Linen sacks suck

[NastyFlytrap]

For how much flipping flax you need, both in general, and four four linen sacks, the amount of inventory they provide, and how much time it takes to gather all of that flax you need, makes these a waste of time, unless this is your first playthrough and you dont know about leather making, or you literally cannot make leather because of a lack of animals or oak/acacia logs.

 

They should be buffed by reducing their cost drastically. Or increase the output of flax plants because good lord the amount of flax we need just for all the various things requires years to get even with whole plantations

 

Here, i made the simple JSON patch because this is dumb:
https://mods.vintagestory.at/linensackscosthalfasmuch

Edited May 23, 2025 by NastyFlytrap
Mod link

[Maelstrom]

Before weak tannin you need to make scraped hides which requires limestone, chalk or borax.  Missing those and you can't even get to the weak tannin barrel for leather.  Then there's this little thing about boards to make barrels.  So that's firmly in the copper age with an anvil which is going to be painfully hard to get without a pick axe to mine copper out of rock.

If'n I'm fortunate enough to have one of those three resources early in my world I go from reeds straight to leather backpacks. Otherwise I will invest in a couple of linen sacks as the improved inventory space is well worth it.

[LadyWYT]

21 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Before weak tannin you need to make scraped hides which requires limestone, chalk or borax.  Missing those and you can't even get to the weak tannin barrel for leather.  Then there's this little thing about boards to make barrels.  So that's firmly in the copper age with an anvil which is going to be painfully hard to get without a pick axe to mine copper out of rock.

If'n I'm fortunate enough to have one of those three resources early in my world I go from reeds straight to leather backpacks. Otherwise I will invest in a couple of linen sacks as the improved inventory space is well worth it.

Pretty much what I was going to say. If you're very familiar with the game, linen sacks are rather underwhelming and your flax is better suited to other things, as a general rule. However, if for some reason you're missing a critical component of leatherworking, then linen sacks are your best option until you can acquire what you need for leather. Likewise, if you're doing some kind of challenge that prevents you from using leather at all(like a vegan run or arctic playthrough, where oak trees aren't an option at all), then linen sacks will come in handy.

There's quite a few things in the game that are situational like this. We have several types of armor that vary in usefulness depending on the situation, for example. Something might be "the best" for overall gameplay, but it may not be the best thing to use in every situation.

[Zane Mordien]

I rarely ever use linen sacks. Certain special scenarios like "snowball earth" where there are no oak trees you pretty much need to use them until you can get the new hardened leather backpacks. Normal playthroughs I usually find 1 linen sack in a ruin and wait for leather backpacks. 

[Never Jhonsen]

30 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I go from reeds straight to leather backpacks.

Same here, I also skip doing the linen bag stage

And it seems we all may be in agreement that the hunter bag sucks

[NastyFlytrap]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

Before weak tannin you need to make scraped hides which requires limestone, chalk or borax.  Missing those and you can't even get to the weak tannin barrel for leather.  Then there's this little thing about boards to make barrels.  So that's firmly in the copper age with an anvil which is going to be painfully hard to get without a pick axe to mine copper out of rock.

If'n I'm fortunate enough to have one of those three resources early in my world I go from reeds straight to leather backpacks. Otherwise I will invest in a couple of linen sacks as the improved inventory space is well worth it.

While you are right, there are more steps i didnt outline, i still think that unless this is your first playthrough, and there arent familiar with the systems of the game, or you are monumentally unlucky, getting four leather bags can be done much sooner than linen sacks which just involve a lot of waiting for flax to grow, and you also need a lot of it.

 

46 minutes ago, Never Jhonsen said:

Same here, I also skip doing the linen bag stage

And it seems we all may be in agreement that the hunter bag sucks

I suppose it has a niche, but its very small and mostly irrelevant. The little upgrade they provide is usually not something i invest time or energy into it

 

 

I just wish i could do something with my leather backpacks after making sturdy leather backpacks because its a real shame to leave so much leather just languishing in now unusable items. Wish i could harden an entire backpack at once although thats not a realistic mechanic at all and would feel silly in a game like this.

[Thorfinn]

Guess I'm the odd one out. Most games I make only 3 handbaskets because I can usually get at least one linen sack on the first day. I think heavy scouting for flax is essential because of all the flax you need for gambeson and sailboat and windmill sails. Everything else can slide some if it has to, but if I don't get a couple stacks of flax into the ground by mid May or so, it's hard to make the rest of the timetables work.

On occasion, I find a trader who sells them for one gear, which is great, because you can sell them back for one gear.

Though on my server, I allow you to add one more linen and two plates to turn sacks into mining bags.

[Maelstrom]

1 hour ago, Never Jhonsen said:

And it seems we all may be in agreement that the hunter bag sucks

Not even worth mentioning.  So I didn't.  

 

25 minutes ago, NastyFlytrap said:

 linen sacks which just involve a lot of waiting for flax to grow, and you also need a lot of it.

Linen sacks only require 20 flax fibers per bag.  I can usually get 20 fibers from wild flax I find and definitely from the first harvest of 8+ flax that comes about in mid July.  Because that flax is so important for early game items (looking at you gambeson armor) I make sure I drop a farm in the first half of May to get at least some flax for bags (if necessary) or the main goal of gambeson armor.

I'm always collecting flax whenever I find it.  By the time I get to April 1, year 1 (when I plant my flax coz I like the default temperate climate) I typically have at least 1 stack of flax to plant, if not 2 stacks.  

As for the leather backpacks once upgraded to sturdy packs?  I believe there's a trader that will buy leather backpacks.

Edited May 23, 2025 by Maelstrom

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Never Jhonsen said:

And it seems we all may be in agreement that the hunter bag sucks

I forgot those exist, to be honest. They make neat decoration, but outside of that they aren't very useful. Could possibly give them a bit of love by making them a six slot bag that can only store food/animal products. I mean, it is a hunter's backpack, after all. That would give it a specific niche that remains useful until you achieve sturdy leather, as it can help keep your inventory somewhat organized once you achieve leather backpacks.

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

As for the leather backpacks once upgraded to sturdy packs?  I believe there's a trader that will buy leather backpacks.

The treasure hunters will definitely buy them, and I think a couple of the other traders might as well. You can only sell one bag to a trader at a time, but it's a handy way to earn a few gears.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

I think heavy scouting for flax is essential because of all the flax you need for gambeson and sailboat and windmill sails.

How essential it is depends on how fast you want to achieve those things. If you're taking your time and playing at a slower pace so you can invest in things like livestock and fruit trees, then you don't need to scour the countryside for flax as you'll most likely be having multiple cycles of crops on your farms anyway.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

How essential it is depends on how fast you want to achieve those things.

Agreed. The OP was complaining about how long it took to achieve those things. If you are OK with playing at a slower pace, then you would just skip the sacks.

[Evoken]

I play modded Vintage Story and hunter bags are really useful for me In my playthrough linen has so many uses that it was only in the fall that I managed to make 4 linen sacks. So I could argue if linen sacks are too hard to make but on the other side, in vanilla they seem to be in a perfect place.

Anyway reading through your comments and even through whole forum i'm really surprised the way most of you play VS. It seemed to me that Vintage Story, like Minecraft, is a very chill game, where the emphasis is on technological progress and survival, but also the same amount of time is spent on building a base and other not necessarily necessary structures. Yeah, I'm also feeling the pressure from incoming winter to stock up on food and gather enough resources to make warm clothes, but apart from that, I try to create cool projects in the same hurry as I develop technology or explore surroundings.

Of course I'm not saying that your way of playing is bad, I'm just surprised by this rush where for many of you even hunter backpacks are irrelevant. Well maybe that's because for most of you this is more a survival game where for me it's a 50% "survival" and 50% building game ^^

Edited May 23, 2025 by Evoken

[NastyFlytrap]

18 minutes ago, Evoken said:

I play modded Vintage Story and hunter bags are really useful for me In my playthrough linen has so many uses that it was only in the fall that I managed to make 4 linen sacks. So I could argue if linen sacks are too hard to make but on the other side, in vanilla they seem to be in a perfect place.

Anyway reading through your comments and even through whole forum i'm really surprised the way most of you play VS. It seemed to me that Vintage Story, like Minecraft, is a very chill game, where the emphasis is on technological progress and survival, but also the same amount of time is spent on building a base and other not necessarily necessary structures. Yeah, I'm also feeling the pressure from incoming winter to stock up on food and gather enough resources to make warm clothes, but apart from that, I try to create cool projects in the same hurry as I develop technology or explore surroundings.

Of course I'm not saying that your way of playing is bad, I'm just surprised by this rush where for many of you even hunter backpacks are irrelevant. Well maybe that's because for most of you this is more a survival game where for me it's a 50% "survival" and 50% building game ^^

I do play to just chill, however, i hate the low inventory mechanic, and while i think it should be in the game, as a veteran player who is familiar with the systems, i am absolutely going to rush to the leather backpacks as soon as i can because hunter backpacks arent much of an upgrade considering they take extra trips of venturing outside to make, for only a very small gain over cattail baskets which are almost free, and linen sacks are way too expensive, and leather is surprisingly easy to make if you know how the game plays.

 

The reason i dont think they are in the right place in vanilla VS is because you need to wait about as much time to get four of them, as it takes for you to manually make four leather backpacks, which store significantly more. For them to be worth it, they need to cost like one flax twine. Making each bag cost 16 flax fibers is nuts. Should be more like four. Or atleast 8. That way, you can get them significantly sooner than leather, which gives them a purpose. Plus, extra benefit, more flax for the billion other things you need it for.

 

In general i just think that their cost should be reduced to like four or eight twine. Sixteen, for 64 twine in total, is just crazy. 16 for all four might be a bit too low, but 32 seems like a nice compromise to me.

 

In fact, i'll just go and make a patch for this myself, because fuck it. I can.

[Thorfinn]

The real value of linen sacks is that it makes limestone or chalk almost irrelevant. Yes, if you skip from handbaskets to leather backpacks, finding limestone is a big deal. It's 12 slots, doubling your inventory space. If you build the sacks, it's only another 4 slots. No big deal.

Besides, it takes 2 full rotors, 720 fiber, to run a helve hammer. About the same for gambeson, about the same for the boat. The 80 for sacks is more or less round-off error.

[Michael Gates]

37 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Besides, it takes 2 full rotors, 720 fiber, to run a helve hammer. About the same for gambeson, about the same for the boat. The 80 for sacks is more or less round-off error.

Tower up! At altitude 170 two sails on a rotor runs the helve a reasonable amount of the time, three sails is "usually", and four sails, 256 string, is full-time. If only I were good enough at sculpting to make a decent-looking airboat hull, I'd be set for life.

Also, if you go down to z=5-7k from a temperate start you will find two or three sacks worth of flax just from scouting surface copper, if you do it on grass.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Evoken said:

It seemed to me that Vintage Story, like Minecraft, is a very chill game, where the emphasis is on technological progress and survival, but also the same amount of time is spent on building a base and other not necessarily necessary structures.

Sure. That just happens while you are waiting for other things to finish up. Strictly speaking, you don't need any more than a ladder to hang a block in the sky that you can hang a windmill from. But what else are you going to do with all the time? Sleep? I just don't do chiseling, because I suck at it, and don't care to practice something I don't find fun anyway, and my primary build material is whatever is local. Sure, limestone and chert and andesite are great for accents, maybe some design feature of malachite or copper in slate, which I also think looks nice, but the main build material should be local.