Underground forge drifter freeloaders

[BigBadBeef]

According to the patch notes I've read, drifters are now (well not now, but rather most recently) supposed to spawn only near rifts. Well, I got a, shall we say "first stage, low output" underground room for forging, smelting, charcoal making and bloomeries.

The thing is that no rifts are around and its a temporally stable area, and also well lit with Lanterns. So why do drifters keep freeloading down there?

(I would submit a screenshot with the rampage that took place when I came home to check out my bloomeries, but I don't know where the screeenshot folder for Vintage Story is on Linux. Anyone care to enlighten me?)

[rogston]

9 hours ago, BigBadBeef said:

(I would submit a screenshot with the rampage that took place when I came home to check out my bloomeries, but I don't know where the screeenshot folder for Vintage Story is on Linux. Anyone care to enlighten me?)

Check ~/Vintagestory/

[Hells Razer]

Two things:
1. Is your underground room lit well enough? A torch on ground level can provide sufficient light to avoid unexpected occurrences as long as the room is up to 7x7 if square.
Edit: Never mind somehow I just missed you saying it is lit with lanterns

2. What materials are the walls, floor and ceiling made from? If they are made mostly from dirt, raw stone, and/or cobblestone, it may count as a cave. The easiest way to check for it is to wait above ground until surface music has started playing, and then go in the room. If it stops, or if you have heard it playing underground music while in there, then it counts as a cave and thus follows cave spawning rules.

[daretmavi]

14 hours ago, BigBadBeef said:

(I would submit a screenshot with the rampage that took place when I came home to check out my bloomeries, but I don't know where the screeenshot folder for Vintage Story is on Linux. Anyone care to enlighten me?)

Check your default picture directory and subdirectory "Vintagestory"  e.g. ~/Pictures/Vintagestory/

[Thorfinn]

6 hours ago, Hells Razer said:

What materials are the walls, floor and ceiling made from? If they are made mostly from dirt, raw stone, and/or cobblestone, it may count as a cave.

Wait, what? Does my food cellar count as a cave then? It's almost always dirt walls and ceilings, with a mostly natural stone floor.

[BigBadBeef]

9 hours ago, Hells Razer said:

Two things:
1. Is your underground room lit well enough? A torch on ground level can provide sufficient light to avoid unexpected occurrences as long as the room is up to 7x7 if square.
Edit: Never mind somehow I just missed you saying it is lit with lanterns

2. What materials are the walls, floor and ceiling made from? If they are made mostly from dirt, raw stone, and/or cobblestone, it may count as a cave. The easiest way to check for it is to wait above ground until surface music has started playing, and then go in the room. If it stops, or if you have heard it playing underground music while in there, then it counts as a cave and thus follows cave spawning rules.

Well, its a lot more than 7x7, that's for sure. The floor is native granite tiles. It was basically a hole in the ground which I covered up with dirt and excavated a bit deeper and wider to fit the forge.

All I know is that the room has a considerable temperature bonus. There can be an outside temperature of -15°C, but I can bang away at the metal to my heart's content without worry that my balls will turn to glass marbles from the cold.

[BigBadBeef]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Wait, what? Does my food cellar count as a cave then? It's almost always dirt walls and ceilings, with a mostly natural stone floor.

Had a drifter in my cellar once. In spite of lighting. He just stood there and moaned at a corner, completely ignored me.

And that is why drugs are bad for you kids!

[Hells Razer]

23 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Wait, what? Does my food cellar count as a cave then? It's almost always dirt walls and ceilings, with a mostly natural stone floor.

Yes it does. The easiest way to be sure is to check the thing with the music. I only verified it fairly recently when on my most recent world changed about more than half of the wall, floor and ceiling blocks with other materials and all of a sudden the surface music no longer cuts out every time I go inside it.

[BigBadBeef]

Here's the pictures of my underground base.

My guess is they're spawning because natural tiles?

[Maelstrom]

Natural tiles and low light levels would be my guess.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Maelstrom

[BigBadBeef]

They don't look that low to me!

[Maelstrom]

I had lit my home with 4 torches and STILL had drifters spawning inside when rifts appeared just outside my house.  Those drifter spawns stopped once I lit up my home with lanterns.  The rifts stopped forming when I lit up the surrounding area.

[edit] I watched drifters spawn before my eyes mere blocks in front of me.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Maelstrom

[Thorfinn]

21 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I had lit my home with 4 torches and STILL had drifters spawning inside when rifts appeared just outside my house.  Those drifter spawns stopped once I lit up my home with lanterns.  The rifts stopped forming when I lit up the surrounding area.

[edit] I watched drifters spawn before my eyes mere blocks in front of me.

We have a winner. If you get a rift near your "base" just before night, run to an alternate base or prepare to do battle. There might be a limit on number that spawn, so those locked outside eventually are all that there are going to be, but I, too, have seen drifters spawn right in front of me, within one tile of a torch, if there was a rift nearby.

[BigBadBeef]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

We have a winner. If you get a rift near your "base" just before night, run to an alternate base or prepare to do battle. There might be a limit on number that spawn, so those locked outside eventually are all that there are going to be, but I, too, have seen drifters spawn right in front of me, within one tile of a torch, if there was a rift nearby.

Per recent developments, I can also confirm maelstrom's findings. I have an underground base. If there is a rift above ground and the floor tiles (natural OR crafted tiles) are withing it's range, drifters will spawn.

I hate this, it takes days to get the blood out of the carpets after a driftercide.

Edited October 31, 2022 by BigBadBeef

[Maelstrom]

this is why I push for bees my first summer.  Getting through that first winter when snow is flying (dowsing any torches) and spawning drifters sometimes almost relentlessly.  Now that my settlement is lit with lanterns even apocalyptic levels of rift activity barely generate any drifter diversions from my nocturnal activities.  Bears have been a bigger night time hazard than drifters since liberal use of lanterns have been applied. 

[Thorfinn]

Is it commonplace to not have bees by June? July at latest? I typically transplant my first hive by mid-May, early June or thereabouts. July if I really mess up.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Thorfinn

[Maelstrom]

Depends on how quickly you can find bees.  My current world I didn't find bees within 2,000 block radius of my home.  When I finally did find bees, I got a populated skep home just in time for it to go dormant for the winter.  

[Thorfinn]

Wow. If I spawn in forest, I usually run into one or even two on my first day. Not that I can do much about it right then, because I'm pretty much always sprinting trying to put distance between me and the wolves chasing me. But I know where to come back to when I'm better equipped to deal with wolves.

[BigBadBeef]

On 11/2/2022 at 6:32 PM, Thorfinn said:

Wow. If I spawn in forest, I usually run into one or even two on my first day. Not that I can do much about it right then, because I'm pretty much always sprinting trying to put distance between me and the wolves chasing me. But I know where to come back to when I'm better equipped to deal with wolves.

At present, wolf pathfinding isn't perfect. You will find yourself dodging wolves more easily if you run across rougher terrain more common. When confronted with elevation, wolves tend move a little bit to the side before vaulting over the change in elevation. Repeat that often enough and you have a pretty good chance to lose them.

Edited November 5, 2022 by BigBadBeef

[Thorfinn]

True. I'm not really worried about wolves. They just aren't worth my time at that point in the game. I definitely don't need inventory filled with weapons and wolf guts, and don't want to take the hit for wearing improvised armor. That and I kind of suspect that if I've got several on my tail, it suppresses spawning new ones in front of me. No testing to confirm, just general impression.

I'm headed south from spawn anyway. I'm shooting for a clay deposit around 4000 blocks south for the first night. I want most of my "base" far enough south that bees don't go dormant until dead of winter. Plus, all that running virtually guarantees I've covered enough territory to have found enough flax for one linen sack, and often enough copper for pick and hammer.

[Anthony frailey]

yes, rift and natural stone area = direct spawn in.