No stream today, but update news next week (and a sneak peek today for Patrons)

Hey there Wildlanders! Apologies - no stream today, as I am working hard on some important features for the upcoming update. 

For you Patrons, here is a sneak peek of the largest new feature coming in the update: Crafting Tools.

Crafting Tools? In a bugfixing update?

Fair point, dear user; please allow me to explain.

In my view, crafting currently suffers from the following issues:

• Displayed recipes are an unruly mess. CCOR's crafting categories attempt to wrangle the recipes, but the categories themselves are pretty obtuse to use. Compound this with all the weirdo recipes that currently appear at the Forge, and it's just not a good experience.
• Characters can craft complex recipes with no tools. Ever tried to make full leather armor or a wooden bed with only your hands? (This issue is thematic versus functional, but it has always grated on my personal sense of immersion.)

In attempting to fix these issues for the update, I believe I've come up with a solution that serves as both a "bugfix" and a feature in its own right: Crafting Tools. 

How does it work?

Basically, sets of tools are now required for crafting recipes. Some example toolsets are Smithing Tools, Tailoring Tools, and Construction Tools. 

Here are the details:

• Recipes will appear in your crafting menu while you hold the requisite tools. For example, holding the Tailoring Tools reveals clothing recipes and leather/hide armor recipes, holding the Construction Tools reveals furniture / emplacement recipes, etc. This way, you can easily find the recipes you need and yeet the ones you don't.
• You can further sort by activating these tools directly within the inventory. This will show a crafting menu with only that toolset's recipes.
• Crafting stations are still required for applicable recipes. For example, shaping ingots still requires a forge, smelting ingots still requires a smelter, and tanning pelts still requires a tanning rack.

I think this system is far more intuitive, and it also creates a solid framework for future expansions to the crafting system, including recipes/recipe books, crafting time elapse, and additional crafting stations.

I will be back next week to show it off to y'all, along with some of the other fixes, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend between.

All the best,

Dylan