Early-game clothing source?

[TheMeInTeam]

As long as you have wood, you can use 1-2 campfires to keep warm in winter.  That's relatively straightforward and only the 3 most extreme biomes in the game lack wood.  Even regular desert and tundra have plenty.

Complex clothing is lower priority than stone cutting, electricity, batteries, AC, and penoxycillin in my mind (ordering depends on situation).  1st winter you can just rely on campfire (if necessary), clothing stripped from raiders that are downed, or even a dead man's jacket/parka/tuque for a pawn who is emotionally sturdy (doubt you would need more than one piece in most climates, and only on pawns outside, so you rarely have to resort to deadman's).  To get rid of tattered just hunt some animals earlier on and make a tribal outfit.

If you have enough food and a few hundred wood, the worst of it is managing pawns not to go really freaking far from base and getting hypothermia damage.

[jpinard]

Complex clothing is lower priority than stone cutting

I'm new to the game and haven't used stone-cutting yet.  How do you use it that is so important vs. just using wood?  Does a brick something have more beauty than a wood something (wall or chair)?

[LordMunchkin]

Complex clothing is lower priority than stone cutting

I'm new to the game and haven't used stone-cutting yet.  How do you use it that is so important vs. just using wood?  Does a brick something have more beauty than a wood something (wall or chair)?

Stone-cutting is very important. Stone is much stronger than wood and has 0% flammability. Marble is also more beautiful than wood but takes more work (stone in general takes more work).

[Stormfox]

Complex clothing is lower priority than stone cutting

I'm new to the game and haven't used stone-cutting yet.  How do you use it that is so important vs. just using wood?  Does a brick something have more beauty than a wood something (wall or chair)?

To add to what Munchkin said above - there are map biomes that feature relatively few trees/cacti, and that few wood must be conserved to build furniture, so stone cutting is crucial to make walls. You can usually plant trees, but it takes a few seasons until you can harvest those.

[Catastrophy]

Complex clothing is lower priority than stone cutting

I'm new to the game and haven't used stone-cutting yet.  How do you use it that is so important vs. just using wood?  Does a brick something have more beauty than a wood something (wall or chair)?

To add to what Munchkin said above - there are map biomes that feature relatively few trees/cacti, and that few wood must be conserved to build furniture, so stone cutting is crucial to make walls. You can usually plant trees, but it takes a few seasons until you can harvest those.

Toxic fallout can empty the map pretty quickly from wood.

[TheMeInTeam]

In addition to environments where you are wood-constrained (only the harsh climates in the game are like this), stone walls don't burn and are much better at stalling/resisting raider attacks than wood or even steel.  They are also a reasonable choice for sculptures and tile.

For a big portion of the game having more access to stone is very helpful.  In contrast, you can usually beat down raiders and strip some before they die for parkas/jackets/dusters until you get your cotton farm + complex clothing up and running.

If you need money as a tribe before you get complex clothing and have a cotton farm going, have a skilled builder spam armchairs.  Realistically though, at least on high difficulties you'll probably be living off weapon/armor/personal shields commandeered from raiders for over a year.  Oftentimes you'll see at least one or two "good" or better quality items per raid.  In two years I have a superior and two good sniper rifles, a normal charge rifle, two longswords (good steel, normal plasteel), lots of grenades, a normal assault rifle, and a good heavy SMG from raids along with non-deadman's armor for every non-nudist I have.  I have two personal shield pickups and two I purchased.

Clothing is similar, if you're doing surround/pound strats on isolated raiders you can get outfits that are above 80% durability pretty often, so while having complex clothing is useful eventually (and great if you're able to grow devilstrand w/o heavy investment into controlled greenhouses) you can put it off a long time and not be left in bad shape.

Stone cutting, on the other hand, is very useful for building security.