things that drive me crazy

[Dario Bruculo]

Hi, I have a couple of questions and they're really driving me crazy, so here they are: 

1. Understanding temporal stability: If I spend a lot of time in a cave, in a storm, or crossing a temporal rift, understanding that I lose stability, but when I walk through some part of the map I'm at ground level, that is, trees, animals, and so on, but in some areas of the map I start to lose stability. Why? I don't understand.

2: times at the entrance of a cave there are rusty gears. What do they mean? Is there something else in that cave or are they just there for the hell of it?

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

1 hour ago, Dario Bruculo said:

1. Understanding temporal stability: If I spend a lot of time in a cave, in a storm, or crossing a temporal rift, understanding that I lose stability, but when I walk through some part of the map I'm at ground level, that is, trees, animals, and so on, but in some areas of the map I start to lose stability. Why? I don't understand.

Certain places are more stable than others; the deeper one ventures underground, the less stable it gets. What you are encountering is unstable areas on the surface--that's all.

As for how stability is determined, I believe it's tied to world seed. Chunks in Vintage Story are also cubic measures of space stacked on top of each other, instead of square columns that extend from world height to bedrock like in the other block game. In the case of stability, it varies chunk by chunk, so it's possible to have a mix of stable and unstable chunks on top of one another. 

1 hour ago, Dario Bruculo said:

2: times at the entrance of a cave there are rusty gears. What do they mean? Is there something else in that cave or are they just there for the hell of it?

I'm pretty sure the gears are just there as both set dressing and little bits of treasure to find. When I run across them, it also seems like there is a ruin somewhere nearby as well, however, I'm not 100% sure that the presence of a rusty gear always indicates a ruin. Still, it doesn't hurt to check.

[Zane Mordien]

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

As for how stability is determined, I believe it's tied to world seed. 

Definately tied to world seed. I've played the same seed many times and the stability has been the same in the same locations since 1.18. 

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Chunks in Vintage Story are also cubic measures of space stacked on top of each other, instead of square columns that extend from world height to bedrock like in the other block game. In the case of stability, it varies chunk by chunk, so it's possible to have a mix of stable and unstable chunks on top of one another. 

I've never seen anything but lowering stability the lower I got in the world. I don't think it's possible to get a higher stability below a lower stability area. I've seen rare areas that are stable down to mantle, but it was stable at the surface.

8 hours ago, Dario Bruculo said:

I'm at ground level, that is, trees, animals, and so on, but in some areas of the map I start to lose stability. Why? I don't understand.

It's just how the game works. It can be unstable at the surface and stable at mantle.