Jonas Tech Brainstorm

[BattleReadyEagle]

I decided to make this post due to something that a community member said within the first post I have ever did.

And that has to do with Jonas Tech! I just wanted to make an open suggestion forum for any neat ideas for Jonas Tech implementations or contraptions.

The idea I'd like to put forward to start with would be the Temporal Planner!

What does it do? Quite simple: it highlights a certain area of space that you designate and then captures anything built within that area inside of space and time. Afterwards, you can then modify the temporally captured object by either removing or adding items to it, then place the temporally captured object wherever you want.

In other words, an advanced blueprint contraption! It would be EXTREMELY helpful for late game builds to have a device of some kind that would allow you to create a blueprint of something and then place a "ghost" of that blueprint down somewhere. This would be ESPECIALLY useful for anyone who wants to build a mega structure that may have a specific, repeating design they want for it, but doesn't want to make a mistake with ruining the pattern they got going because it's difficult to see what you're doing while playing in survival at times.

The Temporal Planner can't do things like place all of the items you have for the project in your inventory down. It's purely for planning, designing, and laying out builds before you get started on it.

In any case, I'm curious what suggestions you all have for any Jonas Tech things!

Edited May 31 by BattleReadyEagle
Fixed Grammar Errors

[Deaderpan]

considering jonas was alive during a somewhat medieval time, something to help with farming.

so some ideas i came up with whilst sleep deprived are

- a plow that tills soil and gives it a slight fertility boost.

-auto harvester robot/automaton, harvests crops the moment they are ready but can only do it for less complicated crops such as grains and not berries and fruits.

-a scarecrow thing for when/if birds get added.

-a trap for small/medium animals that sends out a signal to a device the player has to carry that lets the player know the trap has been triggered.

 

basically you're telling me jonas never once looked out of his window, saw the peasants working the fields and thought "hmm i could do something here"

[Shoom]

I think Jonas parts would be perfect for late-game automation contraptions, the equivalent to what redstone is to Minecraft, contraptions that utilize the chutes, hoppers and mechanical items we have in the game, so that ultimately we can (nearly) fully automate some of the more simple and tedious tasks in the game.

The flaw with redstone in Minecraft in my opinion is how easily obtainable the items are, someone with the knowhow can quickly create devices that completely circumvents the game's intended progression.

I don't want to be able to make machines that mass-produces items or are capable of strip-mining the entire world, but say you could throw freshly mined chunks of iron into a hopper, hopper leads to a pulverizer that turns them into iron nuggets, iron nuggets then go into a bloomery, then to a helve hammer and in the end you end up with iron ingots? I think this would be fair considering the amount of time and resources it would take to build and tune a machine like this, wouldn't be something you could create in a day, rather something that would take several hundreds of hours of gathering resources, building and tuning.

[Bruno Willis]

I've written about this before, but it's nice to put things in lists so:

I'd like a fragile mechanical sun which needs to be fed maybe 2 temporal gears each year to keep running properly. It seems like something which would have been very valuable to the cave-bound survivors. 

The mechanical sun would:

• Produce a huge amount of light; enough to fully light up one of the larger caverns. 
• Allow crop growing underground within a certain radius.
• Increase temperature within a certain radius.
• Provide temporal stability to seraphs within a wide radius. 
• Have a small chance to "degrade," (maybe 5% chance per month) which jumps to a high chance if not fed temporal gears on time (maybe 40% chance per month).

If it became degraded, the mechanical sun would bring up a specific Jonas part when moused over (rolled randomly), alongside any temporal gears it needs. Right-clicking those parts into it would return it to normal function. There would be three levels of degradation:

1. The light it produces occasionally flickers and dims. It no longer provides temporal stability. Has an increased chance to degrade further (maybe an additional 15% chance per month).
2. The light it produces flickers and fluctuates constantly. Slightly reduces temporal stability to seraphs within a wide radius. Has an increased chance to degrade further (maybe an additional 20% chance per month).
3. The light is reduced to a pulsing red ember, surrounded by rift-like distortions. Reduces temporal stability as if it were an enormous temporal rift. Increases temperature significantly, with a small chance to set creatures and crops on fire.

This would offer an alternative, underground playstyle for late game players, with a built in challenge and potential disaster. 

[LadyWYT]

On 5/31/2026 at 4:55 PM, Deaderpan said:

basically you're telling me jonas never once looked out of his window, saw the peasants working the fields and thought "hmm i could do something here"

I mean...isn't that basically why the world is now messed up? 

12 hours ago, Shoom said:

I think Jonas parts would be perfect for late-game automation contraptions, the equivalent to what redstone is to Minecraft, contraptions that utilize the chutes, hoppers and mechanical items we have in the game, so that ultimately we can (nearly) fully automate some of the more simple and tedious tasks in the game.

The flaw with redstone in Minecraft in my opinion is how easily obtainable the items are, someone with the knowhow can quickly create devices that completely circumvents the game's intended progression.

I don't want to be able to make machines that mass-produces items or are capable of strip-mining the entire world, but say you could throw freshly mined chunks of iron into a hopper, hopper leads to a pulverizer that turns them into iron nuggets, iron nuggets then go into a bloomery, then to a helve hammer and in the end you end up with iron ingots? I think this would be fair considering the amount of time and resources it would take to build and tune a machine like this, wouldn't be something you could create in a day, rather something that would take several hundreds of hours of gathering resources, building and tuning.

This is kind of what I do and don't want to see at the same time. Tech packs are popular for Minecraft, and I think that's probably what many players think of when they think of potential Jonas tech, but at the same time...it's the kind of gameplay that doesn't really feel like Vintage Story, even if it's a real grind to actually acquire and set up the tech. Using modpacks as an example, Vintage Story feels more similar to the original "Life in the Woods" modpack for Minecraft, where the focus was more on exploring the natural world and crafting via "traditional" methods, rather than building rockets and robots and machines to automate everything. 

I think the latter part of this example works rather well though, since it's something feasible for clockwork machinery and also not something that's fully automated--the player still has to physically interact with the machine to get the job done. Minecraft's Create mod probably fits into this category at least somewhat, though I think Create also goes a little too far by allowing the player to automate just about anything.

For me, I tend to like the more esoteric machines, like the rift ward, teleporter(base or terminus), night vision mask, etc. They have their useful niches, but they're not necessarily things that the player will need to always build or use in that many situations. They're also not the general power tools/weapons/armor/electricity resource trope that many games tend to rely on; in this case, there's more wiggle room to have different rules to operate by. Perhaps instead of the standard redstone/electric rules, it's pressure gauges, fluid dynamics, and clockwork that the player must manage. 

[runnybabbit]

I've often thought much of the character screen information could be made more vauge and specific info placed into jonas tech. Perhaps a single climate/rainfall/temp reader... potentially with expected seasonal highs and lows if that would work in the engine.

Pre-modern peoples would not take for granted acess to quick and accurate temperature readings down to a fraction of a degree, which are a technological marvel. 

[Deaderpan]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I mean...isn't that basically why the world is now messed up? 

 

I would 100% respect the game that finishes its story by restarting an apocalypse by the player trying to automate a small farm

[LadyWYT]

12 hours ago, runnybabbit said:

I've often thought much of the character screen information could be made more vauge and specific info placed into jonas tech. Perhaps a single climate/rainfall/temp reader... potentially with expected seasonal highs and lows if that would work in the engine.

Pre-modern peoples would not take for granted acess to quick and accurate temperature readings down to a fraction of a degree, which are a technological marvel. 

I wouldn't mind seeing this either, though this also leaves the door open for players getting too confused/frustrated over the lack of information. "My crops all died to cold and now I'm going to starve! How was I supposed to know that would happen!?"

Perhaps it could just be some sort of forecast reader instead, so the player can figure out what the weather patterns will be for the next seven days and plan accordingly. Lots of wind? Good time to work the forge or other machines. Lots of rain? Might want to do things indoors or go fishing.

4 hours ago, Deaderpan said:

I would 100% respect the game that finishes its story by restarting an apocalypse by the player trying to automate a small farm

As interesting as circular stories are, it's a plot device that really only works once, and tends to leave an unsatisfying ending.

[williams_482]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I wouldn't mind seeing this either, though this also leaves the door open for players getting too confused/frustrated over the lack of information. "My crops all died to cold and now I'm going to starve! How was I supposed to know that would happen!?"

Perhaps it could just be some sort of forecast reader instead, so the player can figure out what the weather patterns will be for the next seven days and plan accordingly. Lots of wind? Good time to work the forge or other machines. Lots of rain? Might want to do things indoors or go fishing.

A forecast tool would be helpful but not game breaking, and could be presented as either mundane sensing tech or as exploiting temporal weirdness for a fuzzy lookahead. 

[Heegrim]

On 5/31/2026 at 2:55 PM, Deaderpan said:

considering jonas was alive during a somewhat medieval time, something to help with farming.

so some ideas i came up with whilst sleep deprived are

- a plow that tills soil and gives it a slight fertility boost.

-auto harvester robot/automaton, harvests crops the moment they are ready but can only do it for less complicated crops such as grains and not berries and fruits.

-a scarecrow thing for when/if birds get added.

-a trap for small/medium animals that sends out a signal to a device the player has to carry that lets the player know the trap has been triggered.

 

basically you're telling me jonas never once looked out of his window, saw the peasants working the fields and thought "hmm i could do something here"

Some sort of clockwork irrigation system would make sense too. 

[Heegrim]

On 6/1/2026 at 6:59 PM, LadyWYT said:

I mean...isn't that basically why the world is now messed up? 

This is kind of what I do and don't want to see at the same time. Tech packs are popular for Minecraft, and I think that's probably what many players think of when they think of potential Jonas tech, but at the same time...it's the kind of gameplay that doesn't really feel like Vintage Story, even if it's a real grind to actually acquire and set up the tech. Using modpacks as an example, Vintage Story feels more similar to the original "Life in the Woods" modpack for Minecraft, where the focus was more on exploring the natural world and crafting via "traditional" methods, rather than building rockets and robots and machines to automate everything. 

I think the latter part of this example works rather well though, since it's something feasible for clockwork machinery and also not something that's fully automated--the player still has to physically interact with the machine to get the job done. Minecraft's Create mod probably fits into this category at least somewhat, though I think Create also goes a little too far by allowing the player to automate just about anything.

For me, I tend to like the more esoteric machines, like the rift ward, teleporter(base or terminus), night vision mask, etc. They have their useful niches, but they're not necessarily things that the player will need to always build or use in that many situations. They're also not the general power tools/weapons/armor/electricity resource trope that many games tend to rely on; in this case, there's more wiggle room to have different rules to operate by. Perhaps instead of the standard redstone/electric rules, it's pressure gauges, fluid dynamics, and clockwork that the player must manage. 

I think the temporal stability should decrease significantly around these types of ‘automation’ tech machines. If players want to build enormous temporal gear-consuming/coal burning factories, they should have to deal with rust creatures crawling through the pipes. 

[LadyWYT]

16 minutes ago, Heegrim said:

I think the temporal stability should decrease significantly around these types of ‘automation’ tech machines. If players want to build enormous temporal gear-consuming/coal burning factories, they should have to deal with rust creatures crawling through the pipes. 

Maybe, but that's how you get players complaining about not being able to build and enjoying such machines without making their base too unstable for habitation or otherwise disabling temporal mechanics entirely. I think the opposite would be a better argument--the player can make an unstable area stable, or create a "safety bubble" during temporal storms, but they need to build and fuel a big machine in order to achieve such.

[Heegrim]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Maybe, but that's how you get players complaining about not being able to build and enjoying such machines without making their base too unstable for habitation or otherwise disabling temporal mechanics entirely. I think the opposite would be a better argument--the player can make an unstable area stable, or create a "safety bubble" during temporal storms, but they need to build and fuel a big machine in order to achieve such.

I guess so, there could just be a world setting for Jonas tech causing instability that the factory nerds can disable. I am said factory nerd but I want to be punished for my sinful creations. 

[Bruno Willis]

11 minutes ago, Heegrim said:

I want to be punished for my sinful creations. 

This is what TOBG is missing from it's op redstone farms, and I think we're getting there with the mechanic for wooden bearings to catch fire if spinning too fast.

A machine only feels like a foolhardy and mad experiment if there are risks. I'd love more mundane ones - wooden cogs catching you and chopping off fingers sort of thing - and if we actually get Jonas tech machinery, I'd expect eldritch horror level issues. It makes you feel like you're really doing something with consequence. The key is to make the consequence an interesting gameplay experience.

The clockwork sun idea is: fail to keep the machine fueled -> make a danger space in the middle of your base -> the fight of your life as you try to re-start the machine.

I like the idea of Jonas tech components which make certain aspects of daily life easier, so they can be plugged into more mundane processes, and I like the idea that they all have a way to go horribly horribly wrong. Here's a couple of ideas:

• A spider-limbed mechanical loom which spins and weaves fiber into cloth quickly and efficiently, but will break free and turn into a gigantic horrible locust if it's powered with the small attachable steam-engine instead of through mechanical power.
•  A Manufactor which will draw ingots and charcoal from hoppers to replicate whatever metal example part you've given it (pickaxe head, falx, strips and nails, etc.) But if you don't change the example part, after a certain number of times it will start making bells, one part at a time: Bell tail, bell head, then bell clapper, at which point the bell gets up and starts causing trouble.
• A tunnel-bore which occasionally veers off course, and if left to it's own devices too long, just mines a tangled maze and hides in the center, spitting out low stability. If you can reach it you can take control of it again just fine. 

[Emeal]

I think the idea of a Mechanical Sun is such a cool concept, but it has to come with the most insane heavy cost as well as constant temporal gear use.
Another idea would be a Jonas Car, you can only get this after the last boss is defeated.

Rift Conductor
You make this by building a Rift Ward upside down in the Crafting Grid. It does the opposite, it summons loads of Enemies at the cost of Temporal Gears.
It consumes the Temporal Gears over time but it has 4 slots... Hmm.

Put in one temporal gear to increase the difficulty of enemies that spawn around you, and slightly increase the risk Rifts to open up around you.
Put in two temporal gear to do the same but better and as long as its on the time until the next temporal storm is reduces at 1.3x rate.
Put in three does all of the above at a very increased rate, but has a small chance to fry the device instantly causing the next temporal storm.
Put in four, stop you dont want to do this, what are you doing? Are you insane!?! TEMPORAL CATACLYSM, has a small chance to NOT fry the device and causes a mini devastation.
                  Ever been attacked by forty double-headed drifters? No? But its like this.

Mini-dolon, Your very own small Eidolon.
Its jus a lil guy who you can pick up, like a baby and point at something that needs working. Like a Quern, a Flint tool on the ground, an unfinished clay pot or a weapon on the anvil.
This little guy will finish it up at the cost of Temporal Gears as fuel and then go into sleep mode.
You can also tell him to spin an Axle for those times you need rotational power far from home. Could be used to open a secret dungeon maybe???

But these ideas are all late-game in scope. Lets talk about Early Game Jonas devices...

Translocator Locator.
This already exists as a mod, but its fairly trivial to get many Temporal Gears so a device that helps you find Translocators underground at the cost of Temp Gears.
It should show up as small bleeps, just dont pay attention the the big bleeps that rarely show up on it too, ț̵̨̳̲̒͛͘͜ͅh̶̦͇̎̅͒̊e̷͉̪͋̄y̷̟̍͊ ̵͕̀̐ď̷̖̠̜̅͑̈́́ó̴͖̮̪̯̈́̀n̶̪͉̋t̸̲̜̹̱̽̊͝ ̵̤̽͊̽͘͝m̶̪̑̉̅̕͜ḙ̵̫̘̺̕a̴̢̼̖̰͉̟̓̌̔̅̑͐n̶̠̯͕̅̏͜͝ ̴̤̽̓̍̑̿ä̶̠͔̼̫́̉̾̂̒n̶̪̙̾̀ŷ̶͉̩͎̜̯̍̑̚̕ͅţ̶͕͔͖̭͆h̵̛̪͍̱̃̂̾̔̕í̸̩̍̉n̷̼̙͛͂g̸̖̠̳̒̑͑̒͋.̸̟̫̿

Temporal Induction Lantern
A lantern that is fueled by Temporal Gears and spawns high tier drifters in dark places, it can also spawn Rust Creatures we have never seen before...

 

What do you guys think?

[Bruno Willis]

10 hours ago, Emeal said:

Translocator Locator.
This already exists as a mod, but its fairly trivial to get many Temporal Gears so a device that helps you find Translocators underground at the cost of Temp Gears.
It should show up as small bleeps, just dont pay attention the the big bleeps that rarely show up on it too, ț̵̨̳̲̒͛͘͜ͅh̶̦͇̎̅͒̊e̷͉̪͋̄y̷̟̍͊ ̵͕̀̐ď̷̖̠̜̅͑̈́́ó̴͖̮̪̯̈́̀n̶̪͉̋t̸̲̜̹̱̽̊͝ ̵̤̽͊̽͘͝m̶̪̑̉̅̕͜ḙ̵̫̘̺̕a̴̢̼̖̰͉̟̓̌̔̅̑͐n̶̠̯͕̅̏͜͝ ̴̤̽̓̍̑̿ä̶̠͔̼̫́̉̾̂̒n̶̪̙̾̀ŷ̶͉̩͎̜̯̍̑̚̕ͅţ̶͕͔͖̭͆h̵̛̪͍̱̃̂̾̔̕í̸̩̍̉n̷̼̙͛͂g̸̖̠̳̒̑͑̒͋.̸̟̫̿

Love this. I especially love the idea that it also picks up things you shouldn't investigate. You'd want that to happen pretty rarely, and also happen around temporally messy areas like story locations 1 & 3.