More in-depth pottery and humidity

[Prev_Puppet]

(I've been taking a pottery class recently, I may potentially make a mod with these ideas) So when I'm working with clay IRL I'm thinking about the moisture of my clay. It needs to be within a certain range for me to actually work with it (on the wheel) (while its on the wheel im often adding and sometimes removing water, also the longer i work with it the more clay becomes scrap), then a piece needs to dry to leather-hard to trim it properly, then it needs to dry more before its first firing. (I think if it dries too fast or something it may break) and then I add glaze and do a glaze firing, then I sand off any sharp edges. If, before the first firing, I mess up a piece too much, it goes in the scrap bucket (would probably be a barrel ingame), where it will later be recycled into good useable clay again. I think a process like this could be made in Vintage Story, and fit in with the overall game (probably not as much for the early game). I think it would use a humidity and moisture system that would be kinda like the existing temperature and food spoilage system. I think it would be fun and cool to have a more in depth system to make nice pots and bowls and stuff. Also I feel like humidity and moisture would also fit the game (though some existing things may be altered to accomodate it, like food spoilage and farming). I feel like a big part of Vintage Story is spending a lot of time on making a little thing that you're proud of. Also I think I would like making the tools used in pottery and setting up a little area for it (and maybe having like, a separate cellar for works in progress)

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! I think needing to dry pottery before firing would be fine, since that's both realistic and simple enough for most players to deal with easily enough. A pottery wheel might be difficult to translate into meaningful gameplay, since there's a lot of nuance to that kind of work that doesn't really translate to the voxel-crafting system very well.

Needing to knead the clay or adding/removing water while working though is a bit much. The most I could see actually working here is making clay eventually dry out when removed from its original deposit, and require the player to store wet clay in a cool, dry place or otherwise mix powdered clay with water to create fresh clay.

I'd recommend checking out Clayworks for more fun with ceramics in the game: https://mods.vintagestory.at/clayworks

[VaelophisNyx]

as much as I want some more realism in vintage story, I do think you need to draw a line and compromise stuff for gameplay to be remotely fun

more time-sinks is not a good idea imo, especially important ones like pottery. The stone age already takes forever to get out of, and that's knowing how to speedrun to copper/bronze!

[EnbyKaiju]

I think the only addition to pottery I would really like, in terms of realism (aside from being able to glaze pottery, maybe through a second firing) is that the oven should need to be fired internally to dry it out before it can be used to bake in it.

So you'd make a raw clay oven, then place that and have to fire it for a couple of hours for it to harden first. But then I also kinda like the idea of being able to make a wooden hatch or something for the front that would keep the heat in longer.

I've done pottery here and there too (I learned how to do Japanese style ceramics years back and I think of it fondly), but it is one of those things that would be a bit tricky to balance immersion & complexity without it being frustrating or overwhelming to some folks.

[VaelophisNyx]

3 hours ago, EnbyKaiju said:

I think the only addition to pottery I would really like, in terms of realism (aside from being able to glaze pottery, maybe through a second firing) is that the oven should need to be fired internally to dry it out before it can be used to bake in it.

So you'd make a raw clay oven, then place that and have to fire it for a couple of hours for it to harden first. But then I also kinda like the idea of being able to make a wooden hatch or something for the front that would keep the heat in longer.

I've done pottery here and there too (I learned how to do Japanese style ceramics years back and I think of it fondly), but it is one of those things that would be a bit tricky to balance immersion & complexity without it being frustrating or overwhelming to some folks.

To be fair, the clay oven...already does that
you gotta heat it up to use it, which is good enough mechanically

it's also I think the only clayformed item that is usable immediately?

[August Moore]

21 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

A pottery wheel might be difficult to translate into meaningful gameplay, since there's a lot of nuance to that kind of work that doesn't really translate to the voxel-crafting system very well.

I think it's acceptable to have both systems at the same time. For clay that isn't spun it might have a higher chance of breaking and be lower quality, while clay that's spun on a wheel could be done as a time trial, each layer needs to be built up and will take an amount of clay voxels. This spun clay may take more time to dry and can crack easier while drying, but the finish product will have higher temperament. In the same way as adding hp to tools, clay items could have a system where the more you use it, the more likely it is to form a crack. Higher temper clay will form cracks less often, and the more cracks the clay has, the more likely it is to shatter. This marries to the need for the initial voxel system, the clay wheel, drying, and temperament with real life clay systems without making it too broken.

[Cornvus]

On 7/9/2026 at 3:22 PM, August Moore said:

I think it's acceptable to have both systems at the same time. For clay that isn't spun it might have a higher chance of breaking and be lower quality, while clay that's spun on a wheel could be done as a time trial, each layer needs to be built up and will take an amount of clay voxels. This spun clay may take more time to dry and can crack easier while drying, but the finish product will have higher temperament. In the same way as adding hp to tools, clay items could have a system where the more you use it, the more likely it is to form a crack. Higher temper clay will form cracks less often, and the more cracks the clay has, the more likely it is to shatter. This marries to the need for the initial voxel system, the clay wheel, drying, and temperament with real life clay systems without making it too broken.

Yes, I like this. I find so many bowls and pots rifling through the depths of ruins. It would be nice to have a use for them. If they crack and break over time, it gives you a reason to continue to interact with the system. I'd like to add, the broken pottery could still be useful. In real life, fired clay pieces with no glaze that have cracked or shattered can be ground down to make what we call grog. It has a lot of real-world uses, but probably most the important translation to the game would be incorporating grog into wet, unfired clay makes it stronger and less likely to crack. A durability boost, if you will.