Discussion on cool climates

[Blue_Helix]

Hello everyone.

To start, this is not a rant on my end on how the game is bad and I know it is (far?) from being finished. I'm sort of airing my thoughts after 90 hours of gaming in a cool climate and encourage people to discuss about these high latitude areas.

So, to give a context, I'm a newbie in the sense this is my first world, and I haven't reached Steel yet while I can work Meteoric Iron. I spawned in a place with -0.3°C yearly average temperature and what I would call an equivalent to Earth Taiga. 

The first thing that struck me was the absence of cattails, I had to console them to finish the tutorial and I admit I gave myself enough for a few reed chests as well. I discovered later that their northern limit was between 2 and 3 thousand blocks South of me.  Now I honestly love the place, the vibe, what I would call a real winter. I know this is the North, it's more difficult and if you want an Eldorado, go to the temperate zone or even nearer to the equator (personally, I'm not a big fan of having no heat penalty, if I'm not mistaken...). To progress further into the game, even if I don't think it's mandatory, you're sort of incited to take a one month long journey back and forth to the South to get flax and oak, while the vegetative season here lasts 5 months at best.

So I did this journey, twice because I'm not that organized, and while I traveled I started to discover flowers, new kinds of trees, that there's supposedly bees here and other useful animals like pigs, etc... And I thought that basically, my place is just like a temperate zone, with less stuff.

To be honest, currently, I think the only things that cool climates have and others don't, besides the general ambiance, are the larch trees (I'm not 100% sure about that), and the June and July months with no surface mob spawn beside rift and temporal storm, because the night is so short.

 

Now, I know that biodiversity on Earth tends to decrease poleward and that life in high latitudes is far from being as easy as in an oceanic temperate zone such as western Europe, but there still life in those places, stuff is happening, and not having cattails is a bit harsh I'm going to be honest.

So to conclude, I think cool climates lack opportunities and flora, fauna, (blocks?) of their own. I know you can mod the game and people might have already thought and tackled what I'm saying. I personally started even if I don't know if I'm going to go far. I'm just curious about what others would add/change to the North. To give an example, i have the idea that the fat drop here should be buffed compared to southern locations.

 

Again, I'm not ranting or suggesting specific things to the game here, more airing my thoughts and wanting to know what others think.

 

Thanks for your attention, and cheers!

 

 

[LadyWYT]

Now you make me want to go start another Cool world.  I quite enjoyed the last couple I played due to the extra challenges they present. 

47 minutes ago, Blue_Helix said:

The first thing that struck me was the absence of cattails

I will note that cattails aren't completely absent from this climate zone, but they are a lot more rare. You can stumble across them in the occasional warmer chunk though. In the event you can't find any, you can collect enough flax for a linen sack or two, which will help the early game inventory issues.

 

51 minutes ago, Blue_Helix said:

To progress further into the game, even if I don't think it's mandatory, you're sort of incited to take a one month long journey back and forth to the South to get flax and oak, while the vegetative season here lasts 5 months at best.

It really depends on how far north you settled. Oak still spawns in the Cool zone, but tends to be a bit more rare. I think flax is similar, in that it does spawn but is harder to find. If you have access to an Agriculture Trader, you can purchase oak and flax seeds, as well as other seeds that are difficult to acquire in a cool climate. Cracked vessels and ruins loot can also provide seeds. However, that assumes the player is playing with lore content enabled; if playing Homo Sapiens, then a trip south may be necessary.

 

54 minutes ago, Blue_Helix said:

To be honest, currently, I think the only things that cool climates have and others don't, besides the general ambiance, are the larch trees (I'm not 100% sure about that), and the June and July months with no surface mob spawn beside rift and temporal storm, because the night is so short.

Cool climates can have polar bears, though they will be at higher altitudes. I believe it's also easier to find elk in cooler climates as well. As for larch trees, these will still spawn in temperate and warmer climates, though it will be on top of mountains where it's cold enough for them to spawn.

As for the daylight hours being long enough to prevent most, if not all, monster spawns...yeah, that's a feature unique to the cool climate zone as well as the arctic. While a nice feature, the drawback, of course, is that winter nights will be much longer too. 

57 minutes ago, Blue_Helix said:

So to conclude, I think cool climates lack opportunities and flora, fauna, (blocks?) of their own. I know you can mod the game and people might have already thought and tackled what I'm saying. I personally started even if I don't know if I'm going to go far. I'm just curious about what others would add/change to the North. To give an example, i have the idea that the fat drop here should be buffed compared to southern locations.

I think instead of buffing the fat drop, perhaps add in fatty creatures like seals for players to hunt. That not only increases biodiversity, but gives the player a good source of meat and plenty of fat to use for sealing crocks, cooking, staying warm, etc. 

As for flora, some crops and other plants specific to cold regions would be great, and help give players more reason to travel north. The tropical regions already have such things, like pineapples, purpleheart, and ebony, so there's no reason that colder regions couldn't have some unique berry bushes or cultivated crops. That would also give players more cold-tolerant crop options aside from just rye and turnips.

[Bruno Willis]

59 minutes ago, Blue_Helix said:

To give an example, i have the idea that the fat drop here should be buffed compared to southern locations.

Great idea.

I'd suggest allowing players to make 'baskets' out of kelp (we do this in Aotearoa New Zealand by taking the broad leaves, cutting a mouth and pealing them open, then drying them open. They make stiff pouches). It'd be a nasty challenge diving for kelp in the frigid climate. 

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I'd suggest allowing players to make 'baskets' out of kelp (we do this in Aotearoa New Zealand by taking the broad leaves, cutting a mouth and pealing them open, then drying them open. They make stiff pouches). It'd be a nasty challenge diving for kelp in the frigid climate. 

I would say allow baskets to be crafted from bark or freshly cut sticks instead; that way it's just a variant on the baskets we have already, but otherwise offers easy inventory for cool climates. Arctic starts will likely still need to rely on arctic supply caches though.

But definitely keep the kelp baskets, that's brilliant! Did not know that was a thing  It'd be very useful for water worlds, I'd wager.

[Thorfinn]

26 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I think instead of buffing the fat drop, perhaps add in fatty creatures like seals for players to hunt. That not only increases biodiversity, but gives the player a good source of meat and plenty of fat to use for sealing crocks, cooking, staying warm, etc. 

Plus, clubbing baby seals. 

The time I spent in Alaska made me realize you could about skin the skeeters for meat, too.

Baskets out of tree bark is a great idea! Should be a standard thing.

[Blue_Helix]

22 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

 

I will note that cattails aren't completely absent from this climate zone, but they are a lot more rare. You can stumble across them in the occasional warmer chunk though. In the event you can't find any, you can collect enough flax for a linen sack or two, which will help the early game inventory issues.

Then I must have some bad luck because I have explored inside of a 2000 block radius around my base and I have not found neither flax or cattails. I would say that if you can find maple and birch, you should see cattails too. Maybe you can find cattails in cracked vessels or you can try to get flax with trader or with the mob loot drop, but this is a difficulty I would keep for the Artic climate, and allow the Taiga area to have no inventory problem early game, one way or the other like this was suggested after.

22 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

As for flora, some crops and other plants specific to cold regions would be great, and help give players more reason to travel north. The tropical regions already have such things, like pineapples, purpleheart, and ebony, so there's no reason that colder regions couldn't have some unique berry bushes or cultivated crops. That would also give players more cold-tolerant crop options aside from just rye and turnips.

Now you make me want to add a tree with a delicate light blue wood to cool region with low altitude, so that southerner can't have it. That would go super well with the lengthy winter and all its white. Not sure you can do that with JSON though... 

[Bruno Willis]

54 minutes ago, Blue_Helix said:

Now you make me want to add a tree with a delicate light blue wood to cool region with low altitude, so that southerner can't have it. That would go super well with the lengthy winter and all its white. Not sure you can do that with JSON though... 

I think in perma-frost areas there are pine-trees which have specially freeze-resistant sap, and if they don't, they explode in winter. It could be an opportunity to put a variation of larch tree in which almost always grows with leaking sap logs, if the temperature is low enough. 

[Echo Weaver]

I read elsewhere in that cold climate, or at least fully arctic, gameplay isn't really fleshed out yet. I find it pretty appealing myself, though I haven't tried it out yet. (I'm currently playing an extended stone age-- i.e. not allowed to work with copper until after the first winter, and I'm having a blast.) I've seen at least one mod that makes a few more resources practical. 

[Echo Weaver]

On 9/22/2025 at 6:20 PM, Bruno Willis said:

I'd suggest allowing players to make 'baskets' out of kelp (we do this in Aotearoa New Zealand by taking the broad leaves, cutting a mouth and pealing them open, then drying them open. They make stiff pouches). It'd be a nasty challenge diving for kelp in the frigid climate.

On 9/22/2025 at 5:16 PM, Blue_Helix said:

i have the idea that the fat drop here should be buffed compared to southern locations

31 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I think in perma-frost areas there are pine-trees which have specially freeze-resistant sap, and if they don't, they explode in winter. It could be an opportunity to put a variation of larch tree in which almost always grows with leaking sap logs, if the temperature is low enough. 

I'm in love with all of these ideas. It makes me want to start a cold-area play with this stuff modded in.

I tend to get very attached to my game worlds, so I'm only on the second one I've played for any length of time. I spawned in almost the exact opposite temperate biome (I haven't messed with default initial spawn yet), and the difference in gameplay is really surprising me. I think that accenting the different properties of different climates makes for great new adventures for each playthrough.

This extended stone age game is the first time I've messed with Tentharchitect's Fauna of the Stone Age, and they're impressive. It would be worth finding fauna families with good arctic and subarctic spawns. I took a look at Floral Zones, and it doesn't look like there's a specialized cold one, but the Cosmopolitan one has a focus on "circumpolar, pantropical and aquatic plants". Combining that with Biomes might get something really distinctive and more playable.

ETA: Other relevant mods Snowball Traders and Arctic Survival.

Edited September 23, 2025 by Echo Weaver