Mattock

[Dragnier 0]

I think there should be a new tool added; the Mattock. The pick mattock is a combination of a pick and an adze which allows for effective use on stone and dirt plus wood shaping but not cutting. The cutter mattock is an axe and an adze which allows for effective use on wood and dirt. They are not particularly useful on sand in either iteration and would probably be less than effective on gravel as well.

I believe these two tools should allow multipurpose usage. The pick mattock would basically function as a combined pick and hoe but with shovel like effectiveness on dirt while the cutter mattock would be similarly like combining an axe and a hoe.

This tool type is really more of a convenience tool which allows a player to carry fewer tools and save inventory space. A shovel would still be slightly better if you were just moving dirt and gravel, but if you are mining and might encounter stone as well the pick mattock would be better. Shovels would still be much better when dealing with sand. Also, the cutter mattock would be useful for terraforming a forest area, building new farms, or even just building plus terraforming in general.

Further, the addition of this tool type would create the ability to add adze style wood shaping to the game. Things like canoes are made with adze type tools and there are many other possibilities for such usage as well. Canoes could be a boat type available prior to having the ability to make planks. Adzes were also used in ice shaping and cutting which could provide a way to obtain ice in the lower tool tiers at the expense of increased exhaustion.

Technology is not just about new things, but easier methods of doing current tasks as well. Mattocks and Adzes are typically more exhaustive to use in many situations than improved technology discovered later which could be the balancing point if they were used in the game. Basically, I think adding these types of tools to TFC2 would improve the all around feel of the rustic style at the beginning of the game while enabling the usage of some features typically locked behind a technology gate at a trade-off of increased time/effort to achieve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattock

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adze

[Darmo 303]

Interesting idea.   I think it'd be good to explore the mechanics a bit more.  I don't think we know that there will be any such thing as exhaustion in TFC2, so what other tradeoffs could there be?  And how do these fit in the tech tree?  You talk about using features normally behind tech gates, but shovel, hoe, and axe are already stone-age.   Pick is the only one that is normally behind a gate.  It seems to me like it should stay there, unless surface nuggets are no longer a thing. All bets are off then, I guess. 

I think these tools would be unbalanced if available via knapping - stones are unlimited.  So maybe they would only be made of metal, and would take two ingots?  The resulting tool could have less durability (compared to if you used 2 separate ingots to make 2 separate tools).  So you're trading durability for having a dual-use tool that only takes 1 inventory spot. 

Also, can you even have an intermediate tool?  I think a tool is either a block destroyer for a given type of block, or it's not?  A mattock should be useless for sand and gravel, I'd say.  But they're quick blocks to break anyway, even with a stone shovel, so that's not a huge disadvantage.

[Dragnier 0]

When I say exhaustion, that could simply translate into using  more hunger/thirst rather than a new resource.

As for pick being gated, that may not be a thing either. We just don't know yet. If it were, then the stone version could only be a cutter mattock for wood/dirt. That would still be useful and allow for the adze type crafting. Then, once metal working was achieved, the pick mattock could be introduced as well.

[ChunkHunter 73]

I like the idea - I think making it a 2-ingot item would be a bit expensive if it's got the durability of significantly less than two 1-ingot items.  I would suggest it was a single ingot with possibly less durability.
If you use the tool for multiplle functions it will effectively feel like reduced durability anyhow.

If it were 2 ingots, and significantly less durability than two single-ingot tools I'd forego the inventory slot in an instant - thinking more about it - I don't think I'd even think about making it if it had less durability.

Another problem with it being a 2-ingot tool would be that it cannot be cast - which I would argue should be a thing.

[Dragnier 0]

Probably the best way is to simply make the head it's own thing for each type of mattock equivalent to the same as any other tool head in both materials and durability; especially since the extra use of the tool will drain the durability faster by default as ChunkHunter mentioned. That being said, the adze side of the tool could potentially have its own crafting uses such as the aforementioned canoes as well which might even further hit the durability of the tool.

The main thing I was going for here was a possible way to allow some crafting via a new method in combination with a utility aspect. For instance, there could be a way to adze logs into fences, which would be much slower than the crafting recipe you get later after obtaining a saw, but would allow some meager defenses early on. If you wanted to get really fancy, a mattock could also be used as a deconstruction tool for some things. Allowing players to pry apart certain crafted items to get their resources back in some fashion with varying results via placing them in the crafting grid with the mattock could also be a thing. (I'm thinking of things like fences and such where the parts are technically just shoved together here, though not the ones you might be able to adze into existence since they would only be a single carved piece.)

There are lots of design possibilities based on the various uses one can put a mattock to in real life, but the main thing is that mattocks are a long established tool that would add both aesthetic and utility to TFC2.

[Darmo 303]

That's interesting you guys would easily forgo the inventory slot for *any* reduced durability. The problem is, why would anyone ever make a 'normal' tool if they could have a dual-use one with the same durability?  It won't 'feel' like less durability imo.  To use my own habits, I always carry on me a saw and an axe, and most of the time also a pick and chisel.  When exploring I also carry a propick.  What I do NOT carry often is a shovel.  Because the uses for shovels when exploring are very minor, and I just make a stone one when needed.  So for me having a combo axe-shovel would be a great bonus, and if there's no durability penalty for an axe mattock I'd never make a normal axe.  I'd always, always make a axmattock.  Similarly, a pickmattock would be great for mines interspersed with gravel.  Why would I ever make a normal pick if I could have both at no penalty?  Why would anyone ever make a normal axe or pick if there's no durability penalty to the mattock versions?  There'd have to be other disadvantages.

What other disadvantage could there be aside from reduced durability?  For hunger and thirst drain to be a penalty, they would have to be ramped up considerably while using a mattock I think, because food and water are not that problematic currently.   And is that even code possible I wonder?  If we're getting a weight limit system, there'd normally also a big weight advantage to two tools vs 3.  So the mattock might need to weigh like, twice a normal tool at least.  If reduced speed vs specialized tools were possible, that could be a thing.  but personally I'd never use mattocks if they had reduced speed.  There's just not a lot of great options

As far as adzes go, it'd use fewer item ids to just make a single adze tool.  But the uses for such a tool are so limited, that probably wouldn't be worthwhile, unless new adze-requiring tasks are invented.  If one wants to bring adze type tasks into the game, maybe it's just better to use the hoe, since a hoe is basically an adze anyway.

I think the problem is there's a difficulty in balancing mattocks between being obviously way better than normal tools, vs having too many disadvantages.  Shovels just aren't that useful outside of mass terraforming or charcoal making, both of which I think are mostly done around a player's base, so it's easy to just hang a shovel on the wall nearby.  In most other cases it'll be better to just make a disposable stone shovel as needed.  Without it's own specific task, a mattock is always going to be fighting the other tools for supremacy.   If some sort of root-bound soil block were added to the game, that'd be a very legit use for a mattock, and is irl what they're best for.  Such blocks would not allow tilling, and when broken would yield a normal dirt block.  It could make forests less attractive for settlement, due to increased clearance work required.  But probably not worth the item ids it'd require to do such a thing.

 

 

[ChunkHunter 73]

Darmo - The mere fact that you'd be uising your tool as a shovel is reducing its durability as a pick.  That's what I was meaning about it 'feeling' like reduced durability.

If you want to persuade people to make metal shovels then you should disable the stone one

[Darmo 303]

It would only have that feeling for people who have no idea what's going on Chunk.  The fact of the matter would be that, unless there were other penalties, it would be a hands-down better tool and there'd be no reason to ever make the normal tools.  I'd argue it's not great game design to add tools that will defacto replace other tools entirely.  My point is that mattocks would need to have real disadvantages (or their own unique uses) if they're to be a balanced addition to the game, rather than a poorly thought out 'for the looks' addition. 

I'm laying out some ideas for possible disadvantages - so far durability, hunger, weight, and destroy speed.  To me, durability is very clear-cut.  It's math, and it doesn't change.  Hunger and weight are kind of situational and inconsistent imo.  In some cases they might be a noticeable disadvantage, in others they might not be felt because they player may have plenty of food, or may not be carrying much, and so not care about a few extra lbs.   Destroy speed would be consistent, as long as it's noticeable.  But again, I question if it's code-possible, and I question if anyone would use mattocks if their destroy speed was slower.

[ChunkHunter 73]

I think that if you need a disadvantage, then durability, as you say, is the only real 'goer'.

One suggestion I have against the "why make the single tool if you can make a double one" argument might be to have some sort of tech associated with the item.  Not like the current TFC tech "gates" (metal, iron etc.), but perhaps an item or monument (for want of a better word) you need to find which is/has the 'blueprint' for the double item.  It *may* not even appear in the world that you're playing on - it *may* be sitting right next to spawn...

This 'blueprint' could be non-transferrable and destroyed as soon as one player finds it (this would give the 'discoverer' a nice bonus on multi-player worlds).

This "find the monument" idea could be adapted to all kinds of things - as long as they weren't prerequisites for other things.  I woud argue against putting something for a tool into a dungeon, but for other items it might be very appropriate.

 

(Just for the record, I'm *very* fond of playing devil's advocate as a stimulus to discussion and thought, so please don't think I'm 'dissing' your suggestions.)