Primitive Tools is a module of the larger SSC's Realism Mod; it adds some of the features of that mod and should not be used in conjunction with it.

Primitive Tools adds five sets of crude tools for early-game progression, as well as a handful of other primitive tools:

Crude stone set
Flint set
Crude gold set
Crude copper set
Crude iron set
Sharpened rocks
Sharpened stick
Fire plough & bow drill

Getting Started

To craft the crude tools, simply obtain a stick, a vine (a new material which drops from vines and occasionally from leaves), and the appropriate material for your chosen crude set—cobblestone, flint, raw gold, raw copper, or raw iron. Then, simply combine them in the following pattern:

This will produce a randomized tool from the crude set. Each set contains a knife, pickaxe, axe, shovel, and hoe, except for flint, whose knife can be crafted individually with raw flint (simply swap the positions of the vine and flint).

Material Shaping

Find the random mechanic annoying? Don't worry—there's a workaround! Mash two pieces of cobblestone together, and you'll get a sharpened rock.

The sharpened rock can be used as a weapon, pickaxe, and axe, but it's primary function is for crafting. Using sharpened rocks, you can shape flint, copper, gold, or iron into specific shapes to craft the exact crude tools you want. Simply put the rock in your crafting menu with the appropriate material; it will lose durability rather than being consumed.

All crude materials except stone can be shaped. Shaping will always follow this order:

Base material -> wide (shovel)
Wide -> fanned (axe)
Fanned -> long (pickaxe)
Long -> jagged (knife) (flint skips over this step)
Jagged -> thin (hoe)

To craft your tool with your shaped material, use the same recipe as above, simply replacing the base material with the shaped material.

Do be aware that shaping iron is a bit more difficult than other materials; you'll have to upgrade your sharpened rock by crafting it together with two raw copper, granting you the upgraded sharpened copper chunk. You can also upgrade that into a sharpened iron chunk.

Miscellaneous Features

To give players a reason to actually use the crude tools for a bit, this mod alters the recipes for the vanilla stone tools to require smooth stone. Even so, this mod is best used in a larger pack that can further limit players' access to better tools.

This mod also adds two primitive firestarters, the fire plough and bow drill. These tools can be used to light fires, similar to the vanilla flint & steel. What makes them unique is that they only have a random chance of successfully lighting a fire. This chance is very low, but increases every time you consecutively use the tool.

This mod also adds copper nuggets. The various shaped tool components can be smelted into ingots or nuggets based on their size, with wide and fanned materials becoming ingots and the rest becoming nuggets. Copper nuggets serve no purpose in this mod beyond being combined into copper ingots.

You also may have noticed in the descriptions above that the crude sets have knives instead of swords. These knives have reduced range, but the same damage output as swords; they also lack the sweeping attack. You can use a knife in crafting to sharpen a stick into the sharpened stick; just like the sharpened rock, the knife will lose durability rather than being consumed.

SSC's Primitive Tools