Flint
Flint is the first tool stone. You can pick it off surface rocks, dig it out of underground rock, and knap it into blades and points. Later on it lights candles and pipes and fires flintlock guns.
Getting flint
- Surface rocks. Click a large rock with an empty hand on Grab intent. Each rock holds a few flints, and they slowly come back over time.
- Mining. Every underground rock wall you mine has a chance to drop 1-3 flint nodules, in addition to any ore it gives. Ordinary rock gives flint about one wall in five. Sandy rock and rock under deserts give it far less often, about one wall in twenty. Special caves give double.
Underground galleries still cave in without support, so put up mine supports as you dig.
Tools you can make before metal
You do not need metal to mine. These all work in the first age:
| Tool | How to get it | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Antler pick | Butcher a stag, an elk stag or a reindeer (either sex). Each gives 2 picks. | Mines a little more slowly than a bone pickaxe. Does, fawns and dik-diks have no antlers. It wears out quickly. |
| Wooden spade | 3 wood, Tools tab, after Basic Toolmaking | Digs, but more slowly than a bone shovel. |
| Bone shovel, bone and stone pickaxes | Crafted as before | Still available at the start. |
Knapping
Knapping shapes a flint by striking it with a hammerstone. Hold a hammerstone in your active hand. A stone or an unsharpened flint both work. Use it on a flint that is in your other hand or on the tile next to you, then pick what to make:
| Product | Time | Chance to fail |
|---|---|---|
| Sharp flake (sharpens the flint) | 4 s | Low |
| Three flint arrowheads | 6 s | Moderate |
| Flint knife | 8 s | High |
| Flint spearhead | 8 s | High |
Higher dexterity makes knapping faster, and higher crafting skill makes failures rarer. When a knap fails, the flint breaks into a flint shard, which still cuts and butchers like a crude blade.
- Arrows and bolts. Use flint arrowheads on an arrow shaft or a bolt. One nodule makes three arrowheads, so knapping gets you more arrows than attaching sharpened flints one at a time. The fletcher’s bench accepts flint arrowheads too.
- Flint spear. Use a flint spearhead on a branch to make a flint spear.
- Whetstone. A flint still sharpens blades and tools as before.
Fire striker
A fire striker is a curved piece of steel that throws sparks when struck against flint. Make one from 1 steel in the Tools tab once Iron Tools has been researched.
Hold a flint in your other hand and use the striker. Most strikes throw sparks, which stay hot for about five seconds. During that time the striker lights candles, pipes and cigarettes like a lighter does. It needs no lighter fluid, but each strike has a small chance to wear the flint away. Campfires and torches still light by hand.
Gunflint in flintlocks
Flintlock muskets and pistols strike a flint to fire, and that flint wears down. After a few dozen shots, about half of all trigger pulls misfire. When that happens the hammer falls and the gun uncocks, but the ball stays loaded, so cock the gun again and try once more.
Examine a flintlock up close to see whether its flint still has an edge. To fit a new one, use a sharpened flint on the gun. This takes about three seconds. Guns from crates and newly assembled guns come with a fresh flint.