Development update, September 2025

[Teh Pizza Lady]

20 minutes ago, Michaloid said:

Narcosis. The ragebait is over. You can discuss the post now.

Came here to say this. You said it better! haha

[hstone32]

Ok. Now that that whole mess is over

i'm very curious how mechanical power could be expanded in the future. If they add rivers, then maybe the underlying code could also be used to allow players to build resevoirs, or maybe even more complex hydraulic engineering like hydroponics? 

[Michaloid]

It's the elevator in particular that caught my eye on the roadmap. The amount of quarry zones that players can build to descend or ascend would make 10x better with an elevator. And the status system is something i'm looking forward too. Maybe it's here that sleep gets useful outside of waiting for stuff? Really excited.

[Aksha]

15 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I've wondered (but never tested) whether a chute can put a bloom on the anvil then placing hoppers around the anvil would more fully automate smithing iron ingots (or steel ones for that matter). 

There is one nuance here: the workpiece for forging must be red-hot.

[Facethief]

1 hour ago, Aksha said:

There is one nuance here: the workpiece for forging must be red-hot.

That’s certainly an interesting mental image; a seraph tending a forge, occasionally dropping blooms down a chute and having ingots or plates pop up in a chest.

[Maelstrom]

3 hours ago, Aksha said:

There is one nuance here: the workpiece for forging must be red-hot.

True.   Won't be hard with steel.  A quad hammer with four full rotors at maximum altitude would be pounding out an ingot every 5 seconds or so.  It could easily go through a stack of blister steel before the temp drops more than 100 degrees.  Iron would be a different story since they require a lot more work.   Probably would have to keep that down to 16 max if I were to estimate things.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I don't think that placing an item on an anvil can be automated since you have to choose whether you are creating an ingot or a plate on the anvil. Now... if there's only one choice, great, blooms and blister steel can probably be automated, but the anvil doesn't care if a helve hammer is near it or not, if you place any ingot on there, you have to choose what item you get back. Thus I don't think that you can automate the creation of plates this way. I am, of course, okay with being wrong.

[7embre]

20 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I've wondered (but never tested) whether a chute can put a bloom on the anvil then placing hoppers around the anvil would more fully automate smithing iron ingots (or steel ones for that matter). 

Part of the issue with said idea is that finished product stays AT an anvil. And as far I'm aware, hoppers can't pick up items through the blocks. And chute doesn't interact with anvils as well  

Edited October 14, 2025 by 7embre
typo

[Echo Weaver]

19 minutes ago, 7embre said:

Part of the issue with said idea is that finished product stays AT an anvil. And as far I'm aware, hoppers can't pick up items through the blocks. And chute doesn't interact with anvils as well  

Well, it doesn't stay on the anvil. It's worse. It pops off becomes a dropped item which can then despawn. So you can't get too far away from your helve hammer when it's operating because you could lose its output.

It would be very nice to be able to automate the completion of helve hammered items, even if you have to be present to put the next heated metal on the anvil.

[Maelstrom]

35 minutes ago, 7embre said:

Part of the issue with said idea is that finished product stays AT an anvil. And as far I'm aware, hoppers can't pick up items through the blocks. And chute doesn't interact with anvils as well  

Kinda like when you put a stick in the quern output spot and ground items poop out one of the sides?  Or the pulverizer?   I am sure that collection of finished ingots will not be a problem.   I'm more worried about the chute on top of the anvil working correctly.

[7embre]

47 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

It pops off becomes a dropped item which can then despawn.

Yeah, I know. It doesn't pop far enough to fall from the anvil, so placing hoppers around it won't help, neither would hopper below an anvil.

33 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I'm more worried about the chute on top of the anvil working correctly.

I tested setup with chute going to the side of an anvil and it didn't work. And you shouldn't forget about the fact that helve hammers hardly tolerate solid obstacles in their operation range, at least those right above their base.

[Echo Weaver]

1 minute ago, 7embre said:

Yeah, I know. It doesn't pop far enough to fall from the anvil, so placing hoppers around it won't help, neither would hopper below an anvil.

I've definitely had it pop off, usually when I don't have my tongs in-hand so I take random damage when it falls into my inventory. But I can't say what the probability is.

Is it possible to automate the output of the pulverizer? I thought I'd read you can't, but it feels like the output squirts out all directions, and it's annoying to hang out to pick it up. 

[7embre]

6 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I've definitely had it pop off, usually when I don't have my tongs in-hand so I take random damage when it falls into my inventory. But I can't say what the probability is.

Is it possible to automate the output of the pulverizer? I thought I'd read you can't, but it feels like the output squirts out all directions, and it's annoying to hang out to pick it up. 

It pops up and falls right on the anvil and just stays there, waiting to disappear as any thrown item on the ground.

[Maelstrom]

19 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I've definitely had it pop off, usually when I don't have my tongs in-hand so I take random damage when it falls into my inventory. But I can't say what the probability is.

Is it possible to automate the output of the pulverizer? I thought I'd read you can't, but it feels like the output squirts out all directions, and it's annoying to hang out to pick it up. 

Automatin pulverizers is easier than querns!   A hopper below the block the pulverizer dumps the output on.   Then a block or slab on the 3 remaining caridinal blocks from the space the output is dumped on.  

[Echo Weaver]

21 minutes ago, 7embre said:

It pops up and falls right on the anvil and just stays there, waiting to disappear as any thrown item on the ground.

There's a staircase next to my anvil, and it has fallen down the staircase, so it does sometimes pop off.

[Aksha]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

Is it possible to automate the output of the pulverizer?

A crusher? One that crushes cinnabar and bauxite? But that could have been automated a long time ago! О_о A funnel at the exit, a chest underneath the funnel. Place the chest to the side of the crusher, and connect it to the lower block of the crusher via an angled chute. Items placed there are crushed and automatically fall into the exit. But the hopper only works when a player is present, so putting 12 stacks of bauxite in the top chest and going into the mine won't work.

Edited October 14, 2025 by Aksha

[Echo Weaver]

10 minutes ago, Aksha said:

A crusher? One that crushes cinnabar and bauxite?

A pulverizer: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Pulverizer

I think we're talking about the same thing.

[Maelstrom]

41 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

A pulverizer: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Pulverizer

I think we're talking about the same thing.

Indeed!

[Avimimus]

Would flowing rivers prevent unflooded caves appearing near flooded biomes? I've often found it jarring (as cave systems should drain lakes, and lakes should flood cave systems)....

[Professor Dragon]

On 10/15/2025 at 12:55 AM, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I don't think that placing an item on an anvil can be automated since you have to choose whether you are creating an ingot or a plate on the anvil. Now... if there's only one choice, great, blooms and blister steel can probably be automated, but the anvil doesn't care if a helve hammer is near it or not, if you place any ingot on there, you have to choose what item you get back. Thus I don't think that you can automate the creation of plates this way. I am, of course, okay with being wrong.

I've always wondered why an anvil with a Helve Hammer positioned above it does NOT default to ONLY giving you Helve Hammer recipes. It makes sense to me.
Otherwise, it looks like you can make things with a Helve Hammer that you really can't.

SUGGESTION: Add an "F" tool to the Anvil which lets you switch between "Helve Hammer ONLY recipes" and "All recipes."

[Voldemort]

On 10/13/2025 at 6:32 AM, BMiBudzYT said:

for expressing my opinion and harsh truth? what a petty thing to ban someone for lol

 

On 10/13/2025 at 6:36 AM, Thorfinn said:

No, for being a jerk. Truth. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (H/T, Inigo Montoya.)

With all respect, Thorfinn, you’ve helped this community a lot over the years, and you’ve helped me a lot too. But let’s face the facts: the trailer for this game has over 1.4 million views,and streams only about 20–50 people on Twitch. Normally, a game with that kind of trailer reach would skyrocket with numbers. Hell, even old-school Warcraft or Runescape are still watched and played by tens of thousands today with zero marketing. That says something, and BMIBudzYT has a solid point about it.

I understand you’ve invested a lot of time in the game, but sometimes our love for something blinds us from reality. I was freed from that blindness a long time ago. Vintage Story is not made for everyone, and that’s the problem. It will never be as popular as Minecraft, which is, in fact, made for everyone. It will always remain a hardcore, niche game with endless grind, made for a special kind of enthusiast. When you look at YouTube, you can see that people would rather watch videos than actually play the game themselves.

      

Edited October 21, 2025 by Adnyeus

[Voldemort]

Well, for now, this will be my last message here. Let’s see how this game turns out 
I’ll return here in three years, so for now, farewell guys  

[Michaloid]

36 minutes ago, Adnyeus said:

Vintage Story is not made for everyone, and that’s the problem.

But the thing is... It's not. Just because the game doesn't please everyone doesn't mean it's bad or something needs to change. It means that the developer will focus on his strengths to make the game to appeal to a certain demographic. Even if the cost of such a thing is cutting down on it's popularity as a whole. Also that count you see on the site is people playing on servers. It doesn't account for single player worlds or ad-hoc hosting. I'm not saying that the game is flawless. That's not my argument. But you won't see the dev team make charcoal processing be made on the firepit either. Because that defeats the purpose of what it's trying to be.

Edited October 21, 2025 by Michaloid
Clarification

[Thorfinn]

I didn't think my views on the game were that hard to understand. I'm a solid 80/20 rule guy in pretty much everything I do. Put in the 20% of the effort for 80% of the gains, then switch to something else you can make similar gains in.

Combat? I figure it's a solid 80%. Herbalism? Maybe 5%. Waterpower? 0%. Oceans? 50%. Prospecting? >90%. There are lots of areas where the progress would be obvious at first glance. How about traders on the high seas? Probably not that hard to do, and they either are sitting at anchor or are sailing around at pseudo-random. But the point is that there would be SOMETHING to do rather than look at endless stretches of water.

Would it take that much to tweak the various collision boxes? In theory, no. But it's going to take a metric crapton of testing to make sure the new box isn't too large, and eliminates too much or even all player skill from the equation. And the dirty little secret is that like crimson maple seeds, no one with the possible exception of @LadyWYT is going to notice if the bear's box has been changed. I say" possible" (and equate it to the seeds) because she's not likely to go toe-to-toe with them, since it's never worked before.

[LadyWYT]

31 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Would it take that much to tweak the various collision boxes? In theory, no. But it's going to take a metric crapton of testing to make sure the new box isn't too large, and eliminates too much or even all player skill from the equation. And the dirty little secret is that like crimson maple seeds, no one with the possible exception of @LadyWYT is going to notice if the bear's box has been changed. I say" possible" (and equate it to the seeds) because she's not likely to go toe-to-toe with them, since it's never worked before.

I dunno man, I go toe-to-toe with bears fairly often, though generally I avoid picking the fight until I'm ready for it. As for hitboxes, I don't know that most players would notice any changes about them specifically, but I bet that most players would notice something in combat had changed for the better if they feel like all of their hits are landing as expected. I do agree on the tweaking versus testing though--tweaking numbers is fairly easy, but what's not so easy is testing thoroughly to make sure the changes were the right ones.