Cordage, stone tools, gill net, ladder, temp shelters, traps


SteveP

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7 hours ago, SteveP said:

I wanted to share a beautiful looking chert knife with an antler handle. This is how your improvised stone knife should look if it is to be efficient for butchering meat. Since obsidian is harder than steel, it will keep an edge longer. That means it stays sharper than steel unless you strike bone and chip it.

 

ChertKnife.jpg.48e7222428389127f2bbc6af6

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

No. In NO WAY is that an "improvised" stone knife. That, my friend, is the end result of a learned skill that took hours, if not days and weeks, to become proficient at, much like actual blacksmithing.

 

This is an improvised stone knife.

Oh, and obsidian is NOT "harder" than steel. It has edges that are sharper and more even than steel, but since obsidian edges are only a few molecules thick, they aren't harder than steel.

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On 2/20/2016 at 8:17 AM, Dirmagnos said:

Spoken like some1 who have idea how hard survival could be, without a hardware store behind a corner or 911 on speed dial.

With all 5 areas in the game, it would be a miracle than average human would last even 10 years on what remains of infrastructure have to offer. Wood rot, metal rust, items break and fall apart.

I am still using the same hunting knife I got when I was 9 years old. I am now 36. My dad's ice fishing hut is going on 20 years old. Virtually 0 maintenance, stored outside... My dad is going on 65 and I believe all his guns, even the ones he got when he was a teen, still work perfect. He even uses surplus ammo, which is known to kill barrels.

I was recently given my grandfather's army stiletto which dates back to sometime during WWII. It has been used and abused. It is not mint or museum worthy, but it serves me just fine on portage trips. The knife is 65 years old. It looks like it will last another 100 years easy.

None of the items you are concerned about would wear out before your lifetime ran out. I'm assuming TLD is based in modern times... stainless steel, plastics (which don't decompose), composite materials, pressure treated woods, the list is endless in 2016...

I have seen cars and tanks get pulled from barns and rivers dating back to WWII. They get restored just fine.

There is no way that caveman skills would ever factor into survival shortly after society's collapse. Flint arrow head, how about use some sheet metal cutters to cut triangles from a car body? Your concerns maybe valid 1000-2000 years into the future.

The amount of crap that would be lying around if most of the population disappeared would remain for hundreds and hundreds of years. Keeping you, and any descendants you have well supplied with goods that keep you out of the stone age. Another example, my uncle has a moped on his farm dating back to the 1970's. It does not run. It is still a massive heap of metal that you can use to make arrow heads, knives, axes and/or hammer heads.

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15 hours ago, menaceR32 said:

I am still using the same hunting knife I got when I was 9 years old. I am now 36. My dad's ice fishing hut is going on 20 years old. Virtually 0 maintenance, stored outside... My dad is going on 65 and I believe all his guns, even the ones he got when he was a teen, still work perfect. He even uses surplus ammo, which is known to kill barrels.

I was recently given my grandfather's army stiletto which dates back to sometime during WWII. It has been used and abused. It is not mint or museum worthy, but it serves me just fine on portage trips. The knife is 65 years old. It looks like it will last another 100 years easy.

None of the items you are concerned about would wear out before your lifetime ran out. I'm assuming TLD is based in modern times... stainless steel, plastics (which don't decompose), composite materials, pressure treated woods, the list is endless in 2016...

I have seen cars and tanks get pulled from barns and rivers dating back to WWII. They get restored just fine.

There is no way that caveman skills would ever factor into survival shortly after society's collapse. Flint arrow head, how about use some sheet metal cutters to cut triangles from a car body? Your concerns maybe valid 1000-2000 years into the future.

The amount of crap that would be lying around if most of the population disappeared would remain for hundreds and hundreds of years. Keeping you, and any descendants you have well supplied with goods that keep you out of the stone age. Another example, my uncle has a moped on his farm dating back to the 1970's. It does not run. It is still a massive heap of metal that you can use to make arrow heads, knives, axes and/or hammer heads.

And you use that knife repeatedly every day for all kind of tasks with only makeshift maintenance tools available ? Same goes for stiletto. How much usage it actually saw ? Or did it just spend most of its time on some attic or in some trunk ?

Cars in those barns usually sit in quite favorable conditions, with minimal exposure to moisture and under a tarp. Tanks pulled out of the rivers generally have only their hull original preserved, everything else get either replaced or require extensive repairs that take years and significant amount of materials.

In 1000 years there wont even be rust left of those cars. And it would require a lot of understanding what one is doing and how, to be able to cut(and process) proper pieces out, plus energy expenditure, plus lack of proper tools.

And unless ambient temperatures remain same, most of that crap would be "consumed" in matter of years, sink into earth, broken apart by plants, rust, flake and degrade, dragged around by wild animals, etc. Without proper maintenance most signs of human activity would be gone in 100 years. There are plenty of examples of ghost towns that practically disappeared from the face of the Earth in just few decades.

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3 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

And you use that knife repeatedly every day for all kind of tasks with only makeshift maintenance tools available ? Same goes for stiletto. How much usage it actually saw ? Or did it just spend most of its time on some attic or in some trunk ?

Cars in those barns usually sit in quite favorable conditions, with minimal exposure to moisture and under a tarp. Tanks pulled out of the rivers generally have only their hull original preserved, everything else get either replaced or require extensive repairs that take years and significant amount of materials.

In 1000 years there wont even be rust left of those cars. And it would require a lot of understanding what one is doing and how, to be able to cut(and process) proper pieces out, plus energy expenditure, plus lack of proper tools.

And unless ambient temperatures remain same, most of that crap would be "consumed" in matter of years, sink into earth, broken apart by plants, rust, flake and degrade, dragged around by wild animals, etc. Without proper maintenance most signs of human activity would be gone in 100 years. There are plenty of examples of ghost towns that practically disappeared from the face of the Earth in just few decades.

The hunting knife does get used weekly as it is the main cutter in my shed/workshop. Also, when I was a kid it was thrown into the ground for years on end when I was bored on camping trips. It has been used and abused. The handle is not original and some of the leather has been replaced by plastic washers. Blade is stainless steel man, how much do you think it can wear in my short lifetime? Unless you put it on a grinder every time you sharpen it and take off a lot it will last for generations.

The stiletto is a very fat blade and in a solid metal scabbard which has oil in it and a leather/oil gasket on the hilt. Not a spec of rust on it. They both get sharpened by hand with a stone. It really does not take much off the blade. The knives are stored and used whenever needed. They are tools. Not toys.

Ghost towns do exist as you mentioned and the fact that there are remnants just back up my point. Hundreds of years later you can still find signs of life.

Chernobyl happened 30 years ago. Radiation aside, you can walk into an apartment there or a house and snag a knife or a fork from the kitchen and sit down for dinner. The buildings are not looking good, but they are still standing with trees growing out of the roofs. You can find tools, gas masks and all sorts of heavy equipment to scavenge.

I have lived in northern Europe and Canada as well as around Melbourne Australia and I can't say that ambient temperature impacts the corrosion or break down of items or the rate at which they are "consumed". Ambient temperatures will not impact corrosion. Unless a glacier rolls through there will be a lot of modern materials remaining well into the future.

This is probably a group you should check out before we get too much more into this:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2380764226/

There are tons of examples in my neck of the woods alone of places abandoned long before I was on this earth, which you could still make into a home during the "apocalypse". Kitchens not full of rust, flake and degraded items, but rather full of stuff that sometimes looks like the day it came out of the package.

Anything we cobble together would be better from modern materials at a lower time investment versus caveman stuff. Fire ghetto arrow with a metal tip, you can re-use that for as long as you live... or until you loose it. A stone or glass arrow tip will likely break on the first use.

That is just my humble opinion thought.

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On 2016-02-26 at 0:19 PM, Boston123 said:

Oh, and obsidian is NOT "harder" than steel. It has edges that are sharper and more even than steel, but since obsidian edges are only a few molecules thick, they aren't harder than steel.

I think you have a very valid point here. It looks like my research was a little too superficial! Your point concerning "improvised" is well taken however both stone knives obviously needed the handle in order to be utilitarian. Doesn't improvised merely mean not manufactured? Here's one definition: "Improvise: to make, provide, or arrange from whatever materials are readily available" I'm not sure that it relates to skill or level of technology since the forging and hardening for improvised knife or hatchet require special skills, knowledge and special tools. Semantics.

Obsidian is both harder and more brittle than annealed or mild steel. Hardness is an engineering term with measures like Rockwell hardness or Mohs hardness. Steel has a hardness of 4-4.5 whereas obsidian has hardness of 5. Hardened steel has a Mohs hardness of 7.5-8, corundum (whetstone) has hardness of 9 and diamond has hardness of 10. Hardness is independent of thickness or size; Durability is another issue as you correctly point out. If only cutting meat, wood or bone, I wonder about the dulling process (see below). Obviously it's not only a function of hardness since even a good knife still looses its edge when cutting wood or even veggies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness

I stand corrected on hardened steel. High carbon steel is heat treated to form martensite and then tempered to remove brittleness and improve durability. Steel can have other alloys including Chromium, Vanadium, Molybdenum and so forth to improve its strength and hardness. It can also be further case hardened as is the case when fabricating cutting tools for milling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardened_steel

There seem to be several factors to the dulling process:

1. abrading (small hard mineral particles embedded in softer material)
2. folding (deforming plastically)
3. chemically (oxidization from acids in foods)
4. micro-fracturing due to shock

Obsidian or glass is not going to fold as steel does. It's going to fracture from shocks such as hitting bone and from grit in wood or materials other than meat. it's not going to oxidize like high carbon steel (files and some knives) Stainless steel knives might require less frequent sharpening for this reason.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=554458

Here is an interesting article concerning durability of ceramic knives vs steel knives. It highlights the very real possibility of shock fractures from striking  materials such as bone or wood. http://www.myceramicknives.com/ceramic-vs-metal

The knapping process itself takes advantage of shocks delivered with soft materials such as copper or antler.

What is a ceramic? Typically we think of it as a man-made material formed from clay and fired. A broader definition includes man made materials including glass and natural glass, obsidian. Again, the edge of a ceramic knife stays sharper than a steel knife. It is more durable except if dropped or subjected to shocks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic

Ceramic knives or obsidian knives are not general purpose knives; you can't baton them to split wood and you must take some care not to hack into bones. You must use a smooth cutting process. Using a really sharp cutting tool is incredibly less effort than trying to use an old dull tool. In general, there is tremendous variation among the kinds of stones used for knapping. Often it was considered easier to simply strike off a new flake or a spall from a larger core whenever a sharp cutting tool was needed. Here are some links to further information on durability of stone knives:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1116019-Durability-of-stone-knives

https://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091205201855AAWjcd0

So an obsidian knife is both more durable and less durable at the same time! More durable for staying very sharp but less durable when dropped or abused. The following illustrates why amorphous materials like glass and obsidian get sharper than diamonds or steels. https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/whats-the-sharpest-knife-on-earth.161956/

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Again, there is not an indefinite supply of steel suitable for forging cutting tools. It must be high carbon steel and that is only found in certain articles such as files or leaf springs. Your point about knives and axes lasting several lifetimes is very valid! we've beaten that dead horse to death many times!

23 hours ago, menaceR32 said:

None of the items you are concerned about would wear out before your lifetime ran out. I'm assuming TLD is based in modern times... stainless steel, plastics (which don't decompose), composite materials, pressure treated woods, the list is endless in 2016...

I have seen cars and tanks get pulled from barns and rivers dating back to WWII. They get restored just fine.

There is no way that caveman skills would ever factor into survival shortly after society's collapse. Flint arrow head, how about use some sheet metal cutters to cut triangles from a car body? Your concerns maybe valid 1000-2000 years into the future.

The amount of crap that would be lying around if most of the population disappeared would remain for hundreds and hundreds of years. Keeping you, and any descendants you have well supplied with goods that keep you out of the stone age.

An interesting note: since obsidian or other knapped stone cutting edges are much sharper than the best steel (never mind sheet metal) they are going to penetrate the target game animal more deeply and produce a wound that bleeds far more than a rough wound created by a steel broadhead. Stone is indeed superior in some applications! Finding suitable stone; now that's another matter. Survival is about making use of whatever materials come to hand. TLD mixes things up. Sometimes you get a knife and sometimes not so one must improvise. One can improvise a forge but suitable material might be in short supply. No files found and no tools to pull the springs off the cars so you use mild steel, temper it the best you can and sharpen it often. If you happen to be in a location without any man made objects at all, there won't be steel of any form and you might be lucky to find a single glass bottle or anything knappable.

I don't think its about stone technology displacing metal technology at all; this is about adapting to make use of available resources. Stone points and tools are legitimate survival techniques and therefore have a place in a game about survival. This is also Canada where nature has a habit of slapping down foolish and ill prepared humans when they get stuck out in the wild.

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On 2016-02-20 at 7:09 PM, Asulf said:

Oh and one last point. The character we play is able to smith, right? Where did he get this skill? To me, master smithing is much harder than flint knapping. And why carrying scrap metal to a furnace that I'm depending should be easier than shocking two rocks, than I can find while walking, together?

That's a good point. I think the player has to find a book somewhere in Desolation Point that covers the basics of forging knives so that he knows a) what kind of metal he needs b) how to quench & temper. Really the process wouldn't be complete because there is also the intermediate step of shaping while the metal is annealed and soft and then honing when the temper is done.

The same applies in flint knapping and even more so. Flint knapping was an evolutionary process passed down from elders. First I suppose humans learned to get spalls and flakes and then improvised handles as suggested by the Hobo Knife video. The process of getting a thin biface or a hand adze is much more difficult and requires knowledge of platforms and the special striking necessary to get the long flakes. In Story mode, this could be done by meeting up with an NPC who passes along the skill. Alternatively in Sandbox, you already have this knowledge or you acquire it by finding a book on the subject. If we convince Hinterland to make an advanced knapping mechanic, we are going to teach a lot of people a lot about knapping. My idea is to have the player first knock off shards from a core. At first the shards are small. You can rotate the core and choose the point of impact, angle, pull direction, force & tool. Gradually the player acquires knowledge through experimentation that leads him to get better spalls and he can then begin the process of making a biface by sending thinning flakes. If they have not included NPCs with teaching skills, I don't think we're going to see that in this product release.

I've read that Neanderthals had an advanced lithic technology where they carried cores around which they struck to get improvised flakes for tools and points. They weren't biface tools however knowing how to get multiple long spalls from a single core was a special skill that seemed to be abandoned later with perhaps more trading of supplies, exchange of technology and materials. A symmetric biface point is far superior as a tip for atlatl darts and for arrows over a rough spall intended for use only on a spear or for butchering. It also has considerable more aesthetic value and thus trading value. High quality trading goods are valuable!

Early humans had to be able to cut the sinews and skins in order to quarter the carcass and get it back to where it could be cut up into strips, cooked and preserved. Small sharp fresh flakes would be adequate to do this even if the stones were not ideal for knapping. You'd have to use whatever piece of stone was the sharpest, perhaps even by abrading it.

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