Rift activity is really erratic

[Echo Weaver]

(Keep in mind I'm still on 1.19)

I realize the answer to this is, "Duh, it's supposed to be," but I'm trying to figure out if there's a pattern I haven't recognized yet. 

So, the rift activity is Calm, and I go out at night to work in the garden. Suddenly I'm hit with a stone and hear the groaning. Within the ~30 seconds since I last looked, the rift activity is now Apocalyptic. 

Is there any rhyme or reason to this? Is there something that causes a change in rift activity? It puts a real damper on the safety of working outside during Calm moments that they can jump to the other end of the spectrum at any moment. This also applies to caving.

As a side anecdote, I'm currently building out a cathedral ruin to be my new base with windmill. While I was standing there figuring out how best to place roofing, suddenly the full-on temporal storm effects started and my HUD gear started zooming backwards. I ran out of the spot, and things returned to normal. Then I tried a few times more to walk back into that spot and got the same effect. Is this what happens when you stand in the middle of a rift? I wondered for a bit if it was possible for spots to become spontaneously unstable permanently, which would have really pissed me off. The next day everything was fine. I have to guess that a rift appeared in that spot but was never rendered because I happened to be standing in the area where it appeared.

Edited December 16, 2024 by Echo Weaver

[Thorfinn]

I've never been able to discern a pattern.

[Echo Weaver]

3 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I've never been able to discern a pattern.

It would be nice if a change had some kind of bounds, like two steps on the severity chart or something. I guess we're never supposed to feel completely safe, but argh.

[Deaderpan]

the pattern is. its heaviest when you want to go mining, its lowest middle of the night in winter

[LadyWYT]

32 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Is there any rhyme or reason to this? Is there something that causes a change in rift activity? It puts a real damper on the safety of working outside during Calm moments that they can jump to the other end of the spectrum at any moment. This also applies to caving.

The only pattern I've recognized is that the game likes to wait until you're lulled into a sense of security and get complacent, and then spring high levels of rift activity on you at the worst time. In other words, it's just luck of the draw as to what you'll get at any given moment, and it sounds like you've been really unlucky. My usual strategy for working outside is to always have a shield on hand, that way I can equip it to deal with any hostile wildlife or monsters that spawn should it be nighttime. As for caving, I don't go caving unless I'm looking for ruins, and I never go in without armor. If the monster activity is too much underground, I'll leave and come back later when the activity has died down a bit.

36 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

While I was standing there figuring out how best to place roofing, suddenly the full-on temporal storm effects started and my HUD gear started zooming backwards. I ran out of the spot, and things returned to normal. Then I tried a few times more to walk back into that spot and got the same effect. Is this what happens when you stand in the middle of a rift?

Yep! It's not often that it happens, but sometimes a rift will spawn right on top of you. Sucks when it happens though, as it's usually right where you're trying to work, but it does make rift wards a more valuable asset around the base. In fact, I'd say rift wards are almost a must-have now, given the new monsters and what's happened a few times with temporal storms and high rift activity...I've been able to deal with the mess outside my base so far, but life would be a lot easier with those wards in place.

39 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I have to guess that a rift appeared in that spot but was never rendered because I happened to be standing in the area where it appeared.

My guess is that if you were working on the roof, the rift probably spawned in the space under you.

40 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I wondered for a bit if it was possible for spots to become spontaneously unstable permanently, which would have really pissed me off.

That really applies more to chunks--some are stable, some are unstable, and some are neutral. The status that they have is permanent, and does not change. Rifts have a higher chance of spawning in unstable chunks, I believe, than they do in stable chunks, but they can otherwise spawn pretty much anywhere on the surface when there is rift activity. I have noticed though that they tend to spawn in the same general spots, so if say a rift spawns in the middle of your farm, the chances of one spawning in that same general spot later are fairly good.

The one exception to this rule is story locations--the stability varies wildly, and some locations can be quite unstable, but you won't actually lose your stability while exploring them. I presume this is to keep the overall theme in place that certain locations are dangerous, while still allowing the player to explore at their own leisure, especially considering some locations are quite large and complicated. I've also not noticed rifts spawning in story locations, and to my knowledge the enemies that spawn in these locations, if any, are specific and not random.

[Hells Razer]

Something that does help mitigate rift spawning is lighting up the area. It won't stop rifts from spawning, but you can nudge where they spawn around a bit so that they won't be -for example- in your farmlands.

[Reignhardt]

Huh, just learned there are wards you can somehow make or find!  News to me!

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Reignhardt said:

Huh, just learned there are wards you can somehow make or find!  News to me!

They're late game tech--if you've crafted steel, then you're probably at the point that you can start making rift wards, provided you have the resources. To my knowledge, they're not really a place-and-forget item like lanterns either. You'll need to refuel them occasionally with temporal gears.

[Zane Mordien]

I just always have plenty of work to do inside at night. 

[Echo Weaver]

14 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

I just always have plenty of work to do inside at night. 

Yeah, that seems to be the way of it. I'm in winter, though, so the night is LOOOOONG. I did set myself up with a lot of indoor stuff to do during the winter night, including panning bony soil and banging out iron ingots. 

Any suggestions?

[LadyWYT]

15 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Yeah, that seems to be the way of it. I'm in winter, though, so the night is LOOOOONG. I did set myself up with a lot of indoor stuff to do during the winter night, including panning bony soil and banging out iron ingots. 

Any suggestions?

Pottery and food prep are always decent options. Nighttime is also good downtime for looking at your map and planning mining, trade, or exploration trips.