Felling Axe, Crafting Changes, and Unnecessary Tedium

[Uephorias]

The stone axe (hatchet) is crafted with one bough, two string, and one stone
Practically speaking: The string binds the stone to the bough, and a bough is used instead of a stick because obviously, a stick (for example, 30cm in length and 1 to 2 cm in diameter) would make a terrible hatchet. It's not unreasonable to require two string for crafting since this would press new players towards initially putting a couple points into exploration to find spindly taproots.
The metal axe (hatchet) can remain crafted with only the two metal bars and a block of wood, since the metal can be formed to attach permanently to the handle.

Add a stone and metal felling axe. Currently, the only axes are technically hatchets, pictured below.



For cutting down trees, felling axes make much more sense, pictured below.



The stone felling axe is made with one stone, 3 string, and two boughs. It's 1x3 in the inventory and is held with both hands. It somewhat decreases stamina loss when cutting down trees and can possibly be used to make wood blocks. The idea with the stone felling axe is to not devalue the stone hatchet by being so much better, so the stamina use reduction would be minor.

The metal axe is crafted with three hard metal bars, two blocks of wood, and maybe 2 or 3 leather as a requirement (for an edge guard or grip). This would be an endgame tool for carpenters and woodsmen, with well reduced stamina loss and when felling trees and making wood blocks.

The metal felling axe would also make a decent weapon, and would be a good intermediate between a metal hatchet and a B12.

Of course, the trade off of using these is that they are held in both hands and require a bit more resources.

[Beezer12Washingbeard]

+1

This has bugged me too. No wonder felling trees and chopping logs takes so much time and stamina! We're using hatchets!

[azrid]

Imo add cross cut saw that has to b operated by 2 hearthlings. And make it cut down trees very fast.

[Granger]

Some thoughts:

Stone Hatchet sounds reasonable with stone, stick and string - as long as the beginners quests are adjusted to force early raising of exploration high enough (so a beginner dosn't paint himself into a corner).

The suggested Stone Felling Axe seems a bit strange... how would two boughs work? Seems redundant, one should do it to limit quality (as with the saws).

Metal Hatchet being simply renamed from the current metal axe would be fine, for the metal felling axe I would go for glue to hold the blocks together and the metal versions being softcapped by both smithing and carpentry.

The Felling Axes, using two hands and limited to chopping trees and blocks, should also be enabled for destroying stuff and could give extra damage on the same level as a pickaxe. Also I see no reason not to chop a character with one, could be between axes and B12 for damage and also differ in damage type: stone (more blunt) or metal (more likely cutting).

Stone Axe improving speed and stamina consumption to the level of the Metal Hatchet (with the upside of this being more versantile) while the Metal Axe could further improve stamina for trees (one tree doable with full stamina, so no more drinking inbetween) while simply speeding up making of blocks.

More convoluted mechanics involving leather: sheating to be able to carry metal hatchet/axes (and this includes B12) in the character inventory - without you would be limited to storing them on a chopping block (built from a log, a mechanic that could also be used for the requested 'storing a hammer on the anvil') or inside a container, but carried around only in the hands (sheating would remain in inventory while tool being in hands, 1x1 for hatchet/felling axe, 2x1 for B12).

Regarding 'Crafting changes and Tedium' something thrown in here as seeds for further thinking:
Deeper wood mechanics - add Saw Horse (some boards and blocks) and Chopping Block (directly built from log like runestone), both liftable and can accept a log as input material (functionality similar to boat/cart but only one object, but only liftable while empty). Making Blocks/Boards without them would still be possible but reduced in quantity&quality yield. Maybe also a Workbench that acts similar to a Pottery Wheel for crafting related stuff (possibly with softcap to keep q inflation for crafted stuff at bay).

[jorb]

Idk.