Making Leather..

[bigsteve 378]

Why isn't Tannin user to make leather instead of lye???

[Bart 954]

Because we have lye? and its about the only use for ash

[silakka 2,360]

thx im traumatized by your picture

and do u have any ideas how could we use up ash?

[Keldun 335]

There are some misconceptions on the part of Wurm, mainly due to interchangeable colloquial use, but more correct would be the following:

When you butcher any animal you always get a hide. This is the fresh skin with everything still attached: fat, fur, feathers and scales, whatever applies to the species.

Normally you would immediately cure the hide with salt to prevent decay, but that's too rare in Wurm. Now if oceans were actually salty... anyway lets skip that for now.

The hide of a mammal is called a pelt, because it got fur attached. Fur here refers to just the coat of hairs. (this means all mammals, Horse, Wolf or Cat would produce a pelt)

Lye is actually used, but only to remove hair/feather/scales and turn the hide/pelt into pure skin.

You would then soak the skin in tannin to turn it into leather.

You can also tan a pelt with fur still attached. This is usually called a fur as well. Reptile and fish hides are usually tanned directly and called leather afterwards.

Btw. While it's true that the acorns hold a particularly large concentration of tannin, you can also process the wood. Usually people used fir(!) wood though, that's why it is called tanning, from the germanic word for fir: Tanna. So with the upcomming fir trees and the planned nut harvesting it should be easy to increase the supply of tannin.

I think we should switch to actual tannin for tanning.

Some other uses for lye:

Lutfisk! (lye fish)

A typical skandinavian method to preserve fish. It would be just perfect for Wurm.

Lutfisk would be something that fits nicely in a fsb.

Soap for cleaning infected wounds and for improving armour.

Concrete is already implemented.

Edited February 3, 2013 by Keldun

[Keldun 335]

Ps I think the reason we use lye is that historically in Wurm there was just ash and hides and we needed leather.

Later they added dyes and tannin, but no one made the switch.

[Shrimpiie 3,665]

No thank you, I'm fine with the current system, doesn't need to be made more complicated or more like rl.

-1

[Keldun 335]

It's not that more complicated at all.

Basically, if you don't want to mess with the established system it boils down to these two major points:

• increase supply of tannin and replace lye for tanning
  
• use lye to turn furs and pelts into hides
  

That would both improve realism and benefit game play. It deals with all the "useless" furs and pelts and brings black dye on a sane level.

These points are just correctional details:

• every mammal drops a pelt, everything else drops a hide, including fish but not insects
  
• tan a pelt to turn it into a fur
  
• use furs for both beds and imping and turn all existing pelts into furs or alternatively let pelts keep their enchants when turning them to fur.
  

That would make tanning a little more involved, but also more realistic. And considering that Wurm is a simulator with a complex crafting system, I don't necessarily see a more involved crafting method as a bad thing.

And optional these:

• use salt to cure pelts and hides to decrease decay
  
• increase the supply of salt and require cured pelts and hides for tanning
  

It is never a good idea to sacrifice game play just for realism, but it's always good to get more realism in, especially in a simulator type game. A lot of people enjoy it, when stuff works the "right" way. I love Minecraft, but when I play Wurm I want things a little more "straight / serious (?)", don't quite have the right word, but I think you can guess what I mean.

Edited February 4, 2013 by Keldun

[Acheronia 18]

+1 to Keldun's idea. Will make the furs more useful.

[Keldun 335]

Maybe one point of explanation for this:

• use furs for both beds and imping and turn all existing pelts into furs or alternatively let pelts keep their enchants when turning them to fur.
  

I included this, because the way I defined it, a pelt is a more or less smelly piece of animal corpse, not suitable as a tool like a sheet of treated fur would be. But obviously people would complain if you took away their enchanted tools, so that needs dealt with.

This would also help with the discrepancy of fast decaying butchering product (pelt) and important tool (enchanted pelt) we have now. Pelt would still be the butchering product, but fur the tool, clear distinction.

[Ellenmarie 39]

We could use fur on clothing, too. I hope the Devs add more choices for clothing:)

[Wulfgar 1,119]

No need to change.

They also use urine and dung in the tanning process in real life, do you want that in Wurm too?

Leatherworking does not need more realism, except if it actually makes it a bit easier to make leather because its a royal pita at the moment compared to what all other crafters need.