Recovering Sanity

[Gazz]

When I mine I eventually end up with low sanity. That's normal and not a problem.

Then I climb back up and sit there... for 10 bleeping minutes. Doing nothing.
Being forced to do nothing is terrible game design. And no, there isn't always random work do do at the top of every mine.

I propose that

• If sanity % is currently going up (you are not in a negative stability area, etc.)
• and you have been standing still for 30+ seconds

> the sanity recovery is speeding up and the gear turns noticeably faster.

A 3x increase would not hurt because there is nothing worse in a game than having to do nothing.

[Steel General]

Surface stability is not just a negative experience: there are places of neutral stability that aren't obviously a problem unless you need to recover, and there are places of superior stability where you will recover very quickly. In all cases though, more altitude means faster recovery (or, during a temporal storm, slower loss).

So yeah, check the area around your mine for better stability - faster recovery could be just a chunk away. Or a few dozen - it can be faster to have your exit ladder keep on going into the stratosphere.

[Echo Weaver]

Yes, I didn't realize this until I started hanging out in areas with surface instability. Some areas, I guess the neutral areas, won't lower your stability but won't raise it either. So actually heal stability, you have to be in a place that's positively stable rather than just neutral.

[Redpaws]

Really wish there was some small indicator by the cog icon that showed the current stability/instability of an area. The spinning is a bit too vague, and you can't tell if an area is stable or just neutral if your stability is already at 100%.

Maybe just have it in the mouse over text box for the cog that states your current % of stability. Not always visible, but always available to be checked. Can either be a more accurate +/- number, or more vague text like Area Stability: Very low/On the edge/Stable etc.

[Zane Mordien]

34 minutes ago, Redpaws said:

Really wish there was some small indicator by the cog icon that showed the current stability/instability of an area. The spinning is a bit too vague, and you can't tell if an area is stable or just neutral if your stability is already at 100%.

Maybe just have it in the mouse over text box for the cog that states your current % of stability. Not always visible, but always available to be checked. Can either be a more accurate +/- number, or more vague text like Area Stability: Very low/On the edge/Stable etc.

I wish that was possible as well. It is sort of annoying building your base where it is stable only to find out later it is just barely stable, so it takes forever to regain stability. 

[LadyWYT]

I will note there is already a way to restore some stability instantly--it requires a temporal gear, a knife, and a bit of HP. I forget how much it restores, but it's a pretty hefty chunk and will keep a player going for a while longer--the lost health can be easily healed with a poultice or two. 

In any case, a full stability gauge should generally be plenty for the average mining trip. It's not until the gauge starts dropping below 25% that the player will need to think about sacrificing a temporal gear, or otherwise getting the heck out of dodge.

[Redpaws]

18 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

I wish that was possible as well. It is sort of annoying building your base where it is stable only to find out later it is just barely stable, so it takes forever to regain stability. 

Yeah, exactly this. The difference between taking 1 minute to recover fully vs taking 10 minutes. It's really annoying having to leave your home to find a better spot to regain it.

The temporal gear trick works decent as an emergency measure, especially since you can always carry one with you in the form of a temporal gear necklace. Can cut the rope of the necklace with a knife to get the gear back! Personally, I tend to just keep mining until enemies start spawning, murderize them, and usually get all/most of my stability back from that. Killing enemies also restores sanity. Just make sure to pack a decent weapon and at least some gambeson.

[Phantom72]

15 hours ago, Redpaws said:

Personally, I tend to just keep mining until enemies start spawning, murderize them, and usually get all/most of my stability back from that

Yep, you can mine forever even in a low stability area as long as you have space for the bowtorns to spawn.

[Thorfinn]

On 10/5/2025 at 8:07 AM, Gazz said:

Being forced to do nothing is terrible game design. And no, there isn't always random work do do at the top of every mine...

A 3x increase would not hurt because there is nothing worse in a game than having to do nothing.

You don't have to do nothing. You choose to do nothing. Big difference.

If you are maxed out on grass or sticks, why? Why did you keep doing things when you could have saved them for times like this when you have slack time. That's kind of like saying you have nothing to do while waiting on charcoal or for your pottery to fire.

[Bumber]

On 10/8/2025 at 11:34 AM, Thorfinn said:

You don't have to do nothing. You choose to do nothing. Big difference.

If you are maxed out on grass or sticks, why? Why did you keep doing things when you could have saved them for times like this when you have slack time. That's kind of like saying you have nothing to do while waiting on charcoal or for your pottery to fire.

Why would they want to flood their inventory with common resources when they're out trying to collect valuable ore? Grass can be collected in your front yard, while ore might be kilometers away. They might even be carrying mining bags for the occasion.

This would be a good situation to restore stability with a temporal gear, but considering gears are rare and don't stack, I can't fathom ever actually doing so. For me, gears are reserved for translocator repair and terminus teleports.

Edited October 14, 2025 by Bumber

[Thorfinn]

Some of what I find to do, @Bumber, turns out to be pointless. Creating a small charcoal pit that I never need. A firepit or two of bales or layers of sticks. Heck, even the rocks end up stashed in local firepits, and never used, because, really, how much granite can you use? Most places don't get used enough times to make the investment in building stone paths worthwhile, particularly if you place it level with the surface. You could, I suppose, build a path back towards home while waiting. Better than nothing.

But, of course there are all kinds of pointless activities people do to keep busy. Chiseling. Composting. Repairing clutter. Animal husbandry. Greenhouses. Booze. White currants, when red or black would do just as well. Cheese, for pete's sake! 

Edited October 14, 2025 by Thorfinn

[ChristopherGS]

It would be cool if there were some choices you could make that would increase your sanity. holding a flower, standing in a garden, petting a chicken, something. Make it an interesting choice instead of just a penalty for playing the game.

[Mac Mcleod]

25 minutes ago, ChristopherGS said:

It would be cool if there were some choices you could make that would increase your sanity. holding a flower, standing in a garden, petting a chicken, something. Make it an interesting choice instead of just a penalty for playing the game.

Yes, I wish food variety would improve your sanity ( aka stability ).
Many people naturally think of this as sanity.  They should retitle it sanity and that opens up options to maintain your sanity.  Unstable areas drive you insane.

Right now ... there is literally no reason to eat different meals out of the thousands of meals we can craft.   If you change stability to sanity, then you can say that eating a new kind of food you haven't eaten for a while will make you happier / saner.
 

[Diff]

23 minutes ago, ChristopherGS said:

It would be cool if there were some choices you could make that would increase your sanity. holding a flower, standing in a garden, petting a chicken, something. Make it an interesting choice instead of just a penalty for playing the game.

This feels nitpicky, but it's not sanity, it's temporal stability. You're not hallucinating when you see Dave, you're just slipping into the rust world. Currently there are two boosts to stability, killing rust world natives and sacrificing some health to a temporal gear.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Diff said:

This feels nitpicky, but it's not sanity, it's temporal stability. You're not hallucinating when you see Dave, you're just slipping into the rust world. Currently there are two boosts to stability, killing rust world natives and sacrificing some health to a temporal gear.

This, so much this, and like I just said in another thread, you can't just swap one for the other without rewriting most of the story and lore. The stability mechanic also helps Vintage Story stand out as its own thing, given that sanity tends to be a generic feature of survival horror games.

 

4 hours ago, Mac Mcleod said:

Right now ... there is literally no reason to eat different meals out of the thousands of meals we can craft.

Nutrition. No meal covers all of the nutrition groups, so the player will need to have a varied diet in order to stay in good health. Likewise, not every meal is made equal. Meat dishes tend to be more filling than grains and vegetables, so the player can go a bit longer before they need to eat again. Stews have the highest saturation, provided they're eaten in one sitting, while soups can stretch ingredients a little further when food is scarce. Pies are an excellent travel food since they can be stacked(and therefore take less inventory space than crocks), but don't have the saturation that stews offer. Basic foods like cheese, roast meat, and bread may not be the most filling, but they're easily prepared most anywhere, and handy as a snack to top off nutrition meters.

 

4 hours ago, ChristopherGS said:

It would be cool if there were some choices you could make that would increase your sanity. holding a flower, standing in a garden, petting a chicken, something. Make it an interesting choice instead of just a penalty for playing the game.

Also, welcome to the forums! I will note that the player already has a couple of options to recover stability, outside of hanging out in a stable area for a while. Sacrificing a temporal gear and a bit of health will instantly restore a good chunk of stability, which can be handy in emergencies or when exploring the underground for long periods of time. Likewise, killing monsters will also restore some stability, with the tougher monsters restoring more than weaker ones.

[Echo Weaver]

Heh. I was wondering why stability keeps being mistaken for sanity, but I guess I can see that hearing drifter sounds could feel like you're hallucinating. And that's the usual expectation for a horror game.

[Never Jhonsen]

8 hours ago, Mac Mcleod said:

Right now ... there is literally no reason to eat different meals out of the thousands of meals we can craft.

Firstly, the wide variety isn't a "you can eat ALLL these meals" as much as it is "hey you have a seemingly endless list of options to cook what little food you've gathered" Sure, putting an onion and a turnip into a pot with no water and calling that a "meal" sounds horrendous. Butif that's all you've got, then food is food and the game allows you to do that.

And I'd say there's plenty of reason to make all sorts of the various foods in the game  Usually by the time I'm ready to settle down, I've got a few various grains and vegetable seeds to plant, meaning that once they grow, I'm going to have a few various grains and vegetables to mix together for meals. Maybe I'll make bread and veggie stew. Maybe I'll make some porridge with a hefty amount of vegetable. Maybe I'll make Veggie Pies. Or, typically what I do, is all of the above. I'll make pies fresh after harvest, to eat now; burn bread for winter grain; and the stews, soups, and porridges to store in crocs for later (albeit I rarely make soups).

[Mac Mcleod]

3 minutes ago, Never Jhonsen said:

Firstly, the wide variety isn't a "you can eat ALLL these meals" as much as it is "hey you have a seemingly endless list of options to cook what little food you've gathered" Sure, putting an onion and a turnip into a pot with no water and calling that a "meal" sounds horrendous. Butif that's all you've got, then food is food and the game allows you to do that.

And I'd say there's plenty of reason to make all sorts of the various foods in the game  Usually by the time I'm ready to settle down, I've got a few various grains and vegetable seeds to plant, meaning that once they grow, I'm going to have a few various grains and vegetables to mix together for meals. Maybe I'll make bread and veggie stew. Maybe I'll make some porridge with a hefty amount of vegetable. Maybe I'll make Veggie Pies. Or, typically what I do, is all of the above. I'll make pies fresh after harvest, to eat now; burn bread for winter grain; and the stews, soups, and porridges to store in crocs for later (albeit I rarely make soups).

I hear you.   

But there is no value in cooking meals with mushrooms (and many other foods).   So folks tend to monoculture and eat the same thing all the time.  How would you feel if you only had turkey pot pie 356 days a year, for 10 years?   
 

[LadyWYT]

8 hours ago, Mac Mcleod said:

But there is no value in cooking meals with mushrooms (and many other foods).

Vegetable sat is vegetable sat, and mushrooms are basically free food, if you have a good source nearby. Especially good in the early game, when farms aren't yet productive.

 

8 hours ago, Mac Mcleod said:

So folks tend to monoculture and eat the same thing all the time.  How would you feel if you only had turkey pot pie 356 days a year, for 10 years? 

Honestly, I think it's just kind of the result of many players just opting for an efficient meta, rather than enjoying the variety that's currently there, and I don't think that's something that really ever gets "fixed". 

As far as just having more food types, yes, that would be nice, and I'd expect to see more variety in the future. In the meantime though, it's also why the Expanded Foods mod is so popular(which, it also seems to have finally updated for 1.21 as well).

[Facethief]

25 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

which, it also seems to have finally updated for 1.21 as well

WOOHOOOO!

*edit: it’s a dev build, so I would NOT add it to any existing saves.

Edited October 18, 2025 by Facethief
Added note of warning