Development update, September 2025

[Echo Weaver]

8 minutes ago, ImHereToProcrastinate said:

Does anybody know if the devs ever talked about water in the past? And whether changing something this fundamental about the game is even on the table?

My understanding is that this is exactly why waterwheels have been in development for so long. That's what rivers are about in the wishlist for the next release.

Moving water source blocks is a holdover from the other block game, and I don't think anyone loves it. It's currently possible to turn off water source block transport in the world settings. The problem is that it makes almost everything involving water a huge pain. We need more water transport mechanics to make up for losing water source blocks, and we probably need some more limited, immersive ways to create water sources like digging wells.

It's a big lift, but they're clearly working hard on it.

[LadyWYT]

25 minutes ago, ImHereToProcrastinate said:

Does anybody know if the devs ever talked about water in the past? And whether changing something this fundamental about the game is even on the table?

The only thing I can recall hearing was a bit from Tyron in an interview he did a while back. The idea that was floated for how to generate water power, without being cheaty, is to perhaps place special sources of flowing water into the world, that cannot be picked up and moved via bucket like regular water. That way the player needs to actually build machinery right next to the source, as it should be, instead of scooping up buckets of it and creating their own sources elsewhere. Such a thing also helps keep windmills relevant, given that windmills can be utilized pretty much anywhere.

[Echo Weaver]

Just now, LadyWYT said:

The only thing I can recall hearing was a bit from Tyron in an interview he did a while back. The idea that was floated for how to generate water power, without being cheaty, is to perhaps place special sources of flowing water into the world, that cannot be picked up and moved via bucket like regular water. That way the player needs to actually build machinery right next to the source, as it should be, instead of scooping up buckets of it and creating their own sources elsewhere. Such a thing also helps keep windmills relevant, given that windmills can be utilized pretty much anywhere.

That's what I came up with when wondering how water power might work. I believe that's how the Rivers mod works too. I don't know what kind of performance impact that has, though. I think that a lot of flowing water is currently a performance issue, isn't it? Maybe I'm wrong.

[Maelstrom]

@ImHereToProcrastinate welcome to VS and the forums!   Love the name too!    I hope you don't mind if I kinda snoozed a bit during your tedtalk.  

I seem to recall seeing a comment or hearing a statement from Tyron (maybe even one of the other devs, like Radfast or Redram) indicating water mechanics were a difficulty but considering a requirement for waterwheels would be a small region of space required before a waterwheel would produce power to prevent place a small pond big enough to wet the waterwheel and get power.  

[LadyWYT]

11 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

That's what I came up with when wondering how water power might work. I believe that's how the Rivers mod works too. I don't know what kind of performance impact that has, though. I think that a lot of flowing water is currently a performance issue, isn't it? Maybe I'm wrong.

I'm not sure. I would think it would, since water physics in VS seem to be a bit more complex than what's in the other block game. But I don't think water physics are the worst offender when it comes to performance.

What I try to wrap my mind around is more just...how do you scale rivers for the game, so that they feel like proper rivers and not little streams? Or perhaps most rivers just end up more as creeks, that are still usable for power generation but not really useful for actual travel. Maybe it's only the occasional river that's big enough to facilitate proper travel.

Just now, Maelstrom said:

I seem to recall seeing a comment or hearing a statement from Tyron (maybe even one of the other devs, like Radfast or Redram) indicating water mechanics were a difficulty but considering a requirement for waterwheels would be a small region of space required before a waterwheel would produce power to prevent place a small pond big enough to wet the waterwheel and get power.  

The "small pond" bit was a real problem with Minecraft's Create mod(and perhaps still is, it's been quite a while since I played it). Way too easy to build watermills wherever and just use bucket power to run them. Granted, watermills weren't the strongest power source either, but still...very fun, but would be out of place if they operated like that in VS.

[Cetasaya]

I'm extremely excited for literally everything on this roadmap.  This is all top tier stuff.  Imagine water physics and waterwheels and rivers and aqueducts and erosion and... well, that all sounds like a bit much lol.  Raindrop pixels rolling down a window while the fireplace crackles and emits an oran - I better stop now before I start acting up...  The trader post assets are world class as always.  The art direction in this game is better than almost any AAA game i've ever seen in like... at least a decade.  No other game besides Stardew or NMS has me literally just vibing like im actually there.  Games are often about goals and progression and story but Vintage Story is a bit more than that.  When I build and chisel a home it feels like I actually built it.  A little.

I'm betting on us being able to access or enter into the Rust World in some, even if limited, way and that will be the procedural dungeons.

I appreciate Glint being a completely seperate entity from Vintage Story.  I remember absolutely hating whatever was proposed at first.  I think it was a mode within the game that wasn't even Vintage Story related or something that baffled me.  I'm assuming it was more of a technical/efficiency kinda thing I dont know.  Glint sounds killer and while i've never heard much about Hytale it has a passionate following hopefully Glint can live and thrive.  Will be checking it out thats for sure.  Goblin's avatar at the bottom of this post is... amazing.  Holy shit.  Didnt even dawn on me that that would even be possible and that animation holy shit again lol.

Glint sounds a lot like Cube World or Block Story.  Cube World was great before whatever released on Steam and BlockStory was a nice fantasy themed Minecraft clone.

Thanks for listening to us.  It's depressingly rare to feel like people listen to their players/fans/supporters/ect.  Truly feels like we have at least a small say in steering the sailboat here in the dank and stinky forum dungeons.  Demonstrates a great amount of humily, pragmatism, and intellegence on your part.  I dunno if I would be able to do the same if I were in your position...

Never change.  You all could not have be doing better jobs right now.

[Vratislav]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The "small pond" bit was a real problem

I think that it is possible to have good waterwheel mechanics even with almighty bucket, if the game can distinguish between "natural" and "bucket-created" water source blocks and if the bucket-created water source block wouldn't be considered as a valid power source.

Then it is possible to to calculate a size of water body both upstream and downstream of the assumed waterwheel up to some distance, and use it as a base for waterwheel power output, without big risk of cheating. The size of downstream water body is as important as the upstream one to prevent unrealistic setups.

If we place waterwheel into sea-level magically flowing river like in Rivers mod, the power should be pretty weak. Like to power one quern, you would need minimum 1000 water blocks (10 x 100 area of moving river) both upstream and downstream claimed by one mid-size wheel. It can be played that narrower rivers flow faster, thus providing higher output per water block. 

But even the fastest flowing "flat" rivers would still provide less power per block than waterwheel with water from above, placed between two water bodies with different height. Still, the power would depend on sizes of water bodies above and under the wheel, but multiplied by the wheel size that is able to fit there. The "bucketing" then would be used only to fill ditches necessary to join the wheel with both water bodies, but not contributing to the power calculation. This would allow enough creativity to build waterwheels in desired spots. connected to the naturally generated bodies of water by elaborate ditches. 

But maybe there are unsolvable issues with this approach...

(Also the wheel size should play the role. It is feasible to have at least three wheel diameters, where 1-block one-resin-cheap wheel would be so weak that a quern would be powered only from upper water (and forget about helve hammer at all). 3-block wheels would be expansive like large gears and feasible for quern on lower water or one helve hammer for upper water. And the magnificent 5-blocks diameter waterwheel would be powerful on upper water but expansive as five large gears. Also, bigger waterwheels should be connected by axis on both sides as close as possible, and bigger clearance from supports should decrease the maximum output, maybe with exception of two wheels side by side.

And if we wanted to play even more, then adding climate and weather patterns is the next step. The optimum power may achieved only when there is raining in the collector area, and falls almost to zero if the weather is hot and dry for a while. And of course, no waterwheel moves when temperature falls under zero!)

 

[Kleave]

Hope I don't make enemies with what will be only my 2nd post on the forum, but the announcement of Project Glint is concerning to me. I'm assuming Anego Studios is a small team, and splitting the focus of that small studio into to different projects seems to me like neither project is going to get the full attention the studio is capable of.  Not that I have any say in what the studio does with the money I paid them for Vintage Story (Nor do I have the experience to give me any level of authority on running a studio/developing games), but should the possibility that the money I spent went to the development of another new project, instead of going to the project that convinced me to part with the money, be concerning from a studio of this size?  If only because the project in question is still in early access, could development on Project Glint have waited until Vintage Story was in an acceptable state for official release?  Hoping someone who knows more than me can assuage this concern.

Edited October 8, 2025 by Kleave
Syntax of a sentence that didn't sit right with me.

[Echo Weaver]

2 hours ago, Kleave said:

Hope I don't make enemies with what will be only my 2nd post on the forum, but the announcement of Project Glint is concerning to me. I'm assuming Anego Studios is a small team, and splitting the focus of that small studio into to different projects seems to me like neither project is going to get the full attention the studio is capable of.

That's not laughing at you, just the situation. It's a common concern. Tyron first announced the project as Vintage Story Adventure Mode, and the comment section erupted into a flamewar and had to be locked. You can probably look it up in all its ugly glory and see just how many folks expressed the same concern.

What Tyron said then is that, while long-time players tend to think of Anego as very small and mostly Tyron, it's actually grown quite a lot. Their income exceeds their expenses with room to grow more, and they're hiring new staff for Glint. It's not adding workload to the existing staff. Glint will be built on top of the game engine build for VS, and capabilities will be enhanced to the engine that will benefit both games.

So, really, it comes down to -- Tyron and Anego are rockin' it so far, and they're not taking the project on lightly. If they think they can do it, just let them do it. No armchair quarterbacking.

[Vratislav]

5 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

hat's not laughing at you, just the situation. It's a common concern.

Oscillascape has fresh interview with Tyron that deals also with this topic. I think it addresses these concerns quite well.

 

[Kleave]

14 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Oscillascape has fresh interview with Tyron that deals also with this topic. I think it addresses these concerns quite well.

 

Perfect for listening to while I was at work today, thank for sharing!  I do like how open Tyron was especially in the Hytale segment and hearing what he had to say there definitely restored some confidence.

[blazer232]

On 10/8/2025 at 10:16 AM, ImHereToProcrastinate said:

Hi, since the dev update, I've been wondering about how waterwheels and rivers could/will be implemented. Maybe some of my thoughts will be of interest to someone. Because I feel like the current implementation of water really dampens my excitement when it comes to the waterwheel. Because in reality, oftentimes waterwheels need a bunch of associated waterworks. This would be something like digging an alternate river channel that's then dammed and routed over the wheel, or finding a natural place suitable for a waterwheel and others. You can plop an undershot waterwheel in the middle of the river, but it's quite inefficient and IMO, kinda boring. So in real life, the disadvantage of waterwheel is that it can't be used just anywhere. Just like a windmill in a deep valley, waterwheel on a flat land with slowly moving water isn't very useful. It's even less useful without any moving body of water, such as a desert.

A price to pay for inheriting the water mechanics from MC means all of this is waved off with the mighty bucket. As long as you have one singular water source block, from which you take one bucket of water, you have created infinite water. You can take it anywhere. A Nile river in your pocket for the cost of like 5 planks and a string. And with waterwheel, presumably, infinite uninterrupted power source is in your hands. So, if you insist that water 'physics' stay the same as they are, in terms of game mechanics, 'the price' for the waterwheel has to be paid elsewhere. You could make waterwheel very expensive. However, it would still be unsatisfying to see this eternal perpetum mobile once it is completed. Furthermore in a game, where grind is already an issue for many (I only play singleplayer... It's so much work to make steel by myself), this feels like a bad idea. Having to pay for maintenance is even worse, because EVERYONE hates mechanics like that.

What I'm trying to say is, that I hope a fundamental change in how water works is going to happen at some point. If only to make waterwheels interesting and not just a perpetum mobile that can be built anywhere, regardless of geography. In a game that tries to be more realistic, water already feels weird now, before it is tied to waterwheels. For example I built a kitchen in my world recently. I could have put in a barrel with water, so I can make dough, right? Well obviously I didn't. Instead, I took my bucket (10 litres), scooped up 1/5th of a barrel (50 litres). I then poured this 10 litre bucket into a hollowed out stone block (via chiselling - props to devs that this can be done and doesn't spill) and voilà, I have infinite water in my kitchen, contained in my chiseled barrel. The game mechanics are kinda incoherent in this regard. On one hand, gamified not-really-water combined with water usage which is inspired by real world clash in a bizarre way.

I cursory search on google reveals many ways to approach water in voxel game. This includes voxel water with/without pressure, directional flow etc. I understand that it's a different beast when it comes to having continuously flowing water on an infinite procedurally generated world. But I really hoped, that since minecraft realease, there popped up better suited models than 'minecraft water'. Especially considering the boom of voxel based games.

Does anybody know if the devs ever talked about water in the past? And whether changing something this fundamental about the game is even on the table?

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Thanks for your TED talk, well said. Basically sums up all concerns for why water wheels wouldn't/shouldn't work. I think most folks here are on the same page: for water wheels to not be easy cheese for generating torque, fluid mechanics must change. But I think we're also limiting our imaginations by assuming what exactly "water wheel" means.

A water wheel does not just have to generate rotational energy, we can also supply rotational energy to the water wheel to turn it into a pump - take your water wheel, and combine it in the crafting grid with x number of buckets (probably water wheel in the center and 8 buckets surrounding it, because that seems like a reasonable cost), and you craft a scoop wheel. Attach the scoop wheel to a windmill, and now as long as the wind is blowing you are pumping water. Attach an aqueduct to the scoop wheel, and you can convey your water elsewhere. Plop a standard water wheel at the end of the aqueduct, and now you're generating rotational energy.

Honestly though, no matter what way you implement it, someone is going to find a way to cheese it. That's just the nature of games.

[Maelstrom]

6 hours ago, blazer232 said:

someone is going to find a way to cheese it. That's just the nature of games.

Nah mate.   It's human nature to cheese things.   We do it in real life too.   They're called life hacks.

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

Nah mate.   It's human nature to cheese things.   We do it in real life too.   They're called life hacks.

You could also call it working smarter rather than harder. 

[blazer232]

10 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Nah mate.   It's human nature to cheese things.   We do it in real life too.   They're called life hacks.

True that

[Aksha]

On 10/9/2025 at 4:42 AM, Vratislav said:

I think that it is possible to have good waterwheel mechanics even with almighty bucket, if the game can distinguish between "natural" and "bucket-created" water source blocks and if the bucket-created water source block wouldn't be considered as a valid power source.

Is it possible to create a mechanism for moving water blocks from one place to another for artificial reservoirs through a flow mechanism?
Then small ponds for water wheels will no longer be suitable (a small pond will simply flow down under the wheel, and will be of no use), but the possibility of creating such ponds will still remain. I don't know if this can be done in the game, I'm generating an idea. I think the ability to move a block of water in a bucket is a good idea—after all, we can do that in real life. We can create puddles, pools, and ponds; it's an important part of landscape design. I wouldn't want to lose that because of the "small ponds" problem, like in Create. 

But I think if the ability to infinitely scoop water with a bucket from a single block of water was replaced by the ability to infinitely scoop water with a bucket from a stream of flowing water created by a waterfall, a river, or an aqueduct, a water pipe, a gutter, аn artesian well ... that would be an excellent option and very realistic.

And, purely from a gameplay perspective, it's much, much less inconvenient than having to draw water from a well with a bucket. I played on a Minecraft server with that mod, and it was terrible! Filling 20 barrels with water, and diving into the well for each bucket... and always... ugh! Unless the well is a temporary starting point in the game, it's a really, really bad idea.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2025 by Aksha

[Vratislav]

3 hours ago, Aksha said:

Is it possible to create a mechanism for moving water blocks from one place to another for artificial reservoirs through a flow mechanism?

We are getting close to simulate a water cycle, or at least to pretend its existence.

Maybe with an atribute, how high water is actually at the source block, so small water bodies could be drained quickly, if a ditch is opened. Rain could add the water amount in the blocks and sunny hot weather could decrease it. But it might be difficult to maintain an ingame balance, not to speak about computation requirements.

[Narcosis]

On 10/8/2025 at 4:29 PM, Echo Weaver said:

My understanding is that this is exactly why waterwheels have been in development for so long. That's what rivers are about in the wishlist for the next release.

Moving water source blocks is a holdover from the other block game, and I don't think anyone loves it. It's currently possible to turn off water source block transport in the world settings. The problem is that it makes almost everything involving water a huge pain. We need more water transport mechanics to make up for losing water source blocks, and we probably need some more limited, immersive ways to create water sources like digging wells.

It's a big lift, but they're clearly working hard on it.

I'm seriously hoping Tyron will finally introduce hydration, would make all this juice and drinks finally make sense, not to mention open up a whole new world of interesting mechanics for characters and making the tropic/desert starts far more challenging. Add prospecting for spring water (which could for example be an actual block source located deep underground, depending on local rock strata), which could then allow - paired with a network of pipes and a mechanical pump powered by a simple windmill and then steam engines - to transport water into large barrels and then canisters and we get an incredibly engaging system that would add a ton to actual settlement building and allow for some incredible future prospects. Add leather water bags, low-level gourds and then metal canteens as means for personal water carrying; animals could drink too which would create ecosystems based on water amount/proximity.

@Tyron Is there any chance we could get the ability to chose between the old and new moon in the option settings? I can't live without the new moon, the old one is just :- ( and feels too basic.

[Michaloid]

1 hour ago, Narcosis said:

Is there any chance we could get the ability to chose between the old and new moon in the option settings? I can't live without the new moon, the old one is just :- ( and feels too basic

I think the square moon is temporary until they fix the moon's illumination and light level on full moon.

[Facethief]

On 9/24/2025 at 12:50 PM, Tyron said:

Berry bush rework (i.e. add greater mechanical depth to them

I feel like this could be really interesting, even if it’s just propogation, but it’d be super cool if we had fruit-tree style dynamic bushes, like for grapes growing on trellises.

[Professor Dragon]

"Possibly to my own detriment, I can show you the roadmap . . . "

Well, he totally called that one correctly.

[BMiBudzYT]

On 10/7/2025 at 5:40 AM, hstone32 said:

I never said it was a lousy game, I said it was a lousy survival game. 

 

But why does the game need automation? Don't you think it might risk diminishing the gameplay design already in place? If you ask me, the mechanical power system provides sufficient automation already.

no... have you seen what you can do with redstone... poeple literally made a massive gameboy where you can play the exact copy of mario on it... how in the hell do you even think that risks anything my god

[hstone32]

2 hours ago, BMiBudzYT said:

no... have you seen what you can do with redstone... poeple literally made a massive gameboy where you can play the exact copy of mario on it... how in the hell do you even think that risks anything my god

You seem to be missing my point. Why does the game need those things? Would the game really benefit from their inclusion?

[Michaloid]

Not to mention that it's not really the game's aim to do that.

[BMiBudzYT]

2 hours ago, Michaloid said:

Not to mention that it's not really the game's aim to do that.

btw if the games aim is to make pigs take forever to have a child and bore the player to insanity... then aim achieved :S!!!