Potential visual difference between stable and unstable areas

[LadyWYT]

So I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think I may have just stumbled upon a legitimate visual difference between stable and unstable surface areas. When messing around in 1.22, I noticed faint particles floating about in the air near my base. They aren't insects, and I don't think it's a new effect as I seem to recall seeing such particles in previous game versions but never really paid them any mind as I thought maybe it was just some sort of dust or other ambience. When I stopped to really think about it though, the particles seemed remarkably similar to the temporal ambience in certain story locations, and thus I started to wonder.

I visited the nearest unstable area to see if the particles were there, and they were not. The stable areas nearby, however, did have the particles, save for the stable chunk that was rather windy. I suspect the wind and related particles might overwrite the strange ambience, so on a calmer day those particles might be present.

Here is a shot of the sky in an unstable area. There are no particles to be seen.

And here is a shot of the sky in a stable area. Notice the faint particles floating around. As I said before, I'm not completely sure that these particles are temporal ambience, but it would seem that may be the case. I'll have to start paying more attention between the stable and unstable areas.

[MKMoose]

Sent me hunting through the code, but I think those are referred to as summer air particles, spawning in warm and rainy areas while it's not raining, wind speed is low and primarily in daylight. Got my hopes up there. 

[Dark Thoughts]

Maybe I'm too Thaumcraft influenced, but my hope for visual indicators of unstable areas would be something akin to Thaumcraft's taint & taint biome (which, IIRC, had Vis instead of stability) - but with rust features.
The more unstable an area is, the more rust features is has, starting from small patches of rust layers like in locust nests, all the way to very corrupted land like that around the tower with a dusty rust-esque air. Because to me it would make sense that in unstable areas the rust world sort of seeps into / merges with our own.

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Sent me hunting through the code, but I think those are referred to as summer air particles, spawning in warm and rainy areas while it's not raining, wind speed is low and primarily in daylight. Got my hopes up there. 

Gotcha. This would make sense, given that it is summer time and the times I recall seeing them in the past it's been in warm weather. That being said, it is a bit strange that the particles are only present in certain areas, despite the areas being pretty much the same temperature.

 

3 hours ago, Dark Thoughts said:

Maybe I'm too Thaumcraft influenced, but my hope for visual indicators of unstable areas would be something akin to Thaumcraft's taint & taint biome (which, IIRC, had Vis instead of stability) - but with rust features.
The more unstable an area is, the more rust features is has, starting from small patches of rust layers like in locust nests, all the way to very corrupted land like that around the tower with a dusty rust-esque air. Because to me it would make sense that in unstable areas the rust world sort of seeps into / merges with our own.

I'd really hope not, as that's way too obvious and removes all the thought from figuring out where to settle and paying attention to one's stability in general. It also makes the world as a whole look explicitly unnatural. The hotbar cog is noticeable enough to watch easily from the corner of one's eye, but also limited to a specific area of the screen's border, so it's relatively easy to forget as well.

As a mod though, sure, why not. It'd be interesting to play that way a time or two, but it's definitely not something I'd want to play with all the time. I like that the world feels natural as a whole on the surface, and it's not until you encounter specific things or specific places that you get reminded that some things are amiss.

[Dark Thoughts]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I'd really hope not, as that's way too obvious and removes all the thought from figuring out where to settle and paying attention to one's stability in general. It also makes the world as a whole look explicitly unnatural.

It already is completely obvious anyway, that's not the point. And the world IS explicitly unnatural thanks to the temporal shift that caused this, this would just be a way to visualize this fact better and make unstable areas more interesting.

[LadyWYT]

Just now, Dark Thoughts said:

It already is completely obvious anyway, that's not the point.

The hotbar cog is fairly obvious, yes, but like I said before, it's also fairly easy to forget about since it only takes up a small portion of the screen. Visuals that cover the entire screen, however, are pretty much impossible to ignore unless they're extremely subtle...which kinda defeats the purpose if the intent is to make unstable areas more obvious.

 

2 minutes ago, Dark Thoughts said:

And the world IS explicitly unnatural thanks to the temporal shift that caused this, this would just be a way to visualize this fact better and make unstable areas more interesting.

Parts of the world are unnatural, but the world as a whole appears to be mostly natural, outside of a few specific locations and events like rifts/temporal storms. That is, the unnatural parts remain in the background, for the most part, and aren't sitting there staring the player in the face. Placing locust nests, rusty debris, and weird rusty textures around an unstable area like Thaumcraft did with taint would make the unstable areas extremely noticeable, yes, but then the world as a whole just doesn't feel natural and the player's not lulled into a false sense of security as a result. It also makes it pretty much impossible for unstable areas to ever catch players off guard as well, which in my opinion isn't really ideal.

The more ideal design, to me, is a beautiful, natural world that's inviting to explore and interact with, with some unnatural elements in the background that will catch the player off-guard occasionally, and provide brief moments of suspense in areas where the unnatural is highly concentrated. That is, part of the reason certain story locations have the impact that they do, is that the anomalies within are quite rare, and specific to those locations. If such anomalies were absolutely everywhere, then such things would just become...common...and not really be interesting to find anymore because, well, they're everywhere.

[Dark Thoughts]

30 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

which kinda defeats the purpose

The purpose of what? I don't think there's any intention to unstable areas being subtle for the sake of being subtle.

30 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Placing locust nests

I never said anything about placing locust nests. They're not directly part of the rust world so that would not even make sense for the lore. I just gave the example of locust nests because that's where you usually find rust layers on natural blocks.

33 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The more ideal design, to me, is a beautiful, natural world that's inviting to explore and interact with, with some unnatural elements in the background that will catch the player off-guard occasionally, and provide brief moments of suspense in areas where the unnatural is highly concentrated.

I don't really see how my suggestion would change that. It would just add visual variety, which would, imo, further enhance the otherwise fairly repetitive sights in the world, and make unstable areas more immersive and more than just an annoyance. As they are right now, they might as well be gone. They have no flavor, no purpose, other than prohibiting you from building in certain locations.

[LadyWYT]

14 minutes ago, Dark Thoughts said:

The purpose of what? I don't think there's any intention to unstable areas being subtle for the sake of being subtle.

I disagree. The unstable areas are hazards that can sneak up on players that aren't paying attention. In my experience, it's quite doable to hang around in one for a day or two before needing to leave. If one doesn't pay attention though, they may drop more stability than intended, or otherwise go venturing into caves or potentially even a temporal storm with a decent chunk of their stability missing.

In short, yes, it is subtle, but that's also part of the appeal, at least to me. There's just enough hazard there to require a little extra planning and caution when dealing with those areas, but they aren't going to be eyesores that require no thought to avoid.

19 minutes ago, Dark Thoughts said:

I never said anything about placing locust nests. They're not directly part of the rust world so that would not even make sense for the lore. I just gave the example of locust nests because that's where you usually find rust layers on natural blocks.

Fair, but in turn I was using that as part of my example as well, on why I don't really like the suggestions I've seen about changing visuals about unstable areas.

 

20 minutes ago, Dark Thoughts said:

I don't really see how my suggestion would change that.

Rusty metal textures aren't natural textures, same as rusty metal scraps and other things related to the Rust World. Rust is a natural process, yes, but when you find stuff like that out in the woods that's generally someone's garbage dump, or a long-abandoned residence. That is, it's man-made, and not natural. In the case of Rust World corruption, that's not natural either, so if I see it scattered around in pockets everywhere, that are a common find, then the world is going to feel less like a natural living world that I'm trying to survive in(with horror elements as a backdrop) and more like a standard videogame setting with omnipresent monsters and horror features. 

In short, it ain't my cup of tea.

[Thorfinn]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

it's also fairly easy to forget about since it only takes up a small portion of the screen.

LOL. Or at least CTS (Chuckles to self.) Ran into that last night. Completely forgot to check, and got busy with creating fields and getting pit kilns going when I noticed that the world started going nuts. That cog was going as fast as it does down in the iron deposits of the world. Still don't care. I rarely spend all night in one place anyway.

[EDIT]

I wouldn't mind the occasional scrap here and there, kind of like the occasional rusty gears. Would that be enough of a cue?

Edited February 9 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

31 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I wouldn't mind the occasional scrap here and there, kind of like the occasional rusty gears. Would that be enough of a cue?

If there has to be an obvious visual cue, this would definitely be preferable to some kind of screen overlay, obvious textures, or obvious sound distortions. Visually, I just prefer the beauty of nature to be preserved throughout the world, with the story locations and other rare instances being the few exceptions to the rule. 

To cite Thaumcraft as an example that adds obvious messed up areas to the world; I did play with that mod several times, and it was interesting, but Minecraft also isn't a game that really tries to be rooted in realistic nature and process(despite some odd design decisions). So finding weird, whimsical, or downright creepy stuff scattered about is rather expected.

36 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

LOL. Or at least CTS (Chuckles to self.) Ran into that last night. Completely forgot to check, and got busy with creating fields and getting pit kilns going when I noticed that the world started going nuts. That cog was going as fast as it does down in the iron deposits of the world. Still don't care. I rarely spend all night in one place anyway.

Were you playing 1.21 or 1.22? If 1.22, what very likely happened is you stepped into a rift, or otherwise had one spawn on top of you. Outside of the cog drain, it's not currently possible to notice rifts otherwise(outside of a cluster of monster spawns if it's dark enough), as they're missing the graphics, sounds, and the cog spins clockwise for whatever reason.

[Thorfinn]

@LadyWYT, 1.22. Srsly? Yeah, it's quite possible there was one outside my wall then. Once I had all the kilns in place, there wasn't much space to move around in, so it could well be there was nowhere in there to get out of range.

[EDIT]

Quote

Visually, I just prefer the beauty of nature to be preserved throughout the world..

Yeah, me, too, mostly but IRL it's kind of fun to come across a rusted out old car or tractor when I'm wandering through woods.

Edited February 9 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

42 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

1.22. Srsly? Yeah, it's quite possible there was one outside my wall then. Once I had all the kilns in place, there wasn't much space to move around in, so it could well be there was nowhere in there to get out of range.

Seriously. https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/8032

It also seems to mess with the ambience cues, and low temporal stability seems to be lacking monster spawns as well as triggering health loss about as soon as the temporal storm effects of low stability trigger.

If you're trying to use a temporal gear to restore stability, it's also possible to hurt yourself without using the gear or restoring stability, if you release the mouse button too early.

46 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Yeah, me, too, mostly but IRL it's kind of fun to come across a rusted out old car or tractor when I'm wandering through woods.

Oh for sure, and it's the kind of experience I think would be perfect for procedural dungeons as a rare encounter. It's just not something I'd want to see scattered everywhere like a fantasy biome. I ran into similar issues with biome mods in Minecraft, now that I think about it, and even the newer pale garden biome in the vanilla game. The new biomes were fun to find and look at and all, but some were a definite eyesore, and the ones that were more likely to spawn monsters just added to the problem.

[Maelstrom]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I disagree. The unstable areas are hazards that can sneak up on players that aren't paying attention. In my experience, it's quite doable to hang around in one for a day or two before needing to leave. If one doesn't pay attention though, they may drop more stability than intended, or otherwise go venturing into caves or potentially even a temporal storm with a decent chunk of their stability missing.

Agreed.   In my previous 1.18/1.19 world that nice juicy Very High copper reading is smack dab in the middle of a HUGE unstable area that was strong instability on the surface!   It was a good 250 block radius.   By the time I sprinted to the mine, descended into the depths to prospect for the next ore deposit I was at 80% stability.   I could mine one deposit before having to evacuate at 25% (or less) and hopefully spring far enough away so guests didn't start hounding me.

@Thorfinn World height was not high enough to ladder up either.  It was the absolute WORST unstable zone I've ever encountered.

Just GREAT!  Now I have another silly story to write about.  Thanks LadyWYT!

 

 

Edited February 9 by Maelstrom

[MKMoose]

On 2/9/2026 at 4:22 PM, LadyWYT said:

That being said, it is a bit strange that the particles are only present in certain areas, despite the areas being pretty much the same temperature.

Yeah, that's probably because the particles strictly require at least 0.4 average rainfall, or because you were close to the temperature threshold.
 

On 2/9/2026 at 5:34 PM, LadyWYT said:

That is, part of the reason certain story locations have the impact that they do, is that the anomalies within are quite rare, and specific to those locations.

However, it seems that for some reason temporal stability is disabled in story locations. How unfortunate.

 

On 2/9/2026 at 6:41 PM, LadyWYT said:

The unstable areas are hazards that can sneak up on players that aren't paying attention. In my experience, it's quite doable to hang around in one for a day or two before needing to leave. If one doesn't pay attention though, they may drop more stability than intended, or otherwise go venturing into caves or potentially even a temporal storm with a decent chunk of their stability missing.

I would really like to see surface stability overhauled, but I honestly find these discussions about it kind of tiring and annoying. The main issue that I have with your argumentation is that the entire mechanic ends up hinging on whether the player is paying attention. If you want instability to catch the player off-guard and create this feeling of a pervasive, unfamiliar threat, then the first step practically has to be to remove the UI indicator or greatly reduce its reliability. Then the player will have to pay attention to their environment or create more specialized measurement devices, and there will be space for forgetting, missing clues, investigating and double-checking. From there, tension and immersion arise in very natural ways, much more suitable for eldritch horror.

One suggestion that I really liked was comparing stability to nuclear radiation (not unlike it's done in postapocalyptic settings like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.), pointing out that besides very obvious cases you really can't tell at first glance whether an area is irradiated, but that doesn't mean that the radiation has no direct or indirect effects on the fauna and flora in the region. And you can still have the site of a nuclear accident as a particularly unique story location.

One thing that gets to me about these discussions about stability is that details are not important at the design stage, and yet people tend to focus on them the most. What I like to focus on in cases like this is to settle on some basic assumptions, commonly including:

• a primary idea that defines the mechanic, e.g. "an ambient hazard that permeates the world and isn't easily noticeable",
• important goals regarding what these features aim to achieve and how they should interact with the player, e.g. "introduce tension and unnaturalness to the world", "catch the player off-guard occasionally",
• and constraints that keep everything in check, e.g. "don't impede builders on the surface", "make sure to keep everything clear enough for new players", "don't disrupt the natural appearance of the world in obvious ways"; development time and effort can also be an important constraint.

From there, a concrete set of features can be drawn up. Further details are largely just an execution of these assumptions, and in many cases if the design is coherent then everything will fall into place neatly.

One issue where this kind of goes off-track for me, which I think I've mentioned elsewhere, is that I genuinely don't understand how you see the current implementation of temporal stability as achieving some of the goals that you're saying it achieves. While preference is an acceptable explanation for enjoying a mechanic, I just don't see it as a significant argument once you've defined broadly what you think the mechanic should achieve. In my own experience, it just doesn't follow the "not easily noticeable" and "sometimes catch the player off-guard" ideas, at least not in a remotely satistying way due to the vastly different dynamics that it creates with different kinds of players. But that said, I've not seen you talk about any design-level goals or constraints that I would significantly disagree with.

 

22 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I wouldn't mind the occasional scrap here and there, kind of like the occasional rusty gears. Would that be enough of a cue?

20 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

[...] IRL it's kind of fun to come across a rusted out old car or tractor when I'm wandering through woods.

I do like the idea broadly, and I seem to recall a suggestion to replace trader huts in unstable areas with empty, ruined huts. A bunch of tiny structures and scattered items like abandoned campsites, ruined carts, lost baggage and so on could be added throughout the world, and some more recent ruins and remains would be fitting in unstable areas.

Edited February 10 by MKMoose
Phrasing and formatting.

[Thorfinn]

7 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I do like the idea broadly, and I seem to recall a suggestion to replace trader huts in unstable areas with empty, ruined huts. A bunch of tiny structures and scattered items like abandoned campsites, ruined carts, lost baggage and so on could be added throughout the world, and some more recent ruins and remains would be fitting in unstable areas.

OK, so long as it isn't in your face. Whatever cues you use should probably not only occur there, just at a higher spawn chance.

[Bruno Willis]

On 2/10/2026 at 10:55 AM, LadyWYT said:

Oh for sure, and it's the kind of experience I think would be perfect for procedural dungeons as a rare encounter. It's just not something I'd want to see scattered everywhere like a fantasy biome. I ran into similar issues with biome mods in Minecraft, now that I think about it, and even the newer pale garden biome in the vanilla game. The new biomes were fun to find and look at and all, but some were a definite eyesore, and the ones that were more likely to spawn monsters just added to the problem.

On 2/10/2026 at 10:03 AM, Thorfinn said:

Yeah, me, too, mostly but IRL it's kind of fun to come across a rusted out old car or tractor when I'm wandering through woods.

Imagine if ruins had their generation chance tied to temporal stability, so that if you saw a whole lot of ruins in one place, you'd know it was low stability. That makes them more exciting to explore, and lets you know you shouldn't build there unless you really want to.

It could also be the case for underground ruins - you're more likely to find them if you get into caves in unstable areas, but... you better be quick.

You'd still find ruins in stable areas, just not as often, and you'd probably get a slight uneasy feeling even if they were safe. That's how a seraph should feel, seeing remnants of their familiar world turned to ancient ruins.

Edited February 12 by Bruno Willis
Grammar

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, Bruno Willis said:

Imagine if ruins had their generation chance tied to temporal stability, so that if you saw a whole lot of ruins in one place, you'd know it was low stability. That makes them more exciting to explore, and lets you know you shouldn't build there unless you really want to.

It could also be the case for underground ruins - you're more likely to find them if you get into caves in unstable areas, but... you better be quick.

You'd still find ruins in stable areas, just not as often, and you'd probably get a slight uneasy feeling even if they were safe. That's how a seraph should feel, seeing remnants of their familiar world turned to ancient ruins.

That's pretty much what I'm expecting for procedural dungeons.  If monsters enjoy hanging out in unstable areas for whatever reason, then it makes sense that procedural dungeons, which should contain several monsters to fight, should also be unstable. The instability also adds another layer of challenge onto the dungeon since, as you've already said, the player can't linger indefinitely in those areas. It would probably also cut down on cheese strats a bit, since those tend to rely on the player spending a decent chunk of time to utilize said cheese.

[TFT]

If surface stability had something meaningful like being an indicator for more frequent ruins or dungeons then I'd be fine with it. Like mining it becomes a time limit on how long you can spend looting and exploring before needing to stabilize. But as it is, it's a "you cant build here because you just cant okay!" sign. That is if you're paying attention and aren't halfway into a build before you notice the obvious effects from low stability. Wouldn't be such an annoyance if it actually did something, but it affects the player and only the player. I see the argument made that "bro it's just like polluted land or something you just gotta put up with it bro!" but animals and traders are just fine.

What does it really accomplish in its current implementation besides be a noob trap?

Bigger in your face effects as has been suggested would be pretty cool and a draw of its own, but that would need a rework to how surface stability is generated since it would make it very ugly to see mini devastations pockmarking your world in random patches. Maybe scrap the current implementation and rework it as it's own biome or landform.

 

On 2/10/2026 at 4:02 AM, MKMoose said:

However, it seems that for some reason temporal stability is disabled in story locations. How unfortunate.

Probably so you can take your time and experience the story content without having to feel like you need to speedrun through it before you become instable, or miss the unique music tracks that play in those locations because it's overridden by the ambient droning from low stability. I dont think the library of the resonance archives would've had the intended awe factor if the whole thing was overlaid with tempstab-drain.ogg.

[LadyWYT]

On 2/10/2026 at 3:02 AM, MKMoose said:

However, it seems that for some reason temporal stability is disabled in story locations. How unfortunate.

Somehow I missed this when I read it initially. But I don't think stability is actually disabled in story locations. At least, not fully, perhaps. I think locations where the player is expected to be spending quite a bit of time might have stability "paused", so that it neither increases or decreases despite whichever way the cog is turning. Smaller locations where the player isn't expected to spend a lot of time though still seem to have stability rules in effect(with one exception), though it'll take a full day or two of lingering to actually drain enough stability to be in danger.

Spoiler

The Resonance Archive and Devastation have unstable spots, but the player seems to be able to linger for several days without issue. Likewise, the village can have unstable spots as well, but the player also seems able to linger without issue, though I've not really played around with it that much to test it for certain. I will note that part of the reason that the player is able to linger may be that the instability is only slightly so, for the most part, and the locations themselves have pockets of stability for the player to recover. Thus the player may be moving between stable and unstable enough that they don't lose stability at a noticeable rate.

The Lazaret can be situated on an unstable area, and the player can lose all of their stability if they linger too long. I had it happen once when messing around in 1.21-pre, figuring out the new carvings and poking around for the other new stuff. Some of it was bugged at the time, hence why I stayed there looking around for so long. I think it took about two full days for my stability to fully drain, which is longer than most players will likely spend in the location.

Tobias's Cave has some weird stuff going on. I'm not sure if it's stable, or unstable. The cog will turn clockwise, as though it's stable, but if the player is at 100% stability already the cog will become jittery and keep jerking to the right. I would assume it's just the result of a command block in the area overriding the natural stability and thus ensuring the area is always a stable, safe spot for the player to hang out, but I'm not ruling out a possible lore explanation for it either. Because I mean...the guy was responsible for the Devastation and has a bunch of strange machinery in the back, working on who-knows-what.

 

[MKMoose]

9 hours ago, TFT said:

Probably so you can take your time and experience the story content without having to feel like you need to speedrun through it before you become instable, or miss the unique music tracks that play in those locations because it's overridden by the ambient droning from low stability. I dont think the library of the resonance archives would've had the intended awe factor if the whole thing was overlaid with tempstab-drain.ogg.

There's a lot of ways to go about music tracks without basically disabling a whole game mechanic.

 

46 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Somehow I missed this when I read it initially. But I don't think stability is actually disabled in story locations. At least, not fully, perhaps. I think locations where the player is expected to be spending quite a bit of time might have stability "paused", so that it neither increases or decreases despite whichever way the cog is turning. Smaller locations where the player isn't expected to spend a lot of time though still seem to have stability rules in effect(with one exception), though it'll take a full day or two of lingering to actually drain enough stability to be in danger.

If temporal stability is an important part of the story and several story locations are unique areas where temporal disturbances are supposed to be especially strong, then it might be a very reasonable idea to design temporal stability as an integral threat in these areas. Instead, the devs have realized that in its current state temporal stability would be purely detrimental in certain contexts, and made the decision that it should be paused entirely in all story structures, and in that same vein monster spawns are disabled there.

Temporal stability is not integrated into the story areas in any way - even in the place which you might expect to be the single most unstable area in the whole world, temporal stability is entirely random just like in the rest of the world. At the same time, the village could be placed in the middle of a huge unstable region, with just the village's area magically protected from its effects.

Edited February 13 by MKMoose

[Thorfinn]

9 hours ago, TFT said:

What does it really accomplish in its current implementation besides be a noob trap?

But it does not do that.

N00bs cannot possibly have constructed enough of a "base" to matter in the few game-hours it takes for the instability to start showing sepia. It's a trap for the complacent moderately experienced player and up.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

10 hours ago, TFT said:

animals and traders are just fine.

 

Animals and traders also aren't spoilered a story-relevant reason why they aren't affected.

Spoiler

temporally displaced via a mechanism revealed in chapter 2!