Rope

Rope goes into the things that open a wipe: the satchel charge for your first raid, the wooden ladder for someone's wall, the crossbow, the compound bow, the fishing rod, the shotgun trap. One to three per craft is not much, but you want all of them in the same two days.

That is the squeeze. Rope cannot be crafted or researched at all, whatever the cloth recipe on this page says, so every coil comes out of road barrels, crates or a trade. Each one you find goes straight in a box.

Picture a trio planning a satchel raid on the stone neighbour. Six satchels are six rope, the ladder to their roof takes three more, and your bow player wants two for a crossbow. Eleven coils is a lot of barrels, so count them before you commit the gunpowder.

Later, rope turns into a step on the way to armour: three of it plus cloth make a sewing kit. Recycle rope only if you truly have too much, since all it gives back is a little cloth.