives. Are flint arrowheads and knives sharper and more durable than stone arrowheads or knives? 

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3 hours ago, XAlaskan_420X said:

What do you think about adding flint stones in caves? The flint can be used as a fire starter, but can also be knapped into arrowheads or knives.

I'm all for flint, since it's pretty much a phenomenal arrow making material on it's own. The question there would be availability, are there any flint deposits nearby western Canada? 

3 hours ago, XAlaskan_420X said:

Are flint arrowheads and knives sharper and more durable than stone arrowheads or knives? 

I have limited understanding of knapping(feel free to correct me), but from all the sources I've seen so far flint is historically one of the preferred primitive arrow tip materials in the stone age, specially in Europe ( Belgium, Moldova, etc ) where it was sufficiently obtainable. It's hard to gauge exactly which material was king since obsidian was fairly abundant in ocidental North America and also used a lot ( obsidian is basically nature-made glass, and can get scary sharp ), but I've read that rhyolite and felsite were used in the east coast of the US by the native tribes, since flint is not prevalent around. 

Arrowheads made of the most varied materials were found like jasper, chert, agate and even pretified wood was used. So it's hard to gauge if flint was the best material around. 

One of resources we can tap into is the mohs hardness scale which not would translate 100% to the "best" material, since a harder stone might be well, harder, to work with. Also there are other ways to gauge hardness but this is the one I remember from school  ( way back when... ). A quick google gives me the following:

Obsidian 5 to 5.5, Jasper 6.5 to 7, Flint and Chert 7, Agate 7 to 7.5 and comparatively steel up to 8.5. 

Useful source: https://www.tedpella.com/company_html/hardness.htm

EDIT: Gill's site states good info here, basically he says obsidian is sharper but flint/chert is harder, so obsidian for lighter draw weight bows and flint for higher draw weight is recommended. Link: https://gillsprimitivearchery.com/basic-stone-point-information/

To finalize, if you don't mind more.... graphic content, look up HuntPrimitive on YT or Ryan Gill the primitive archer. He does pretty interesting primitive hunting experiments and top notch knapping. There is obviously plugging of his classes and products since the man earns a living doing this but the content is worth checking out. 

Sorry for the wall of text, Cheers! :coffee:

Edited by Dan_
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I certainly see use for stone arrow heads. in areas with no human activity or shelters. No human activity means no scrap metal and no furnance, so stone arrowed arrows are nice idea. They should be worse in every way, but still usable.

 

Including bone based recipes would be also great.

 

Starting fire with bow technique would be cool. However very hard to get a fire. And preserve fire in form of hot charcoals stored in moss, when travel, i would love it !

Edited by Moll
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