Higher skill level unlocks new tech

[Jebru]

My apologies if this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find it in a quick search of previous topics.

I love the new skill system, and would love to see it lead to the unlocking of new crafting options, or other tech. You could do it either on skill level, or use the books themselves to unlock the tech, regardless of skill level.

I'm sure others will have more ideas, but a few I have thought of are:

1. When the bow drill for fire starting becomes available, have that only become available when you reach a higher level of fire starting skill. 

2. For your cooking skill, it would be great if a higher level of cooking led to new techniques for curing meat. It could be learning to harvest salt from the ocean and cure meat with that. Or, it could be building a primitive smoker. People on this forum know both of those technologies better than I do, so I'd love to hear feed back on that. 

3. With the mending skill, as you gain more skill in mending you should also gain the ability to create new clothing items like hats, scarves, or a blanket that gives a warmth bonus to the bed in your base. 

[cekivi]

My suggestion from an earlier post was to allow you to craft advanced lures (e.g. spoons) with higher skill levels in fishing.

[Dirmagnos]

Learning new stuff from books is ok, but some arbitrary "gain a level and magically learn new recipe", no thx.

Id even go further, with having majority of important craftable knowable either from get go or obtainable fairly early in the game(and most of unknown learnable ones being of low importance or having purely aesthetic value), but initial quality of what player is crafting is low and quality of item increase with amount of this items that player crafts, with possible crossovers(eg repairing with cloth also gives minuscule bonus to all clothing-related crafting, as player learns how to process this material more effectively).

Take that same bow drill as example. Player learns in early on and initially what he can craft is rather crappy. That, combined with fairly low firestarting skill will make drill extremely unreliable firestartign tool. But as player both crafts new drills and raises his firestarting skill, its usefulness from "non-existing" is slowly increased to "viable alternative". As result, early on, even with access to bow drill, matches still remain main source for starting fires. While later in game, when matches become scarce, bow drill start taking over.

Same with preservation of meat. Player can learn those techniques early on, but amount of food that he would ruin perfecting that ability, would make it nonviable early on. But as game progresses and manufactured stuff becomes scarce and hunting require more effort, skill that initially ruined a lot of food becomes extremely important. Plus, time modifiers, amount of food that gets from it, amount of food smoked/salted at once, etc 

[EternityTide]

14 minutes ago, Dirmagnos said:

Learning new stuff from books is ok, but some arbitrary "gain a level and magically learn new recipe", no thx

 

Agreed. recipes have to be researched. what I find a shame with video games is that you can't craft what the game doesn't allow for. I know that sounds obvious, but in a real survival situation, I'd be looking to build fish traps and lures, caches, bigger containers, portable shelters, that kind of thing. Unfortunately, due to the fact that everything has to be hard coded into the game, it does tie your hands a little. What the devs have given us though is ample to work with, I just wish we had more crafting diversity.

[chanster115]

Would love to see this in game.

[Jebru]

On 01/11/2016 at 7:07 PM, Dirmagnos said:

Take that same bow drill as example. Player learns in early on and initially what he can craft is rather crappy. That, combined with fairly low firestarting skill will make drill extremely unreliable firestartign tool. But as player both crafts new drills and raises his firestarting skill, its usefulness from "non-existing" is slowly increased to "viable alternative". As result, early on, even with access to bow drill, matches still remain main source for starting fires. While later in game, when matches become scarce, bow drill start taking over.

Same with preservation of meat. Player can learn those techniques early on, but amount of food that he would ruin perfecting that ability, would make it nonviable early on. But as game progresses and manufactured stuff becomes scarce and hunting require more effort, skill that initially ruined a lot of food becomes extremely important. Plus, time modifiers, amount of food that gets from it, amount of food smoked/salted at once, etc 

I'm ok with these ideas too. My mindset is similar to @EternityTide, in that in a real survival situation, the longer I was out there, the more I would be trying. And if I didn't have books to learn from, I'd be experimenting with ideas myself. Since we don't have an experiment option, my thought was that the skill level was the closest approximation of that. As you learn how to cook better, or mend better, different possibilities occur to you. 

Clothing crafting options seem particularly limited to me. As my skill progresses, I can mend an expedition parka from tattered to brand new condition, but yet I can't even make a cloth poncho? I would think that as I learned how to repair the clothing I had, I would understand it well enough to recreate it entirely. 

But I do like the idea of your skill level changing the quality of goods you create. And of your mending skill affecting the crafting of similar items. That would give you more variability as the game advances beyond the first 30 days. 

[Dirmagnos]

1 hour ago, Jebru said:

I'm ok with these ideas too. My mindset is similar to @EternityTide, in that in a real survival situation, the longer I was out there, the more I would be trying. And if I didn't have books to learn from, I'd be experimenting with ideas myself. Since we don't have an experiment option, my thought was that the skill level was the closest approximation of that. As you learn how to cook better, or mend better, different possibilities occur to you. 

Clothing crafting options seem particularly limited to me. As my skill progresses, I can mend an expedition parka from tattered to brand new condition, but yet I can't even make a cloth poncho? I would think that as I learned how to repair the clothing I had, I would understand it well enough to recreate it entirely. 

But I do like the idea of your skill level changing the quality of goods you create. And of your mending skill affecting the crafting of similar items. That would give you more variability as the game advances beyond the first 30 days. 

Problem with "experimenting" is that its limited to 4 levels at the moment. Or you think that you would stop when figuring out how to make a few items ? Id like experimentation idea, but i havent seen a single game where it would be implemented properly. Usually game just offers option of combining random stuff and if parts that player uses are from "unknown" recipe then he "figures it out". Problem with that idea is that it severely affects immersion on every next game, as player already know recipe and whole experimentation part looks ridiculous at this point.

Learning stuff from books seem to be far better alternative to me. Even if you(player) know that there is this or that recipe in the game(due to multiple game iterations), avatar still needs to read a book to learn it. Plus, it adds randomness value, as if sufficient amount of recipes is added, books can teach different recipes, resulting in slightly different gameplay every time. And if enough of such features added, then game replayability value can theoretically become infinite.

Yes, crafting options at this moment are bare minimum to be called "crafting system".

And my idea was not about skill level affecting quality. Idea was that as player craft more and more of same item, he becomes able to craft higher quality items. So that skill and practice become parallel values, as skill level proving certain bonuses that practice doesnt and vice versa. Person can become extremely efficient at making sharp sticks, but it doesnt make him master carpenter, hes only good at making sticks. Hed be better than some1 who never held a chisel in his hands at woodworking, but he wont become master in making, for example, axe handles.