Water unfrozen/frozen in summer

[Mishuget]

Hi everyone,

I would like to know why water stays frozen during spring and summer in areas where I know the temperature is high.

I have my base near a big lake, but when I use a boat to go somewhere fast (over this lake), the lake is still frozen in areas (far from my base, like a line in half of the lake), so I cannot use the boat to sail there, even in late-game summer.

Is this a known issue of game mechanics, or do I need to change some setup, or anything? It is also present while walking somewhere far, but that is not so problematic.

Ice in lakes in mountains is fine, but the lowland should not be frozen the whole year, right?

I am new to this game and the forum, so please forgive me if the topic is already present.

Kind regards

Mishuget

 

[Vratislav]

Welcome to the forums!

This is actually well known problem. The ice is not unfreezing fast enough on the edge of loaded chunks. In recent updates, there were some mentions that it was partially addressed, but yeah, the everlasting ice is still there.

What works, is to move a bit towards the lake and to be occupied there (like to build there or do some chores) until the ice melts. Actually, my base in long play world is located among three lakes, so I am pretty much destined to have ice borders there usually till end of May or even longer.

 

Edited September 19, 2025 by Vratislav

[Professor Dragon]

1 hour ago, Vratislav said:

This is actually well known problem. The ice is not unfreezing fast enough on the edge of loaded chunks. In recent updates, there were some mentions that it was partially addressed, but yeah, the everlasting ice is still there.

What works, is to move a bit towards the lake and to be occupied there (like to build there or do some chores) until the ice melts. Actually, my base in long play world is located among three lakes, so I am pretty much destined to have ice borders there usually till end of May or even longer.

@Vratislav describes the current state of play correctly.
Please see the Dev. comment here for what should happen:
https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/7057

"Lake ice is melting fine in a test I just ran in 1.21.1 vanilla. A player needs to stay in the area for a day or two, for it to melt fully (that's issue #2319) but that is the current game design - it's intentional that ice takes a lot longer to melt than snow and some ice can remain in April/May for example. In future there will be a new system but right now this is intended behavior in 1.21"

Note that there are a lot of duplicate issues regarding ice melting. So first of all make sure that (a) you're on the current version and (b) that the ice is behaving as above. That is, staying in the area for a while ticks over the melting process. If it does NOT behave this way, I'd recommend putting it through to the Issue Tracker with your logs.

In the meantime, you could always try a mod:

https://mods.vintagestory.at/waterweathersimulationredux

"Forces lakes to fully freeze/melt based on temperature, since the base game does not do a good job at it sometimes."

Professor Dragon.

Edited September 19, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[Echo Weaver]

22 minutes ago, Professor Dragon said:

A player needs to stay in the area for a day or two, for it to melt fully (that's issue #2319)

OK, I went and read #2319 and #7057, and it doesn't look like there's much action or interest from the devs on it. It's completely absurd that ice melting on the landscape requires the player's physical presence for multiple days, and I don't get why they're clinging to that as a design choice.

I gave up and installed Weather Simulation Redux (https://mods.vintagestory.at/waterweathersimulationredux) because the the ice thing has really gotten to bug me. That doesn't quite do what I want either, but it's better.

Edited September 19, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Vratislav]

Also, I am not sure with the mechanics, but the core of the problem may be not the delayed unfreezing, but the exact opposite: that the water is actually freezing in the border of loaded area, where it should not happen. There is mechanic that lakes ice starts generate from shores, so shore and neigbouring ice probably initialize further freezing. And I feel like the border of loaded chinks is by mistake (or due to some more complicated reasons) considered as a shore or an ice. So the freezing is activated by the whole border of loaded chunks needlessly. 

[Forks]

This issue is exactly why I'll never play a PvP server ever again. Impossible to make a completely hidden base anywhere remotely near water as raiders will spot the telltale ice from hundreds of blocks away.

[Professor Dragon]

8 hours ago, Forks said:

This issue is exactly why I'll never play a PvP server ever again. Impossible to make a completely hidden base anywhere remotely near water as raiders will spot the telltale ice from hundreds of blocks away.

There are Vintage Story PvP servers? That's a thing?!? 

As if the base game wasn't tough enough.

[Forks]

On 9/19/2025 at 9:05 PM, Professor Dragon said:

There are Vintage Story PvP servers? That's a thing?!? 

As if the base game wasn't tough enough.

I've played on a few "Civ" servers where the goal is to create proper towns and civilizations, but the ruleset on those servers was that there were no rules and we had to be self-governing.
Of course the problem there being that there is always at least one bad egg who exists to be annoying and Vintage Story still has far too many bugs and exploits for those kinds of servers to last.
A fun fact my group learned the hard way is that if someone throws a spear with 1 durability remaining at you it will destroy your held tool/weapon. Not fun to fight someone with an inventory of 1 durability spears.