More functional simple tools

[Drael]

More functional simple tools such as the adze or sharp stone being able to do more. Why not a spear made from wood & a sharp stone, for example? This could make early life easier, which would be a blessing, and also be realistic.

[Piscator]

What would be the great advantage of a flint spear compared to a bone spear? Except that it uses slightly different resources.

There are quite a lot of primitive tools and weapons available already and although a little more diversity would be nice, I'm not sure that yet more primitive tools would make life easier.

[Drael]

What would be the great advantage of a flint spear compared to a bone spear? Except that it uses slightly different resources.

It wouldnt matter a great deal. However, thats not exactly what i meant. What i meant was using a sharp stone as a tool to make, say a wooden spear.

Im sure this woulndt make any huge differences, but i note that some of my charries find it hard to get initial tools. These mostly come from animal parts, and making it easier to get simple weapons could open some doors for some early characters? (like a sharpened stick for example)

I was just thinking about man versus wild kinda stuff (pure survival), and making things like a simple spear, or a vine snare for trapping is alot easier than constructing a proper weapon (and takes less than a day), and can get you food and animal parts from that.

Guess it comes in part from having alot of new characters, but things could really be simpler in that department.

I doubt later characters would care much for these types of ideas. I personally think a few little ideas like this could make earlier life a bit easier..

[SekoETC]

Generally characters are supposed to be part of a society. Maybe yours just spawned in inconvenient locations if they have to make basic tools from scratch (punching rabbits included?). A lot of places have heaps of bone tools left behind by dead people and the locals wouldn't mind giving them to a newspawn if he just asks nicely. In some places people are required to work to earn the basic tools, which is a bit lame considering that the people who benefit from the newspawn's work didn't make those tools, but then again it makes the newspawn work on something useful when he would be too young to organize himself.

There is a sharpened stick, it's called a fishing spear, but I think it requires a knife to make. When the Finnish region was just starting, my character (and others) found the stone cleaver to be a very efficient first weapon and it requires no tools to build. It's easy to kill rabbits with that and then you should have no trouble of getting enough bones for a knife. But if you are not in a primitive/deserted location, you should definitely ask the older people if you could take some tools from the ground or work for some or if there is some junk building or if they're carrying some extras.

Generally most things in Cantr take at least a day because originally the game was designed for people who only have time to log in once a day.

[Marian]

In some places people are required to work to earn the basic tools, which is a bit lame considering that the people who benefit from the newspawn's work didn't make those tools, but then again it makes the newspawn work on something useful when he would be too young to organize himself.

Fair or not, it's a good system, nice way to weed out the people that are going to introduce themselves and then never say another word from the ones that are actually willing to get involved. Also I've seen plenty of newspawns (with various of my characters so it's not just one town) get handed food and full sets of beginning tools only to immediately walk off with no more then a 'kthxbye'. At least this way they have to contribute something first.

edit: but just to be on topic, I agree that unless you got unlucky enough to spawn in some totally abandoned spot or a town with literally nothing but sleepers, if you're trying to hunt animals to make knives and crap yourself from scratch you're playing the game wrong, you're wasting your character's time and their town's time too.

[Drael]

I am new to the game, and still getting my bearings really...

Some people have been nice and provided me with some basics, food, knives etc. Gets a bit tired doing that all the time, and people are sometimes quite stingy! (stuff that REALLY no one uses, they still horde). But there doesnt seem to be any obvious way to get some objects. Perhaps im just not getting the societies i live in, but some charries would like houses, another wants a radio transmitter, some want to be warriors etc. In some places there are small societies, of my ten or so characters only one has spawned in a location with twenty people...

I think i may need to search for the right home in some cases.

I just have really no idea how to get from where i am to where my characters want to be, other than ask nicely for tools, make then if none are available and build everything from stratch. Its almost impossible for me to imagine how anyone gets something like a boat.

I guess im not really getting it yet. Somewhat.

Maybe yours just spawned in inconvenient locations if they have to make basic tools from scratch (punching rabbits included?).

Didnt have much luck punching animals, lol.

One place i spawned didnt allow any private property or tool making, but didnt mention anything about a communal society there. Seems like that characters going to have to run for the hills.

When the Finnish region was just starting, my character (and others) found the stone cleaver to be a very efficient first weapon and it requires no tools to build.

That could be an option for some. Thanks for the tip.

Generally most things in Cantr take at least a day because originally the game was designed for people who only have time to log in once a day.

Some things take less.

if you're trying to hunt animals to make knives and crap yourself from scratch you're playing the game wrong, you're wasting your character's time and their town's time too.

Not what i want to be doing with my characters. I want to RP them, have goals etc.

Your advice(s) is(are) helpful. Cantr is really a bit like a hippy commune, you have to dig carrots, so someone else can cook dinner. I just hope there room in there to go travelling, own my own vehicle, build a radio transmitter, fight some battles etc - that the commune leader doesnt literally own me (which in some places seems to be so....that one place where theres no private property allowed....)

[SekoETC]

Yes, basic things you generally get by begging. In other games like KoL everyone builds their own fortune, but in Cantr you build on top of what everyone else has already built, and if you end up for example making a building and filling it with machinery while similar machinery is gathering dust in a neighboring building, either the society isn't working or you haven't asked the right questions.

Freebies gained by begging are usually cheap things like bone knives. In societies where population has suffered a drop and they want to encourage newspawns to stay, they might also offer expensive things such as swords and an iron shield. But generally if someone gives you something expensive, they most likely expect you to work for the town. If they are not giving you expensive things in advance, they might still be ready to give you some in exchange for work. If there's no work available locally, people still generally need resources from other towns. Many of my old characters worked as resource runners when they were young. My young characters have generally spawned into more developed societies where newspawns are given freebies and/or work, or primitive places where you go where you want and build your own future.

So, if i want say, a boat, or a radio transmitter, apart from building it all myself and traveling the world to trade for millions of things, how do i acheive that?

A boat: Travel to a coastal location where population is lower than the amount of boats docked there, ask who owns the boats, ask if you could have/buy one of them, if no one has keys, question isn't it stupid that so many boats are standing unused while people waste their time gathering wood for a new one. If someone has a crowbar and the town authorities are not against it, people might start breaking into boats and reclaiming them. Although you should make sure you have a screwdriver and iron for a lock, since otherwise someone might steal the boat from you or people might accuse you of stealing it. Changing the name is also good. You might also try to join a raker or a galleon crew, some of them tend to gather abandoned boats that are found floating at the sea. After you've been there for a while, you could ask about the possibility of getting one of the boats. Longboats are generally just dead weight so people are glad to get rid of them, but ones that use iron and/or steel might be harder to get. Also you could try working for a crowbar (or work for enough steel, then find an empty building with an anvil and build the crowbar there), travel to an abandoned town (or one where all the people are new and no one knows who used to own the boats), then break into one of them. Again, remember to build a lock.

A radio transmitter: They are generally the result of town team effort, but one of my characters acquired the parts by sailing from town to town and trading for resources. Some of the resources originally came from dead people. If you can claim keys to a town after an old person dies, you can get a good nest egg but generally you need to share some of the wealth to convince the locals that you're working for the good of the town. It works better if you're the oldest person awake.

So is cantr really about town membership, and doing jobs for the town people?

Is it like a commune? In which case, why doesnt any one say, work for us and well give you all the stuff you want?

Towns are different. In some everyone works together for the same goals. In some everyone minds their own business. Some towns might have specialized shops that hire workers and resource runners, while some might have one building with all the machinery and either citizens can use them to process their own resources or there's a boss who decides what people are supposed to work on.

At least in my commune-like town you can't directly say "work for us and get what ever you like" because the machinery, vehicles and tools are also shared by the other citizens, so players accustomed to private ownership might not be able to call this "getting".

In one case, it was mentioned that as a citizen you get food and basic tools. Well to me thats not much of an ambition, to get some tools and food and then just sit in a town building a well or something.

The fun part in that kind of towns comes from getting to know the people and socializing with them. Maybe flirting a bit, telling some stories, making friends, find a lover, get married, go through some drama. Some people don't want to bother their head with planning projects, they're happy to be told "there's a project, work on that, thanks for your help". But if your character has dreams then he can bring them up, and others might agree that's a good goal, or point out if it's unrealistic.

[Marian]

I think the most important thing is just to get involved. Somewhere, anywhere. Most towns I've seen are desperate for reliable people.

You're not going to go from a bone knife to a car overnight, but find a town, even a quiet one...heck, especially a quiet one, and if you show that you're active and dedicated and willing to help everything else will follow after - in a decade or so you could very well be running the place.

It's probably not a good idea to spawn somewhere and immediately go 'hey I need a boat so that i can sail away and never contribute anything to the town that helped me get it' so if your character is more interested in being a loner you're going to have a tough time of it, but Seko's suggestion is a good one. If you see more boats than people then someone there has a whole bunch of keys and would probably be willing to let go of one in exchange for a little work. Now that someone may not be necessarily outside, a lot of times the more active people are inside actually working on something besides farming project, so you may need to bang on a few doors and just generally be patient and persistant...in fact being patient and persistant is pretty much the key to any kind of success in Cantr, if your character defines success by having cool stuff.

[*Wiro]

You're not going to go from a bone knife to a car overnight, but find a town, even a quiet one...heck, especially a quiet one, and if you show that you're active and dedicated and willing to help everything else will follow after - in a decade or so you could very well be running the place.

Or waiting for the town leader, who only wakes up when attacked or hungry, to die while talking to the unresponsive other people around, wondering wether they will die of a heart attack or because of a lack of food.
And when the town leader finally dies, you're all alone with a bunch of resources, but no one talks to you. Yay.

[Marian]

Or waiting for the town leader, who only wakes up when attacked or hungry, to die while talking to the unresponsive other people around, wondering wether they will die of a heart attack or because of a lack of food.
And when the town leader finally dies, you're all alone with a bunch of resources, but no one talks to you. Yay.

I must be lucky then because I've never actually encountered this situation. Every town I've ever been in with a population >5 has at least one reasonably active person, sometimes it's even the person with the keys. When they realize you're actually going to RP and not wander away or starve they are overjoyed and shower you with gifts, or at least start making plans with you if they're as poor as you are.

Pretty much without exception my most successful and fun chars seem to spawn in small towns and become close friends with the just two or three people that are most active there...but then again I really enjoy taking a sleepy place and setting up plans to keep newspawns around and try to bring it to life a little so maybe I'm just a masochist.

[ceselb]

It's hard starting out. Many will ignore you until you've lasted a while, since so many die all the time. If people come and go a lot, introduce yourself again. Ask about things, voice your plans.
Before you know it you'll be established.

[*Wiro]

Or waiting for the town leader, who only wakes up when attacked or hungry, to die while talking to the unresponsive other people around, wondering wether they will die of a heart attack or because of a lack of food.
And when the town leader finally dies, you're all alone with a bunch of resources, but no one talks to you. Yay.

I must be lucky then because I've never actually encountered this situation. Every town I've ever been in with a population >5 has at least one reasonably active person, sometimes it's even the person with the keys. When they realize you're actually going to RP and not wander away or starve they are overjoyed and shower you with gifts, or at least start making plans with you if they're as poor as you are.

Pretty much without exception my most successful and fun chars seem to spawn in small towns and become close friends with the just two or three people that are most active there...but then again I really enjoy taking a sleepy place and setting up plans to keep newspawns around and try to bring it to life a little so maybe I'm just a masochist.

Well, one of my chars who got a town, was there alone for a few years.
He killed the town leader who had been quiet for a long time(one cantr-year ago he replied to one of the many things my character had said and done), just standing there (my char kept talking to him), and then he replied within two IRL hours to attack me back and lock my char up. I was so pissed off then, knowing that he was basically ignoring me all the time. And then I later successfully killed him, but I was all alone in that place.
Then someone spawned, people came there, and then he locked them up, and they stopped roleplaying with me. They simply ignored everything I said and did to them, they just tried to do everything to ruin the fun for me. Using resources on useless projects, and then just sitting there, even though they didn't have to die (or pointing at my char tons of times, knocking on doors, spamming notes). It makes me want to stop roleplaying with them, but I'm glad I didn't. Now that char found some better people who he locked up in his lil' house and hopes they'll live with him there.

Another char does have a great town. A Dutch char. Full of active characters that all have their own opinions about the way things work (and actually the only dutch town I know of where chars don't get killed or kicked out of town for giving their opinion ).

I guess I'm sorta unlucky and sometimes a little lucky.

@Ceselb - When people die, hope they drop some good stuff. x3 Just be awake around the death tick.

[SekoETC]

If a character only does stuff like knocking, pointing, stealing and such, it's possible that they were spawned in the wrong language group. It's pretty much impossible to blend in if there's no one who speaks your language (or if there is one but you leave town before he ever speaks so you are unaware of his existence, and he doesn't know that you're his child because you never spoke).

[*Wiro]

That character was played by a player who stopped roleplaying with me after I locked him up. It was an English character played by someone who rather wanted their char to die and annoy the player as much as possible, than to live or roleplay their death.

[SekoETC]

What a jerk. Being locked up spawns the best RP in Cantr as long as the capturer is not ignoring you (or treating you like an NPC).