Place items anywhere

[Heegrim]

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could place items freely on any block (like how the new cabinets work). That way my starter hovel can really look like a complete mess with stuff strewn all over the floor!

Seriously though, it would be awesome to be able to place candles and other decorations exactly where I want them on the mantle of my fireplace.

Placing bowls and stuff needs a rework anyways because the hitbox is just flat and I end up picking up a bowl through something in front of it because I wasn’t looking at the very base of the item in front. I have also noticed new players struggling to pick up a fishing rod because they are looking at the rod itself and not the floor. 

Edited May 28 by Heegrim

[LadyWYT]

There was a mod for this, but I cannot remember what it was called. I think it was for the previous game version, so it's not likely to work now.

As cool as this idea would be, I'm not sure that it's actually feasible to implement. I know that Paralives seems to have a good grasp of this kind of gameplay(decorative clutter), but it's an entirely different kind of game from Vintage Story. The best option I can think of is probably to provide some shelves and other storage options that work similar to the cabinets, that the player can then build around via the chisel system and whatnot. Wrench tool could possibly be used to rotate items once they're placed.

[BurgerDaddy]

I’d just love to be able to use the half of the block that is not covered by a slab on its side to place some things on.

Sideways slabs is great, and I get it that the block data “already has something in it”, but it would be nice for functionality and also decoration.

[Rainbow Fresh]

6 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

There was a mod for this, but I cannot remember what it was called. I think it was for the previous game version, so it's not likely to work now.

You mean this one?

https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/47288

Generally speaking though yeah, I agree that more placement options would be very nice. Having free-form placement on ANY block akin to how cabinets work sounds like a performance nightmare in the making but atleast uilizing slabs (which the "Place on Slabs" mod already does) and vertical slabs would be nice. Would open up so many more options for cozy, cramped builds.

 

EDIT: I just realized, if chiseled blocks had the cabinet placement system enabled that would help limit the performance drain.

Edited May 29 by Rainbow Fresh

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

You mean this one?

https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/47288

Ah yeah, that's the one!

[Heegrim]

Is it really that big of a performance drain? I assume the cabinet is just working like a chest that stores additional data about position and rotation to display the items. Could they not just attach this data to other blocks when something is placed on them? (of course placing thousands of items would eventually cause issues, but that’s not because the block isn’t a cabinet)

Chiseled blocks already generate a custom hitbox mesh so raycasting to find the placement position should be easy enough. 

[Rainbow Fresh]

Everything that's "more data" will eventually become a problem. Minecraft's greatest hacks for challenge runs (the ones revolving around magically re-generating chunks because the game cries) revolve around shoving too much data into a single chunk. If not taxing the runing game itself, storing all that data will become an issue. My VS world save is already 1GB in size and not even close in comparison to how much world I can explore in TOBG for the same world folder size - and that is despite VS just being a database, not a million actual files. "Just attaching" that additional data on demand doesn't work like it (granted, with VS's database approach it could but becomes less performant for retrieving that data in the thousands per chunk then) as the space to save all that data must be accounted for in the first place.

[Bruno Willis]

On 5/29/2026 at 10:58 AM, Heegrim said:

Seriously though, it would be awesome to be able to place candles and other decorations exactly where I want them on the mantle of my fireplace.

I was thinking about this the other day, and I wonder if for specific things like candles, they could have placement similar to support beams (i.e. can be placed anywhere you can right click).

Candles would need a few extra restrictions compared to support beams, i.e. They must always point upwards, and must be placed on an upward face of a block, even if it's just on one tiny chiseled notch in an otherwise horizontal wall. 

[cellar_whales]

I do think it would be nice to, at the very least, be able to "mix" ground storage types in the same block; why can't I put a bowl on the floor next to my fishing rod, or mix and match a few pretty stones in the same spot?

[Crimeo]

On 5/29/2026 at 10:50 AM, Rainbow Fresh said:

Everything that's "more data" will eventually become a problem. Minecraft's greatest hacks for challenge runs (the ones revolving around magically re-generating chunks because the game cries) revolve around shoving too much data into a single chunk. If not taxing the runing game itself, storing all that data will become an issue. My VS world save is already 1GB in size and not even close in comparison to how much world I can explore in TOBG for the same world folder size - and that is despite VS just being a database, not a million actual files. "Just attaching" that additional data on demand doesn't work like it (granted, with VS's database approach it could but becomes less performant for retrieving that data in the thousands per chunk then) as the space to save all that data must be accounted for in the first place.

This would be completely your own fault for putting random junk on 4,000 block surfaces, and has an obvious solution if your rig can't handle it (dont'... do that then?)

I don't actually see any real downsides to this suggestion at all. People can and would self regulate data, and nobody's really even suggested any other problems

[Rainbow Fresh]

10 minutes ago, Crimeo said:

This would be completely your own fault for putting random junk on 4,000 block surfaces, and has an obvious solution if your rig can't handle it (dont'... do that then?)

I don't actually see any real downsides to this suggestion at all. People can and would self regulate data, and nobody's really even suggested any other problems

If you don't understand the core issue I am pointing at there is no need to get aggressive. I literally said that if every block could store everything cabinet free-style every single block as stored in your savefile would need to account for the space needed by the data potentially being there. Sure, if you don't put random junk on 4000 blocks around your base (though granted, early-game storage literally is ground storage galore so people would start putting "junk" everywhere in absence of better storage) loading times and RAM usage might not spike too much, but your savefile's size still will.

[Crimeo]

7 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

If you don't understand the core issue I am pointing at there is no need to get aggressive. I literally said that if every block could store everything cabinet free-style every single block as stored in your savefile would need to account for the space needed by the data potentially being there. Sure, if you don't put random junk on 4000 blocks around your base (though granted, early-game storage literally is ground storage galore so people would start putting "junk" everywhere in absence of better storage) loading times and RAM usage might not spike too much, but your savefile's size still will.

No, it wouldn't, only if it actually had something on it.

Same as how every single stone block in the world can be chiseled, but NOT every single stone block currently stores 16x16x16 miniblocks of data. Only the ones actually chiseled, and even then only the ones chiseled to that level of precision (like a complex sculpture). Anything not chiseled is handled by a single bit 0 or 1 "not chiseled" the end, no further data needed. Similarly only ones with stuff placed on them here would have meaningful extra data, and how much data would further depend on how much junk is stored on them.

By the same token, obviously not every block in the world right now stores 24 empty slots of space just in case it might be a chest someday, lol. Only actual chest blocks gain that data structure, etc.

So this would only be an issue if you put lots of junk down on thousands of surfaces.

Edited June 19 by Crimeo