I Need More Data On Temporal Storm Spawns

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

My understanding is this: If I'm standing in the water, with two air blocks above the water where I'm standing, I can prevent spawns in that tile by putting a dry grass fireplace starter on the floor within the water; BUT, I also need to place a torch on the wall above the water, otherwise monsters will be able to spawn on that tile. I can also stop spawns by placing animal fat bowl lanterns on the floor of the tile in front of me, to make it so they can't spawn there, because it's a 1x2 with something on the lower block. My understanding is that they need 2 blocks of air above any floor surface to spawn. I was in a panning shelter, little 1x3 hallway, during a medium temporal storm. Water does not prevent spawns, so the reason I died is because I forgot to put a torch above my head over the water pit I was standing in while panning. Is this all correct? Basically, if there's an object on the floor with a hitbox, and there's only 1 air block above it, with a ceiling above that air block, then monsters cannot spawn in my panning hut? I forgot to place a torch above my head as I said before, and I just want to know for sure that I have the correct understanding of these spawns for next time. Thanks in advance

Edited December 9, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Professor Dragon]

Not exactly. You've encountered the "Build a better mousetrap" part of Vintage Story.

Temporal Storms disable most spawning rules.

Rust monsters will check to see if they can fit into the space for their size.

Since a few versions ago, putting some objects on the ground no longer counts to reduce height, such as loose stones or grass.
See drifter.json: insideBlockCodes: ["air", "tallgrass-*", "loosestones-*"],

I think the best that people have found is to make a chiselled space just big enough for the player. But I haven't checked the code.
I don't know which bit of code this was pulled from, but it may well be correct:

" Storm drifters ignore normal spawning rules entirely, and spawn in a block above topmost (relative to their randomized vertical coordinate, rather than the total column - regular roof won't help you) non-air block in the area, and try to spawn immediately if said randomized coordinate was not above air.
However, they do check for collision. Their collision box is 0.6 units wide and 1.3 units high, however the spawn code checks for 0.8 units wide and 1.4 units high - for comparison, a player's default hitbox is 0.6 wide and 1.85 high, and modified by animations (while I can't actually tell how high a sneaking player is because of that, it's certainly higher than 1.4 units).

Or in other words: if you want storm drifter protection, you shouldn't be placing rocks, you should be building columns that leave just barely enough space for you to pass between them. "

And this, now also out of date post, has a similar "glass box" idea:

Here is the REGULAR spawn code. As stated, I'm not sure where the Temporal Storm modifications are, but in short, I think it just relaxes the "where" and just does a collision check for size . . . which again I'm not sure where it is.

LONG STORY SHORT - Barring a helpful soul doing some code reading for us, my recommendation is to take your preferred setup over to a Creative World, turn on a Temporal Storm, switch over to Survival and see what happens. Then repeat, oh, say, 50 times.   The Devs. don't really seem to want you to be safe during a Storm. I've disabled them for now.
 

 

 

[Zane Mordien]

If I'm sitting out the storm i typically just do the 1x1x4 area with a door at ground level and a hatch in top with ladders inside. Does it stop spawns? I don't know, but the odds of spawning in that small area are pretty low.

Looks like you had extremely bad luck. Just remember, Whatever the latest META way to handle a storm is will get patched out, so you just have to live with the small risk. The devs don't want you to ignore the storm or be 100% safe in the storm. 

Edited December 9, 2025 by Zane Mordien

[Broccoli Clock]

I still see people saying "put things on the floor it'll stop them spawning" and for me that seems crazy as all you need to do is be in a fairly smallish space with a torch and they'll not spawn near you at all.

The first temporal storms I tend to just sit them out in my house, it's a torch lit 7x5 space and only once out of 5 temporal storms did anything spawn inside that area. Of those storms 3 were light, 2 were moderate.

Once I get settled I tend to make a "horde base", which will be nothing more than a defensible block area (norm 3x3) with a raised path that channels mobs in, with pit kilns placed along their route. As the enemies approach, they'll get set on fire, and if I have done the build right then I have the reach with a spear and be able to harvest them for loot without them getting me (although those double headed sure have some range).

The only slight downside of that is you need an unfired clay item to place in order to create the fire kiln. You could use a fire pit as it needs nothing in it's "inventory" but a pit kiln lasts considerably longer and certainly longer than any storm will. I also believe that because the pit kiln is level with the ground, whereas the fire pit is raised above it, the mobs do not see it as a "problem block" for walking on. If I have fire clay, I'll use a single (unfired) fire clay brick as the pit kiln, as I need them for the bloomery anyway.

[LadyWYT]

Yeah, going along somewhat with what others here have already said, if I don't have the equipment to handle the temporal storm head-on, I'll wait it out indoors. Small rooms tend to work the best, especially if they have storage or decorative clutter as that seems to deter spawns. The room should also have some light so you can see what you're doing. Last but not least, while it's best to hide in a small room, you don't want the room to be too small or else you won't have space to maneuver should something spawn in there with you.

In other words, the main idea here is to worry less about achieving absolute safety(this is only going to happen if you switch to creative or turn the storms off) and more about creating a secure space to easily defend yourself in while underequipped. A monster might still spawn, but it's much easier to handle a single monster than it is to try to battle a horde of them.

[Maelstrom]

How to prepare for a storm.   Well, preparing a space big enough to fight a high level drifter is going to big enough to actually encourage drifters to spawn.  I've found that facing a double headed drifter requires a good 10 blocks to toss some spears at it from at least a minimally safe distance.  I could arguably build a 1x15 corridor to serve such purpose, but it also makes it darned likely I'll get a one-shot opportunity to return to spawn, too.

I've found in 1.20+ that a 1x2 glass hut, two blocks high is sufficient to ride out a storm without violent interruption.  1x2 so that I'm not cooking my feet on the fire to keep me warm during those storms in the dead of wintery night.

[Professor Dragon]

I would like if it was possible to build a secure space during temporal storms - as part of the game design. It would seem to be a good thing.
I get what the devs. are going for by making you always have the chance of facing something uncounterable to fulfill the horror vibe, but I'm not totally on-board with that.
Play for long enough, and the "spawn proofing" will fail.

So far the options are:

• Cower in a very small space
  Hope that you've built it small enough and filled with enough stuff that nothing will spawn in there with you.
• Cower in a small space, but fight anything that joins you.
  Hope that something beyond your power level doesn't appear.
• Stand and fight in a large space.
  Hope your skills and inventory are up to it.
• Run.
  Hope you don't run into more trouble than you're leaving.
• Disable Temporal Storms.
  Miss out on a gameplay experience which is pretty cool.
• Cheese it.
  Build the cheesiest monster farm you can, and hope the Devs don't patch it out.
• End Game Rift Ward Protection
  Which basically comes at the wrong time, and is not really practical or sustainable.

At the other end of the game design scale, we have Minecraft where it is "Sleep in a bed and avoid the whole situation if you want to, or stay up and face it if you want to. The choice is yours every time!"

As much as the Devs. love the uncounterable idea, I think that there should be an early game avoidance measure.

Such as:

• "Monsters can't spawn in a Room within n tiles of the player during a Temporal Storm." Such as say, three or four tiles. That lets you set up a little secure bunker which is big enough to be getting on with something during a storm. You deserve the safety from the your hard work put into constructing that bunker!
• Or provide something like a "house key".  A small personal Rift Ward necklace that  you can place on the ground within a Room, and that provides 3 - 4 tiles where a Drifter can't spawn for the duration of the storm. Once placed, you can't pick it up again until the storm ends.

 

Professor Dragon.

EDIT
I missed out mentioning sailboats, but it is probably only a matter of time before they introduce an eldritch kraken to counter sailboats in temporal storms.

Edited December 9, 2025 by Professor Dragon

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

As much as the Devs. love the uncounterable idea, I think that there should be an early game avoidance measure.

I actually disagree here; it should be a Jonas tech option the player can unlock and craft later in the game. There are still measures that allow the player to be relatively safe in the early game, but guaranteed security from a disaster like temporal storms is really something the player ought to have to invest significant resources in.

[Professor Dragon]

45 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I actually disagree here; it should be a Jonas tech option the player can unlock and craft later in the game. There are still measures that allow the player to be relatively safe in the early game, but guaranteed security from a disaster like temporal storms is really something the player ought to have to invest significant resources in.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the vast majority of the player base has never built a Jonas parts Rift Ward, and that there are few or no players who sustain a Rift Ward. It goes beyond "significant resources" into "not practically achievable" to get security.

Anyway, I acknowledge the alternate viewpoint. 

[TFT]

4 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

As much as the Devs. love the uncounterable idea, I think that there should be an early game avoidance measure.

"Monsters can't spawn in a Room within n tiles of the player during a Temporal Storm."

I like option 1. I think having spawns prevented in your immediate surroundings full stop should be sufficient for early game and not punish a new player for thinking their cellar is safe. The spawn radius can be tied to temporal stability too such that your "safe space" becomes smaller and shrinks to nill around half or a quarter stability. Not too much of an issue for light and maybe medium storms, but by heavy storms you will need to either sacrifice gears or kill monsters to recover stability because of how quickly it drains in those. By that point too you should be better equipped and prepared to participate in storms instead of hiding away. It feels like a much more elegant solution that gives a sense of progression and overcoming of danger. For later in the game I think there should be an expansion to the rift ward's functions to make storms weatherable. Like preventing spawns and reducing stability drain in its active area. It would act as a late game convenience so you can do more things around your base besides box yourself and alt tab if you dont want to go fighting.

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

but guaranteed security from a disaster like temporal storms is really something the player ought to have to invest significant resources in.

Agree and disagree. For late game I can get behind this, but the main issue is that it's just not a fun mechanic in the early to mid game. Once the novelty wears off you have a forced timeout where you do something else but play the game. If your only counterplay to RNG spawning a nightmare drifter next to you and sending you back to spawn is a 1x2 coffin to AFK in, then it's a crap mechanic. Even from a lore standpoint it begs the question why anyone is left alive after a few storms. I can imagine a high level drifter materializing into the family bunker will turn it into a blender real fast; but, if the temporal storm tapestry is anything to go by then I guess everyone uses the 1x2 AFK coffin. Either way, I think it's very telling that much of the discourse surrounding temporal storms are about ways to avoid interacting with it entirely. Cant imagine playing a hardcore game with it as it is. It is not a hot take to say it's an undercooked mechanic in need of a rework.

 

It's really cool in theory and I love the idea and feel of it. Adding to vintage story like emissions/blowouts do to STALKER, but in practice it's a novelty that turns into an annoyance. Your reward is you didn't die and burn one or more respawns getting spawn killed.

[Mowdan]

Huh? I just go into my base or a outpost when a storm hits.My main base is now large enough that things do sometimes spawn inside but during the storm I just wall it off and nothing gets to me... Then when I come out there might be a few guys stuck in some places but they can't move real well. Maybe I am more protected because I live in a hobbit hole style base.(It's a style of base where you dig inside a side of a hill or mountain. you have a door frame wall then the base is underground). Even doing something like smithing can be hard with the graphics all weird...

[Zane Mordien]

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

a Jonas tech option

That would require Jonas parts to be acquired at a reasonable rate. As we have discussed many times, they think Jonas parts are actually worth farming. Besides if you are geared enough to farm Jonas parts then the storms are more of a nuisance and not a large threat. 

 

I am close to just turning off the storms so I can just enjoy the game. They add nothing of value IMO. Once you have figured out how to survive they are just a gameplay time out.

Edited December 10, 2025 by Zane Mordien

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

That would require Jonas parts to be acquired at a reasonable rate. As we have discussed many times, they think Jonas parts are actually worth farming. Besides if you are geared enough to farm Jonas parts then the storms are more of a nuisance and not a large threat. 

It's worth bearing in mind that it's still quite easy to die in steel gear if you get jumped by corrupt/nightmare enemies, especially if they're shivers. I would also say that Jonas parts are worth hoarding simply due to the fact that they're difficult to come by, and even if there's not a lot of tech options now there certainly will be at some point later in development.

What's also worth noting is that rifts active during a temporal storm seem inclined to spawn high level bowtorn that don't despawn after the storm, as well as perhaps adding more spawns overall to the storm itself. A rift ward is fairly cheap when it comes to Jonas tech, and well worth the investment when it comes to protecting areas from rifts. A single temporal gear will power one for 20 days, or even longer if you turn it off when it's not needed.

The terminus teleporter removes the need to reset spawn point almost entirely, since for the price of a temporal gear it will teleport you back to your last point of death. It's expensive to build, but a useful thing to have around.

2 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

I am close to just turning off the storms so I can just enjoy the game. They add nothing of value IMO. Once you have figured out how to survive they are just a gameplay time out.

Which is entirely fair, and why the options to turn them off or sleep through them exist. I'm the opposite way; I enjoy them because they make the world feel believably dangerous and twisted. They're also a lot of fun with mods like SlowTox(which gives a benefit to alcohol consumption).

[Zane Mordien]

25 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm the opposite way; I enjoy them because they make the world feel believably dangerous and twisted.

When you first play the game I see your point, but after awhile the storm is just an annoyance. I still haven't turned them off because I'm stubborn, but the more I think about it... I should since it's just boring to me. Do they really add anything to your game play after 200+ storms? Lol just a wild guess. 

Ive gathered so many Jonas parts and never had enough to build anything and that was with the better ruins mod, which adds more opportunities for looting them. 

Edited December 10, 2025 by Zane Mordien

[LadyWYT]

Just now, Zane Mordien said:

Do they really add anything to your game play after 200+ storms? Lol just a wild guess.

To me? Yes!  But like I said, the main reason I enjoy them(in spite of the inconvenience they often pose) is that they make the world feel believable. If time itself got broken due to past events, it only makes sense there are going to be raging temporal anomalies that occur every so often. They're similar to seasons and rift activity in that regard; I can't control them, so I have to plan my activities around them as a result. Being caught out in the wilderness with a heavy storm bearing down has resulted in a handful of interesting multiplayer situations.

I can't say the same for other games though, when it comes to taking their worlds seriously. Skyrim is a primary offender that comes to mind, especially with the Dawnguard expansion. It started off very strong, in that vampires would start raiding towns after a certain time, which made the advertised threat believable. However, in the Special Edition, those raids wound up disabled--whether that was a deliberate choice or a bug, I don't know. While it was nice to not have to worry about NPC deaths, it rendered the entire premise of the DLC utterly laughable. Rather difficult to take the talk of a looming vampire menace seriously, when there's no vampire activity actually occurring.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

I'm 99.99% sure that putting dry grass on the ground as though you were about to make a campfire stops spawns on that tile, as long as there's only one air block above it and the next block after that is a roof block. I know people say it was updated, but I'm not one to deny what my eyes have seen! I've had countless temporal storms and the only time I've ever had an enemy spawn in my house was when I found holes in my spawn-proofing efforts, like floors without grass on it

Edited December 10, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

I do think it should be possible for players to be safe from storms in the early-game, through at least some means, even if it's through spawn-blocking cheese. How else are we supposed to play permadeath as I do, right? After all, "any port in a storm". We have the storms, we need a viable port. I personally think there should be land-claim blocks like in 7 days to die, maybe a maximum of two per player on any server, and the claims are a 10x10x10 space that blocks spawns in that area, something like that, with variable sizes. You could even make it so that a land-claim takes 15 minutes to "activate" after being placed, to prevent player exploitation when caving or something

Edited December 10, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[LadyWYT]

37 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

How else are we supposed to play permadeath as I do, right?

I will note that the game is not designed around a permadeath playstyle. The player's ability to respawn is actual canon, and not just a gameplay feature.