suggestion Wood saws and Other Wood Tools [POLL]

[elloco999]

19 hours ago, vancopower said:

Why to split the wood, Main reasons:

First you can not start a fire with wet wood and the dry part is inside.

Second as I mentioned you can not fit the wood in the stove, also it roles you can not build campfire if you can not stand the wood in one place.

Third you will need lots of tinder and lot's more unsuccessful tries to start a fire since the bark of the tree is more resistant to fire unless the tree has moss on it.

Finally I tried adding whole trunks to the fire if the fire is small it just goes off after 5-6 min. The fire needs to burn for a long time to reach temperature so you could put whole trunks in it even then there is a chance of putting it out if the wood is wet.

 

Hey now there is an excellent option, imagine this:

Wood saw is added in to the game. it makes harvesting wood faster but it could only produce whole trunks which can not be added in to the fire unless the correct temperature is up, Also you can not start fires with them. So yea you can collect more wood but you can't have the same quality as the split ed wood. Also you can not add whole trunks if the fire is less than 1 hour maybe

First: Well, I did say making it easier to light was one reason to split wood. But instead of splitting large logs to make them easier to light, you could use smaller sticks to get the fire going and add the logs only once you the fire is hot enough.

By the way, who says my wood is wet? Most of it has been lying in my base next to the stove for over 200 days by now...

Second: If you want to cut up a branch for firewood that you want to use in a stove, you shouldn't make it so long that it won't fit in the stove. And since the branches we can harvest are about wrist size, maybe a little thicker (okay, maybe the end of the branch is thick enough that it would need to be split), they will fit in the stove just fine without splitting if you don't make them too long.

Making a campfire with round wood is something I've done plenty of times so it must be possible. True, it may be hard to make a tee pee fire lay with round wood, but there are plenty of other fire lays you can use.

Third: You don't need lots of tinder to light any fire, you need lots of kindling and smalls. You only need enough tinder to light the kindling. Kindling is easy to find in a forest: just use very small sticks (up to pencil lead size). Even wet those will light with a good tinder bundle.

Finally: Like I said, these are branches, not trunks. The branch is about the same thickness as the commercially available firewood. You don't use these to start a fire or add them once the kindling is burning. You start with tinder and kindling. Once that's burning good, add the smalls (finger thickness), then small fuel (thumb thickness) and only when those are burning do you add larger pieces of fuel like those branches.

Splitting the branches would of course make them easier to light, especially when wet/moist/damp. And by doing so you would need less of the smaller pieces. And it would certainly be a good idea to split a few pieces for the early stages of the fire. I do this myself IRL. But once you've got a good fire going these branches are not that big that they need to be split to be added to the fire.

Of course, in TLD the fire mechanism isn't that elaborate. But does it need to be?

To be clear, in real life it can often be a good idea to split some wood to get a fire going. And if you're cutting down trees then yes you would need to split those to make them into manageable pieces of firewood. But in TLD we can only cut up the branches that have fallen from the trees and those are not that thick.

 

14 hours ago, SteveP said:

Play Timberwolf for a while and see how many days you can harvest wood with one hatchet before it is used up. See if you can last a week holed up in the alpine hut riding out a fierce storm. As I have already stated, creating a LARGE cache of firewood is a good thing and does not make the game magically too easy. Remember, for each threat there must be an appropriate response; for each bonus there is a corresponding new threat or risk. This is referred to as balance.

I have played TWM for a while and haven't needed my hatchet yet. As with all other maps, there are plenty of sticks lying around for all my fire needs. And no storm in TLD lasts for a week.

I agree that on TWM, especially if you start there, gathering lots of logs for firewood is problematic and you need the firewood more on TWM than any other map. But maybe that's the intention for this map?

But adding a new tool to make it easier and faster to gather logs on TWM makes it easier and faster on all maps. The thing I don't like about this is that it removes some aspect of gathering logs. Now, you have to make a decision: do I spend 1.5 hours chopping up this branch to get a few fir logs? Braving the cold and risking a weather change, making me start to freeze? Or maybe I don't need the wood that bad that I want to risk it. Or I will wait until the weather is better, or I'm in a better condition or something.

If we add a saw that allows us to gather those same fir logs in 15 min, that decision is trivial all of a sudden.

If the game is changed so there are storms that last a week then we would need more firewood, but not so much that you need a saw to get it. Well maybe you might if you're living in a lookout tower or the mountaineers hut in TWM...

[Scyzara]

1 hour ago, elloco999 said:

I have played TWM for a while and haven't needed my hatchet yet. As with all other maps, there are plenty of sticks lying around for all my fire needs. And no storm in TLD lasts for a week.

I agree that on TWM, especially if you start there, gathering lots of logs for firewood is problematic and you need the firewood more on TWM than any other map. But maybe that's the intention for this map?

I agree to elloco999 regarding the need for a woodsaw (gameplay-wise, that is).

I just don't really see the point in implementing it, much like I don't see a point in more different firearms or zippos or other cases where people ask for alternatives for already existing items. As long as these alternative items don't come along with somehow new and unique mechanics, they just don't add much to the game for me personally. I mean what's the real difference whether I use a hatchet or a woodsaw for harvesting limbs apart from cosmetic stuff like a different item icon in the inventory or a slightly different harvesting time?

(The woodsaw mustn't be considerably more time-efficient than the hatchet from a gamedesign's point of view, otherwise wood harvesting would become too trivial and hatchets would lose their value.)

All that being said: If the current firewood system was to be reworked completely (and limbs had to be harvested with the woodsaw, split into pieces with the hatchet and dried for a few days afterwards), then I could see the need for a woodsaw, but not under the current game's conditions.

Apart from that I just wanted to mention that you don't HAVE to make the mountaineer's hut your base if you start a game in TWM. Indeed this place is even a quite suboptimal choice. If you don't want to use your hatchet all the time (or pick up hundreds of sticks), you can also simply make base inside one of the two loading screen caves instead.

They're always >0°C, no matter the outside weather conditions. I always sleep inside them when I start a new game in TWM and haven't crafted fur clothes yet. Like this you don't need any firewood at all, apart from the few sticks necessary to melt some water and cook some meat every now and then ofc.

 

Edited March 10, 2016 by Scyzara

[vancopower]

Ok I'm just gonna say it, this discussion it is way longer than it should be the wood collecting is fine, we don't need more complicated experience there are tons of stuff that have greater priority over wood collecting which I will say again it is fine as it is. By the way if anyone is looking for the real experience, he/she is welcomed at my house, I just ordered a truck of firewood and it needs chopping, and sawing  

[illanthropist]

Thought I'd lighten the mood on this thread, one of these look handy for stockpiling timber:

[illanthropist]

[cekivi]

9 hours ago, Scyzara said:

I agree to elloco999 regarding the need for a woodsaw (gameplay-wise, that is).

I just don't really see the point in implementing it, much like I don't see a point in more different firearms or zippos or other cases where people ask for alternatives for already existing items. As long as these alternative items don't come along with somehow new and unique mechanics, they just don't add much to the game for me personally. I mean what's the real difference whether I use a hatchet or a woodsaw for harvesting limbs apart from cosmetic stuff like a different item icon in the inventory or a slightly different harvesting time?

(The woodsaw mustn't be considerably more time-efficient than the hatchet from a gamedesign's point of view, otherwise wood harvesting would become too trivial and hatchets would lose their value.)

All that being said: If the current firewood system was to be reworked completely (and limbs had to be harvested with the woodsaw, split into pieces with the hatchet and dried for a few days afterwards), then I could see the need for a woodsaw, but not under the current game's conditions.

Apart from that I just wanted to mention that you don't HAVE to make the mountaineer's hut your base if you start a game in TWM. Indeed this place is even a quite suboptimal choice. If you don't want to use your hatchet all the time (or pick up hundreds of sticks), you can also simply make base inside one of the two loading screen caves instead.

They're always >0°C, no matter the outside weather conditions. I always sleep inside them when I start a new game in TWM and haven't crafted fur clothes yet. Like this you don't need any firewood at all, apart from the few sticks necessary to melt some water and cook some meat every now and then ofc.

 

Personally, I'd just like the option to use the hacksaw to harvest wood (at reduced efficiency) and the hatchet to harvest scrap metal (at increased condition lost) just in case I haven't found one of them yet

So, yeah, no real need for a wood saw. I still like my lighter idea simply since it increases the utility of lighter fluid and offers a superior (if limited) fire starting option. Also agree that different firearms is a terrible idea but finding an ultra rare scoped rifle or a compound bow would be really nice

 

[SteveP]

If you want to add diversity and interest to the game, this is a simple way to facilitate it. Wood and fire are of paramount importance in survival. It strains our incredulity that we have only a foolish tool like a tiny hatchet to take care of this need. By reducing the time necessary to stock pile wood, you can free up time for other activities. After a certain progression of the game, it becomes rote and less interesting; that's why the interest in crafting decorative items.

On TWM until such time as you have crafted fur clothing, you need a fire at night to sleep in the Alpine Hut. That requires a lot of firewood, enough that after a few days, you have used up the hatchet and eventually used up the whetstone. The Alpine Hut unlike other structures, is linked to the outdoor temperature. I think it would be reasonable to make more structures like that and the only habitable structures are those with stoves.

I think you are also forgetting that the cross cut saw would weigh about 8 pounds. That's more than the rifle or any other tool in the inventory. You're not going to drag that around with you everywhere unless it is extremely rare and then you might have to make two trips to ferry all the supplies. An ideal place for the cross cut saw would be near the clear cut on Mystery Lake. You could cut up those massive logs there and then split them with a maul. Transporting them would be an arduous task but it could be done with a sledge or toboggan. For traveling, I would prefer a nice buck saw or collapsible bow saw over a hatchet any day.

I think if you say you don't need it, you mean that you are happy with the way the game is, a simplistic almost philosophical approach to survival. We have a thing for fire, a thing for water and a thing for food and a thing for shelter. The point is it has to be representative of realism not simply a maze exploration treasure hunt where you magically convert a few items to other items. Well for one thing, I'd like to see animations for processes like cooking, chopping wood and fishing. Cooking especially has a rich set of rewarding sounds, smells and visuals that reward the brain. Forging is also an intensely visual activity with a rich repertoire of lovely clanging sounds! The very sound of clanging a heavy hammer on an anvil sings a song to soul of the black smith.

The trend away from photo-realism also points up a trend in certain other "survival" games like FarCry Primal which contain realistic portrayals of female anatomy and attractive faces. I also like the de-emphasis on combat in TLD. I dislike that it is more of a map exploration than improvisation. Improvisation is an important quality for a game and not easy to master in a way that doesn't give away too much to the player via menu systems. You should have to puzzle your way how to make things with maybe many alternative ways to achieve similar results. -sigh- wishful thinking huh? Well if the game infrastructure is well built and designed using inheritance to leverage capabilities, then I don't see why games can't evolve more in that direction.
Remember, we are only constrained by our imaginations when it comes to software games.

As for picking up sticks off the ground, those are all wet and won't realistically ignite as kindling. You need to find dead wood that's not on the ground or you have to fell, buck and split dead standing wood. For the sake of ease, picking up sticks from the ground doesn't strain the "reasonable suspension of disbelief" simply because so few people actually spend time in the woods where its either wet or cold. I like that TLD is an education on Canadian winters and wilderness. Our Northern European friends will get this but perhaps not so much in the lower 48.

As Les Stroud says, gather a huge pile of wood that you think will last the night and then go and gather four times that much. Fire is more important than any other survival tool in the North. Without fire, you die.

[Scyzara]

2 hours ago, SteveP said:

I think if you say you don't need it, you mean that you are happy with the way the game is, a simplistic almost philosophical approach to survival. We have a thing for fire, a thing for water and a thing for food and a thing for shelter. The point is it has to be representative of realism not simply a maze exploration treasure hunt where you magically convert a few items to other items.

That's exactly the point where two fundamentally different player opinions clash over and over again. It can all be boiled down to the central philosophical question regarding TLD that has been discussed at least a hundred times by now: "Does the game benefit from additions for the exclusive sake of realism even if their value regarding gameplay is either limited or non-existant?"

I personally (and those people who want TLD to stay a survival game instead of a survival simulation) will say "no", others will say yes because for them realism in itself is a value. It's a pointless discussion with gridlocked positions that doesn't lead anywhere.

Let me just assure you that I'm not opposed to certain "realism-boosting" suggestions just because I'm some silly Central European who just doesn't know better. It's not that simple. I'm well-aware that wet wood doesn't burn well and has to be dried for months or better even years first, that personal hygiene is important in survival situations, that some Canadians DO own handguns, etc. I just don't expect (or want) TLD to resemble reality as perfect as possible for nothing but the sake of resembling reality as perfect as possible. I want it to be a challenging and enjoyable game, nothing else.

I don't expect (or want) TLD to teach me how to survive in the real Canadian wilderness. Almost everything you can learn in TLD about survival is common sense and a whole lot of details are different in TLD than they are in reality. IF I wanted to get a pure, realistic survival experience in the Canadian wilderness, I wouldn't play a computer game at all but get myself a flight ticket to Canada and hire some nice hiking & survival guide for a camping trip in the Canadian woods during my next holidays. Preferably some guy or gal who could teach me a little more about survival techniques and the native plants & animals than TLD does, otherwise we would probably end up in severe trouble soon.

Just to make things clear: This is in no way meant as criticism against TLD. I neither dislike that TLD doesn't mirror reality perfectly, nor did I ever believe that it intends to simulate reality perfectly (Raph made that very clear ever since the start of the kickstarter campaign imo). 

Edited March 11, 2016 by Scyzara

[SteveP]

9 hours ago, Scyzara said:

That's exactly the point where two fundamentally different player opinions clash over and over again. It can all be boiled down to the central philosophical question regarding TLD that has been discussed at least a hundred times by now: "Does the game benefit from additions for the exclusive sake of realism even if their value regarding gameplay is either limited or non-existant?"

Please don't reduce this to a difference of opinions. As I have been explaining, this is a question of balance and system analysis not about opinions.

Your question begs the assumption that additions to the game to cure jarringly unrealistic situations will have no value for game play. That is known as the strawman argument or a false dichotomy.

I suspect your position is emotional rather than logical. Your statement that you don't wish to learn stuff is not representative of what other people may want.

We need to confine ourselves to cogent arguments and not reduce issues to personal differences. That is known as sand bagging.

[Patrick Carlson]

I'd like to invite everyone in this thread to take a deep breath.

It's all really informative stuff, and helps us understand how several different game systems are received by players. This is especially the case when players respectfully disagree on how they may approach the challenges The Long Dark lays out for us. So I ask that we all keep this on the friendly and respectful level, even if there are fundamental disagreements. 

Wood gathering is obviously a system that's evolved already over the last year, and we appreciate hearing which directions you might like to see it go in the future. 

 

[Raphael van Lierop]

At the moment, I won't weigh in too much on the benefits (or otherwise) of adding a saw to the game. What I will say is, that in general, the easier or more productive a harvesting tool or technique is, the more "costly" it needs to become to compensate, otherwise it becomes a dominant strategy, if not an outright exploit, which unbalances the rest of the game.

So, for example, if we introduce a hacksaw and make it 2x or 4x more efficient at harvesting wood than a hatchet, then we have to limit it in other ways -- it has to be extremely rare and hard to find, it has to wear out quickly, it has to require ongoing costly maintenance (costly due to time or rarity of resources), etc. 

In other discussions we've already covered ground around the notion that "realism" is not the be all, end all, goal or vision for this game. An experience that is an engine for interesting choices around the exploration-survival continuum. So, I would encourage you all to ask yourselves -- what interesting choices could the addition of a saw for cutting wood, actually add to the game?

For example, to me, an interesting choice might be one where the player has to make a call between having hatchets in the world, OR saws, OR knives. Saws would be beneficial for wood harvesting, but have no value in defense against wildlife. Hatchets would be more balanced between the two activities. Knives would be effective at defense against wildlife but relatively useless at harvesting wood, leaving you to collect sticks and break small furniture items. 

If you have access to tools that are useful in all cases, then the only real balancing factor we have is availability, time required to use, maintenance costs, or weight. 

Something to think about!

[SteveP]

20 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

At the moment, I won't weigh in too much on the benefits (or otherwise) of adding a saw to the game. What I will say is, that in general, the easier or more productive a harvesting tool or technique is, the more "costly" it needs to become to compensate, otherwise it becomes a dominant strategy, if not an outright exploit, which unbalances the rest of the game.

[snip]

In other discussions we've already covered ground around the notion that "realism" is not the be all, end all, goal or vision for this game. An experience that is an engine for interesting choices around the exploration-survival continuum. So, I would encourage you all to ask yourselves -- what interesting choices could the addition of a saw for cutting wood, actually add to the game?

For example, to me, an interesting choice might be one where the player has to make a call between having hatchets in the world, OR saws, OR knives. Saws would be beneficial for wood harvesting, but have no value in defense against wildlife. Hatchets would be more balanced between the two activities. Knives would be effective at defense against wildlife but relatively useless at harvesting wood, leaving you to collect sticks and break small furniture items. 

If you have access to tools that are useful in all cases, then the only real balancing factor we have is availability, time required to use, maintenance costs, or weight. 

Something to think about!

I agree; another cost factor to consider would be the trade off between weight and fatigue. A hatchet takes a lot of effort to produce X firewood. We could think about increasing the fatigue cost of harvesting wood in this way. If you use an 8 pound cross cut saw, you have the weight cost of the saw as well as the fatigue cost. Cutting wood is a lot of work. If we had the buck saw with a weight of 4 pounds, it takes longer to cut X wood but the fatigue cost is lower. The fatigue cost per kg of wood should be lowest with the most efficient wood harvesting tool which would hypothetically be a cross cut saw. Cross cut saws are usually managed by two people however it's possible to use it alone. I misspoke earlier about the rifle weight. In game it is 4 kg or 8.8 lb. (The British Enfield 303 actually weights closer to 7 pounds). If you spend X hours harvesting wood using a hatchet, the fatigue cost should be high because this tool is inefficient and takes a lot of chopping effort. This tends to be reflected in the length of time to cut X amount of wood. The buck-saw has perhaps a similar cost per hour of harvesting, perhaps a little bit less but the cost per kg of wood should be much lower. The cost per hour could be less than the hatchet and certainly less than the cross-cut saw.

Effort per hour: bucksaw << axe  << hatchet << cross-cut saw & maul
Effort per kg wood: cross-cut << bucksaw << axe << hatchet
Weight to carry: hatchet << bucksaw << axe << cross-cut + maul

I can't speak to development costs. We have a limit on development effort so perhaps there might be some other features that will add more "sex-appeal", allure or glamour. Product vision is important here. Is this to be a pure "exploration" game or include real-trade offs for survival or include interesting learning experiences? I lobby for the latter but again, defer to product management.

[illanthropist]

We could carry some old car tyres around with us too, they are great for splitting large volumes of wood!  Perhaps stick a tyre iron in the game that could also be used as a club in predator attacks!  
 

[Patrick Carlson]

This brought a really specific memory to mind: One summer years ago my dad had some giant madrona rounds delivered to our house to cut up for firewood that winter. Someone he knew in town had cut down the tree and wanted to get rid of the wood. Of course my brother and I were tasked with splitting it all up into fireplace-ready pieces. I learned just how useful a maul can be. When splitting wood for hours, it really is an ingenious tool. 

[Raphael van Lierop]

Given how we harvest wood in the game, and how we use the harvested wood, my gut reaction is to say that a hatchet, and eventually a larger axe, would be beneficial. 

We currently don't allow harvesting of larger trees in the game -- this is partly for technical reasons but primarily for gameplay reasons. Cutting down the equivalent of a first-growth Douglas Fir by axe (or saw) is not an efficient or reasonable task for a single person, particularly when your main goal is fuel production. It is much more efficient to harvest sticks, branches, and small limbs. With two people, a large tree can be felled through combination of axe and saw, although this speaks nothing to the amount of effort required to make use of the fallen tree afterwards.

I could see a saw of some kind becoming more relevant if we were to ever allow the harvesting of larger trees for, perhaps, construction purposes -- i.e. building log-framed structures. That said, with so many pre-existing structures in the world, this would not be particularly logical or efficient, unless you were determined to hold up in a very remote location for a very long time. I won't say that log-cabin construction won't ever happen in this game, but it's not on the short-term roadmap.

Early on in this project we decided that we would not support the direct harvesting of large trees (and the ones we have are very large!), due to the abstractions required to make this type of harvesting work. You see this in several other survival games -- hitting a tree with an axe 3-4 times brings an entire tree down, and then they are automatically sectioned off, all in a fraction of the time it would normally require. If we were ever to allow the harvesting of larger trees, we would deal with this more "realistically", i.e. it would take you a very, very long time to cut a tree down, then de-limb it, then cut it up into sections or rounds, then split it or otherwise harvest usable board lumber from it, etc. It would be a huge undertaking.

Further reading:

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/timber-trade-history/

http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/felling-a-tree-the-old-fashioned-way/

[illanthropist]

3 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

You see this in several other survival games -- hitting a tree with an axe 3-4 times brings an entire tree down, and then they are automatically sectioned off, all in a fraction of the time it would normally require.

Lol so much this, watched a let's play of Stranded Deep, cutting down palm trees in real time in seconds, although it did force you to chop said tree into sections with the stone tied to a big stick.  Processing deadfall and collecting faggots of wood is more realistic though I'm sure some will disagree because it's not been cured for a season

[SteveP]

Well there are several piles of logs on Mystery Lake near the Clear Cut that are seasoned or dried, that would make an indefinite supply of fuel however transporting that wood is impractical; it's much more important to utilize fuel sources close to where it is needed. Another interesting possibility would be to make it necessary to split larger wood in order to stack and cure it. Limbs could be bucked or sawn to length and cured for a few days or weeks however it's more typical to actually season wood for several months. If there were stacks of fire wood, I suppose those could be used and the player could anticipate needing seasoned fire-wood in a few months. If I were to be stuck in an isolated location and thought I would be there for a long time, fuel would be top of the list followed closely by a source of good water and food resources. Conservation of ammunition and development of alternative food sources would be of primary interest as well as a method to smoke and preserve valuable meat. Meat in game lasts for months with only cooking but presumably this could be changed I suppose. Hides would be an important resource, primarily for shelters and blankets but at some point, one might need warmer clothing than was available to be found so fur clothing could become a priority too.

In practice, green wood can be used in fires although it produces a lot more creosote with attendant risk of chimney fires if done in wood stoves or fire places. Interesting that we suffer no ill effects by having fires inside closed or semi-closed structures such as the barn on PV, the Quonset building on CH and the inside of the Carter Hydroelectric Dam. 

In terms of market appeal, there is perhaps a small percentage who would consider wood to be important in a survival game. It is a central theme in this game but perhaps that is satisfied by a simplified procedure for harvesting firewood. The rapid degradation of the hatchet is a concern however it is mitigated by the possibility of making new hatchets.

As a useful tool, I think in real life, I would go with a bow saw since in a calorie game, it's the most efficient method. Also it's easier to chop or saw green wood and it cures much faster after being split. If you split it small enough, it would cure fairly rapidly especially considering that there is plenty of wind to help do the job. If the notion of curing green wood were added, I think a delay of a week or two is a reasonable compromise.

In terms of player appeal, I do think other wild life has more potential followed closely by hunting and fishing and gathering and primitive technologies (forging, crafting, tools, weapons and clothing items) I've been mulling how to address a poll or to gather end-user feedback. The unfortunate thing is that we only have a few people active on the forum so I wonder if we are representative enough. Possibly. Another challenge is to identify all of the features that have already been suggested so I almost need a discussion just to ensure the list is more or less complete prior to turning on a poll.

I suspect that adding two or three wood fuel harvesting options is the simplest new feature with wild life being the most costly in terms of development effort followed closely by an extensive crafting tree and new tools for same. It might be a good strategy to break down the polls into three or four categories.

I do think having a separate forum under Wishlist just for polls might be a good plan. That way, the (more important?) polls could be more easily found by forum users. "Perfection is the enemy of good enough"- Voltaire. My time today is limited so one more post along this theme I think.

[cekivi]

On 2016-03-11 at 8:29 PM, Raphael van Lierop said:

For example, to me, an interesting choice might be one where the player has to make a call between having hatchets in the world, OR saws, OR knives. Saws would be beneficial for wood harvesting, but have no value in defense against wildlife. Hatchets would be more balanced between the two activities. Knives would be effective at defense against wildlife but relatively useless at harvesting wood, leaving you to collect sticks and break small furniture items.

That... would actually be a really cool gameplay choice between the three. I probably would only keep the axe then if I could on;y pick one

To echo @Raphael van Lierop et. al. you are not going to be cutting down old growth forest by yourself with just a hatchet. In Ontario we have tons of black spruce. They're softwood trees and grow to be about 15cm in diameter. A dead, dried out one still takes a lot of effort to cut down, saw into logs and split into burnable pieces. Probably close to an hour if I had to estimate the time. You'll be tired by the end, sweating like crazy if you're not careful and only get about 3-5 hours of firewood! And that is a dried out, dead, 15cm diameter tree! The old growth on Vancouver Island - hardwood that may approach a meter in diameter - would take days with just a hatchet. Even the cut ones in the Log Sort would require lots of time to cut because the wood is so dense. Your axe would also need frequent sharpening. Unless a chainsaw or something similar is added to the game, harvesting old growth with axes is not feasible.

[SteveP]

If you wanted firewood, in real life, you would be cutting down dead trees and you would be expending about 90% of your calories gathering, transporting, splitting and stacking fire wood. The economics changes if you have draft animals. To cut down a large tree takes only about 15 minutes with a good axe or a saw. Even less with a chainsaw which is what people use nowadays. In a wood stove, that amount of wood will last for a day or two. People can cut & split a cord of wood in a day, using a chainsaw. If using a camp fire for heating and cooking, you use a LOT more wood. For outdoor cooking, its very advisable to build a primitive stove to contain the heat.

Old growth trees are massive things, much valued for lumber. You would not use them for firewood both for ethical and practical reasons. An old growth forest has more than old growth trees in it. The area around Mystery Lake has been extensively logged so would never be considered old growth. There isn't much virgin forest left anywhere in the world. The stumps would actually be much larger than in the game, 5 to 15 foot in diameter with some Douglas Firs reaching 20 feet in diameter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_fir#Description

Standing dead trees are dry unlike anything found on the ground in BC. A solitary individual would in fact be very hard-pressed to survive without a chain saw and means of transportation for harvesting wild game. Fishing would be one's best hope for calories although one would be very flexible about gathering whatever was available and desperately trying to hunt large game. Often the best chance for a substantial meal is a porcupine or a beaver.

All of this is moot in a game has significant restrictions on simulation complexity and yet must cater to a diverse audience.

Rather depressing. (about the forest, not the game)

[elloco999]

Felling a large tree using axes and a crosscut saw:

 

On 12-3-2016 at 2:29 AM, Raphael van Lierop said:

So, for example, if we introduce a hacksaw and make it 2x or 4x more efficient at harvesting wood than a hatchet, then we have to limit it in other ways -- it has to be extremely rare and hard to find, it has to wear out quickly, it has to require ongoing costly maintenance (costly due to time or rarity of resources), etc. 

In other discussions we've already covered ground around the notion that "realism" is not the be all, end all, goal or vision for this game. An experience that is an engine for interesting choices around the exploration-survival continuum. So, I would encourage you all to ask yourselves -- what interesting choices could the addition of a saw for cutting wood, actually add to the game?

For me, time is something I have plenty of in TLD. It's the only thing I will never run out of. So if maintaining the saw would take a lot of time, that would not be "costly" to me.

I have been asking myself what a saw would add to the game since this topic started. The only answer I can come up with is realism. Unless the harvesting mechanism is also changed so a saw would be pretty much required to cut the wood and a axe/ hatchet to split it. And splitting would then need to be required as well.

I'm sure if you decide to add a saw for wood harvesting purposes you'll do it in a way that would add something and still keep the game balanced.

On 12-3-2016 at 2:29 AM, Raphael van Lierop said:

For example, to me, an interesting choice might be one where the player has to make a call between having hatchets in the world, OR saws, OR knives. Saws would be beneficial for wood harvesting, but have no value in defense against wildlife. Hatchets would be more balanced between the two activities. Knives would be effective at defense against wildlife but relatively useless at harvesting wood, leaving you to collect sticks and break small furniture items.

That one is easy to answer: I would want the knives! I hardly ever harvest wood anyway and the knives are way too important for harvesting meat from a carcass. Of course, for a frozen carcass, a hatchet is better, but you can always light a fire next to the carcass.

On 12-3-2016 at 5:27 AM, Patrick Carlson said:

This brought a really specific memory to mind: One summer years ago my dad had some giant madrona rounds delivered to our house to cut up for firewood that winter. Someone he knew in town had cut down the tree and wanted to get rid of the wood. Of course my brother and I were tasked with splitting it all up into fireplace-ready pieces. I learned just how useful a maul can be. When splitting wood for hours, it really is an ingenious tool. 

Lesson learned: use the right tool for the job. You would not want to split large rounds using a hatchet

[SteveP]

Entertaining video! The cross cut saw was usually lubricated with kerosene or it could be lubricated with tallow, rendered from fat. You are very right! to be used efficiently, it has to be kept sharp and lubricated.

If we were trying to find interesting bushcraft topics, then tool maintenance, fire-making and hunting technology would be quite interesting and useful. For weapons with only a finite source of ammunition, you need technologies to improvise primitive hunting weapons, hence forging for arrow points & cutting tools and flint knapping would be interesting topics. It would be nice to see forging and flint knapping broken down to multiple steps I think, rather than left as a magic crafting formula of X + Y yields Z, poof! Animations could really add appeal as well as an interactive visual interface for doing certain tasks, effectively a mini-game.

Edited March 14, 2016 by SteveP

[illanthropist]

1 hour ago, elloco999 said:

That one is easy to answer:

 

[cekivi]

Please note that the crosscut saw takes two people to operate effectively

[SteveP]

New members may like to read the comments and take the poll. This one has been discussed to death!

[hemislie99]

You must use the tools which you can learn easily. Like jigsaw tool and circular saw tool. You can check the reviews of best circular saw for beginners and buy online.