Some suggestions on mining, logging and trees.

[sami1337]

At first you start mining with just your bare hands (???), which is slow and backbreaking work. But once you finally made your anvil, hammer and pick you can finally take a break as mining is easy to do now. Or not. It costs as much stamina as bare hand mining, but it goes faster.
I expected better performance out of a mining pick, not the same performance but faster. It should use atleast half the stamina you're using bare handed.

Also related, wood cutting. You should be able to plant trees. Every tree should have the option to have a sprout picked every day or twice a day (using a sickle or axe perhaps). Having to walk around a couple minutes just to find a suitable tree is not cool.

And a general note. Resources required seems unbalanced. For example the bucket.
A tree provides 4 planks or like 10 logs. But a bucket costs a whole plank.
I don't think during the time the game is set in they would use planks to make buckets. They would rather carve out a log to make a bucket as a bucket requires iron as reinforcement.

[jorb]

Mining has a bit of a bootstrap problem in that it is far from obvious how you mine before you have the first batch of metal to make mining tools. IRL, this would probably be explained with intermediate steps of metal tools that can be produced without serious mining operations per se. Bronze and whatnot. In Haven, you do need to have a stone axe equipped to start mining. This representation could probably be improved upon, but since there are only the two of us working on this project, we do have to prioritize.

Mining gets a lot easier (almost too easy, I sometimes feel) when you get a cauldron and start making tea to replenish stamina. Making boards from a log with just a bone saw seems to me as a far from trivial task, with lots of waste from imperfect cutting -- hence the relatively few boards produced. That improves with a metal saw, which gives six boards per log. Later on, one could consider more sawmill type structures capable of rendering the log into even more boards, but we haven't really discussed that.

The buckets are debatable. Making buckets/vessels from wood alone, i.e. without iron supports, is quite possible, as this beautiful video from Swedish television (1923) will illustrate.

That being said, one could argue that there should be more containers in general. Water skins made from hides, containers made from metal, bark, glass, etc.

Planting trees is definitely on the agenda.



MOD: Changed Topic from "some suggestions" to "Some suggestions on mining, logging and trees".

[sami1337]

I probably chose the wrong spot then. Since i have no idea if trees grow back i try to keep the apple trees near me in one piece.
Can't wait for the plant able trees and new buildings.

Oh and yeah you're right, that's video is incredible. He could probably make a couple of those on a day and all of fine quality.

[loftar]

I probably chose the wrong spot then.

Hehe, yes, that's quite possible. I, too, chose a spot without any nearby forest for my last settlement, and it turned out to be quite a bad idea. :)

Of course, replanting of trees will fix the problem to a large extent, but settling close to a forest will probably remain a good idea for a long time to come.

[sami1337]

Ya i guess i could always move. But for now there's still some trees around. I'll just stick here till i get my skills and everything. Then moving should not be a problem.