I have a project and I would be happy to hear your input (codename: "surviving against all odds is fun")

[fluffz]

Quote

" A world that feels alive and welcoming yet deliver a constant battle with the elements. A realm where all your senses must be activated. Where one rough winter storm can be the sole reason of your fading mortality. Where your have to strive against reaching equilibrium with nature, and not overstep. Where you are not a hero nor a heroine, neither are you the main character, nor of any more importance than any other entity. You have but one goal to pursue, to survive" 

Codename: "surviving aganist all odds is fun"

I will keep updating this post and it's lists as time go

Ever since I began playing this game I have always tried to make it more challenging. And I am the kind of person whom scroll the mod page every day to not miss an opportunity to make the game more difficult, and thus feel more rewarding to me when I finally manage to overcome hurdles and make progress. I am most likely closing in on 2000 hours played by now, and despite that I refuse to do the story quests, in part because I am worried I would feel like the game will then run out of stuff to do once I complete it, and also because I want to wait until the game is complete before I experience the story modules in all it's glory. Therefore I also find myself incrementally increasing the difficulty to make sure I do not reach a point where I can enter the archives for the first time. I have been trough many worlds by now, from the coldest snow ball earths and hottest desert plains. I have done nomad runs at the poles surviving on nothing but polar bears using nothing but flint spears as weapons. I have been trough many deaths and I really attest to the loosing is fun paradigm.

My project now is to put together a game where I can start in the default temperate region and still have to strive to survive. I am also writing this to reach out and find other like minded people. 

All in all, it led me to this point, and I would love to hear your from you about ways to make this game even more difficult and immersive. I am striving to find that sweet spot, where the game is actually possible to survive in with enough perseverance, but challenging to the point where there is very little room for error . I am sure that I am not alone in this endeavor, and I would be more than happy to hear from others whom strive to achieve something similar. I will present my current world gen settings, self imposed challenges, modlist and also a number of ideas. 

Relevant world gen settings:

One life
No grace time

Seasons and true winters enabled
Block gravity and cave ins enabled
Allowing block falling and fire spread, as well as lightnings that can cause fire
No underground farming and no water source transportation
Player HP 10 (5 HP not adviced)
Health generation 25%
Hunger rate 125% (for balancing towards food scarcity)
Body temperature hardiness 15 degrees
Creature strength 150% (I have tried 200% and 400% as well, but it can make certain deaths look so silly, when even tiny critters get mega power)
Food spoilage 200%-400% (I am looking at you everlasting vegetable)
Tree sapling growth time: Much slower x8
Prospecting pick: not allowed to use (self imposed challenge)
No Map (I have learned to love playing without it)

Temporal stability set to default wilderness survival

Landcover 0% (I love archipelagos and seafaring)
Forestation and shrubs -50& to -75% (to mimic a Scandinavian archipelago where trees are few and tiny due to strong winds)
Global deposit spawn rate 60%
Surface copper deposit frequency: never

Self imposed challenges:

No use of the prospecting pick (once I find ores without one I get to jump with joy)
Only one backpack can be used
Only one basket per free hand (so 2 if I am not holding anything else in my hands)

I have edited the crops json files to let crops only drop 1-2 veggies when the final stage is reached, and nothing before that. I have also made it so that crops only drop seeds at their final stage, and only 0,7 of the times (this has made veggies feel valuable and far less abundant)

Mods for difficulty:

Conquest Stone Age Expansion (my favorite VS mod of all times, and I sincerely hope CreativeRealms one day get to complete his ultimate vision for this mod)
Vigor
Hydrate or Diedrate
Hungry While Injured
SleepNeed
Logical Clothing Warmth
Vintage Recipes
Butchering (sadly causes errors when used together with Stone Age expansion, but seem to work together nonetheless)
Real Smoke
Crucible Capacity
Wilderlands Block Adjustments
Wilderlands Panning overhaul
Shiver Tweaks (optional but fun)

Mods for immersion:

Better and improved weather
Conquest VS edition (makes the autumns and winters look so incredible)
Falling Tree
Farseer
Flickering lights
Immersive lanterns
Temporal Symphony
Manual Quenching
BetterFPCamera
Expanded Stomach
Spinning Wheel
The Critters Pack
More Animals

Mods I use for balancing:

Bushmeat In Stew
Mulching
Temporal-Life (the almost hardcore option that feels rather legit, and that can be serve as a good and lore friendly middle ground)

Mod considerations:

Wilderlands rustbound (Love it, but feels very geared towards multiplayer)
Scientific smithy (yet to try, but suspect that it will not be compatible with Stone Age expansion)
Immersive mining (yet to try, sadly not compatible with Stone Age expansion to my knowledge)
Manual Tool crafting (yet to try, would love to hear feedback, most likely not compatible with Stone Age Expansion)
Manual scraping (yet to try)
Manual Dough: (yet to try)
Manual Ore Crush (yet to try)
In Dappled Groves (yet to try, and is sadly most likely not compatible with Stone Age Expansion)
Brain Freeze (yet to try)
Temporality plus (yet to try, but seems really interesting)
Rabies (wow, this sounds truly sinister, will be hard to get balanced)
Simple Weight mod (I would love to get this this to work)
FotSa series (Would be a shame to not introduce some more fauna and flora)
Terrain slabs (were sadly not compatible with Conquest VS edition)
Temporal Storms Require a Fight (yet to try, but sounds promising)

 

Further ideas:

I would love to one day see a mod for very limited carry capacity. I would gladly carry just a few blocks at the time to build my home. But until this becomes reality perhaps someone with knowledge on this can point me to the correct json files to reduce stack sizes to a pitiful amount for heavy things like logs, dirt and rocks etc, and how it is done.

 

With all of this said, I would be very happy to receive input, feedback, ideas, mod suggestions and to just discuss this project in general 

 

(in the background I am collecting what I consider to be extraordinarily well produced dungeon synth ambient albums that I come across to accompany and help deliver the experience of struggling in the north on an emotional plane as well) 

 

Edited November 25, 2025 by fluffz

[Eepy_T1me]

only a few words (I literally just started playing): sweet swiss cheese. this looks both terrifying and impressive, I am genuinely wishing you luck. (although I'm not sure you'll actually need it lol)

[fluffz]

1 minute ago, Eepy_T1me said:

only a few words (I literally just started playing): sweet swiss cheese. this looks both terrifying and impressive, I am genuinely wishing you luck. (although I'm not sure you'll actually need it lol)

Thank you! We have all been new to the game and we all enjoy different aspects of it. Under these conditions, as described above, we all need luck and will die due to bad luck every once in a while 

[Eepy_T1me]

Just now, fluffz said:

Thank you! We have all been new to the game and we all enjoy different aspects of it. Under these conditions, as described above, we all need luck and will die due to bad luck every once in a while 

no exactly. I'd die within like 5 minutes with these settings haha

[fluffz]

2 minutes ago, Eepy_T1me said:

no exactly. I'd die within like 5 minutes with these settings haha

If you spend enough time with the game, and really enjoy the survival aspect of it, I am sure you will reach a point where many of these settings will feel trivial 

[Eepy_T1me]

1 minute ago, fluffz said:

If you spend enough time with the game, and really enjoy the survival aspect of it, I am sure you will reach a point where many of these settings will feel trivial 

here's hoping then

[Maelstrom]

Sounds like a "Losing is FUN" game.   Them's some pretty harsh conditions.

[Thorfinn]

Did you look at Simple Weight? It's not the kind of thing I do to make things harder, but I did give it a try in 1.19 or 1.20. It does more or less what you are asking for, including letting you configure weights of materials to your liking. 

[LadyWYT]

11 hours ago, fluffz said:

Hungry While Injured

Shameless self-plug, but you might also consider using this mod in conjunction with HWI: https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

I wouldn't necessarily call Expanded Stomach a mod that increases difficulty, however, there is a "hard" difficulty setting in the config, as well as a "hardcore" option you can enable to cut stomach capacity in half on death(not that that matters if you only have one life). It does offer some useful utility, in that you can eat a big breakfast before working all day, or be a bit more insulated from cold provided that you have fat to do so. However, the drawbacks of bad habits can easily creep up on you if you aren't careful...

In regards to limiting yourself to one life, you might consider using a mod like this instead: https://mods.vintagestory.at/temporallife

Basically what it does, is still limits you to one life only, but if you have a temporal gear then you can use it to have one extra life. Still hardcore, but doesn't necessarily end the playthrough on the first death.

[fluffz]

14 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Sounds like a "Losing is FUN" game.   Them's some pretty harsh conditions.

You are absolutely right. The harshest conditions of them all in my opinion becomes the 0% landcover. And to be clear, in case someone else with less experience of the game reads this thread, I have to generate many worlds before I find a spawn that are in close proximity to an island that happens to have both a bit of pine forest and some fertile low lands that happens to spawn pigs. Without that the run would not be possible.

I am really excited for the new fishing update for this very reason, since it could, depending on how it is implemented, generate a food source that would make more runs possible.

In my testing I have found that I really like the sizes of the islands and the distance between them when using 0% landcover. Any number bigger than that will often throw some really big islands into the mix which I am trying to prevent. I really like that seafaring becomes a high stakes operation due to food scarcity and how rewarding it feels when setting foot an a new island and finding a new resource like chalk or a pair of baby goats.

I guess the fun in losing is fun, in actuality becomes more akin to surviving is fun 

[fluffz]

13 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Did you look at Simple Weight? It's not the kind of thing I do to make things harder, but I did give it a try in 1.19 or 1.20. It does more or less what you are asking for, including letting you configure weights of materials to your liking. 

Ooooh, I had apparently not. It does indeed look like a solution I was hoping for! It seems like it needs some manual labor to implement, but I am not shy of putting in some hours of preparation. Thanks a lot for this mod recommendation! 

[fluffz]

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Shameless self-plug, but you might also consider using this mod in conjunction with HWI: https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

I wouldn't necessarily call Expanded Stomach a mod that increases difficulty, however, there is a "hard" difficulty setting in the config, as well as a "hardcore" option you can enable to cut stomach capacity in half on death(not that that matters if you only have one life). It does offer some useful utility, in that you can eat a big breakfast before working all day, or be a bit more insulated from cold provided that you have fat to do so. However, the drawbacks of bad habits can easily creep up on you if you aren't careful...

In regards to limiting yourself to one life, you might consider using a mod like this instead: https://mods.vintagestory.at/temporallife

Basically what it does, is still limits you to one life only, but if you have a temporal gear then you can use it to have one extra life. Still hardcore, but doesn't necessarily end the playthrough on the first death.

Shameless or not, this is a fine recommendation. I must admit that I overlooked the more granular details of the expanded stomach mod. It might not make the game harder as you say, but it can indeed offer more realism, which I am always on the look out for. I will add it to my list and try it out for sure!

I must say that I really like the concept of temporal life, and I also admit that it do suck to have to end a run once one get deep into it. I am inclined to give this one a go. It might be a tad bit against the spirit of a hardcore run, but id adds a nice middle ground. I will edit my post and add mods to my initial list above as time goes, and both of these definitely deserves a spot. Thanks a lot! 

I hope that this thread one day can serve as starting point for people on the look out for more survival challenges in their games.

[fluffz]

I have been fiddling around with the Simple Weight Mod for about 2 hours now, and I simply do not have enough knowledge on how to make it it work properly. Some items registers weight, but blocks like dirt, wood and stone does not. There are no lines of text under this line: "WEIGHTS_FOR_BLOCKS": {}, and I am not sure how go from here. I also tested to spawn in a number of items in creative mode and I do not understand the logic the the weights being applied to items. The values under "BASE_WEIGHTS_BY_CATEGORY": { does not seem to correlate to items I tested 

 

[Thorfinn]

Oh, sorry. I even somehow missed that mod in your rather impressive list, too. No, I don't know how to use it. I tried it and decided, "Nah. I've got more to do than carry a few blocks at a time. I'd almost certainly switch back to building everything out of dirt rather than attempting to transport bluestone menhirs across the leagues." Maybe you could just set the stack size of dirt, stone, sand, wood, etc., to 1? As I understand it, you would be capped out at carrying only 16 such if you had nothing else in inventory?

Have you thought about adding some stone age cats? FotSA? Not Grendl, no, but accomplishes the same end, and has the right kind of feel to it. Might need to nerf their speed some if you have little to no ground cover, though. They are wicked fast, and I can only get away by scratching them off with the foliage, then approach them on my terms.

[EDIT]

Hey while I'm thinking of it, you could take a look at how DanaCraluminum (I think) set things up to carry one (and only one) leaking resin log at a time, and required both hands. If you set those attributes or behaviors  or whatever it was to all the massive blocks, that might work. You could even self-impose rules about the kinds of things that could be carried in inventory; stuff that can fit in a belt pouch or scabbard are OK, everything else has to be hand-carried.

[EDIT2]

Oh, CarryOn does that, too, making you carry trunks in both hands. And, bonus, that's up to date, while the other may not be. 

Edited November 22, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

56 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Have you thought about adding some stone age cats? FotSA? Not Grendl, no, but accomplishes the same end, and has the right kind of feel to it. Might need to nerf their speed some if you have little to no ground cover, though. They are wicked fast, and I can only get away by scratching them off with the foliage, then approach them on my terms.

I second this. Though most of the big cats are solitary, some will spawn in prides, like lions. And I'm not talking about just African lions either...

FotSA mods overall are great additions. While they can make hunting a little easier in some cases, some of the wildlife is NOT to be trifled with, like elephants and rhinos. If you can kill one, it's a lot of resources, and if you can manage to tame one it's a powerful animal to have work for you. But good luck doing that without getting stomped.

There's also a mod series that adds dinosaurs, though I'm not 100% sure if it's possible to get them working properly on the recent game version. That being said, if you want an ultimate caveman experience, that might be something worth looking into.

[fluffz]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Oh, sorry. I even somehow missed that mod in your rather impressive list, too. No, I don't know how to use it. I tried it and decided, "Nah. I've got more to do than carry a few blocks at a time. I'd almost certainly switch back to building everything out of dirt rather than attempting to transport bluestone menhirs across the leagues." Maybe you could just set the stack size of dirt, stone, sand, wood, etc., to 1? As I understand it, you would be capped out at carrying only 16 such if you had nothing else in inventory?

Have you thought about adding some stone age cats? FotSA? Not Grendl, no, but accomplishes the same end, and has the right kind of feel to it. Might need to nerf their speed some if you have little to no ground cover, though. They are wicked fast, and I can only get away by scratching them off with the foliage, then approach them on my terms.

[EDIT]

Hey while I'm thinking of it, you could take a look at how DanaCraluminum (I think) set things up to carry one (and only one) leaking resin log at a time, and required both hands. If you set those attributes or behaviors  or whatever it was to all the massive blocks, that might work. You could even self-impose rules about the kinds of things that could be carried in inventory; stuff that can fit in a belt pouch or scabbard are OK, everything else has to be hand-carried.

[EDIT2]

Oh, CarryOn does that, too, making you carry trunks in both hands. And, bonus, that's up to date, while the other may not be. 

You did not miss is, I added it per your recommendation, and I really like the concept. It felt familiar. But I will have to put it under considerations for now, until it becomes figured out how it can be utilized to it's full potential. I see what you mean, and I am thinking that any such building project would have to happen very close to the actual stone source itself, and basically what you carry long distances is absolute essentials. Stone is usually a few block under our feet at all times, but for more exotic rock, unless a carriage mod is used, or groups of people can carry the valuable stone by pure labor, It do not bother me that it feels out of use. I like the idea of getting to utilize what is around me and work with what I have been given. I am simply trying to further draw the picture of this project with this way of replying. I fully understand that the majority will not seek these kind of limitations, and for perfectly valid reasons 

Yeah, that was my initial idea at first. It seemed simple enough. There seem to be mods to configure stack sizes 

I have thought of the mods The Critters Pack and More Animals, mostly as helping to sell the idea of the world being alive. I have thought about them tho, and those could for sure bring on diversity and greater threats. I also look at the mod Entity Color Tint, I think it can be good. The archipelago setting makes many things feel rather glass canon, threats included, but I am sure some more lethal predators could be used.

That seems like a very interesting idea. I have seen that old mod, but probably discarded it due to being outdated. But perhaps it is still viable in some capacity despite being outdated? 

You mean there are elements of carry on that could be used without the ability to actually carry on trunks? As in only utilize the grabbing blocks with two hands mechanic? 

Thanks a lot for helping out!

Edited November 22, 2025 by fluffz

[fluffz]

On 11/21/2025 at 1:01 PM, Eepy_T1me said:

here's hoping then

This game is a very good teacher all in itself

[fluffz]

40 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I second this. Though most of the big cats are solitary, some will spawn in prides, like lions. And I'm not talking about just African lions either...

FotSA mods overall are great additions. While they can make hunting a little easier in some cases, some of the wildlife is NOT to be trifled with, like elephants and rhinos. If you can kill one, it's a lot of resources, and if you can manage to tame one it's a powerful animal to have work for you. But good luck doing that without getting stomped.

There's also a mod series that adds dinosaurs, though I'm not 100% sure if it's possible to get them working properly on the recent game version. That being said, if you want an ultimate caveman experience, that might be something worth looking into.

Yeah, I will have to dig trough what is offered here and try to incorporate selected animals, then try to balance their spawn rate. I am not so sure I am looking for a dinosaur period kind of stone age, more like how humans lived 1000-6000 thousand years ago in the northern part of Europe. Balance would be tricky tho. A snow lion on a tiny island where there is no time to even enter your raft will be a real thing. Especially when the supply of spears will be more scarce 

[LadyWYT]

34 minutes ago, fluffz said:

Yeah, I will have to dig trough what is offered here and try to incorporate selected animals, then try to balance their spawn rate.

You'll find the Biomes mod useful for this. That mod also makes it easier to go nuts with the flora mods, since you'll have things separated into proper regions and not spawning absolutely everywhere.

[fluffz]

I also looked into the configure everything mod, and it has been reported that it can not be used to reduce maximum stack sizes, due to some negative multiplier issue 

[fluffz]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

You'll find the Biomes mod useful for this. That mod also makes it easier to go nuts with the flora mods, since you'll have things separated into proper regions and not spawning absolutely everywhere.

It was such a long time since I used the flora mods. Does it also help in any capacity to increase the levels of foliage and diversity even in temperate and cold biomes? I can not remember if the flora mods made the game easier or not, but I have a vague memory of them mostly affecting warmer climate 

[fluffz]

 the Carryable Resin Log mod seems to dated to early 2022, I am not sure if it is safe to use anymore 

[LadyWYT]

25 minutes ago, fluffz said:

Does it also help in any capacity to increase the levels of foliage and diversity even in temperate and cold biomes?

They do, although it does depend in part on which you install, as some of them cover more tropical regions.

 

25 minutes ago, fluffz said:

I can not remember if the flora mods made the game easier or no

Kind of, although it depends on which ones you have, and whether or not you end up in the right region to take advantage of certain additions if you have Biomes installed. The added forage plants don't feel OP, but the New Zealand pack does add in a flax plant that is easy to find and harvest, which makes it easier to get your hands on twine. However, if you have Biomes installed, then you'd actually have to be in an Oceanic region in order to have access to that plant.

[Shoom]

5-10 player HP with 150% creature strength on permadeath? You'd have to wear full plate armor 24/7 just in case something sneezes in your general vicinity. 

[fluffz]

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

They do, although it does depend in part on which you install, as some of them cover more tropical regions.

 

Kind of, although it depends on which ones you have, and whether or not you end up in the right region to take advantage of certain additions if you have Biomes installed. The added forage plants don't feel OP, but the New Zealand pack does add in a flax plant that is easy to find and harvest, which makes it easier to get your hands on twine. However, if you have Biomes installed, then you'd actually have to be in an Oceanic region in order to have access to that plant.

I have taken a look at them now, and from a glance it seems like Floral Zones: Cosmopolitan Region gives some new flora to the colder regions. But from the descriptions of the other ones they look to add flora only to the warmer regions.

I see. that is good to know. Thank you for your advice