Construction Ability: Disassembly

[Staz]

I think it would be cool if we had an ability to break down items/structures with more finesse than ye olde sledgehammer and trashe barrel.

It could be contingent on Construction skill with Intuition as its primary attribute, and a bonus towards rolls from relevant skills depending on the item.

I.e. if you have 200 woodworking and 200 metalworking, you are more likely to successfully disassemble a hand drill into a drill pressure handle, drill turning handle, and small drill bit. With low construction and no relevant crafting skills, you might get a drill bit and some kindling or a drill pressure handle and some useless metal debris. You could disassemble a backpack with 400 construction 400 leatherworking and get a backpack-cut wechuge pelt or do it with no skill and be lucky to get fur scraps for tinder.

Or, you could have the lower skill penalty be a quality reduction for the recovered components. Dare to disassemble a fine copper stiletto at low level and you could find yourself holding a regular stiletto handle and a crude stiletto blade.

This would help to remove non-perishable items from the game and particularly get the cloth and leather market moving as people cannibalize other items for that dearly needed string or buckle.

Ideally it would prioritize salvaging the highest-value element of the item, with high likelihood of minor components being destroyed as your character yanks the item apart. Higher skill would allow for a higher chance of more components also surviving intact.

This could also be used to add usefulness to tools like the hand drill, pliers, and mallet that don't get used super often.

Finally, taking disassemble a second time would allow you to use it on buildings and handcarts, and taking it a third time would increase the likelihood and quantity of materials recovered when disassembling. It would also give a higher chance of components retaining their original quality.

[Staz]

This would also provide an easy way for players to increase Construction practice without taking Woodcutting and having to chop trees before they have a handcart to haul the timbers or a mount to pull the stump.

Having an easier way to train construction would lead to less of a wait for farming structures and hopefully more variations on constructed items at the market.

[Gorth]

I like this a lot. Except for the image of someone building a shed, taking it apart and rebuilding over and over. It would make changing Mismatched things to real wood a lot easier, though.

[Staz]

the image of someone building a shed, taking it apart and rebuilding over and over

Honestly there are cheesy ways to increase most crafting skills as far as I can tell. But the only reason to do this would be to increase skill, and with low skill you would get back barely more materials than using Demolish, so it's self defeating AND would cost two ability points. It might make it easier to grind without cutting down quite as many trees, but considering it would likely take a long time and actively cost money, there's little reason not to make footlockers or handcarts to sell. You can make a handcart in about two hours with one timber and some branches; it doesn't get much more efficient than that, but even the offer of a 40k payout doesn't motivate people to fill the market with them. I doubt they'd spend the same time grinding at a cost.