early game shelter idea: tents and tarps.

[th3w4rd3n]

Vintage Story puts a lot of emphasis on progression, and gradual teching up of systems into their next 'stage', but outside of some very specific world settings, the pre-copper age is oddly short and shallow compared to the much richer stages of the metal ages. the early game mostly consists of rushing to ceramics and copper as quickly as possible unless you deliberately take your time, because most of the building aspects are locked behind metalworking. this in fine in some ways, but in others i think things could be improved.

as it stands right now, early game shelter usually consists of either shacking up with a trader, digging a hole, making a base out of logs, or getting lucky and cannibalizing ruins for materials. not terribly immersive i think. now a lot of early human societies DID live in homes made, at least partially, from shaped dirt, but they also made extensive use of animal skins and early forms of woven material. (the idea ancient humans lived in caves is likely a misconception based on the survivour bias of cave art; art in a cave is sheltered from eroding factors like rain or wind, and thus much more likely to survive thousands of years than wood carvings or textiles that were in active use). i think having to hurriedly slap a little tent together out of what you can forage up would be more immersive than hurriedly digging a hole and sealing yourself inside.

adding pelt drying to part of the first steps tutorial, or weaving of papyrus and dry grass into sheltering panels, would be a really good first step to making the early game more immersive. this can then also go through progression, where scraped hides can find an alternative use as material for portable shelters like tipis (though i'm biased on account of being plains cree), which could even be decorated with dyes or cloth. the early game plant-based panels could also have similar function to the beams, where theyd need to be joined up to a central pole (or poles) to work. the earliest panels would only keep mobs from not detecting you while youre inside, and keep the rain out, while later pelt and hide panels would often some more protection and resistance to damage, and then a fully crafted tent would be just as safe as digging a hole and sealing yourself inside, setting aside realism for a more satisfying progression in this case.

valid materials for plant shelter panels could be: papyrus, cattails, and tall or thick plants like redtop grass, woad, or cow parsley, which would be crafted together with sticks and dry grass to form a variable amount of panels (more for papyrus and cattails, less for the smaller plants. hunters get a cheaper recipe). valid pelts to use for pelt panels would be any cured pelt of medium or larger size, or a set of 4 'stitched' small pelts (a recipe only craftable by hunters, which uses either sinew or twine/thread, and bone needles (cheaper) or a knife), and also gives a variable amount of panels (more for larger pelts, less for smaller, etc). valid materials for the final tier of scraped hide would be any hide of medium or larger size, and these can be used to either make a larger portable tent (carried in one of the four storage slots, offers more protection and a larger interior working space) or panels just like the earlier stages (less protection, but less space taken up). again, hunters get a discounted set of recipes. panels all have collision, unlike beams, but might collapse if stomped on, hit with a fast projectile, or ran into at a sufficient speed (with different strength depending on material), so its unsuitable for fences or long-term walls (using them to seal up entry points would be a valid choice, however)

Edited November 16, 2025 by th3w4rd3n

[Xenobiology]

I'd be in support for this! I've found it a bit (interestingly) weird that in my early game I'm just kinda living out in the open? It sure doesn't make me feel safe & having my campfire go out in rain sometimes can be frustrating (though I've found I can make a silly dirt L to cover it, which works but isn't very immersive lol).

I also like the idea of actually having a use for the pelts in early game that isn't just armor, especially since they go bad! It makes a lot of sense to me that, to some degree, it is easier to throw a large pelt over a big stick and weigh down the edges to make a little shelter than it is to craft armor from pelts and sticks. Plus portable small shelters would be really nice when you have to move around for certain materials a lot in the early game (my clay deposit is soooo far from my spawn point where I've set up camp ^^; )!

[LadyWYT]

I wouldn't mind having some pelt options for bedrolls or quick lean-to shelters; it would be great for hunting camps or traveling around. However...

16 minutes ago, th3w4rd3n said:

the pre-copper age is oddly short and shallow compared to the much richer stages of the metal ages.

In my opinion, the stone age tier should remain rather basic, since this is just a brief stepping stone to the meatier portion of the game and not a tech tier at which the player is intended to linger. The stone age tier has just enough for the player to survive, and that's it. 

Also keep in mind that it takes time to actually process a hide into a pelt, and crafting something like a tent is going to require several large pelts--medium or smaller pelts just won't do here. In the time it takes the player to acquire all the suggested resources to make the tent, they could have built a small house from packed earth and thatch, and possibly even acquired their first pottery and metal tools as well.

[th3w4rd3n]

20 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Also keep in mind that it takes time to actually process a hide into a pelt, and crafting something like a tent is going to require several large pelts--medium or smaller pelts just won't do here. In the time it takes the player to acquire all the suggested resources to make the tent, they could have built a small house from packed earth and thatch, and possibly even acquired their first pottery and metal tools as well.

yeah. unforchies a pelt-based shelter would likely be a post-copper thing, which by then the player would have access to cobblestone much easier. unless one was doing some kind of challenge, where metal is much rarer, but we cant exactly make game mechanics for the small niches of players until the main portions are all finished. that said it could be a post-copper, pre-anvil and forge type deal, depending on how quickly the player manages to get things started. it could also be a boon for players who want a more nomadic style of play!

22 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

In my opinion, the stone age tier should remain rather basic, since this is just a brief stepping stone to the meatier portion of the game and not a tech tier at which the player is intended to linger. The stone age tier has just enough for the player to survive, and that's it. 

thats totally fair! i personally like a longer early game, as i really enjoy the scramble for resources and the tentative discovery that goes on in this stage, but i also know not everybody likes fighting for their life.

[Bruno Willis]

50 minutes ago, th3w4rd3n said:

thats totally fair! i personally like a longer early game, as i really enjoy the scramble for resources and the tentative discovery that goes on in this stage, but i also know not everybody likes fighting for their life.

The other thing is, the longer you can remain mobile, the more likely you are to find a truly excellent place to settle down. Even if I plan on making it a temporary shelter, I often find myself investing more and more, and before long I'm dug in and the idea of moving is just too much. 

I think a system of tiered mobile homes would be fantastic: Yurts and maybe a storage option which allows you to haul a lot, but slows you to a crawl. -> Elk-drawn caravans which can be built and chiseled, and made to count as a room when not traveling and can carry a fair bit of your life with you -> houseboats working with the same rules, but larger and ocean-bound. 

That's allow you to set up an orchard in a high fruit tree spot, a mine and furnace where the iron ore is, and legitimately move between them depending on the season. In the mean time, you might explore for that perfect base spot. It'd also give travel much more viability, being able to take a mini-base with you where you can sleep in comfort and see your progress visually on your caravan.

[th3w4rd3n]

11 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

That's allow you to set up an orchard in a high fruit tree spot, a mine and furnace where the iron ore is, and legitimately move between them depending on the season. In the mean time, you might explore for that perfect base spot. It'd also give travel much more viability, being able to take a mini-base with you where you can sleep in comfort and see your progress visually on your caravan.

ohhh i genuinely love this. some kind of tradeoff between the stability and consistent infrastructure of a settled lifestyle, vs the freedom and flexibility of a nomadic lifestyle. many indigenous nations are nomadic, and follow specific migratory paths (often returning to the same campsites over time), so it would be a perfect reflection of real life to have some sort of way to be able to pack up and move whenever needed to whichever areas suited you at the time. a full caravan would/should probably be a post-iron advancement, but a cart is perfect for the midgame. neither are too overpowered either because carts and caravans dont float, and its possible bears and wolves would love to have a tasty bite of you or your hauling pal. maybe oxen can be domesticated to be a slower, but stronger pulling force as well? that would require the devs to add some kind of warm weather bovine though (since i think right now only musk oxen spawn in the colder regions). then again i could never say no to bison domestication hehe

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, th3w4rd3n said:

since i think right now only musk oxen spawn in the colder regions

Ironically, despite their name and appearance, musk ox aren't bovines. They're more closely related to goats. That being said, I would like to see bison and bovines added to VS someday.

 

16 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

The other thing is, the longer you can remain mobile, the more likely you are to find a truly excellent place to settle down. Even if I plan on making it a temporary shelter, I often find myself investing more and more, and before long I'm dug in and the idea of moving is just too much. 

I think a system of tiered mobile homes would be fantastic: Yurts and maybe a storage option which allows you to haul a lot, but slows you to a crawl. -> Elk-drawn caravans which can be built and chiseled, and made to count as a room when not traveling and can carry a fair bit of your life with you -> houseboats working with the same rules, but larger and ocean-bound. 

It would be cool, however...

 

16 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

That's allow you to set up an orchard in a high fruit tree spot, a mine and furnace where the iron ore is, and legitimately move between them depending on the season. In the mean time, you might explore for that perfect base spot. It'd also give travel much more viability, being able to take a mini-base with you where you can sleep in comfort and see your progress visually on your caravan.

Not really. In theory it would, yes, but the issue is that to build something like a cart, or chisel, or even to trap elk efficiently, you're going to need an anvil and forge, as well as a LOT of other materials(like logs and planks). So the nomad part isn't really something the player could do until much later in the game, given they'll need to set up at least a small base of operations to build/acquire the things needed for a nomad lifestyle. To me, that really defeats the purpose of a nomad playthrough, since the idea is to stay on the move from the very beginning.

I think perhaps a better option for a nomad playthrough, is once wolf taming is implemented, have a craftable travois for your canine friend(s). It won't have much inventory, but it would be relatively easy to craft, and possible to craft with just stone age tools. In that case, paired with the pelt tents/shelter the OP proposed, a player could opt for a nomad lifestyle and slowly work their way up the tech tree, although that does mean staying in the stone age for an extended period of time. 

[Bruno Willis]

6 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I think perhaps a better option for a nomad playthrough, is once wolf taming is implemented, have a craftable travois for your canine friend(s). It won't have much inventory, but it would be relatively easy to craft, and possible to craft with just stone age tools. In that case, paired with the pelt tents/shelter the OP proposed, a player could opt for a nomad lifestyle and slowly work their way up the tech tree, although that does mean staying in the stone age for an extended period of time. 

This is an excellent early game nomadic technique. If we had viable nomadic style transport at each of the tech levels, it would make travel much more fun.

When rivers are added a travois would pair with a canoe which would have a similar carry capacity, but would require leather working for the canoe skin. 

[LadyWYT]

35 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

When rivers are added a travois would pair with a canoe which would have a similar carry capacity, but would require leather working for the canoe skin. 

Or just...dugout canoe.

[th3w4rd3n]

(reading all these comments and giggling and kicking my feet. yall got such good ideas)

canoes would be an awesome median between rafts and full on sailboats tbh. simple dugout canoes could be made with a wood-carving mechanic (like clay forming, but backwards) and an axe, which would make something slow and clunky, but usable. better ones would be made with a hammer and chisel. a leather canoe could still use a wooden frame as the basis and make use of glues (giving more uses to the glue mechanic) and fat to form seals. :3

i also really like the idea of an animal caravan, and the use of wolves would be a great way to bring in some north american indigenous culture too, since many of the nomadic nations prior to european contact used their dogs to help them carry stuff (this reddit comment goes into greater detail + they cite their sources. LINK.) they can pull carts or sleds for slower but greater storage, or wear little packs for lighter, faster storage. maybe they can even carry stuff that would normal require a storage slot, like mining bags! their viability would depend on how quickly youd be allowed to befriend wolves, however. you can probably make them stop attacking you by sharing your food, but theres a bit of a gap between "i will tolerate you on my territory" and "i will let you put me in little outfits and pull your carts for you". a lot of players will likely live a settled lifestyle for probably their first year, so itd have to be possible to befriend and then tame wolves within that timeframe

[LadyWYT]

10 minutes ago, th3w4rd3n said:

canoes would be an awesome median between rafts and full on sailboats tbh. simple dugout canoes could be made with a wood-carving mechanic (like clay forming, but backwards) and an axe, which would make something slow and clunky, but usable. better ones would be made with a hammer and chisel. a leather canoe could still use a wooden frame as the basis and make use of glues (giving more uses to the glue mechanic) and fat to form seals. :3

Personally, I'd rather have a coracle than a canoe, given that canoes tend to be more related to the Americas, certain parts of the Pacific islands, or certain regions of Africa, and not so much Europe(which is the general main setting of Vintage Story).

[Bruno Willis]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Personally, I'd rather have a coracle than a canoe, given that canoes tend to be more related to the Americas, certain parts of the Pacific islands, or certain regions of Africa, and not so much Europe(which is the general main setting of Vintage Story).

But I don't want to sit in the lake, spinning in circles cause I'm not a good rower... 

Actually, coracles would be amazing. I think you can tip them over to make them into temporary tents. They'd be pretty much perfect for nomadic lifestyle, and could be stone age, using oiled pelts and sticks and twine.

[Bruno Willis]

Okay, crafting a coracle without a crafting grid:

Right-click on dirt with a stick and get options like with clay shaping. one of the options would be a pile of sticks, one would be a wicker basket, and another would be the coracle! 

Picking the coracle would stick your stick upright in the ground and direct you with green lines to stick other sticks in the ground to make a circle. Once you'd done that you would be directed to 'weave' sticks around the circle to make a giant basket. When you'd reach the top of the upright sticks, you'd be directed to add more upright sticks into those, and repeat the weaving until you produce a big dome shaped basket. At this point, ideally, the unfinished coracle would have a collision box unlike the current sailing boats

You'd then be directed to cover it with a number of oiled pelts or leather (or copper sheets?). Once done, you'd be directed to stitch them on with twine or linen thread, oil it all with a couple of lumps of fat or bee's wax, and you'd be done. 

The coracle would have a "climb under" option, which would let you sleep under it like a slightly less comfortable hay bed, a "store" option, which would allow you to access a limited number of gear slots on it: at least twice as much as can be carried by a raft, and it would have a "drag" option, which would let you flip it over and slowly drag it, to get it into and out of the water.

In the water, you'd have a "climb in" option to row the thing, the same "store" option, and the same "drag" option.

[th3w4rd3n]

why not both? canoes require a storage slot to carry, coracles can be carried in inventory? something something tradeoff to make it worth it

i wonder if the development of canoes vs coracles is related to the fact europe (usually) has much narrower and weaker rivers/lakes than north america (lake superior is half the size of the entire UK after all). plus the distances travelled would be invariably much shorter than in north america. no way a coracle could cross the fraser river reliably safely, but theres no way a canoe would be practical for crossing back and forth quickly over a small river, not with its unwieldy shape and size. thats historical technological development stuff tho and probably not super relevant to the discussion XD

10 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Right-click on dirt with a stick and get options like with clay shaping. one of the options would be a pile of sticks, one would be a wicker basket, and another would be the coracle! 

also neuron activated: i LOVE the idea of adding basket weaving too. woven baskets are so practical and theyre used just about everywhere in the world that theres some kinda plant thing to weave, im shocked they ARENT in the game. the fact a lot of realistic survival games dont have basket weaving in them is honestly like if 90% of farming sims didnt require you to water your plants.

[LadyWYT]

48 minutes ago, th3w4rd3n said:

why not both?

Because the setting is primarily focused on late medieval Europe, and the areas neighboring it(North Africa, the Middle East, the Far East). In the case of the game's setting, there's essentially been an early industrial revolution, that connected much of the known world better...and also kinda messed everything up. But anyway, my point is that tech and culture from the early Americas is going to feel out of place, since there's not been any indication that direct contact with the Americas was actually made and maintained. Thus I think it's better to focus on tech from the regions relevant to the story, and leave the Americas to the modded realm. Handling it via mods also ensures that more tech from both sides can be explored more in-depth, instead of trying to cover everything in the base game and getting a more shallow experience as a result.

In short, I'd rather explore the European tech tree in-depth for the vanilla game, since that's the region most relevant to the story, and go super in-depth with other cultural tech via mods, so I can tailor the experience to more exact settings.

57 minutes ago, th3w4rd3n said:

i wonder if the development of canoes vs coracles is related to the fact europe (usually) has much narrower and weaker rivers/lakes than north america (lake superior is half the size of the entire UK after all). plus the distances travelled would be invariably much shorter than in north america. no way a coracle could cross the fraser river reliably safely, but theres no way a canoe would be practical for crossing back and forth quickly over a small river, not with its unwieldy shape and size. thats historical technological development stuff tho and probably not super relevant to the discussion XD

Maybe. Of course this is also where I'll somewhat contradict myself and point out that adding a canoe alongside the other watercraft options we already have certainly isn't going to be the end of the world. I just wouldn't want that to be the precedent for getting carried away with adding too many similar options, and having the game overall suffer as a result.