Temperature reading is misleading...

[Zak DaRak]

So, I've been trying to find the most "realistic" settings on which to play VS (hunger rate, spoil rate, cold hardiness, etc) and have found that the temperature shown on your character menu is simply not accurate... Unless you're at sea level. The temperature shown will increase or decrease based on your elevation, but the perceived temperature seems static dependent on your location and entirely disregards your elevation. I have tested this.

I saw something about this on the wiki when it came to preserving food, it said that storage vessels used the temperature at your location's sea level to calculate their preservation rate. I wasn't too bothered by this, but this is apparently how your character calculates their body warmth also. It seems odd to me that the temperature shown would increase or decrease based on elevation when the real temperature itself seems not to change at all, which makes me think this is unintended. This really breaks immersion when one decides to climb a mountain and finds themselves warming up at its peak simply because they were headed south while doing so. I saw a bug report similar to this, claiming that their character simply never got cold, and the report was marked as non-reproduceable. I'm hoping this post is seen by the right eyes and some sort of remedy can be implemented, because as is, the temperature shown on the character sheet can simply be disregarded unless you're at some arbitrary elevation. (~111 is sea level for default height worlds, ~140 for larger worlds, etc). Not many games have the whole body temperature thing going on, and I love it, so I would like to see it improved.  

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Zak DaRak said:

The temperature shown will increase or decrease based on your elevation

Well, yes...because that is how outside temperature works. It's colder at altitude than it is at sea level, however, the change will be a bit more pronounced in-game than it will be in real life, simply because the game world is scaled down.

 

2 hours ago, Zak DaRak said:

I saw something about this on the wiki when it came to preserving food, it said that storage vessels used the temperature at your location's sea level to calculate their preservation rate. I wasn't too bothered by this, but this is apparently how your character calculates their body warmth also.

The player's body temperature, to my knowledge, is calculated based on the current outside temperature in that location, compared to the player's cold hardiness in addition to warmth bonuses from equipped clothing items. By default, the player's cold hardiness is 0 C, which means the ambient temperature needs to be around freezing before the player's body temperature will start to drop. Wearing warmer clothing, staying dry, and staying out of high winds will help prevent body temperature from dropping as well.

As for spoilage timers in things like storage vessels, to my knowledge this is also calculated based on the current outside temperature at that location. So if it's a cold mountaintop, the spoilage timer should be ticking much slower than it would in warmer climates at sea level.

[Zak DaRak]

26 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

As for spoilage timers in things like storage vessels, to my knowledge this is also calculated based on the current outside temperature at that location. So if it's a cold mountaintop, the spoilage timer should be ticking much slower than it would in warmer climates at sea level.

Exactly, it should be, but it is not. That's what I'm getting at. If 0,0,0 (or whatever sea level would be) was 1C, one's body temp would still warm up at 0,200,0 (or whatever 200 above sea level would be) being -20C for example. Elevation seems not to be calculated, though it shows the outside temperature change on the character menu, it doesn't truly change for calculating spoilage or body warmth.

Edited December 18, 2025 by Zak DaRak

[LadyWYT]

59 minutes ago, Zak DaRak said:

Elevation seems not to be calculated, though it shows the outside temperature change on the character menu, it doesn't truly change for calculating spoilage or body warmth.

And what I'm trying to say is that's not been my experience; as far as I'm aware, the temperature is working as intended. That's not to say there couldn't be a bug in the code, but I do find it a bit unlikely based on what I've seen.

Just to make sure all the bases are covered on spoilage though--the spoilage rate for player inventory, in my experience, is a set rate, and will not be affected by outside weather.