Regarding Issues with Cold Worlds

[PineReseen]

I've been fascinated with different world generation, especially after I found out that biomes are a property that results from basic variables rather than being pre-defined. One thing I always wanted to do was do a cold-world playthrough, but I soon found out that achieving this is way more difficult than expected, or necessary.

Now that I've actually begun a serious attempt (although modded, you'll know why if you've ever tried this at all) at this, I'm gonna outline the big problems that I've encountered in the early game, and how I think they can/should be fixed. This is going to be split into minor (don't need to be fixed to allow progression/don't affect gameplay in a major way) and major (game-breaking issues/big roadblocks) issues.

Major Issues

No Reeds:
There are no reeds anywhere in cold environments. None. This just makes it so much more annoying to do anything since both hunter backpacks and reed baskets are off-limits which make inventory space very annoying to manage, especially since reed chests are also unobtainable unless you travel south first thing after you spawn. I had to install a mod for this to make a cold world bearable.

To solve this, a reed should be added to cold environments, like papyrus is for warm ones. I've already proposed one plant that could work, the rush, which can survive in colder environments and is a big grass-like plant that grows near water.

No Flax:
Also a plant issue, flax just doesn't spawn in cold environments. I honestly am surprised that windmills, good beds, bows, buckets, bandages, etc. are all locked behind this one plant (Drifters do exist, but I am not going to kill drifters for like, hours just to get a single linen sheet).

This is a more complex issue, it would either require making a whole new flax-like item line from a new plant, or revamping this chokepoint to not be focused around a single plant. Perhaps reed or rope could make a linen-like material that would be used in many things, or hairs from animal hide could be used to make some sort of fibre that would be a substitute for linen or flax fibres.

Minor Issues

Scarce Horsetail:
I'm running an archipelago-like world, so I have found around 10 horsetail growing on small islands off the coast of my starter island, but I doubt that is going to sustain me long-term. Looking at the spawning code, the minimum temperature for small horsetail spawns in 1 degree centigrade, and my island averages around -2 degrees a year, so it doesn't spawn. This could be chalked up to "You've chosen a cold area so it should be more difficult!" but since bandages are a no-go then there is literally no healing except for sleeping.

This is more of a poultice issue rather than a horsetail issue, as no horsetail would be less of an issue if poultices could be crafted from other plants that spawn in cold areas. Maybe adding an alternative source of healing would fix this too?

No Honey/Beeswax:
The code says that bees can only spawn above 5 degrees centigrade, so there's no chance I'll be getting any bees near my island, and in turn no honey or beeswax. This means that jams or candles are off-limits and very tedious to get respectively.

I guess lanterns are pretty useless anyway, and juice exists anyway so this isn't such an issue, but it is a bummer. Maybe a new alternative item like tallow could be used for candles?

Food Issues:
Food is way harder to get in my world at least (I have died due to starvation once, and damage due to hunger is gotta be up there in the list of top damage sources), and perhaps that's because berries are scarce in cold areas, which is fair, or maybe it's the fault of me not spawning near a forest with many mushrooms (although after testing it appears that edible mushrooms are rare in cold areas?), but I still think there's room to improve. I can't help but notice that the only crop spawning near me is rye, which I'm gonna need an oven and quern to actually use effectively.

Fishing will certainly make my world easier to survive, but improving hunting so that I can track where that deer went, or maybe making animals not want to go into water as much/drown easier would make me able to hunt something more than rabbits, foxes and wolves reliably. Adding a new food source like tea would also make the situation less difficult (seriously, we need tea, so many flowers and only bees to use them).

Side note: There also appear to be no flowers spawning in cold areas at all. Seems like the hardiest flower can only spawn in -2 degrees centigrade, which isn't enough for most cold places. That's a shame, since many flowers can survive cold areas, like for example the mountain avens, some species of the Dactylorhiza genus, or the arctic bell-heather.

---

That's all for this post, no doubt I will encounter more issues on my world very soon, but these are a good starting point in terms of fixing cold worlds/starts, as these issues will plague the player into the copper age and bronze age, no doubt. Especially if traders are turned off.

Thanks for reading!

Edited February 28 by PineReseen
Added more information regarding mushroom spawns, and added a side note regarding flowers

[MKMoose]

2 hours ago, PineReseen said:

No Reeds:
No Flax:

Addressing these two is pretty difficult, because while there's a whole lot of sources of fibers from both plants and animals which could substitute for reeds and flax, most of them similarly don't grow in colder climates. Cold climates just have a much lower variety of flora and fauna, and that's largely reflected in the game. I think the most historically significant alternatives for cold climates would lie in and hemp and maybe stinging nettle, as far as I can find. Some trees like willow, spruce and birch could maybe be used for a similar purposes, though I'd have to look into it more to be sure.

 

2 hours ago, PineReseen said:

No Honey/Beeswax:
[...] Maybe a new alternative item like tallow could be used for candles?

It seems that the devs are looking into some fats and oils in 1.22, so I'd hope for this as well. It is easy enough to get a couple candles by panning bony soil in my experience, but using tallow instead would make a lot of sense as well (especially for Homo Sapiens where there's no bony soil). One thing I'm just not certain about is the relative balance with oil lamps, which are currently not that useful compared to candles but much more accessible.

For jam specifically, I think it's fine that honey retains most of its uniqueness, because introducing an excess of alternatives to things could easily render bees obsolete. That said, there are options for some sort of syrups as an alternative to honey (presumably more accessible but more labor-intensive to obtain), as well as sugarcane for hotter climates.

 

2 hours ago, PineReseen said:

[...] there is literally no healing except for sleeping.

My guess is that a bunch will change in this area whenever herbalism and status effects are introduced, but it's very difficult to predict how far the devs will take it.

 

2 hours ago, PineReseen said:

Food Issues:

This is probably the most intentional part of the balance of cold climates, but I feel like it also has the most potential to improve. Realistically, the most important sources of food in very cold regions include:

• land mammals like reindeer or beavers - animal variety and the hunting process itself could use a lot of improvements, but it's there and it's functional,
• marine mammals like seals or whales - not in the game,
• fishing - finally in the game in 1.22, we'll see if it's satisfactory,
• bird eggs - not in the game yet, besides chickens, though at least birds are on the roadmap,
• berries, seasonally (mostly wild berries, agriculture is very limited in those regions) - hopefully the 1.22 rework will do a lot of good here,
• various tubers, roots, grasses, herbs and algae (also mostly wild ones) - not really in the game yet, maybe herbalism will provide something here.

This is a decent but unimpressive 3/5, optimistically speaking, and skipping the last category because it's the broadest and most varied and therefore difficult to be considered fully implemented unless split into a bunch of subcategories. The biggest missing piece is arguably the most unique and maybe most important, that is marine mammals.

Edited February 28 by MKMoose

[PineReseen]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

Addressing these two is pretty difficult, because while there's a whole lot of sources of fibers from both plants and animals which could substitute for reeds and flax, most of them similarly don't grow in colder climates. Cold climates just have a much lower variety of flora and fauna, and that's largely reflected in the game. I think the most historically significant alternatives for cold climates would lie in and hemp and maybe stinging nettle, as far as I can find. Some trees like willow, spruce and birch could maybe be used for a similar purposes, though I'd have to look into it more to be sure.

I don't think addressing the lack of reeds would be particularly difficult, I've already given a pretty nice alternative for reeds that could spawn in cold biomes, the Juncus genus of plants, which can apparently also be used for baskets.

As for flax, that does require a bit more tinkering, but what about animal fibre? It was just glossed over, and I think it'd be a great alternative that would involve the hunter playstyle of cold-climate survival very well. Maybe wolf wool would be a good substitute for linen that'd be easier to obtain but perhaps lack the efficiency and scalability of flax.

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

It seems that the devs are looking into some fats and oils in 1.22, so I'd hope for this as well. It is easy enough to get a couple candles by panning bony soil in my experience, but using tallow instead would make a lot of sense as well (especially for Homo Sapiens where there's no bony soil). One thing I'm just not certain about is the relative balance with oil lamps, which are currently not that useful compared to candles but much more accessible.

For jam specifically, I think it's fine that honey retains most of its uniqueness, because introducing an excess of alternatives to things could easily render bees obsolete. That said, there are options for some sort of syrups as an alternative to honey (presumably more accessible but more labor-intensive to obtain), as well as sugarcane for hotter climates.

I agree that it is for the better for jam to remain a honey-exclusive feature (but sugarcane and other alternatives wouldn't be a bad idea). Spoilage is greatly reduced in cold climates anyway. Although, sulphur and honey poultices are not available which just compounds the healing issue.

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

My guess is that a bunch will change in this area whenever herbalism and status effects are introduced, but it's very difficult to predict how far the devs will take it.

I hope that there will be more healing options, maybe more herbal poultices, or some sort of tea that could improve regeneration when sleeping? Although I don't know much about whether that is realistic at all.

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

This is probably the most intentional part of the balance of cold climates, but I feel like it also has the most potential to improve. Realistically, the most important sources of food in very cold regions include:

• land mammals like reindeer or beavers - animal variety and the hunting process itself could use a lot of improvements, but it's there and it's functional,
• marine mammals like seals or whales - not in the game,
• fishing - finally in the game in 1.22, we'll see if it's satisfactory,
• bird eggs - not in the game yet, besides chickens, though at least birds are on the roadmap,
• berries, seasonally (mostly wild berries, agriculture is very limited in those regions) - hopefully the 1.22 rework will do a lot of good here,
• various tubers, roots, grasses, herbs and algae (also mostly wild ones) - not really in the game yet, maybe herbalism will provide something here.

I agree that it is probably the most intentional, but also that it has the most potential improvements.

Hunting in particular could use many improvements. I've shot so many animals already that ran away into either the ocean or a bunch of bushes and I couldn't find them afterwards. Really, I think the best band-aid for now would be to add a bleeding effect that persists on the ground or water after an animal is hit so I can find those rabbits that disappeared into the bushes or the deer that fled into the ocean. Fishing will most certainly make survival more bearable.

I got lucky with berries since I spawned in a rather temperate-adjacent area and have a bunch of them to the south, but it would be cool to see some sort of climate-exclusive berries.

[MKMoose]

3 minutes ago, PineReseen said:

I don't think addressing the lack of reeds would be particularly difficult, I've already given a pretty nice alternative for reeds that could spawn in cold biomes, the Juncus genus of plants, which can apparently also be used for baskets.

Okay, I kind of overlooked rushes. It's kind annoying to look for this kind of information sometimes, because the variety of fibrous plants is massive and different plants are slightly more or less suitable for specific purposes. I did make a suggestion of my own a while back to introduce rushes among other plants at one point, so I do quite like that idea. Though keep in mind that the preferred climate of rushes heavily overlaps with cattails (mainly due to just how common both are), and only a couple rushes could feasibly go somewhat colder than cattails.

 

18 minutes ago, PineReseen said:

As for flax, that does require a bit more tinkering, but what about animal fibre? It was just glossed over, and I think it'd be a great alternative that would involve the hunter playstyle of cold-climate survival very well. Maybe wolf wool would be a good substitute for linen that'd be easier to obtain but perhaps lack the efficiency and scalability of flax.

Some features like dog wool kind of feel like they go into the realm of niche and gimmicky to me. Wolves are also arguably a bit of a poor choice in the current balance, because they're supposed to be a threat and not a target (I would personally want them to be neither for the most part, to keep it more realistic, but that's another matter). It's not necessarily a bad idea, but I would probably be more interested in it if some goats as well as muskox weren't a perfectly fine source of wool in cold climates.

[PineReseen]

20 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

Okay, I kind of overlooked rushes. It's kind annoying to look for this kind of information sometimes, because the variety of fibrous plants is massive and different plants are slightly more or less suitable for specific purposes. I did make a suggestion of my own a while back to introduce rushes among other plants at one point, so I do quite like that idea. Though keep in mind that the preferred climate of rushes heavily overlaps with cattails (mainly due to just how common both are), and only a couple rushes could feasibly go somewhat colder than cattails.

Yeah, many articles have the distribution information either unclear or in many places, I had to experience that first with rushes and now when I was looking for cold flowers. I don't think having rushes and cattails in one area is a horrible idea, only issue that would cause would be slightly worse inventory management. We could make cattails more ground-level and rushes more montane if that's really a problem.

27 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

Some features like dog wool kind of feel like they go into the realm of niche and gimmicky to me. Wolves are also arguably a bit of a poor choice in the current balance, because they're supposed to be a threat and not a target (I would personally want them to be neither for the most part, to keep it more realistic, but that's another matter). It's not necessarily a bad idea, but I would probably be more interested in it if some goats as well as muskox weren't a perfectly fine source of wool in cold climates.

I don't think goats and muskox are a bad idea as a source of fabric, would definitely be more realistic, but I personally haven't found them in my vicinity. I don't know if that's a big problem or I just need to explore a bit (Muskox apparently spawn in arctic climates, which I am not in, and goats are supposed to spawn in mountains, which I do not have in my immediate vicinity). 

Are wolves supposed to be a danger that you should avoid? Maybe, but bears have their own armour set, so maybe it's more of a risk versus reward kind of thing. Bushmeat isn't really a good source of satiety, but the fat and hide do provide real value. I should try to hunt a wolf next time another deer sails off into the ocean...

[LadyWYT]

What I like to do when I toy around with arctic playthroughs, is add the Wildcraft mods, as well as something like Expanded Foods or other food mod that allows things like pemmican or otherwise gives more use to bushmeat. Ancient Tools adds a healing salve that can be crafted from fat and resin, I think, as well as adding recipes for turning tree bark into flour. Wildcraft is the biggest gamechanger though, since the Fruits & Nuts module adds more berries and nuts to forage, while the Trees & Shrubs module adds more diverse flora along with the option to craft baskets and things from canes/thin branches rather than reeds.

That being said, the arctic is one region that needs more fleshing out. I do think it should remain very tough to survive there, as well as tough to acquire certain supplies like linen or honey, but that's also part of what makes surviving in such an environment appealing.

[PineReseen]

47 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

[...]

That being said, the arctic is one region that needs more fleshing out. I do think it should remain very tough to survive there, as well as tough to acquire certain supplies like linen or honey, but that's also part of what makes surviving in such an environment appealing.

I think it's okay if extreme climate playthroughs remain very difficult, but somewhat warmer climates definitely do need fleshing out in terms of basic survival. At least have a reed type in negative temperature places, maybe some sorta fibre crafting recipe from hides, or even one or two flower types and an alternative healing source if we're feeling fancy.

I've not yet dabbled in worldgen mods yet, I think I need a more vanilla experience for now.

But please, we need to have a cold biome reed in the game. Please. I don't want to gather 128 dry grass anymore for a modded grass bundle.

Edited February 28 by PineReseen
Clarified wording

[Teh Pizza Lady]

To be fair, an arctic playthrough is meant to be genuinely challenging. Making those items (or their equivalents) readily available significantly reduces the difficulty, shifting it from "I might actually die" to a minor inconvenience where you simply sift through nearby resources to find alternatives. The core intent, at least in my opinion, of the arctic experience is constant movement and survival pressure until you can reach more temperate regions and secure the resources you need.

In other words:

1. Spawn in.
2. Move south.
3. DON'T DIE.

I place a lot of emphasis on that last one because dying will invariably respawn you back in the frozen north.

[PineReseen]

1 hour ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

To be fair, an arctic playthrough is meant to be genuinely challenging. Making those items (or their equivalents) readily available significantly reduces the difficulty, shifting it from "I might actually die" to a minor inconvenience where you simply sift through nearby resources to find alternatives. The core intent, at least in my opinion, of the arctic experience is constant movement and survival pressure until you can reach more temperate regions and secure the resources you need.

In other words:

1. Spawn in.
2. Move south.
3. DON'T DIE.

I place a lot of emphasis on that last one because dying will invariably respawn you back in the frozen north.

I'm not necessarily talking about an arctic playthrough, more like a subarctic/hemiboreal one. Think middle Quebec, Saguenay, even. Those temperatures don't really freeze you and give you ample time to set up. Hell, the Sámi and Greenlandic Inuit people live in those sort of climates and colder since like, the Bronze Age.

And besides, if the way to play a cold start is to not play a cold start and get the hell out of there, then... Why do this? Why have a cold start? Set your respawn range to 5000 blocks on a temperate start and you'll get the same result of having to walk back to your southern base every time you die. I mean, at least we could get a reed for basic early-game stuff.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

To be fair, an arctic playthrough is meant to be genuinely challenging. Making those items (or their equivalents) readily available significantly reduces the difficulty, shifting it from "I might actually die" to a minor inconvenience where you simply sift through nearby resources to find alternatives. The core intent, at least in my opinion, of the arctic experience is constant movement and survival pressure until you can reach more temperate regions and secure the resources you need.

In other words:

1. Spawn in.
2. Move south.
3. DON'T DIE.

I place a lot of emphasis on that last one because dying will invariably respawn you back in the frozen north.

Yeah I have to disagree here. An arctic start isn't an absolute frozen wasteland of nothing but ice and snow; there's still going to be usable flora and fauna around. The main appeal of starting in such climate is that it's a harsher one to survive in longterm, and requires some special planning to accomplish certain things. The growing season is very short and the climate still rather chilly, so the crops need to be cold-tolerant(potentially planted in greenhouses) as well as planted at just the right time to ensure there is a harvest. The winters last for a very long time, meaning that the player needs to preserve more food, with less time. The extremely long days in summer also mean that the player will have more daylight to work in with fewer monsters to contend with, at the price of no daylight and more monsters during the winter. There's also, of course, the increased risk of freezing to death, but the arctic is also the only region to enjoy the aurora phenomenon as well as the special arctic music.

In short, an arctic start should have options for the player to at least forage resources for things like handbaskets and reed chests, as well as have some sort of solution for leatherworking and linen for windmills. At the very least, it would be nice to run across the occasional trader, and trade for those items, but traders don't currently spawn that far north, to my knowledge. Cracked vessels can drop arctic supplies, which can contain things like cattails, but that's more of a short term solution than a long term one. 

I do think, however, that it's just a matter of time before the arctic is properly fleshed out. I doubt it's a priority right now, since it's still very much a difficult challenge and not as likely to be picked by players as say, an easier start like the tropics.

[Bruno Willis]

21 hours ago, PineReseen said:

No Reeds:
There are no reeds anywhere in cold environments. None. This just makes it so much more annoying to do anything since both hunter backpacks and reed baskets are off-limits which make inventory space very annoying to manage, especially since reed chests are also unobtainable unless you travel south first thing after you spawn. I had to install a mod for this to make a cold world bearable.

To solve this, a reed should be added to cold environments, like papyrus is for warm ones. I've already proposed one plant that could work, the rush, which can survive in colder environments and is a big grass-like plant that grows near water.

Big kelp grows in cold areas, and it's really useful for making carry bags: 

 

Edited March 1 by Bruno Willis

[WanderingStoryteller]

If you're interested in features for cold climate survival, I posted some ideas months ago if you want to see if any are of interest to you. 

And there are substitutes for cattails that live in cold regions. One of these is seagrass that grows in seagrass meadows that have traditionally been used to make baskets, etc.

 

My post had a rather ridiculous title but I was trying to be detailed. I'm still learning how to use the forums correctly so forgive me. "Features for Arctic Climates (Boreal Forests/Tundra Wild Foods, Useful Lichen, Useful Seagrass Meadows, Early Game Kayak, Icefishing & Arctic Food Prep)"