Guides:Woodcutting(tutorial)

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Summary

Woodcutting is a useful skill that many skills rely on, it is used for both lighting and maintaining the fires required in both pottery and blacksmithing, and provides the raw materials necessary for carpentry which makes tools necessary for making string, rope, stone walls and houses, just to name a few things. Just because it seems simple and straight forward doesn't mean it is.

Trained skills

Skills that are used and thus trained by this Tutorial

• Woodcutting
• Firemaking
• Carpentry

Assumed knowledge

Information you are expected to know or have obtained from other tutorials

• None

Items needed

Raw materials

Raw materials are consumed in the process of creating the item

• Tree

Necessary tools

Necessary tools that are required to make the item

• Small axe(Logs)
• Steel and flint(Campfire)
• Saw(Plank)
• Carving knife(Shaft)

Useful tools

Useful tools help improve the quality of an item, or complete incomplete items

• Pelt
• Iron file
• Log
• Mallet

Items covered in this tutorial

• Logs

  Logs are the largest manageable portion of a felled tree, When a tree has been chopped down it is still far too big to use, and so needs to be cut into logs. Logs provide plenty of raw wood to fuel fires or create raw materials such as planks or shafts.

• Plank

  Planks are a staple in carpentry where they are used to produce a vast number of items including: rafts, chests, barrels, carts, furniture, wooden fences, signs and more esoteric items such as the cheese drill, fruit press, archer target, practice doll and guard tower, not to mention being neccesary to build a Wooden House. They can also be used as an impromptu weapon, but the pickaxe or small axe you start with is better.

• Shaft

  Another impromptu weapon with many other practical uses. Used to create arrows and wooden handles, tools for pottery, the mallet and fishing rod it is also itself used in the creation of many weapons and other blacksmithing items as well as often being vital to finished items created with Planks

• Campfire

  This might be considered self-explanatory but a campfire allows you to see at night. It is also used to turn foraged ingredients into food, clay items into pottery, and iron ore into iron lumps, which can be turned into metal objects using blacksmithing

Hints & Tips

• Don't chop down the first tree you see. The reason you may have to walk a few minutes to even find one is because of people who did this. As a general guide don't chop down trees younger than 'old' or 'very old', and don't chop down trees in areas where they are sparse or uncommon. If there is anyone in Local chat feel free to ask if they don't mind you taking a tree

• If you have a sickle try to take a sprout from a tree and plant it to replace the tree. If you don't have one you can ask the nearby people in Local chat if someone has one you can borrow or can plant the sprout for you, not everyone can, but many people will be happy to see the hills not deforested and to see someone who cares about the repercussions of his actions. A Tree cannot have more than one sprout removed per 24hours, so you may need to use other trees nearby instead

• Trees are big, it will take more than one go to chop them down. You can right click to examine them to see how much damage you have done to the tree each attempt, when the damage reaches 100 the tree falls and you can now start chopping it into pieces.

• When you attempt an item at a low skill level you will often fail and have to start again. If you fail producing an item made of wood you may mangle it so badly you end up with an unusable piece of wood known as a woodscrap. Woodscraps are not completely useless, they can be used to create kindling, and can also be used to fuel a fire without wasting precious logs. They can be combined to increase their weight so that you don't have to feed them in one at a time

• Sometimes when you fail you will make an 'Unfinished item', a damaged item that is repairable with the right tools. If you have the tools necessary to complete the item, or the time and resources to create them you can use those items to complete the unfinished item, if you can't or won't then your best bet is just to try over again. Completing unfinished items is not a waste of time though, items finally produced this way are generally of higher quality than items produced immediately.

Woodcutting

Making logs

1. To begin you will need to find an appropriate tree. See 'Hints and Tips' for Details on advice for picking trees without making enemies.
2. Activate your small axe by double-clicking it. When you right click the tree now you have a 'Cut Down' option. This will turn the tree into a felled tree. This will take time, each attempt will hack further away at the tree until it falls over. See 'Hints and Tips' for more info.
   1. If you have a sickle you will want to try and take a sprout before you continue, Activate your sickle (double click it) and right click the tree, you should get a 'Take Sprout' option, provided this tree hasn't had a sprout taken from it recently, only one sprout may be taken from each tree in a 24hour period
   2. If you fail in your attempt to take a sprout or you don't gain a 'Pick Sprout' option because one has already been taken, you will need to use another tree, if you DO have the sickle it's best to get atleast one sprout to replace this tree before you continue.
3. Now that the tree is cut down you can begin cutting it into more manageable pieces called logs. Logs are generally too big to use on any one items, most are made by carving parts off the log into a usable shape. Your small axe should still be active, right clicking the felled tree should produce a 'Chop Up' option. If you do anything with the logs produced this way before the felled tree disappears you will need to reactivate your small axe. You can chop the felled tree into a number of logs, depending on the age of the tree.
   1. If you had a sickle now is a good time to plant the sprout you got earlier, preferably on the same square you took it from. The logs and the felled tree won't get in the way of planting it. Double click the sprout to select it, right click the place you wish to grow it, then choose the 'Plant' option. If you fail the sprout will be ruined, but the logs and/or felled tree will mark your spot if you have to go take another sprout.
4. Once you are finished chopping the felled tree you should have a number of logs in front of you, perfect to start experimenting with carpentry or firemaking.

Making Woodcuts

Planks

1. You will need a Log from the earlier 'Woodcutting' section
2. Activate your Saw by Double Clicking it, then choose a log with more than 4kg weight
3. Richt clicking it with your Saw active should give you a 'Create > Weapon > Plank' option
   1. Succeeding should Provide you a 2kg woodscrap as well as the 2kg Plank. Failing should give you two 2kg woodscraps. Don't toss these as they can be combined and Burned or used to create Kindling. See the 'Making Fire' section earlier
4. If you fail producing the Plank you can try again on the same Log so long as it is still heavier than 4kg, otherwise you will need a new log.

Shafts

1. You will need a Log from the earlier 'Woodcutting' section
2. Activate your Carving Knife by Double Clicking it, then choose a log with more than Xkg weight
3. Right clicking it with your Saw active should give you a 'Create > Weapon > Shaft' option
   1. Succeeding should Provide you with a Shaft. Failing should give you a woodscrap instead. Don't toss these as they can be combined and Burned or used to create Kindling. See the 'Making Fire' section earlier
4. If you fail producing the Shaft you can try again on the same Log so long as it is still heavier than Xkg, otherwise you will need a new log.

Making Fire

1. You will need either a Log from the 'Making Logs' section, or woodscraps from the 'Making Woodcuts' section.
2. Activate your Carving Knife by double clicking it. Then choose either a Log or Woodscrap with weight more than 1.5kg
   1. Is your Woodscrap too light? You can combine Woodscraps the same way you combine Rock-shards and Iron Lumps (As long as the lumps are glowing). Activate one of the two, then, when right clicking the other you should gain a 'Combine' option. This will destroy both and make a new item with the combined weight of both and a QL that is the weighted average of the pieces. (Combining a QL 3 0.2kg Woodscrap with a QL 1 0.4kg woodcrap will give you a QL 1.33 0.6kg Woodscrap)
3. Right click on the Woodscrap or Log. You should gain a 'Create > Miscellanious > Kindling' option. you will need a kindling every time you start a fire, and every fire will consume one kindling
   1. if you fail to create a kindling from a Log, you will create a woodscrap the exact weight of a kindling. Since you can create a Kindling from a woodscrap you shouldn't need to use more of your log
4. Activate your Steel and Flint. You will need it to light your fire
   1. If you wish to light a fire on the ground move onto the square you wish to make it on, then right click your kindling, you should get a 'Create > Container > Campfire' option if your Steel and Flint is Active. Doing this will consume your kindling and create a campfire on the space you are standing, this fire will not last long without more fuel however.
   2. If you wish to make your fire inside a Forge or Oven, right click it instead, you should gain a 'Light' option, if your Steel and Flint is Active. Doing this will consume your kindling, and create a fire inside the Forge or Oven. this fire will not last long without more fuel however.
5. You will now need to add fuel to the fire, Logs are the fuel of choice, but Tar and Peat also burn well. The best burning substance is Charcoal, which must be personally created. A Fire can take up to 20kg of fuel, the more fuel added the longer it will burn, any more than 20kg will not cause it to burn any longer than ity already is. Nearly any wooden item will also burn, Planks and Shafts, allong with Small Chests and Barrels can be burned, but this is generally considered wasteful.
   1. 20kg is the right ammount to fuel a fire with the average log, wasting little after producing two kindling from a 24kg log
6. Right click and Examine the fire. This will tell you it's quality andhow fuelled it is which determines how well it burns. If it has plenty of fuel it will burn longer and heat at maximum capacity. The higher the Quality of the Campfire, Forge or Oven the faster it will heat things up inside it, Campfires' Quality are determined by the firemaking skill of the lighter, while Forges and Ovens can be improved with good quality Rockshards and tools.

Using

Woodcuts

• Improving: Many carpentry items can be improved with Log or sometimes planks, Right click, Examine something will generally tell you what can be used to improve it. Activate this item by double clicking it, and this time when you right click the item there should be an 'improve' option.

• Repairing: Many items can be repaired without tools, but some require tools and others require raw materials. Things like houses and fences generally require planks in order to repair them, if an item does not have a repair function when you right click it you generally need something. If you have the right item selected by double clicking, the 'Repair' option will reappear.

• Creating: Carpentry items without exception generally require planks and/or shafts if they aren't to be made from a log itself, you will need to check what tools and materials they need. With the right tool active (by double clicking it) you gain a new 'Create' option.

Fires

• Light: Campfires provide light, if you need to work on an area in the dark where you need to see what you are doing and have not yet produced a torch or lantern a campfire may be your best option. This is also Good down in a mine, as the campfire can double-up by providing light and smelting ore at the same time

• Smelting: Although a forge is better for the Job, Iron Ore can be smelted in a Campfire to reduce it to an Iron Lump. You need to open the Campfire and put the Iron ORe inside, examining the Iron Ore will tell you how hot it is, once it is glowing from heat it will be reduced to an Iron Lump shortly. The lower the QL of the campfire the longer this will take, and the campfire will need to be kept well fuelled while it is being used this way.

• Cooking: Although an Oven is best, and a Forge can be used, both are better than a campfire for cooking, however if you are only making a Caserole, Soup or Stew the difference will be neglible.

• Baking: Although a forge is faster, A Campfire can be used to bake Clay goods and make them into pottery. The Quality of the pottery will not be affected, but it may take longer and/or more fuel to bake