As you all should know, sticks are often found laying around on the ground beneath trees. I'm pretty sure you see where I'm going with this; that trees should produce sticks without the need of crafting. maybe they just drop randomly, maybe from decaying leafs on occasion. input?
The only way this would make sense is if you couldn't just punch down trees. Now if a "Realistic" mode gets added, I could see the early-game crafting path being more like:
1) Get sticks from forest
2) Get stone chunks from gravel/sand/dirt
3) Make a hatchet
4) Cut down a tree
5) [Make proper tools, as you can currently]
Right, I think it would be more realistic for leaves to occasionally yield saplings, and to be able to convert saplings into 4 sticks, and then 4 sticks into a wooden plank, and to require the player to make a crafting table and axe before being able to harvest the trunk. I've held myself to this challenge, only making a crafting table and axe after gathering 8 saplings, and then throwing all the rest of my stuff away after that and starting out with just that crafting table and axe around midday on the first day. It definitely makes for a greater challenge the first day as far as getting the materials for a first-night shelter are concerned.
2. Collect wood
3. Craft into planks
4. Craft into sticks
5. ?????
6. PROFIT
Now I realize 6 steps to complete 1 task makes it very hard to accomplish, sometimes impossible, but we all make do.
1) Get sticks from forest
2) Get stone chunks from gravel/sand/dirt
3) Make a hatchet
4) Cut down a tree
5) [Make proper tools, as you can currently]
But there's no point at the moment.
I like this, except id say 1 or at most 2 sticks, as though the saplings were branches. I dont think the sticks should be up-convertible.
Punch a box today!