The issue with permanent surface instability

[Haranyan32]

i would like it changed, i'm currently playing with temporal stability off, because i found out too late that my base location was in a bad spot,  i was mostly exploring and rarely at my base until i got up to iron gear, and when needing to setup my farm, i was hanging around my base more and was confused as to why i was being attacked so often.

the problem is that turning off temporal stability, also changes how temporal storms work, so if you turn off the temporal stability to remove the negative temporal stability around your base, you also lose these cool world events that you need to fight and survive.

i love the temporal storms, i love losing temporal stability when exploring spooky story locations, but i can't have that, because i need to turn off stability or i'm almost constantly being attacked in my base when i'm trying to farm or feed animals.

Edited January 19 by Haranyan32

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, Haranyan32 said:

i'm almost constantly being attacked in my base when i'm trying to farm or feed animals.

You have to be staying there a lot longer than just farming and feeding animals. My farm is often unstable and I don't have any issues. I just make sure my forge area is stable because that is where I spend my time. On your next playthrough you just won't make that mistake. 

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Haranyan32 said:

the problem is that turning off temporal stability, also changes how temporal storms work, so if you turn off the temporal stability to remove the negative temporal stability around your base, you also lose these cool world events that you need to fight and survive.

Strange. To my knowledge, temporal stability is a separate mechanic from temporal storms, despite the two being somewhat related. Turning off temporal stability as a whole should still leave rifts and storms in place, I think, but they shouldn't drain temporal stability as there is no longer any stability to drain.

[Deadalus]

Hello everyone,

if have read trough your comments on my hunt of knowledge. After a year i tried to give this game another shot and it was fun. Gameplay time is now 10h and i have searched 1,5h about what happend to my base. 

I like the temporal stability mechanic. I do not know, how it is working, but i will learn, or so i thought. The gear in the middel of the interface is not good. It could change colour if something bad happens... getting grey, getting red, anything. "You have to know it" is not good enough of an answer to this. 

Also: My base has become unstable. 

Which could be a bug, or a normal thing. At the moment i think, the last temporal storm never endet mechanicaly. Weather is fine. Have sleeped two times now, just to test it. Which means also, my food has gone bad.

But as a beginner i have to read trough years of discussion (not this discussions, there are many other). 

I looked in the Handbook, which does not help: "If your temporal stability is dropping when on the surface, you might want to find another place to settle down." 

/worldconfig temporalStability false  -> the mechanic is now off. 

/worldconfig temporalStorms off   -> does not work, so its not a storm?

 

Off to the bugtracker. But could be a game mechanic. 

[MKMoose]

@LadyWYT I kind of get you, but I also kind of don't get you at all. The current implementation of surface instability gives a sense of uncertainty? It's unnerving, creepy, unnatural? Whatever you're getting out of surface instability, I just don't really see it.

I can see most of the concerns and can absolutely agree that they would have to be considered when making changes to stability, even if I don't see them as particularly significant issues. However, for surface instability to be in any real way engaging and memorable for most people, I think it simply cannot stay in its current state. Right now it's not problematic, because it's simple and generally inoffensive, but I would say that it goes to the point of being simplistic, as well as annoying when it occasionally matters and practically pointless otherwise.

I can't really predict and don't really have a preference for whether it gets a more comprehensive overhaul or just some of subtler changes including those that you haven't criticized, but I do believe that even introducing all of the suggestions I've mentioned in this thread (here) could still retain almost all of the current feel and impact of temporal instability while improving the game with very limited negative side effects. Everything would simply have to be designed, tweaked and balanced with the right goals in mind.

 

On 1/18/2026 at 5:20 PM, LadyWYT said:

I think it would be interesting for a challenge playthrough, but I don't think it would make surface instability better. I think it would make it quite aggravating to deal with, especially for newer players. One common complaint about temporal storms is that they interrupt whatever the player is doing and force them to do something else. While fluctuating stability that can never drain a player's stability fully might mean that the player can build in an unstable area without much issue, I don't think the player is going to be thrilled if they have to stop what they're doing in order to deal with a spike of higher instability. New players especially, I think, will get aggravated, as now there really isn't a solution other than "oh well, you just have to deal with it or turn it off, because it can happen anywhere at anytime".

I've noticed that when I think up a complex, intertwined system, then I'm sometimes surprised when people predictably don't share the same thought process and underlying assumptions. Feel free to try reevaluating dynamic instability as an extension of rift activity and temporal storms, and not as a direct evolution of unstable surface regions. Dynamic instability would still have a purpose closely tied to the current function of rift activity and storms even if it was a global effect with no local variation. At the same time, dynamic instability could also be tailored to improve upon the areas which currently are just permanently unstable. If that distinction doesn't do anything, then we're probably gonna have to let this topic rest, if only because I'm running out of arguments.

Also, there's another small thing, though you can mostly ignore it unless you want to pivot the discussion onto it: I would entirely permit only small fluctuations that would have little effect beyond making existing unstable areas pulse or wobble in a sense, slightly changing size and intensity. It would make them less permanent and allow to stay in intermittently unstable areas without eventually dropping to zero stability.

 

On 1/18/2026 at 5:20 PM, LadyWYT said:

[...] I really don't want to be pushed toward anxiety all the time.

I can understand this quite well based on my experience with some more hostile games, Don't Starve especially. I don't really know how to take it seriously, though, because it's the point of dynamic instability to avoid applying pressure on the player either all the time or not at all, and instead to pace it out better. As long as it doesn't impose routine maintenance or end up with some other major issues, the risk seems quite minimal to me, compared to other similar mechanics. Granted, dynamic instability may sometimes force itself onto the player instead of allowing to voluntarily face the threat, and I would say that's largely just a matter of balancing exactly how much pressure it applies so as to land neatly between being irrelevant and overwhelming for most players, not unlike wildlife, rifts and storms already have to be balanced.

Additionally regarding the pacing, whether that comes from UI, environmental clues or measurement and warning devices, you may quite regularly see indicators of instability fluctuations that point to an upcoming spike (or a storm) and keep you on edge, but equally you would be able to breathe for a time if you don't see any signs to worry about. There could even be some relatively clear signs of positive stability, which would let you know that you're in the clear for some period of time. I think it would be a really cool detail to have unique bird calls that indicate incoming storms or something of the sort, or that indicate safety. Real birds relay information using various calls, and even other animals recognize and listen for them (e.g. squirrels will hide when birds indicate that there's a hawk nearby, or something in that vein), so it could be fun to learn and listen for specific calls as part of the environmental clues about stability.

 

On 1/18/2026 at 5:20 PM, LadyWYT said:

I think most players would prefer clear, consistent rules for animal behavior so that they can reliably deal with the creatures, rather than play a constant guessing game with erratic behavior. 

As for the increased creature aggression, it is mentioned in lore and has yet to be fully explained, but I think the primary reason they're coded that way is to present more of a survival challenge to the player, at least for now.

I feel like this one goes right back to information availability to an extent, though perhaps diverges more onto a matter of predictability and mental effort. I personally don't like knowing that a wolf or bear is pretty much guaranteed to attack me once I'm within a certain radius of it, and I don't like knowing that it won't relent unless I mechanically force it to. It's generally not as exciting or engaging, plus it doesn't match realistic expectations.

I would go as far as to say that it's again more suitable for action-packed games where dispatching individually weak enemies can't take up too much of the player's time and attention. I think Vintage Story would benefit greatly from an approach slightly closer to something like horror games, where the goal is often to avoid or potentially outsmart the more dangerous enemies, and calculated risk is a much more prominent element of combat. This especially applies to bears, which would arguably work much better if they weren't as threatening at all times, but potentially even more dangerous than they are now when provoked. It would encourage the player to be more careful and to respect their space, but without the threat of immediate aggression.

If not make animals more aggressive in unstable areas, then at least more alert and more hostile or defensive, with growls or other warnings, but overt aggressiveness remaining the same or even decreased until provoked. Besides matters of aggressiveness, erratic behavior could also refer to more audiovisual aspects with less impact on gameplay, something like:

• more frequent and more distressed animal calls,
• frequently looking to the sides and changing direction when walking,
• generally restless movement - walking more and stopping for grazing or whatnot less often,
• occasionally running around with no clear reason,
• and so on.

 

On 1/18/2026 at 5:20 PM, LadyWYT said:

It's probably achievable with static zones, but fluctuating zones is probably a lot tougher to program in regards to animal behavior/plant qualities.

Certain indicators, including most changes related to soil and plants, would work well when purely tied to average stability, as a way to more easily tell whether an area is generally and not momentarily unstable. Certain other indicators, like particle effects in the air, unsettling ambient sounds, and perhaps erratic animal behavior, would serve better as signs of incoming spikes of instability. It kind of goes back to the two different purposes of dynamic instability - one closely tied to rifts and storms, and one related to unstable areas.

For the most part they should be easy to program by just adjusting a few parameters based on current stablity - the main difficulty comes from the fact that, ideally, every single animal in the game (or at least most of them) would have to be tweaked.

 

On 1/18/2026 at 5:20 PM, LadyWYT said:

The Devastation is a lot more serious than just a little bit of instability.

I know, but I see it as an extension of rifts, which are described in the handbook as "portals to the rust world". And either way, if monsters can come out of rifts, then why not something much smaller that would affect soil composition or have other downstream effects?

Edited January 19 by MKMoose
Note on pulsing or wobbling stability.

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, Deadalus said:

Also: My base has become unstable. 

Which could be a bug, or a normal thing. At the moment i think, the last temporal storm never endet mechanicaly. Weather is fine. Have sleeped two times now, just to test it. Which means also, my food has gone bad.

[...]

/worldconfig temporalStability false  -> the mechanic is now off. 

/worldconfig temporalStorms off   -> does not work, so its not a storm?

If you get the impression that your base has become unstable when it previously wasn't, then that's likely caused by it being in an area with patchy stability, stable in some places and unstable in others, which may have caused you to not notice any issues earlier as you were walking around nearby stable areas more.

Temporal storms normally last at most ~10 minutes (~5 in-game hours), and I think by default you can't sleep through them.

Assuming it's not actually a bug, then your gear in the middle of the screen should turn counterclockwise while you're in an unstable area, and progressively become more gray. Cyan gear means you yourself are stable, gray means you're unstable (you can hover your mouse over it to see a percentage). Clockwise rotation means you are in a stable area and your stability is going up, counterclockwise means it's an unstable area and you're getting more unstable. If your stability is very low, then it causes effects visually very similar to storms.

More things you can check:

• make sure you leave the world and load in again after changing the configuration through the commands, as they won't take effect until the world is reloaded,
• you can use the command /nexttempstorm to check the current storm status (it should say something like "the next temporal storm is in _ days" if storms are enabled but a storm is not active).

From there your primary options are probably:

• disable temporal stability, making sure to reload the world, and continue playing in your current base (this will also disable underground stability),
• put up with the instability and relocate your base to a more stable area,
• start a fresh world with this newfound knowledge for a smoother early experience.

 

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

To my knowledge, temporal stability is a separate mechanic from temporal storms, despite the two being somewhat related. Turning off temporal stability as a whole should still leave rifts and storms in place, I think, but they shouldn't drain temporal stability as there is no longer any stability to drain.

This is very much what world config implies if not states. If it ever works differently, then it's most likely a bug.

Edited January 19 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

I think by default you can't sleep through them.

I can confirm this is true for the Standard game mode, and since Wilderness Survival is harder it's going to keep the no-sleep rule in effect. Exploration doesn't have temporal stability or temporal storms enabled by default, so there's no need to worry about sleeping through them here.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

@LadyWYT I kind of get you, but I also kind of don't get you at all. The current implementation of surface instability gives a sense of uncertainty? It's unnerving, creepy, unnatural? Whatever you're getting out of surface instability, I just don't really see it.

I can see most of the concerns and can absolutely agree that they would have to be considered when making changes to stability, even if I don't see them as particularly significant issues. However, for surface instability to be in any real way engaging and memorable for most people, I think it simply cannot stay in its current state. Right now it's not problematic, because it's simple and generally inoffensive, but I would say that it goes to the point of being simplistic, as well as annoying when it occasionally matters and practically pointless otherwise.

Sorry, I don't really know how to explain it other than it's definitely a bit of a paradox preference, and the current implementation just hits the right notes for me.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I can understand this quite well based on my experience with some more hostile games, Don't Starve especially. I don't really know how to take it seriously, though, because it's the point of dynamic instability to avoid applying pressure on the player either all the time or not at all, and instead to pace it out better. As long as it doesn't impose routine maintenance or end up with some other major issues, the risk seems quite minimal to me, compared to other similar mechanics. Granted, dynamic instability may sometimes force itself onto the player instead of allowing to voluntarily face the threat, and I would say that's largely just a matter of balancing exactly how much pressure it applies so as to land neatly between being irrelevant and overwhelming for most players, not unlike wildlife, rifts and storms already have to be balanced.

The main reason I say it would increase anxiety, is that there's too much guesswork involved in figuring out how stable an area actually is. While yes, it would probably be more realistic for stability to fluctuate wildly instead of being static zones, I don't think it would be very fun to have no safety at all or otherwise have to devote a lot of time to mapping fluctuations to determine which areas are safe and which aren't. If I enter an area that is only slightly stable, is it actually stable most/all of the time, or did I just happen to pay a lucky visit and the chunk itself is unstable most of the time(and thus a bad spot to settle)? Same case with slightly unstable chunks--is it an unstable chunk, or is it actually stable most of the time? The really bad areas would likely still be immediately noticeable, same as the really good areas, but overall I think it would make picking a good spot a real hassle.

With static zones, I can enter an area and figure out very quickly whether it's stable, neutral, or unstable, and then plan accordingly since I know what to expect.

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Feel free to try reevaluating dynamic instability as an extension of rift activity and temporal storms, and not as a direct evolution of unstable surface regions. Dynamic instability would still have a purpose closely tied to the current function of rift activity and storms even if it was a global effect with no local variation. At the same time, dynamic instability could also be tailored to improve upon the areas which currently are just permanently unstable. If that distinction doesn't do anything, then we're probably gonna have to let this topic rest, if only because I'm running out of arguments.

I'm not really gonna try given that I just don't really think changing the stability zones from static to dynamic is a good idea. The best implementation that really comes to mind for me there is merging rift activity and temporal instability into one mechanic and having static zones of rift weather instead. That is, Calm zones don't spawn monsters, while Medium zones will spawn a moderate of monsters. Apocalyptic zones, of course, are very rare and obviously not nice places to visit. The underground could range between High-Low, with the rare Calm haven and the deepest depths being somewhere between High-Apocalyptic on average.

However, I'm not really sold on the idea, as it feels too clunky to really implement very well, and doesn't leave as many options for customization as the options that are currently available. 

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

And either way, if monsters can come out of rifts, then why not something much smaller that would affect soil composition or have other downstream effects?

Maybe if it was strictly temporary, or there was a setting to turn off those changes, permanent or temporary. Corrupted spots in the rare specific locations are neat to find, but I'm not really a fan of things that alter the world like that. It's the main reason I started turning off lightning fires after playing with the mechanic enabled for a while; I don't like finding bald spots in the grass or charred forests. The damage adds up after a while and there's not really a way to fix it outside of creative.

If it's just a temporary cosmetic change, it's a bit more tolerable. But even so, it's not really something I'd want hanging around very long at all, and it seems a little over the top(to me).

[Shoom]

Underground I think the stability mechanic works great, it makes deep mining creepy and dangerous, something you really want to prepare for properly before doing, it keeps you on edge, panicking and getting lost is a real threat, it's a tense and memorable experience.

I agree with others in this thread though that the surface instability mechanic in comparison, could use some work. It's not a very engaging mechanic and mainly seems to confuse and frustrate a lot of new players. I think a surface instability overhaul would be good for the game eventually.

Maybe unstable surface regions could have some unique large surface and underground ruins? Maybe trees and vegetation growing in peculiar ways or somehow visually affected by the instability, maybe these areas could be a reliable place to find gears, otherwise uncommon items and stronger drifter variants? As of now unstable regions practically just act as "no-build zones".

I think players should have some reason to wander into and explore these places, making them engage with the temporal stability mechanic above ground. As of now, once you've settled in a stable region you don't really have to interact with the mechanic again as the gear depletion is insignificant, you don't have to take a detour just because an area is unstable, you really have to go out of your way to get your temporal stability dangerously low above ground.

In summation, I think unstable regions need some challenge and reward to them, and more explicit signs that indicate that "it's likely not the best idea to settle here".

 

[MKMoose]

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Sorry, I don't really know how to explain it other than it's definitely a bit of a paradox preference, and the current implementation just hits the right notes for me.

You're good, different preference is a perfectly fine justification. At most it's just something to keep in mind when people suggest changes that you're not a fan of.

I'm interpreting the temporal mechanics in some sense as postapocalyptic or horror elements, while trying to stay in line with the current game direction as much as possible. It's supposed to be a world haunted by eldritch horrors, after all.

 

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The main reason I say it would increase anxiety, is that there's too much guesswork involved in figuring out how stable an area actually is. While yes, it would probably be more realistic for stability to fluctuate wildly instead of being static zones, I don't think it would be very fun to have no safety at all or otherwise have to devote a lot of time to mapping fluctuations to determine which areas are safe and which aren't. If I enter an area that is only slightly stable, is it actually stable most/all of the time, or did I just happen to pay a lucky visit and the chunk itself is unstable most of the time(and thus a bad spot to settle)? Same case with slightly unstable chunks--is it an unstable chunk, or is it actually stable most of the time? The really bad areas would likely still be immediately noticeable, same as the really good areas, but overall I think it would make picking a good spot a real hassle.

If balanced well, a properly dangerous area could easily have clear enough signs (environmental indicators, or if not that then maybe just permanent negative stability), so that you wouldn't have to worry about an area that seems good actually being bad. You may have to double-check an area if it's initially unstable but might actually be fine on average, but you wouldn't get kicked in the balls just because you entered an unstable area at the wrong time when there were no signs of it (except when the player simply doesn't notice inditators which are actually there, that is, but the same can be said about the current unstable areas).

 

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Maybe if it was strictly temporary, or there was a setting to turn off those changes, permanent or temporary. Corrupted spots in the rare specific locations are neat to find, but I'm not really a fan of things that alter the world like that. It's the main reason I started turning off lightning fires after playing with the mechanic enabled for a while; I don't like finding bald spots in the grass or charred forests. The damage adds up after a while and there's not really a way to fix it outside of creative.

If it's just a temporary cosmetic change, it's a bit more tolerable. But even so, it's not really something I'd want hanging around very long at all, and it seems a little over the top(to me).

Whether the environmental changes are purely cosmetic or more functional, I think it misses the point to liken them to fire from lightning. They are generally supposed to add more flavor to world generation or serve as a mostly audio or visual effect, not be in any way destructive. I personally turn off fire from lightning as well, because it's just not a good mechanic by itself. It would be a bit better if plants or trees could regrow naturally.

Effects in unstable areas also shouldn't be accumulative, because they've already had a couple hundred years to accumulate. That accumulation over a long timeframe is why I'm talking about soil composition and different flora and fauna.

I would say that environmental effects of instability should in many regards be likened more to something like strong winds during natural storms in the case of momentary instability spikes, or to something like climate indicators (different climates have different fauna and flora irrespective of temporary conditions) in the case of unstable areas.

 

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm not really gonna try given that I just don't really think changing the stability zones from static to dynamic is a good idea. The best implementation that really comes to mind for me there is merging rift activity and temporal instability into one mechanic and having static zones of rift weather instead. That is, Calm zones don't spawn monsters, while Medium zones will spawn a moderate of monsters. Apocalyptic zones, of course, are very rare and obviously not nice places to visit. The underground could range between High-Low, with the rare Calm haven and the deepest depths being somewhere between High-Apocalyptic on average.

However, I'm not really sold on the idea, as it feels too clunky to really implement very well, and doesn't leave as many options for customization as the options that are currently available. 

I can't help but keep getting the impression that you're looking at my pancakes and saying you don't want waffles. Or at least saying that you don't want the pankaces spicy for some reason. I might try explaining it better at some point, but for now I think I'll let it marinate. If not this, there's other ideas to improve surface instability which don't get the same pushback.

Edited January 20 by MKMoose
Clarify some points.

[Deadalus]

Hello everyone,

i am not able to Quote MKMoose as she/he did for me. Thank you!

I came to the conclusion, that i probably always was in an temporal instable area. Which is sad. 

The information, to reloading the world and all, it did that. And some other things. But it is a good practice to check, if the user does the right things.  Next Storm Check was 12 days. Its an temporal instable region. I managed to live there for 9h! With the hunting and all, it was rare that i stayed in my house. Which explained why i didnt drain my gear earlier. 

I dont know when i will start playing again in a new world. There are other things in the world to do, and i dont know if vintage story has others mechanics like this. Which you have to look out for. I would remove this mechanic with a mod because ... why even implement a mechanic like this. I think most agrees: The gear turns counter clockwise/counterclockwise is not enough. 10h to learn this.

Thank you for your help. 

 

Have a good day!

[Zane Mordien]

2 hours ago, Deadalus said:

I came to the conclusion, that i probably always was in an temporal instable area. Which is sad. 

Most likely. It's tied to the seed and it doesn't change with time. 

[LadyWYT]

17 hours ago, Deadalus said:

I would remove this mechanic with a mod

You don't need a mod to remove temporal stability. /worldconfig temporalStability false will turn off the temporal stability mechanic entirely, so that all you have to worry about are rifts and storms, if those are enabled(there are separate commands to turn these off). Simply reload the world after running the command in order to apply the change.

If you're looking to disable temporal stability on the surface specifically, then you will need a mod for that as there is no vanilla option for that currently.