The effectiveness of a wooden shovel.

[Korgrok]

It takes 4 hours to make a shovel + 1.5 hours to make the necessary materials. A total of 5 hours and 30 minutes, excluding tool wear.
In one use, the wooden shovel wears out by 5%, so it will last for 20 applications.
20 techniques of working with a wooden shovel, rather than with your hands, will save you 5 hours.
Thus, we get that digging with bare hands is more profitable than making a wooden shovel for this, which is not entirely logical.

I think it would be logical to either reduce the manufacturing time of the shovel, or reduce the loss of strength during use from 5% to 3%.

[Philtre]

There are certain tasks that require a shovel, such as any construction that requires digging. Using a shovel rather than your hands for things that don't require one (digging mud, for instance) is a convenience thing.

[Korgrok]

I know that some tasks (like building a fireplace) require a shovel, and I have no questions about matching these drawings.

But using a shovel as a tool for digging the earth raises questions, because there can be no question of any convenience, because you can dig more with your hands than if you make a wooden shovel and dig with it.
So it turns out that a wooden shovel is a useless tool suitable only for those tasks where it is impossible to do without it.

All other tools are useful enough, and only a wooden shovel is not clear why it is so discriminated against.))

[adrien_perleflamme]

I don't think it takes 1.5 hours to make its materials, though. It takes 1.5 hours to make an oak log from a sharp knife and 1.5 hours to craft 5 oak log pieces from it, each one allowing you to have a new shovel. That's closer to 15 minutes for the log piece.

Using the spindle, you get enough twine for 2 shovels in 15 minutes. And using a stone axe, you the the long branch you need in 15 minutes too.

Given the time it takes to do everything, it's way closer to 45 minutes for its materials, maybe 1h if you're still learning how to knap flint and sharpen it (your first flint knife and flint axe uses will quickly destroy your tools).

The better you are at mastering flint, the more you get from your shovel, which also allows you to ensure digging is quick in times when you may not want to spend too much time outside, shifting a part of that time to any previous day, potentially inside (for the crafting part of the process).

[Korgrok]

first you need to cut down the tree, it will take 1 hour. then 1.5 hours to chop into 5 pieces.

Before using the spindle, you first need to pick the nettles, and then get the fibers.

[adrien_perleflamme]

Ok, my bad, that means 30 minutes for the log piece, plus 15 minutes for the log branch. Plus 7.5 minutes for 2 twines (15 minutes for 4 twines), plus less than 7.5 minutes for the nettles (you get more than 4 nettles per harvest on average). That's a bit less than an hour. Added to 4 hours, that means it's a bit less than 5 hours.

If we'd want it to be balanced towards shoveling is always better than using hands, a simple way would be to have either first or second shovel crafting step to last 1.5 hours instead of 2 hours. But even without it, it's still advantageous, as it means you can decide to spend less time outside if you want to.

Also, I haven't yet tested how easy it has become to use easier wood types, notably to cut it faster and if it means low quality log pieces should be prioritized to quickly craft shovels.

[adrien_perleflamme]

And 15 minutes to get fibers from the nettles.

[Korgrok]

To be absolutely precise, it will take 5 hours and 15 minutes, excluding tool wear.

As for new trees.
New oaks are now cut twice as long as before.
Birch trees are one and a half times longer .
Willow and pine are cut down in the same way as oaks used to be cut.

[kjellbudal]

Oak Shovel sould last longer since it is a better material.

[Korgrok]

Originally posted by kjellbudal:

Oak Shovel sould last longer since it is a better material.

This is incorrect.
At the moment, the strength of a wooden shovel does not depend on the wood it is made of.

[adrien_perleflamme]

Originally posted by Korgrok:

Originally posted by kjellbudal:

Oak Shovel sould last longer since it is a better material.

This is incorrect.
At the moment, the strength of a wooden shovel does not depend on the wood it is made of.

They didn't say it does, they said it should.

[ElevenOne]

For now, think the shovel as a "time bank".

You build the shovel at night in your hut using fire as light, to dig in an area during daylight, allowing you to shorten the trip during the day / better use of daylight.
Daylight can be very valuable, specially in fall when there is less light per day.

Also, are your numbers with or without Major workplace? This saps 15 minute from every blueprint step.

A table + 7 log stools lets you achieve this effect.
(7 stool logs before the tree change, I have pending to check if the type of wood makes a difference)

[adrien_perleflamme]

Technically, though, major workplace bonus shouldn't trigger with 7 log stools: only the first one is supposed to count. It's a known bug that hasn't yet been matched (probably because devs want to implement a way to actually get that bonus before fixing the bug).

But yeah, in the meantime, it is true you can profit from this bonus.

[ElevenOne]

Ah yea, I have been reporting issues with the workplace effect since the closed beta.
So I'm sure it is a "Currently intended until we finish the furniture to reach it normally"

I also realized, another point to the shovel OP is not considering:
Digging mud by hand does not give any skills.
Meanwhile, working a shovel the player gets different skill increases and also the process provides extra log pieces.

[Korgrok]

In general, we need to wait for the metal shovel. ))
In CSTI, I first tried to create a metal shovel and only then do earthworks.