Stoneshard Update – Skinning & New Traps

Ink Stains Games’ upcoming early access update for their challenging turn-based RPG Stoneshard will primarily revolve around expanding the game’s arsenal. However, it will still introduce several new systems that will let you use various traps to your advantage and harvest meat and pelts from slain animals. Here’s more on that, but be sure to check out the link above for some visual samples:

Hello everyone!

In today’s devlog we’ll tell you about some new features of the Equipment Update II, planned for this December (and which ended up containing more than just new equipment).

Harvesting meat and pelts

Since the game was first released, pelts had been dropping with a random chance. It was meant to imply that sometimes pelts are way too damaged, and that there was no use harvesting them. However, this mechanic wasn’t well-explained – unsurprisingly, it was only confusing players when they weren’t getting any loot after killing an animal.

To resolve this issue (and to increase immersion), we’ve added a new mechanic – skinning. Killing an animal is now just a first step: in order to get pelts, meat, antlers etc, you’ll need to harvest them. To do so, you’ll need something sharp in your inventory: a dagger, an axe, or at least a sword.

For the time being, skinning is implemented as a basic skill with 100% efficiency, but once Survival skill tree is in place, you’ll need to spend some Ability Points to learn how to do it properly.

The way an animal is killed is an important factor. You’ll get the best outcome with piercing weaponry, which won’t damage pelts too much. If you score a kill by primarily using Piercing Damage, the chance to get a pelt will be the highest.

On the other hand, Slashing damage types fare much worse, as cuts won’t do any good to a pelt’s condition. As for using Pyromancy, you can imagine the outcome… Naturally, the market adjusts accordingly: since harvesting pelts is harder now, their value has been greatly improved.

Certain damage types can also affect the harvested meat. Animals killed with Fire Damage get well-cooked in the process, while Poison, Caustic, or Cursed Damage might cause the meat to spoil.

Traps

In addition to skinning, we’ve also implemented more dungeon traps. Let’s start with pressure plates, which, for the time being, will have two variants:

The first one is a fire trap. It will ignite the floor and deal heavy damage once triggered.

The second one has a twist: it creates a cloud of poisonous gas, slowly filling the surrounding area. Staying in this cloud will deal Poison Damage with a chance to cause violent coughing, which reduces Accuracy, increases Fumble Chance, and generates lots of noise.

At the same time, certain traps will be available to players as well.

For instance, claw traps can now be disarmed, stored in the inventory, and then placed.

Caltrops are light enough to be thrown right in front of the approaching enemies.

Nets will help dealing with particularly agile foes (although they won’t help much against ghosts, for obvious reasons).

And finally – smoke bombs, which function similarly to poison traps, capable of ruining the day for enemy archers: the smoke obscures vision, triggers coughing, and deals a small amount of Poison Damage.

That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!