Playing without map

[Vratislav]

I have started a new gameplay recently, and as I am geodetist irl, I decided to challenge myself to play both without map and coordinates. (The rest is pretty much standard gameplay, although with additional gelogy, flora and Terra Pretty.) I am in half of August with good bronze setup. Having explored about half a day every direction, with general map in one A4 sheet and much in the memory, and considering to start story chapters soon. So I am interested in your experience from longer distance traveling without map.

What I have found so far:

• Worldgen setup to make landforms memorable is essential. I made first attempt with TP and without map with moreless recommended settings and the landforms were so widespread that I couln't orient myself properly, even with Farseer mod. I had to decrease landform size to about 1/2 of recommended values and bump up the view distance to maximum bearable by my computer: then the landscape started to work without map (do you remember that heated discussion about landforms size recently?   ). Now I have beautiful hilly landscape I am really satisfied by (I will publish the settings after I get to the computer I play on).
• Write down prospecting results for the future. I made about 20 prospecting holes, wrote down levels of zinc and bismuth into map, and after several days... where the hell was that lead reading? Was it north, south or east from my base? No idea... Prospecting itself was quite easy to do systematically, as I have plenty of experience with this "next hole is 150 blocks in cardinal direction" method and I was able to replicate it without map quite easily. 
• Care about landmarks around. Hill shapes, significant trees, fields of flowers. Never die in place you are not sure how you got there. On the opposite side, caving is not much different.
• Mark everything. I have added cairn mod that is nice, but when lacking stones, I have limited myself to fastest method: a "gallow" made from six packed dirt blocks (I play with soil gravity).  They are ugly, but more prominent. I mark also caves I have explored using two cairns or dirt blocks next to the entrance. Also, I have marked my base that is in the slope by planting four "protective" pine trees that make the direction to the base clear also from behind, where the building itself is not visible. In important locations, I mark direction to the base using big and small cairn.
• Direction to the Sun is important for the orientation, heavy rain may get you lost, even in already travelled area. I have not tried Moon or stars for orientation yet, as haven't been outside in the night much. 
• But still, I have not explored as much as with the mapy as I cannot just explore aimlessly. Thus my progress is bit slower than in playin with map, but not as much as I afraided.

Here are my questions:

• Are some other mods helpful when playing without map? I have Cairns, Farseer and that's all.
• What to except from travelling to the game locations? I have no map to the RA yet, but I have read that the location mark is replaced by information about distance to the RA. So it is probably easy to find perpendicular direction (where distance does not change) and then turn 90 degrees to progress. For the return, I assume the distance and azimuth from the base is essential. If I really mess up when returning, the known landscape will be somewhere in the circle of the original distance.

And what is your experience with playing without map?

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Worldgen setup to make landforms memorable is essential. I made first attempt with TP and without map with moreless recommended settings and the landforms were so widespread that I couln't orient myself properly, even with Farseer mod. I had to decrease landform size to about 1/2 of recommended values and bump up the view distance to maximum bearable by my computer: then the landscape started to work without map (do you remember that heated discussion about landforms size recently?   ). Now I have beautiful hilly landscape I am really satisfied by (I will publish the settings after I get to the computer I play on).

Hmmm, I feel like this might be a good case for adding cairns as a craftable marker--good use for all the stones one inevitably collects. Even with the map enabled, cairns would make nice decoration, or more immersive markers, and without the map they'd be an easy way to mark paths. Could also scrape trees to remove a patch of bark, and leave markers that way as well.

 

5 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Write down prospecting results for the future. I made about 20 prospecting holes, wrote down levels of zinc and bismuth into map, and after several days... where the hell was that lead reading? Was it north, south or east from my base? No idea... Prospecting itself was quite easy to do systematically, as I have plenty of experience with this "next hole is 150 blocks in cardinal direction" method and I was able to replicate it without map quite easily. 

Aside from trusty notebook paper(or that notebook mod...I swear I've seen one floating around), this might be a case for carrying around a stack of signs and some charcoal. Or a book and quill, if you have access to them.

 

5 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Care about landmarks around. Hill shapes, significant trees, fields of flowers. Never die in place you are not sure how you got there. On the opposite side, caving is not much different.

I think this somewhat depends on how photographic a player's mind is, as well as just studying surroundings more carefully in general. With the map enabled, it's easy to just plunk down markers and not really pay attention to the lay of the land otherwise.

 

5 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Mark everything. I have added cairn mod that is nice, but when lacking stones, I have limited myself to fastest method: a "gallow" made from six packed dirt blocks (I play with soil gravity).  They are ugly, but more prominent. I mark also caves I have explored using two cairns or dirt blocks next to the entrance. Also, I have marked my base that is in the slope by planting four "protective" pine trees that make the direction to the base clear also from behind, where the building itself is not visible. In important locations, I mark direction to the base using big and small cairn.

This goes back to the marker question, and I'm not sure that there's a great answer. Perhaps dyed cloth could be tied to sticks as a simple flag/banner, and used as markers? That would be expensive, but would lend more practical use to dyed material as well as act as a marker that readily stands out from the surroundings.

One thing my friend and I have started doing, despite playing with the map, is building small base camps in areas we intend to be more active. Perhaps building outposts and marking the trails between is the answer when playing without a map?

5 hours ago, Vratislav said:

Are some other mods helpful when playing without map? I have Cairns, Farseer and that's all.

A mod like this might be the nice middle ground between the OP map we have, and no map at all: https://mods.vintagestory.at/craftablecartography

It still gives the player access to the map, but only once they've made the stuff they need for drawing maps. I think there are others mods that have similar takes on the idea.

[ClearSkies]

There is a mod for trails, and I think you have the power to modify it to only create trails where a player constantly walks, that way, as you travel across the land, you begin to create a Trail Path much like how our actual trails got made in the long run.

[Thorfinn]

Gallows works, but only if it's relatively flat. I use floaty-islands fairly heavily. Climb up a 50+ stack of ladders, place a 4-direction gallows in the air, maybe leave a lantern or oil lamp, so it's painfully obvious at night.  This is absolutely essential above your base if you didn't have the sense to find a massive landmark to build next to.  Since there are floaty-islands that generate "naturally", I don't think of that as cheating. Come up with some standard that gives you a visual on the direction home, and you are good to go.

If you are playing with movable source blocks, place one of those at the top and it is unmistakable. 

Don't know if it's true for all graphics settings, but single-block resolution on my primary rig is around 400 blocks. If you make your air gallows with some 1-wide and some 2-wide features, this is very helpful for estimating range.

Take along  fenceposts. Start with a ladder put a fencepost at whatever height makes sense to clear terrain, and put a firepit on top of that. Yes, the glow of an empty firepit is only 3, but you would be amazed how far you can see that at night from a ladder. Get used to that distance and you can make a decent grid over a vast area in relatively short order, at next to no cost . Remember to place some kind of directional sign on the ground to point you in the direction of home. Oh, you do have to be viewing it at or above the y of the firepit to see the glow, so don't go crazy for height.

Edited October 29, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Vratislav]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

https://mods.vintagestory.at/craftablecartography

Oh, thanks, that I have forgotten that mod exists. Definitely will try. 

 

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I feel like this might be a good case for adding cairns as a craftable marker

Yes, that Cairn mod is nifty, it allows three sizes of cairn using 4, 9 and 18 stones and they look nice. Also there are some advanced ones I haven't made yet (like buouys or cairns with place for oil lamp or lantern for night visibility).

About making notes in general, signs are great feature I haven't used yet (I was doing first round of prospecting before having a saw). Good hint.

Also thanks about ideas of marking paths and directions. I did it partially in my long time world, and I intend to do it here too. I am not sure if I will like to mark the route to the RA this way, as it will require to have marker every 100-200 blocks or likewise to be surely visible between two adjacent ones, that makes 30-50 markers... well it is only 15 stacks of stones, maybe it is not as unfeaasible idea as it seemed in the first time!  
 

4 hours ago, ClearSkies said:

There is a mod for trails

I know it and I was lazy to reconfigure it properly so that only seraph and large animals are able to make a path. In the current state, even running hare or poultry make paths, that is a bit too much. I have removed this mod after few minuts when I have seen as a crow (from some fauna mod) made path by flying over terrain  

Edited October 29, 2025 by Vratislav

[Vratislav]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I use floaty-islands fairly heavily.

Oh, I have ever admired your playstyle, but this seems like you have some dirty tricks hidden in your sleeve!  

I must say that the idea makes me a bit crazy. Maybe, for realism, if we make them bright colored with some rope down to look like air baloons... ( no, it is even worse  ). I have to ask: what is your render distance? My maximum is under 500 blocks, so aren't these floating islands (that I suppose must be visible from bigger distance) a bit overkill in case of average render distance? 

I got good experience to mark two of my important locations by placing a gallow to a most prominent hill nearby (so it is visible from 200-300 blocks around, enough in my case), and make one wing to point to the exact location in the walley, where second marker is placed. And to defend my aesthetics feel, yeah, gallow is not aesthetic at all, but I promise to experiment with nicer markers made from 6-12 blocks in the future!  

However, the night trick with firepits seems cool, it is definetly worth to try. 

[Thorfinn]

5 hours ago, Vratislav said:

what is your render distance?

Vanilla, with absolutely nothing else running, I can usually get away with 1024. Sometimes I have to drop it a notch or two depending on terrain.

Gallows on hilltops would probably work fine for anyone who isn't a chicken like me. I'll hear something, it could be a rabbit for all I know, or maybe a carrot, and I take off, and don't always pay enough attention to where I'm going. Means instead of going from point to point, like I used to try to do, I need some means of picking up the trail after I've lost it doing my Brave Sir Robin impression.

Something else I used to use, but got out of the habit, is a distinctive flower. Catmint or heather or woad, or something else visible at a decent distance that is not a local flower makes a very good set of breadcrumbs. You need to have a selection of a couple three in inventory. If you place it on a block of cob, you know for sure it wasn't mapgen.

[rvenson]

I would like to use the game map HUD but without the terrain image, players position and real coordinates. This way I can put relative waypoints on the canvas, triangulating landmarks (and draw them) to get a approximate location for my points of interest.

The possibility of use the ink and pen for drawing waypoints freely on a paper / book would help a lot too.

Most of the mods that I've found for map realism are not too simple as that.

[marmarmar34]

Something to help with orientation, moss always grows on the north side of trees.