The Heavenly Homestead Sky Survival Map

[Sickliff]

The Heavenly Homestead Challenge

You remember the sun shining brightly in your eyes to wake you. As you rose from the cool grass, the unabated buzzing of insects drew your attention to a cracked pine tree. And past that you saw a world broken, its meager remnants suspended in the heavens around you. Your head spun as you backed away from the edge and turned toward the lush fragment of land you found yourself stranded on.

 

 

In this map, you must work with extremely limited resources to work up to the bronze age, and to become self-sustaining. The ultimate goal is to create an awesome homestead in the heavens and share your screenshots in the replies! But that will come with a whole lot of grinding, and you'll have to plan ahead to ensure you don't get stuck. Feel free to back up your save file frequently, because if you fall off the edge and lose an important item, that could leave you unable to progress!

 

This map was made on game version 1.18.15. I also made some tweaks to the playstyle for the map to work:

Map size is 256x256x256

Random respawn radius is 0 (will always spawn at 0,0)

Underground farming is allowed

Tree sapling growth time is very fast

Everything else is default

 

Here are some goals to set you on the right path. Keep in mind that many of them won't be possible until you've explored every island.

Spoiler

1. Harvest some berries
2. Craft a knife and an axe
3. Make a straw hat
4. Replant a tree
5. Trap and kill an animal
6. Domesticate an animal
7. Explore the desert island
8. Explore the pond island
9. Plant and harvest rye, carrots, turnips, and sunflowers
10. Plant and harvest a pumpkin
11. Make mushroom soup
12. Collect 64 Rot
13. Survive a temporal storm
14. Craft a form of storage
15. Pan for 20 copper
16. Make a crucible and tongs
17. Make a pickaxe
18. Create a renewable source of rock
19. Make new bridges and reclaim the soil from the old ones
20. Make a quern
21. Make 10 bonemeal
22. Populate a skep
23. Create 10 candles
24. Explore the glacier island
25. Make a greenhouse
26. Survive your first winter
27. See an aurora at night
28. Create a trap to easily kill drifters
29. Collect 100 rusty gears
30. Collect 10 temporal gears
31. Enter the mysterious portal
32. Make a tree farm with at least 5 types of tree
33. Farm 10 unique types of crops
34. Make charcoal
35. Bake bread
36. Make a hammer and an anvil
37. Make a chisel
38. Make a saw
39. Make a helve hammer
40. Press some fruit into juice
41. Make an alcohol-soaked bandage
42. Capture 32 butterflies
43. Make a set of metal-based armor
44. Make 64 high-fertility soil
45. Make 64 cobblestone (any kind)
46. Make 64 brick blocks (any kind)
47. Collect 10 unique paintings
48. Obtain a Resonator and listen to a tuning cylinder
49. Make a Heavenly Homestead and share your screenshots here!
50. Do it all without dying!

 

Installation

1. Open Vintage Story, and in the Singleplayer menu click on "Open Saves Folder"
2. Open Heavenly Homestead Challenge v1.zip and drag Heavenly Homestead Challenge v1.vcdbs into your saves folder
3. Re-enter the Singleplayer menu and the map should be in your list of worlds

Heavenly Homestead Challenge v1.zip

Edited October 25, 2023 by Sickliff
Put the challenge list under a spoiler

[Vallen]

Looks great! I suggest editing your post to include the version number that this was created on just in case there are some issues with future versions. I've posted it on our Instagram account as I think it's a great bit of ingenuity and should be shared. https://www.instagram.com/p/CyvaAkprBPk/?img_index=1

[Sickliff]

Wow, thank you for sharing Vallen! I've also updated the post to include the version number.

[Sickliff]

I've been playing on the map the past few days, and here are some insights.

1. The first thing you should do once you make a pickaxe is to build a stone generator. However, to get the most of your pick's durability, you'll want to make one that can give you many rock blocks at once through the relieving mechanic. I came up with a simple obsidian generator that drops 5 obsidian rock at once when mining the center block. I plan to make a detailed video on the construction of this generator, but for now here's a picture. The important thing is that there are 5 blocks of flowing lava above 5 blocks of water in a cross shape. The water should have no other blocks surrounding it so once the center is mined, the other 5 obsidian rock will be relieved. The lava and water will then mix again to create 6 more obsidian. Occasionally, the outer obsidian blocks will generate before the center block, which means there will be an extra layer of obsidian you'll have to mine before taking out the center block to reset the generator. Unsure why it's inconsistent like that. Even so, this is the best design I could come up with.

2. Once you have a good amount of building blocks, setting up a hunting ground is a very good idea. Even a small closed-off grassy area can generate a ton of rabbits, foxes, or chickens when you're off doing something else. I underestimated how powerful this was as a food (and bone) source, and I definitely recommend making one before you run out of your starting food.

3. Finally, I used a lot of obsidian to create a drifter spawning platform at around y=85, as I found from testing that deep drifters will spawn here. Drifters are your main source of flax in the early game, and you'll need a lot of that. Once you build your obsidian generator you'll have an excess of obsidian stones, so killing the drifters with spears is a good use of resources. A more automated approach to killing drifters will be available in the late game, but for now I'll have to deal with the slow grind.

I hope this was useful to anyone wanting to try out the map! I've definitely enjoyed playing, as it gives me a deeper appreciation of the game's mechanics. See you in heaven!

[Sickliff]

Okay, I've just had a breakthrough. I modified my obsidian generator design so you can get obsidian rock without using a pickaxe! The design is similar to the last one, but the center water block is replaced with cob. There's also a rock block on top of that so you can replace the cob, and a hay block above the rock so it doesn't get relieved when the cob is broken. You'll want to stand directly below the cob block and look straight up, then break and immediately replace the cob with some more from your hotbar. You can even use a shovel to speed up the process if you want.

The downside is that you don't get any stones doing this, but you get way too many obsidian stones from the previous design anyway. If you need stones you can always manually break the rocks with a pickaxe. You also still need a pickaxe to make the generator, and having one handy will be good for resetting it in case you mess up with placing the cob. I had to make a second copper pick to build this because I had already spent my first one using the old generator.

[Kirn]

i absolutly have to play it. maybe some update soon of my gameplay? and bugs or anything.

[Copperman]

Wow! I always wanted to do something like Skyblock in VS but with the differing nature of certain resources I couldnt swing it. I love this! I was going to comment that it is not possible to be truly lifelong sustained as you will eventually run out of metal, therefore rocks, therefore no tools. BUT your generator that uses a shovel is revolutionary to that.

Will definitely try it.

[HerbDashwell]

Wow! I haven't ever thought of actually playing anything Skyblock until this, I didn't even enjoy it in the other game. I  wouldn't have imagined the concept would even work with this game, but here this is shattering that idea! 
I cannot wait to play this!!