I do like very much a lot of the ideas I’ve seen in this thread and I’m looking forward to seeing which ones you implement and how they affect the game. but on a more immediate basis and particularly before you start adding additional items, I’d personally like to see some UI updates. As it stands right now all the items are just jumbled together in the crafting window with just 2 ways to sort them. And especially for a new player it’s hard to see which things I’ve recently unlocked and which things do what. It’d be really great for some quick sort buttons to have things grouped together. for example:
Survival – shows camping, cooking, and water gathering skills and items that use those skills like bedroll and houses/walls/campfires
Herbalism – shows botany skills and medicinal items and seeds/plants and fertilizer
combat – shows tactics and all weapons and armor
Tools – shows tinkering, shovels, pickaxes, grindstones, repair and reinforce items etc…

Another thing that would be great is a ‘no use’ option. I’ve had several times where an item like animal fat I was saving for a torch got used up instead of a log in order to start a fire. This happens most often trying to use tainted meat instead of a fish steak for pemmican. i often have to just drop items on the ground until the ones I want to use are the only ones in my inventory. It would be nice to simply check somewhere to not use certain items in crafting.
Being able to use items directly from things like backpacks and pouches would also be a major plus