glider

[NastyFlytrap]

10 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

Again: you can do the exact thing the OP is asking for just by building ugly towers all over your world.

Okay.

Honest question.

Have you used the glider in this game?

Because i have, and it controls like absolute dogshit. Even if you had rockets shoved up your ass you wouldnt go far with this thing, so i dont see how a tall dirt pillar would help when the fundamental problem is the glider itself. Only when its made better would the elytra-like gliding even come into the picture.

[LadyWYT]

14 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

The OP (at least as I read him) doesn't want something vectorable, just something to pop him straight vertically up in the air (something like Avian's Feather from WoW's WoD expansion).  So make it usable only while grounded and it's not spammable.  It doesn't need to be expensive or consumable as long as it's not vectorable and spammable.

Aviana's Feather also had a one hour cooldown, if I recall correctly. It's been a while since those days. Still, my point remains that flight is still an incredibly powerful ability, allowing the player to cover a lot of territory very quickly, with ease. That's also kinda why demon hunters were so broken when the class was introduced--they could glide around and otherwise move in ways that the other classes just could not, which let them have a lot of advantages in both instances and exploring the open world. And the demon hunter's glide didn't have a cooldown like the feather toy, and wasn't limited to consumables like the engineering gliders.

Incidentally, WoW is also a pretty good example of how player-controlled flight can really mess up the game world feeling like an actual world. One common observation a lot of the senior veterans had was that vanilla WoW felt alive because flight was limited to flight paths only, so you would actually see players riding around the world, doing quests and engaging in fights. With the introduction of flight, you no longer saw as many players out and about, because they would all be flying overhead unseen, and world PvP became just a matter of swooping in with a flying mount to gank someone and then flying away to safety.

Vintage Story's glider is mainly a novelty item with very situational use, and not really something meant for serious travel.

22 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

You keep calling it the elytra problem.  The problem isn't the elytra at all.  It's the rockets.  Spammable, vectorable, cheap thrust.  That's the problem.  Not the glider.

And if you give the player a cheap rocket that they can use to launch themselves straight up into the air as soon as their feet hit the ground, guess what...they're going to use that and not the ground mounts or sailboats given that flying over terrain is still faster and easier. The one absolute exception is teleporters, since teleportation is instant and doesn't need to ever account for the terrain, and waterworlds(if water even prevents the use of the item), which are decidedly not the default map style.

 

25 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

And it *still* doesn't invalidate boats because when you're swimming, you're not grounded, and even if it did work while swimming (and it shouldn't), as I mentioned (and you summarily ignored) a sailboat can carry a mammoth amount of cargo.  Well more than you could tote in like what, four round trips using a glider (losing one of your bags)?  So yeah, sailboats not obsolete in the least.

Keeping in mind that sailboats require water in order to function(which the default maps do not have a lot of), and are slow compared to flight. Sure, the player could build canals everywhere, but that will require digging out trenches, filling them with water, and accounting for changes in elevation. As you noted earlier, a glider tower can be as simple as a packed dirt pole with crude ladders going up the side, which is less of a time sink, isn't reliant on water, and doesn't need to do as much accounting for changes in elevation. So I don't really see how the sailboat can realistically compete here?

[NastyFlytrap]

44 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

...it's really not.  4 stacks (and you could reclaim 1 of the stacks; it just helps build it faster) of dirt make a 64-tall tower in about 2 in-game hours (just did it in creative, set time to day (12:00), started building, finished at 14:08 or so.  And dirt is virtually infinite and almost trivial to gather.
 

You keep calling it the elytra problem.  The problem isn't the elytra at all.  It's the rockets.  Spammable, vectorable, cheap thrust.  That's the problem.  Not the glider.

The OP (at least as I read him) doesn't want something vectorable, just something to pop him straight vertically up in the air (something like Avian's Feather from WoW's WoD expansion).  So make it usable only while grounded and it's not spammable.  It doesn't need to be expensive or consumable as long as it's not vectorable and spammable.

And it *still* doesn't invalidate boats because when you're swimming, you're not grounded, and even if it did work while swimming (and it shouldn't), as I mentioned (and you summarily ignored) a sailboat can carry a mammoth amount of cargo.  Well more than you could tote in like what, four round trips using a glider (losing one of your bags)?  So yeah, sailboats not obsolete in the least.

The ease of use and convenience is the problem. Anything that resembles getting high and gliding for kilometers will have that problem, and that doesnt fit this game.

[williams_482]

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

And if you give the player a cheap rocket that they can use to launch themselves straight up into the air as soon as their feet hit the ground, guess what...they're going to use that and not the ground mounts or sailboats given that flying over terrain is still faster and easier.

I think the suggestion is a block, not an item, that would launch a player upwards. Useless for arbitrary travel unless you had a lot of them and were okay leaving them behind, could be deployed in large numbers in a carefully designed path to allow (somewhat awkward) flight between two points, but would mostly be used as a novelty way to swoop around near your base. 

The balance problems go away entirely if it's relatively expensive (a steel spring would be a reasonable thing to require, or even a temporal gear) and not stackable.

[SnapJelly]

37 minutes ago, williams_482 said:

but would mostly be used as a novelty way to swoop around near your base.

I don't agree with that conclusion, it would turn traveling to your salt, lime, bauxite or any other deposit you have from a complex navigational challenge to just going in a straight line

[PhotriusPyrelus]

2 minutes ago, SnapJelly said:

traveling to your salt, lime, bauxite or any other deposit you have from a complex navigational challenge to just going in a straight line

A "complex navigational challenge" is only interesting at best a handful of times.  Then it becomes tedious.  The fun in such things is largely in the figuring out them, not in the execution of a solution you already know.

I don't really understand this obsession with controlling how other people play the game.  If there are gliders and 'rockets', one can always, y'know, not use them.  Just as one doesn't use the manifold world settings that make the game uninteresting to him.  Just like one doesn't use the thousands of mods that add stuff to the game he doesn't want..

I don't like durability.  I think it's an archaic mechanic that attempts realism and absolutely fails to capture it.  Do you know how many trees you can hack down with an axe before the head legit breaks apart and is unusable?  I sure don't.  I'm not sure anyone does because no one's used an axe that long.  When tools break it's almost always due to at least one of three causes: 1) using it wrong, 2) maintenance failure, or 3) manufacturing defect.
But for whatever reasons (which have been explained to me and I *still* don't get it) lots of people like the system.  So rather than stamp my feet and make a big deal about how the system should be removed from the game, I go into my own game files and give all my tools 2.5 billion durability.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, williams_482 said:

I think the suggestion is a block, not an item, that would launch a player upwards. Useless for arbitrary travel unless you had a lot of them and were okay leaving them behind, could be deployed in large numbers in a carefully designed path to allow (somewhat awkward) flight between two points, but would mostly be used as a novelty way to swoop around near your base. 

The balance problems go away entirely if it's relatively expensive (a steel spring would be a reasonable thing to require, or even a temporal gear) and not stackable.

Eh, I have to disagree here. Players can already build a tower at their base that essentially allows the same thing. Generally when I see this topic surface, I get the distinct impression that the suggestion is for the glider to become a standard travel option, and not a novelty item for very specific circumstances.

Thus I don't think making a relatively expensive "springboard" block to launch the player several many blocks into the air would really be the solution to such suggestions, though I do think that a springboard block that allowed higher jumps(like Minecraft's slime block) would be pretty fun.

10 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

If there are gliders and 'rockets', one can always, y'know, not use them.

Right, and one can always "not do that" in Minecraft as well. The thing is, when there is a powerful option like that, it's hard to just overlook. The elytra never really gets passed up because while it's tedious to acquire the first one, it's not terribly hard to find more after, rockets are easily supplied, and the ability to just fly over everything is incredibly valuable when it comes to travel. The happy ghast offers no competition in the travel department because it's way too slow. And of course, if you don't use the elytra in multiplayer, you're putting yourself at a distinct disadvantage to everyone else, which is never particularly fun outside of roleplaying servers.

 

16 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

So rather than stamp my feet and make a big deal about how the system should be removed from the game, I go into my own game files and give all my tools 2.5 billion durability.

Which is fine, because that's you modding your own game client.

[MKMoose]

Here's what I got from a quick creative test in a flat world, so that maybe the argument might turn ever so slightly more objective. Times are very approximate, not precise measurements.

• Tower height: 64.
• Distance covered with the glider, jumping from the 64-block tower:
  • Trying to stay up in the air longer: ~200-250.
  • Diving quickly first to gain speed, then flying horizontally right above ground: ~350.
• Time spent flying:
  • Flying: ~8 s (very roughly, may depend on the method).
  • Building a new tower: ~30-35 s.
  • Getting up the tower using ladders: ~30 s.
  • Running up the tower using stairs: ~12 s (this adds a 64-block horizontal distance as well, and assumes stairs going in a straight line - curved stairs will make the player slower).
• Time spent travelling 100 blocks:
  • Running: ~15 s (~6.7 m/s).
  • Running on an elk: ~9 s (~11 m/s).

In the optimal scenario, running 64 blocks up using stairs and flying 350 blocks allows to travel ~400 blocks over ~20 s, which is ~20 m/s - this is close to double the speed of an elk, so it's very fast, but the setup cost of something like this is very high. Both the glider and the elk will be slower in practical situations, but the general proportion will remain similar.

But in a less optimal scenario when building a new tower or using ladders, you end up with up to ~350 blocks over ~38 s, which is ~9 m/s - slower than an elk. Even compared to running, over which it's ~30%+ faster, I think the necessary setup makes it not worthwhile for most purposes.

Note:

• I've briefly tested gliding from other heights, and the flight distance seems like it ends up roughly proportional to the total height.
• I haven't compared to the sailboat, but it apparently goes ~6.7 m\s, around as fast as a running player.

My own conclusion: The glider can be a very useful way of traveling, primarily over short distances, if you set up a fast method to get at least a couple dozen blocks up.

Edited Sunday at 04:03 PM by MKMoose

[SnapJelly]

2 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

A "complex navigational challenge" is only interesting at best a handful of times.  Then it becomes tedious

Sure but that's the game though? If you don't want to interact with the navigational parts of the game why not just teleport?

 

2 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

I don't really understand this obsession with controlling how other people play the game.  If there are gliders and 'rockets', one can always, y'know, not use them.  Just as one doesn't use the manifold world settings that make the game uninteresting to him.

No one is trying to control anything, we're just pointing out that such an addition would have as a consequence that a very large part of the gameplay would be completely skipped if it was added.

And the ''just don't use it'' part isn't really a good argument imo, you're asking people to not use gamefeatures if favor of wanting to interact with other game features? That's not good game design, games features should compliment eachother not bypass them.

2 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

I don't like durability.  I think it's an archaic mechanic that attempts realism and absolutely fails to capture it.  Do you know how many trees you can hack down with an axe before the head legit breaks apart and is unusable?  I sure don't.  I'm not sure anyone does because no one's used an axe that long.  When tools break it's almost always due to at least one of three causes: 1) using it wrong, 2) maintenance failure, or 3) manufacturing defect.

this is again a gamedesign choice to guide the player to interact with the mechanics of the game, yes in reality you wouldn't break several axes in a lifetime but if that was the case in game the crafting mechanic would largely be obsolete, the knapping mechanic would only be used a single time for each tool, you would only have to forge a blade 1 time. If that's the case why have crafting toold be a game mechanic at all? Just go the stardew valley way and start with the tools you need.

It's also not realistic for a single person to find a massive iron mine all by themselves and go down there and come back out after a single day with tons and tons of raw iron in his bakc pocket to smelt into ingots in a couple minutes flat, but since this is how the game works it stands to reason for the rest of the gameplay to guide the player towards going back down there to gather more resources, hence the durability.

[SnapJelly]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

Here's what I got from a quick creative test in a flat world, so that maybe the argument might turn ever so slightly more objective. Times are very approximate, not precise measurements

I mean running is very fast if you can go in a straight line, but that's kinda the point. if wherever you're going to is easy to get to you'll be there in a flash just by sprinting so no need to glide.

I personally criticise something like a glider because it would allow to to go over mountains, forests, and lakes in 1 fell swoop, things you would otherwise have to walk around, or traverse with difficulty or spend time making an easily traversable path through. A glider would make you be able to bypass these things that are (to me atleast) core parts of the gameplay, exporing and navigating the world is how the game is played.

[LadyWYT]

24 minutes ago, SnapJelly said:

I personally criticise something like a glider because it would allow to to go over mountains, forests, and lakes in 1 fell swoop, things you would otherwise have to walk around, or traverse with difficulty or spend time making an easily traversable path through. A glider would make you be able to bypass these things that are (to me atleast) core parts of the gameplay, exporing and navigating the world is how the game is played.

I'm pretty sure this is why the glider has such a steep drop-off rate to begin with, in addition to the inventory slot penalties. It's meant as a novelty item that can be used in certain circumstances to avoid falls that would otherwise be lethal, or perhaps a quick way to descend a mountain and cover a little distance as an added bonus, but not as a staple travel method itself.

[SnapJelly]

53 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm pretty sure this is why the glider has such a steep drop-off rate to begin with, in addition to the inventory slot penalties. It's meant as a novelty item that can be used in certain circumstances to avoid falls that would otherwise be lethal, or perhaps a quick way to descend a mountain and cover a little distance as an added bonus, but not as a staple travel method itself.

I think so too, vintage story is imo EXTREMELY good at balancing the effort it takes to get something with the benefit it provides.

The only thing I can think of in game that to me seems unbalanced in how hard it is to get is salt, but there have been plenty of talks about that in here already

[Dark Thoughts]

  

On 8/23/2026 at 3:43 PM, PhotriusPyrelus said:

Something that just shoots you up into the air vertically (in lieu of building a vertical tower/staircase which would achieve the exact same results) kills any other means of transportation?  what even are the other means of transportation?  Boats and Elk?  Boats would still have utility in mass-cargo transport.

Also, isn't this kind of like complaining that steel tools kill every other tool?  That's part of progression: the stuff you used in the early game gets largely out-dated and made obsolete by the stuff you get in the mid or late game.

The problem with MineCraft's elytra is that for what, like almost 5 or 6 years we spent hundreds of hours building rail infrastructure and nether networks that were all made almost totally obsolete overnight with an addition no one could've seen coming.

No. A steel pieckaxe, aside from being a major investment, is still just a pickaxe. There's nothing fundamentally different to a copper pickaxe, aside from the increased durability, slight increase in mining speed, and the ability to mine a handful more ore types. But it's still a pickaxe. If you were to add a mechanical drill that mines out entire iron veins within a minute, then that would be a fair comparison to what the elytra did to other means of travel in MC.

On 8/23/2026 at 4:30 PM, PhotriusPyrelus said:

Again: you can do the exact thing the OP is asking for just by building ugly towers all over your world.

No. Because there's no way to quickly get up that tower. VS doesn't really have things like bubble elevators, you'd just have to climb a very long ladder, again and again. At that point the elk would almost certainly be the faster way to travel. A device that pretty much instantly shoots you into the air completely negates that aspect and lets you easily chain those devices to the point where you almost have something similar to MC's rockets, just static, or a worse version of MC's wind charge launchers, which are also completely busted.

On 8/24/2026 at 4:25 PM, PhotriusPyrelus said:

A "complex navigational challenge" is only interesting at best a handful of times.  Then it becomes tedious.  The fun in such things is largely in the figuring out them, not in the execution of a solution you already know.

I don't really understand this obsession with controlling how other people play the game.  If there are gliders and 'rockets', one can always, y'know, not use them.  Just as one doesn't use the manifold world settings that make the game uninteresting to him.  Just like one doesn't use the thousands of mods that add stuff to the game he doesn't want..

Tedious for you, the core principle part of the gameplay for others. Journeying is a core part of the VS experience and there's plenty of casual games (and mods) that let you fast travel, including Minecraft, which you're free to play instead. You don't understand this "obsession" because you aren't the one who sees their fairly unique gaming experience ruined by people who have to make the game, which does things differently, work like all the other games that you could play instead.

And no, "just not using them" is not an option, because travel is such a core mechanic that a lot of parts of the game are designed and balanced around. If they'd introduce a way to quickly travel vast amounts of distances in an instant, then that mechanic would become part oft he core requirement of traveling, just like how the elk is part of the reason why you travel thousands of blocks to the various story locations, and why it holds so many attachment points for tools that are required for such a journey. Imagine us telling you not to use the elk, or not to use backpacks for that matter.

[OBAMFSpike]

Ive had great success building ladder towers and then later coming back and developing them into something else. 

The glider is hands down the fastest mode of travel in the game, even if you have to take a little time into ironing out the details. Within minutes I can travel tens of thousands of blocks on my developed networks. 

A high mountain base is a great idea. But you can be bored to the mantle in a deep cavern base and still use the glider to great effect. 

I love this game. 

[williams_482]

4 hours ago, OBAMFSpike said:

The glider is hands down the fastest mode of travel in the game, even if you have to take a little time into ironing out the details. Within minutes I can travel tens of thousands of blocks on my developed networks. 

How do you set up these networks?

[OBAMFSpike]

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

How do you set up these networks?

Really Im looking into creating content for the ol YouTube. But for the glider I do carry tons of ladders and I build ladder towers where I can usually fly into them. ( I suppose I should mention that the Terminus Teleporter is a marvelous implement in tandem with the Glider for obvious reasons.)  Get back to the top (usually I can set the ladders up to land closer to the top). Its a massive resource hole BUT latter in game id dare say its manageable. 

If it takes a week to set it up it's worth the time. You stack up to limit with ladders and then jump from the top. You can pump the glider with rise and fall like you would a hang glider. Although thermals aren't in the game yet. Simply fly to the where you land and then back track and set up another ladder tower. 

Its ugly. 

It's time consuming. 

Its the fourteenth century and youve got a glider with multiple lives =D

I LOVE THIS GAME 

Ive always had a mod available to assist with sticks however. Otherwise ladders can be a juggernaut of a foe. But in any fashion a tower can be built to the sky and it sure is the limit. The glider sure flies fast. Also you can spend a lot of time on one landmass (easily traveled across using the glider and theres a point and purpose for the elk somewhere in all of this I promise) and jump into every single cavern you can think of coming across. I spin up every translocator (another consumption of ladders as I mine straight up out of the locator rooms to the surface above) I come across and sometimes it's super beneficial to tunnel between the locators and next thing you know theres another highway thatll take you far far far in minutes. 

The rifts have done something to my seraph brain. Not complaining. Me thinks it's good. 

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, OBAMFSpike said:

Although thermals aren't in the game yet.

If thermals were in the game, I could see the glider turning into something like the hangglider from Pilot Wings 64. If you manage to cruise to one, you could circle around and gain some altitude, albeit slowly. How much altitude and how fast would depend on how big the thermal is. In Pilot Wings, the big thermals were easy to stay in, but didn't provide much altitude and were fairly slow. Small thermals provided more altitude at a somewhat faster rate, but were harder to stay in due to the tight radius.

But you'd also need a way to detect the thermals, in a fashion that doesn't make them stick out like a sore thumb. Air currents aren't exactly visible, as much as their effects are. This is the type of scenario where birds would be rather useful though. Buzzards and other birds of prey like to cruise around in thermals since that's an energy-efficient way to stay in the sky, and would be an immersive way to indicate thermals as well as provide realistic world ambience(both viewed from the ground and sky).

[OBAMFSpike]

There are infinite possibilities with this game.

Long Live Vintage Story. 

[MKMoose]

On 9/5/2026 at 7:38 PM, Dark Thoughts said:

No. Because there's no way to quickly get up that tower. VS doesn't really have things like bubble elevators, you'd just have to climb a very long ladder, again and again. At that point the elk would almost certainly be the faster way to travel.

Take a look at my post above, if you will.

On 8/24/2026 at 4:52 PM, MKMoose said:

In the optimal scenario, running 64 blocks up using stairs and flying 350 blocks allows to travel ~400 blocks over ~20 s, which is ~20 m/s - this is close to double the speed of an elk, so it's very fast, but the setup cost of something like this is very high. Both the glider and the elk will be slower in practical situations, but the general proportion will remain similar.

But in a less optimal scenario when building a new tower or using ladders, you end up with up to ~350 blocks over ~38 s, which is ~9 m/s - slower than an elk. Even compared to running, over which it's ~30%+ faster, I think the necessary setup makes it not worthwhile for most purposes.

With ladders, it is not impressive. But using stairs instead of ladders allows to achieve travel speeds close to double that of the elk (more or less depending on terrain). Still not greatly practical for long-distance travel due to how much time it takes to set it up, but it can be very nice for regularly visiting nearby traders or other points of interest if you place an elevated platform near home - making a mountain base with this in mind could be especially nice.

 

On 9/6/2026 at 5:36 PM, OBAMFSpike said:

The glider is hands down the fastest mode of travel in the game, even if you have to take a little time into ironing out the details. Within minutes I can travel tens of thousands of blocks on my developed networks. 

My experiments place the glider's travel speed in most circumstances at most at ~20 blocks per second, or ~1200 blocks per minute, and that's assuming you're using stairs and not ladders - roughly thrice as fast as running and twice as fast as riding an elk. If you're actually able to do more then I would love to know how.

 

On 9/7/2026 at 3:22 AM, LadyWYT said:

But you'd also need a way to detect the thermals, in a fashion that doesn't make them stick out like a sore thumb. Air currents aren't exactly visible, as much as their effects are. This is the type of scenario where birds would be rather useful though. Buzzards and other birds of prey like to cruise around in thermals since that's an energy-efficient way to stay in the sky, and would be an immersive way to indicate thermals as well as provide realistic world ambience(both viewed from the ground and sky).

But this! This is what I call absolutely stellar game design. Simple, intuitive, and immersive. Genuinely an amazing use of birds.

One thing I'd be careful about is that flying in circles could be disorienting and annoying, so having a way to stay circling in a thermal without having to constantly rotate the camera could be very useful. Makes me think of simulating wind, though, and that could increase the complexity of the task greatly.

[CastIronFabric]

All I can say is that we can have gilders but we cant have Steam powered trains because of...lore?

[DarkGold]

24 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

All I can say is that we can have gilders but we cant have Steam powered trains because of...lore?

From October last year:
https://youtu.be/5uvFrR9ZtV4?t=2001 at 33:21, Tyron says...

Quote

There is one little thing I would like to add at some point. If we get, um, a railway system going, where people can build long railway connections between bases...

That sounds like they might be open to the idea of steam powered engines in the future?

[CastIronFabric]

2 minutes ago, DarkGold said:

From October last year:
https://youtu.be/5uvFrR9ZtV4?t=2001 at 33:21, Tyron says...

That sounds like they might be open to the idea of steam powered engines in the future?

that would be great. I think some where telling me in the past that trains would not be possible because it would violate lore somehow but I might be misremebering

 

[DarkGold]

3 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

trains would not be possible because it would violate lore somehow

I've not seen the post either, but they could be referring to the fact that some of the lore (that indicates the timeline of the apocalyptic stuff that happened to the world) implies technological progress should stop around the end of the 14th century. Trains are obviously a much newer technology, although steam power itself is ancient. Between Jonas tech and other changes to the world, it's possible someone could invent a steam train (or something powered by Jonas tech) out of time.

Edited yesterday at 12:42 PM by DarkGold
Correcting typos

[CastIronFabric]

2 minutes ago, DarkGold said:

I've not seen the post either, but they could be referring to the fact that some of the lore (that indicates the timeline of the apocalyptic stuff that happened to the world) implies technological progress should stop around the end of the 14th century. Trains are obviously a much newer technology, although steam power itself is ancient. Between Jonas tech and other changes to the world, it's possible someone could invent a steam train (or something powered by Jonas tech) out of time.

basically 'Jonas Tech can give us whatever we want and it will not violate 'lore' "

ok..I will knock it off, back to regular programming

[SnapJelly]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

All I can say is that we can have gilders but we cant have Steam powered trains because of...lore?

Steampower is on the roadmap!