Strops

After a weapon has been sharpened by a fighter, you can keep the edge sharp longer by stropping it periodically.

Strops are made by rangers using firewood, sinew, and pelt.

== Strop Science ==

It is a very common sight, seeing a ranger bounce into a shop and massive spam of pouch-making ensues. Since containers provide 25 exp per scrap of pelt used, it has been an age-old way to quickly dispose of pelts and to increase cash flow.

However, what if I were to tell you that this is the MOST inefficient way to dispose of your pelts? (caveat: Higher Quality Pelts)

Strops are made my combining one scrap of pelt, one length of sinew and one piece of firewood. The quality of the strop is directly correlated to the quality of the pelt.

== Pelt Quality ==

Poor Pelt - 80 Per Scrap
Good Pelt - 100 Per Scrap
Fine Pelt - 120 Per Scrap
Great Pelt - 140 Per Scrap
Excellent Pelt - 160 Per Scrap
Perfect Pelt - 180 Per Scrap

Now, based on a Large (8) Sized Pelt, that yields:

Poor Pelt - 640 Per Pelt
Good Pelt - 800 Per Pelt
Fine Pelt - 960 Per Pelt
Great Pelt - 1120 Per Pelt
Excellent Pelt - 1280 Per Pelt
Perfect Pelt - 1440 Per Pelt

So, by simply turning that Large Snake pelt (I list them because they are a great kill for sinew), you can turn that 400-ish experience kill (after skin, gut and carve) into a nearly 2k kill.

So the question is, WHY don't more people strop?

== Rate Limiting Factors ==

1 ) Firewood: I'm not going to lie to you, it kind of sucks to gather firewood. For each large pelt, you need 8 firewood. And, as is Murphy's Law, every time you want to gather firewood, it will be raining or nighttime. That being said, this is where the most of your effort is going to be expended.

There are two schools of thought on firewood gathering. During my science, Juanka and I had conversations about our differing styles of gathering wood.

I personally like to go to monks, meditate/gather/repeat until cut. I also do the same thing with potions/elixirs. While this does cut into my profit margin, it allows me to gather somewhere around 300 wood every 10-15 minutes.

Juanka, on the other hand, tends to gather wood cumulatively throughout reboot. He'll grab 50 or so wood per trip, and use just his full sps on each trip.

After somewhere around 3000 strops for science, I'm starting to see the madness in my person method and think a bastardization of both of our styles might be the most efficient.

2) Sinew: Aside from firewood, Sinew production is the biggest limitation of stropping. Each large pelt yields 8 scraps of pelt, while even the larger kills yield (at most) 4 lengths of sinew.

So, for math's sake, lets say you had 100 large pelts, you will need 800 sinew and 800 firewood. Now, don't let that figure scare you, because here is where the balance of efficiency comes into play.

Due to the requisite sinew and firewood, and after much sciencing, it is my opinion that only pelts of Excellent and Perfect quality should be used for stropping. This allows for the maximum return on both experience and gold, and places a type of self-pacing on Pelt vs Sinew production.

== Final Thoughts ==

It is easy to look at the process and just decide to make containers instead. So for science sake, I took 200 pelts (just passively gathered throughout reboot) and made 100 pelts worth of containers and 100 pelts worth of strops.

Pouches:
100 Large Pelt
= 20,000 experience
= 20,000 gold

Strop:
100 Large Perfect Pelt, 800 Firewood, 800 Sinew
= 144,000 experience
= 144,000 gold

So, in closing, if you have perfect (or even excellent pelts) strop them. Not only witll you make 7 times the experience (and gold), but you will provide strops for sharpening/honing. None of this is intended to discourage the use of bolas, I love bolas. However, especially while growing a wolf, pelting is still a viable option. And, one that when done correctly can still provide over 100k exp/hour of play.

Qz and Leroy, the Dingo