What's best for cracking ice: Hatchet or Knife?

[BlueHawk]

Err. I simply haven't played enough to figure this one out.

If you guys can give me advice, I would be so happy. I just nailed the 1 night outside achievement, and I figure I can simply go for the run of 3, but I am afraid of abusing my tools when I go fishing.

By the way, I assume the fishing gear never degrades. Or does it?!?.

[sir_lancealittle]

What I've seen, the AI automatically picks the optimum tool.

Personally, I prefer to use the knife regardless of what's optimum.
The hatchet is just an inventory hog, and I only carry it with me when I'm really in a hurry to cut wood, harvest a carcass, or break ice.

However,
it seems that a frozen solid fishing hole is probably best broken with the hatchet.
If it's just frozen a bit (less than 20%), I'd recommend the knife.

Fishing tackle can break, I believe there's a chance the line might rip, and that way you'd lose both the line and, much worse, the hook which cannot be recovered.

[sir_lancealittle]

Also see here:


Some thoughts on fishing

Edit:
So very bottom line, I recommend what most folks seem to do:
make 3 snares, place them near a good location, and you'll never be hungry again.
Fishing isn't really worth it in the current build, it seems.

[Ottomic]

Hatchet, because it has less uses than a knife (wolf shankin', primarily) and when you wear it out and scavenge it gives double the scrap *and* wood, which means one free knife repair plus extra scrap, that you can use to craft 3 hooks with. Knives only yield 1 scrap.

I've gone through 3 tackles. The first one broke after some 4 hours of fishing, the second one on the first attempt without fishes caught, I have captured around 10 trouts and 3 salmon with my third one and still hasn't broken. My advice is to fish while you have the chance to, but don't go out of your way to do it and don't rely too much on it, like ensnaring, it's something that's best done to complement and extend your food reserves.

[BlueHawk]

Update

Thanks for the info guys. Everything you both said was useful. It's even more noteable post-mortem.


How this started. Mystery Lake. No gun, maybe it's in the derailment or the blocked tunnel. Starving. I reached the lone cabin by the lake.

Jumped into the fishing hut. Sarted fishing with absolutely no food and really low calory count. The only reason I dared to do this was cause I finally figured out I can scavange cedar from the outside world! Only found this out yesterday. The first day and night went great. I ate a few raw fish without any problems. But I had to harvest more wood, and that allowed the ice fishing hole seal up again. When I broke the ice with the knife, I got the impression it had worn down maybe some 5%. I definitely didn't want to use the hatchet as it's an awesome wood gathering tool. That's when this question popped up.

With your advice and the itch to ge the 3 day achievement, I moved forward, utilizing the hatchet. I got the achievement, ended up staying 4 nights, and learned a few things.

A wolf attacked me on the second day as I was trying to light a fire outside. In the previous game version, I killed one wolf with a knife, and got killed by wolves maybe some 3 times. After this update I started doing suicide runs in Mystery lake, just to get to know the map without going on pilgrim mode. This is my longest run. But I am finding it impossible to knife or hatchet a wolf to death. I've fought over 8 wolves, and they all run off after some 2 or 3 bi hits with a hatchet or knife. They run away and leave me at some 30% condition. I cannot finish them off. Then they come back to try to finish me off. It's as though their health resets to full automatically. On this particular case, I had heard the wolf walking around outside, but I had been so compelled to light a fire outside because it was freeeezing. My first lighting attempt failed. I tried again. That's when I got jumped. I went down to 27%. Wolf ran off. I lit my fire.

Due to this attack I had to reconsider my firemaking strategy. That's when I learned that I can fire up the stove in the hut, I can stay next to the wall, and I can move a bit towards the ice hole, and I can fish without getting cold - even in a storm. I had previously thought this was impossible. One time I tried fishing in Coastal Village, I think on v1.70something and it was a total disaster. I froze my face off and caught only a couple of really low weight fish so I also starved. Not this time. I am definitely seeing bigger fish, 2kg even a 4kg fish. It's not a cornucopia. The frequency of caught fish is so low, sometimes you can go 2 hours and only catch one fish. Overall, you're barely surviving (voyageur mode). But it's better than the experience I had in Coastal Village.

It took me the second night to recover. No wolf approached, despite the fact I no longer had a fire outside. I'm still wondering if they can come inside the hut.

Then things got a bit complicated. I caught food poisoning and my ski jacket disappeared.

I had heard a few cloth rips but I purposely and carelessly ignored them as I didn't have any cloth pre-made. I probably should have improvised removing a sock to patch the jacket but I had chosen to pay no heed. It was a noobish move. I could've ran back to the cabin to get some cloth. But I was going for the Starry Night achievement or bust.

Now I'm walking around with no jacket. But it was a load of fun staying in that hut for some 4 nights, and I wouldn't have done it if you guys hadn't given me some encouraging advice. In the end, what really killed it was the food poisoning.

[Zeratullotus]

Did some quick time trials on all the current build options:

Starting with a hole 100% frozen
1st place was the hatchet at ~22 minutes
2nd place was the hunting knife at ~40 minutes
3rd place was the heavy hammer at ~44 minutes
4th place was the prybar at ~45 minutes

All thing considered you are looking at about 45 minutes unless you use the hatchet and cut the time in half

[Shenji]

Originally posted by GMasters:

Did some quick time trials on all the current build options:

Starting with a hole 100% frozen
1st place was the hatchet at ~22 minutes
2nd place was the hunting knife at ~40 minutes
3rd place was the heavy hammer at ~44 minutes
4th place was the prybar at ~45 minutes

All thing considered you are looking at about 45 minutes unless you use the hatchet and cut the time in half

Very helpful. Thanks.