Leather working recommendations

[Nobody]

TL;DR: This is a lengthy list of my observations and recommendations for whenever the next big overhaul of leather working is scheduled. They are in no particular order.

* Linguistic parser bug: When pelts are tanned, the quality can be adjusted (up or down) based on the skill of the leather worker and the way the RNG plays out. Normally, the quality of the pelt descriptor of the pelt is removed and the quality descriptor of the leather is added. The exception is terrible pelts, which correctly gain the leather quality descriptor but do not lose the terrible descriptor, leading to things like average soft terrible deer leather. I suspect the issue is that terrible is misspelled in the portion of the code that removes the pelt descriptor (because it's a hard word, and also it works with all other levels of quality).

* Carried / uncarried property bug: When a pelt is tanned to leather, the leather can be cut into strips and becomes a useful item and pseudo commodity. I haven't been able to sell them at market (though I haven't tried with high quality / higher value leathers), but they can be traded at the trading post at the same value as thistleweed (1 riln of trade value per strip). It is possible to trace a project and (optionally) partially complete the object via lcraft and still cut the pattern leather into strips. (I explored this as an IC method to get more practice early on without wastefully producing a lot of objects that would be unwanted by any). The produced leather strips do not function properly (they are bugged items in some way) - they can be braided, but cannot be used to fletch or produce knapped tools and cannot be traded at the trading post. They also lose their color property, so it is not possible to dye leather (or pattern leather) and then cut strips to produce hot pink leather strips (and from those a hot pink braided leather necklace, for example). This may function that way to allow bundling of strips regardless of the leather used to cut them. I would recommend either removing the ability to cut pattern leather into strips, or altering the code so that they retain their pseudo commodity properties and their usefulness in fletching. I would also recommend having strips retain any dye property when cut.

* Reptile skins: Lizards, crocodiles, serpants, and salamanders (and probably others) produce skin when skinned instead of pelts (e. g. lizard skin). The tanning options are soft and rigid, but do not include a natural option. When tanned soft or rigid, they retain the noun skin (pelts and scales have their noun changed to leather), but when traced and lcrafted they lose the critter name (as normal for all leather) and the skin noun and gain the leather descriptor. Thus, it is impossible to produce crocodile skin boots (they simply become leather boots or rigid leather boots). I speculate that the intention was to make all reptile skins reveal what critter they were made from. If that is the case, this is a bug, otherwise, please consider adding a natural option that can be used to produce things that show off that awesome croc skin.

* Fur and dyes: When a pelt is tanned using the natural option it becomes possible to show off what critter was used to produce the finished object. I have only found these to be furs (including shardlings, which I am informed are typically not imaged as being furry). When attempting to pour dye on a tanned fur, the message produced is "This pelt has already been treated with tanning solution." rather than a message more similar to the one for scale "You can't dye scales. It wouldn't take very well." I would recommend fixing the code if dyed fur should be a feature or changing the error message on a fail if dyed furs shouldn't be in game.

* Fur and adornments: When a finished object is above-average or better in quality, adornments can be added to it. Unless the finished object is fur. All adornments (burnt, burnished, inscribed, stamped, or studded) all produce a message that the adornment won't work with fur. I would recommend removing the adornment option for finished fur objects (as though their quality was average or worse), or adding adornments for fur, such as beaded.

* Adornments in general: I would love to see an adornment: decorated. It should function like studding, which requires a material to be provided, and include support for a variety of shells (example: a leather satchel decorated with black scallop shells), feathers (example: a leather satchel decorated with owl feathers), ribbons (though I don't know where you'd get them), and probably lots of other stuff I cannot think of at this moment (feel free to comment with other decorative items if you can think of any that would be appropriate). I would also like to recommend that the stamp adornment be altered to require reusable stamp objects be on the work table (similar to studding, but the stamp isn't destroyed), with different stamps sold where dyes are sold, and maybe some unique ones that show up from time to time at festivals.

* Additional leather craftables: I would like to request the following additional leather craftables: dress (clothing), robe (clothing, fur only?), charm-bag (containers), breechcloth (clothing), saddlebags (containers), cowl (clothing, fur only?), scarf (clothing, fur only?), sling (weapon), whip (weapon).

* Containers: I will recommend that scales be allowed to be used for containers (backpacks, packs, rucksacks, etc.) consistent with rigid leather.

* Repairs and quality: I have not explored these in depth and am not the expert by any stretch, but I suspect they are functioning much more in line with good game design principles than blacksmithed objects (objects decay over time, master quality work is rare, and I've never seen decay when repairing an object before it appears scuffed). I'll update this section when I have more experience, but in general I'm not recommending any changes.

* Quality modifiers: I will recommend adding well-crafted to the options for quality descriptors on above-average and better leather goods. I would also recommend reviewing each of the quality descriptors available and adjusting them for various materials (for example one can presently make velvety white drakolin scale gauntlets - for when you need a gentle but impressive touch?).

* Commodities: I have noticed that no commodities are made from leatherworking (aside from leather, which sells for less than pelts last I checked), however after research revealed parchment and vellum are made using untanned pelts I have zero suggestions to improve this.

I think that's all the comments I'd accumulated, thanks for hanging in through all them words!