Stack Sizes

[k1ngofpentacles]

Does anyone else feel like the choices for stack sizes doesn't make much sense? Like a full stack of wood is 16. Broken down into firewood is 2 stacks of 32 from one stack of 16.. but you can have a full 64 stack of cobblestone?? It feels very unintuitive to me and I feel like needs rebalancing. one stack of wood being processed into 2 stacks of firewood just feels bad, especially when the stack size of the firewood is literally just the amount it takes to fill one block's worth of space. It just feels like there isn't really any consistent rule or logic behind the stack sizes; they come off as arbitrarily designed just to make inventory management frustrating in the early game.

Edited April 1, 2025 by k1ngofpentacles
added tags

[Thorfinn]

The ones I think are weird are that most of it is obviously base 2, but then there's base 10 mixed in just to make things difficult.

Why should a barrel be 50 liters, and a bucket 10? Particularly with a bucket stack of 4. Make a barrel 64 l., and a bucket 16. Then, for example, making limewater, you dump one stack of buckets into the barrel, then add 1 stack of ground lime. Instead you split a stack of ground lime in half, split one of the halves, add it to the first half for 48, then add another 2 from somewhere. For the water, 1 stack of buckets plus a second bucket.

Honey was done correctly, 1.6 l. per stack of comb. But whether you are squeezing into a bowl or a bucket, you never end up with even numbers of stacks. It would also eliminate the goofiness with the fruit press if 1 unit of berries juiced to exactly 1/2 l. Or even 1/4 l. If the bucket were 16 l. and the barrel were 64, and the juice rate were 1/4, a stack of berries makes a bucket of juice, 4 stacks of berries fills a barrel. Or if you wanted about the current balance, go with a juice rate of 1/2, so 2 stacks makes a full barrel, rather than the 2.5 it takes now. Now you get all kinds of weird fractions if you don't juice intelligently. Do it all with binary and everything is simple -- everything ends with 0, .25, .5, or .75, which is easy to add and doesn't have you trying to figure out what you are going to do with 19.997 l. of something.

Yes, I've considered changing all that, but then we get the goofiness that partial portions of most stuff is measured in decimal, too. With an output that maps into 1.5 crocks. The only quirk for pie is dough, again because of the silly base 10 bucket.

Edited April 1, 2025 by Thorfinn

[k1ngofpentacles]

7 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

The ones I think are weird are that most of it is obviously base 2, but then there's base 10 mixed in just to make things difficult.

Why should a barrel be 50 liters, and a bucket 10? Particularly with a bucket stack of 4. Make a barrel 64 l., and a bucket 16. Then, for example, making limewater, you dump one stack of buckets into the barrel, then add 1 stack of ground lime. Instead you split a stack of ground lime in half, split one of the halves, add it to the first half for 48, then add another 2 from somewhere. For the water, 1 stack of buckets plus a second bucket.

Honey was done correctly, 1.6 l. per stack of comb. But whether you are squeezing into a bowl or a bucket, you never end up with even numbers of stacks. It would also eliminate the goofiness with the fruit press if 1 unit of berries juiced to exactly 1/2 l. Or even 1/4 l. If the bucket were 16 l. and the barrel were 64, and the juice rate were 1/4, a stack of berries makes a bucket of juice, 4 stacks of berries fills a barrel.

Yes, I've considered changing all that, but then we get the goofiness that partial portions of most stuff is measured in decimal, too. With an output that maps into 1.5 crocks. The only quirk for pie is dough, again because of the silly base 10 bucket.

YES. Honestly though, my biggest issue is just the massive discrepancy between 64x an item that takes up a whole block of space being one stack, and then 32x an item that takes 32 to fill up a block of space. It just seems like an artificial barrier to resource gathering, in particular in the early game. I'd even be fine with lowering the stack size for cobble if we brought up the stack size for wood and firewood/sticks in particular. Or just any of the "this processes into more inventory space" phenomenon. I feel like if you start off with a full stack of something before processing, whatever amount it processes to should be an entire stack instead of split up into 2 or more stacks. It also just feels weird to have stack sizes of up to 320 for mortar, 128 for bits/nuggets but then sticks/stones stack to the same amount as cobblestone? just feels inconsistent 

[Thorfinn]

Most of it is for convenience, not reality. You need so many sticks that they have to stack to 64. And that only does 8 pit kilns. Sticks would be a good candidate for a 128 stack size. You get so many rocks mining that they have to stack to 64. If you thought ahead, you can stack those rocks up as cobble and really save the space. Otherwise you would have to make so many trips just to get another course or two laid on your house.

But as mentioned in another thread, Tyron mentioned something about adding a mass restriction to inventory. Personally, I'm not that broken up about it, but all those people who wanted to make a dressed limestone tower? Better build it right next to the limestone. If that stuff goes to stack size 1, it's going to get really tedious really fast.

[LadyWYT]

25 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

But as mentioned in another thread, Tyron mentioned something about adding a mass restriction to inventory.

As in a limit to carry weight and not just inventory slots, or something else entirely? I always chalked up some of the stack sizes to be a sort of "mass limit" to what you can carry, without making building stuff too tedious. In contrast, most things in the other block game stack to 64 max, with a few exceptions stacking to something that divides into 64 or not stacking at all.

30 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Personally, I'm not that broken up about it, but all those people who wanted to make a dressed limestone tower? Better build it right next to the limestone. If that stuff goes to stack size 1, it's going to get really tedious really fast.

I'm not even sure that building right next to your stone deposit would help that much. If the stone bricks still stack like normal, then it's more economical to just quarry your stone and turn it into bricks on the spot, probably, instead of lugging the solid blocks back to your base. I suppose it would also incentivize building with more mundane materials as well, but overall I think it still ends up being a more frustrating building experience.

Of course, it could just be an optional challenge that you can toggle on at world creation(default on for Wilderness Survival). Or something like Valheim, though in that case the weights of items still end up being a bit arbitrary for gameplay reasons. You can still carry around a lot more stuff like logs, ore, and rocks than you could realistically handle, but it somehow manages to avoid being too frustrating when it comes to building and getting things done.

48 minutes ago, k1ngofpentacles said:

It just seems like an artificial barrier to resource gathering, in particular in the early game.

I agree with Thorfinn, a lot of the large stacks are just for convenience, with the smaller, more arbitrary stacks likely intended for balance. Smaller stack sizes for things like logs help push the player to focus their attention on a narrower selection of tasks at any given time; for example, instead of being able to go chop the whole forest and still have enough space for a mining trip or all those foraged goods, you'll need to focus on just one of those tasks and possibly make more than one trip to get it done. It does slow down gameplay a bit, especially in the early game, but it doesn't feel too forced, at least in my opinion.

Overall player inventory in videogames is just weird in general, when it comes to realistic logic.

[Thorfinn]

28 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

As in a limit to carry weight and not just inventory slots, or something else entirely?

I don't know. I remember something being said a couple years back, with the upshot being that it is possible that in future versions, you will want to build with mostly local resources, much like all the ruins did. This was in a discussion about wagons and horse drawn carts, IIRC, so it wouldn't happen until at least some manner of dealing with freight is developed. We have boats and rafts, so it might not be too far off.

Then on the other hand, I could easily have misunderstood the intent, or it was abandoned. I've never seen it on the roadmap, so there's that.

[Michael Gates]

5 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Honey was done correctly, 1.6 l. per stack of comb. But whether you are squeezing into a bowl or a bucket, you never end up with even numbers of stacks.

You forgot to mention the bit where the game practically forces you to make jam a crock and a bowl at a time. It's perfect, absolutely perfect.

[Broccoli Clock]

Want me to start a fight?

I think inventory should reflect size and weight, and not be slot based. That'll soon sort out the oddity of stack sizes.

[k1ngofpentacles]

15 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

The ones I think are weird are that most of it is obviously base 2, but then there's base 10 mixed in just to make things difficult.

Why should a barrel be 50 liters, and a bucket 10? Particularly with a bucket stack of 4. Make a barrel 64 l., and a bucket 16. Then, for example, making limewater, you dump one stack of buckets into the barrel, then add 1 stack of ground lime. Instead you split a stack of ground lime in half, split one of the halves, add it to the first half for 48, then add another 2 from somewhere. For the water, 1 stack of buckets plus a second bucket.

Honey was done correctly, 1.6 l. per stack of comb. But whether you are squeezing into a bowl or a bucket, you never end up with even numbers of stacks. It would also eliminate the goofiness with the fruit press if 1 unit of berries juiced to exactly 1/2 l. Or even 1/4 l. If the bucket were 16 l. and the barrel were 64, and the juice rate were 1/4, a stack of berries makes a bucket of juice, 4 stacks of berries fills a barrel. Or if you wanted about the current balance, go with a juice rate of 1/2, so 2 stacks makes a full barrel, rather than the 2.5 it takes now. Now you get all kinds of weird fractions if you don't juice intelligently. Do it all with binary and everything is simple -- everything ends with 0, .25, .5, or .75, which is easy to add and doesn't have you trying to figure out what you are going to do with 19.997 l. of something.

Yes, I've considered changing all that, but then we get the goofiness that partial portions of most stuff is measured in decimal, too. With an output that maps into 1.5 crocks. The only quirk for pie is dough, again because of the silly base 10 bucket.

Another thing I just noticed is that the barrel actually does hold 64L, but only for rot?

[Thorfinn]

Pretty sure it holds a stack, but only of the materials allowed in a barrel. So you can put 64 lime in, too, but it doesn't turn to limewater unless you remove 14.

[V1ncent]

On 4/1/2025 at 4:37 PM, Michael Gates said:

You forgot to mention the bit where the game practically forces you to make jam a crock and a bowl at a time. It's perfect, absolutely perfect.

If you mean 5 serves by "a crock and a bowl", you can actually use a jug to put 1.2L of honey and cook 6 serves of jam like other meals.

Though I do feel weird that the cooking pot can cook up to 6 serves while crock only hold 4, thus essentially leaving a second crock half-empty.

[Maelstrom]

@Thorfinn  Tyron is helping everyone learn the Freedom Units system of converting between different measurements, coz deep down he knows that Freedom Units are the way to go.  

[Thorfinn]

Not sure how to make the change to true Freedom units given the parts of it that are hardcoded. but tweaking the barrel to 64, bucket to 16, and all the barrel recipes to fractions of a stack gives a really close approximation to Freedom Lite VS. Four buckets (one stack) to fill a barrel, one stack of ground lime, and you have limewater. Two buckets of water and half a stack of cranberries is pink dye. These exactly conform to the default ratios, others have to be rounded some.

I figure this might encourage our benighted friends to use a much more convenient system of measurement.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Maelstrom]

BAH!  Convenience is for wimps!  VS weeds out the wimps.  

[Professor Dragon]

This is the one that gets me - Bronze Armlets.

It is bad enough that they:

• Have no use (decoration in one slot, until you get something better maybe)
• Cannot be stacked
• Can't be placed onto the ground, shelf or display case (I mean, honestly, why not?)

They are the poster child for "junk items" in vintage story. 

But worse, they can't even be stored effectively.

• Best I can do is the 36 slots in a trunk.
• But I can only put 8 into a crate - what's with that? ? ?

I thought that a chest would be my salvation with these puppies, but they're not.

Why am I holding onto them? I don't know.

I guess that I'm hoping that they will be useful one day.

• Be able to break them down. Perhaps require a bronze chisel, so that you can't cheese the Bronze Age.
• Stack them to 8 (?). Seems a reasonable number.
• Stack them in crates to a much bigger number. 512(?)
• Be able to place them on the ground, shelves or display cases.
• Potential story item - used as a key for a vault, for example, so that you rue the day you threw every one into the lake and need to pan for "just one more."

Thank you, once again, for reading.

Professor Dragon.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[Bumber]

45 minutes ago, Professor Dragon said:

This is the one that gets me - Bronze Armlets.

It is bad enough that they:

• Have no use (decoration in one slot, until you get something better maybe)

Don't traders buy them? Edit: Never mind. I was thinking of copper bracelets.

There's mods that let you chisel them, I think.

Edited July 17, 2025 by Bumber

[Maelstrom]

Seems like for a single block a chest would be ideal.  16 instead of 8 in the crate (since you can't even get four on the floor ). 

But why would you have even more than one?

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

But why would you have even more than one?

Oh, that's right. I forgot all about your clayforming mishap.

Most seraphs have two arms.

[LadyWYT]

11 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

But I can only put 8 into a crate - what's with that? ? ?

Looking at the picture provided...it's an aged crate there, and they have the fewest storage slots of the crate family. Maybe that's why? Otherwise I don't know, that does seem rather strange. I know for a standard crate(maple, oak, pine, etc), I can store 20 temporal gears, which is a more efficient use of space than a chest(16 slots).

[Professor Dragon]

21 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Looking at the picture provided...it's an aged crate there, and they have the fewest storage slots of the crate family. Maybe that's why? Otherwise I don't know, that does seem rather strange. I know for a standard crate(maple, oak, pine, etc), I can store 20 temporal gears, which is a more efficient use of space than a chest(16 slots).

Good call.

I tried it out with a pine crate, and got an anomalous result, so I switched over to a Creative world and confirmed that Bronze Armlets do indeed stack 16 to an Aged Crate and 20 to a regular Crate. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Crate

So back to my world, and I found that one of the Bronze Armlets has an issue with going into the crates. Don't know why. Tried dropping it and moving it around between places. The crate obviously thinks that it is a "different" item.

So, ahem. I made an error earlier. Bronze Armlets do in fact stack higher in Crates, beyond 8. 

Thank  you.

[Chrondeath]

On 3/31/2025 at 10:05 PM, Thorfinn said:

But as mentioned in another thread, Tyron mentioned something about adding a mass restriction to inventory. Personally, I'm not that broken up about it, but all those people who wanted to make a dressed limestone tower? Better build it right next to the limestone. If that stuff goes to stack size 1, it's going to get really tedious really fast.

Well, that sounds like an extra nightmare to add on top of searching for thousands of blocks for limestone and bauxite to make leather and steel....

I do really like Valheim's cart mechanics, but over the distances that are needed for different stone types and with the mountains and hills that generate currently, it seems implausible.  Maybe if the 1.21 "more easily traversable" thing works out.

[Thorfinn]

9 hours ago, Chrondeath said:

Well, that sounds like an extra nightmare to add on top of searching for thousands of blocks for limestone and bauxite to make leather and steel....

I do really like Valheim's cart mechanics, but over the distances that are needed for different stone types and with the mountains and hills that generate currently, it seems implausible.  Maybe if the 1.21 "more easily traversable" thing works out.

From a realism standpoint, it doesn't take all that much limestone to make enough limewater for tanning. When we did that with my kids, it took less than a spoonful in a gallon of water. So, I don't know, maybe a pound in a barrel? But building a castle? That's quite a different thing.

Terrain seems more traversable, or maybe it's just that the traversable parts are more common. I'm loathe to compare code quite yet. I never had trouble with the terrain, though, because I travel where the terrain is good, rather than going in a direction of my own choosing, regardless of what terrain is in the way. Kind of the way they used to build roads, minimal "terraforming", lots of curves, but now they just fill valleys and level mountains to put freeways through. Travel lost a lot of charm, unless you were Charles Kuralt. Or Bobby Unser.

Edited July 19, 2025 by Thorfinn