Regarding quality and item properties

[foo]

OK so I get that everything has an inherent quality and that higher = better but I'm not sure I understand the mechanics of it all.

For instance, farming. When I harvest a crop is the quality of the the seeds that I get in return based on my farming skill or based on the quality of the seeds that I originally planted?

Or for crafting skills like leather working, how can I get quality > 10 leather when all the hides I get from rabbits are always quality 10, which skill enables me to get better quality rabbit hides when I skin them?

If I build something out of wood is the quality of the item totally dependent on the materials used to make it or does my carpentry skill also come into play?

Sorry about all the questions but I'm a bit confused about it all. I see people saying they have like 135Q seeds and I'm thinking how the hell did they get that!

Thanks in advance for any info.

[livercat]

Your skill usually acts as softcap for item quality - you can't get item quality higher than your skill.
Though, your skill doesn't raise q of item by itself - it depends on quality of raw materials.
In case of farming, seed will be (original q +/- 5) capped by your Farming.
Quality of skins can be increased by quality of tub (planks made with high-q saw), q of water and bark.

[footwo]

So should I not bother planting seeds with a low quality?

I've got a few 10q + ones so I've planted them but my initial batch returned seeds of low quality, should I just bin them?

[tristamizumi]

For instance, farming. When I harvest a crop is the quality of the the seeds that I get in return based on my farming skill or based on the quality of the seeds that I originally planted?

Both. Seed quality varies by +-5 of the original seed quality, maxing out at your skill in Farming.

Or for crafting skills like leather working, how can I get quality > 10 leather when all the hides I get from rabbits are always quality 10, which skill enables me to get better quality rabbit hides when I skin them?

To get higher quality hides, you need to kill higher quality and level animals. You also need a higher Survival and higher quality skinning tool.

If I build something out of wood is the quality of the item totally dependent on the materials used to make it or does my carpentry skill also come into play?

It depends. For containers (except barrels), houses, walls, and vehicles, it don't matter. For things like making boards, churns, looms, and the like, your Carpentry will affect it and does matter. Essentially, if the created object's quality will affect items produced from it, your skill in Carpentry will affect it (and by affect I mean be a softcap; read the wiki for an explanation.

[Chakravanti]

You're wrong. Skills have absolutely no effect on any built items whatsoever.

[footwo]

You're wrong. Skills have absolutely no effect on any built items whatsoever.

So my herbalist table or chicken coop or oven doesnt have any kind of internal quality that affects the things it makes?

[sabinati]

of course they have quality, but it's based on the quality of the materials used to build them. p.s. chicken coop quality doesn't matter

[Zamte]

Loftar posted the formula for buildables on the quality page on the wiki. Basically, it takes the arithmetical average of all the items of the same type (so if you used say, 4x q40 fibers and 4xq42 fibers for an herbalist table, it'd use q41 in the equation) and then geometrically averages them together.

Assuming no weight, for instance, my herbalist tables, which were made with plant fibers that came out to q142ish average, q70 boards, and q58 blocks, would look like this:

3√(142*70*58) = 3√576520 = 83.22838343727383 = 83

It's entirely possible it is weighted though, so it makes it tough to always know exactly what quality the built item is. In either case though, regardless of who actually does the building, the item will be the same end quality.

[foo]

ok thanks for the advice.

I'm going to bin all my q<10 seeds then

[Folly]

Is "bin" slang for destroy?
You may want to consider building a trough and start stashing all your junk seeds in there. Then you can feed it to your animals if you ever tame any.