Barrels are too cheap to make

[SnapJelly]

Hello friends,

So this is kind of an unimportant suggestion in the grand scheme of things but it's something that I thought about and wanted to share to see if other people felt the same.

As the title suggests I find it a little strange how cheap it is to create barrels, a bucket requires 5 planks to make while a barrel only costs 3 but is noticeably larger. Any other people feel like the barrel should cost way more planks to make?
In the end it isn't a large hurdle because as soon as you have a saw you can make mountains of planks in a single click but making the recipe a little more expencive would make it a little harder to just drop down 30 of them as soon as you hit the copper age.

As an extra addition to this I would also like to drop the possibility of adding metal hoops that you have to forge to the recipe, irl barrels aren't just planks, they need something to hold them together. Having to make metal hoops (or otherwise atleast a rope) wouldn't be too big of a step for the player because you'd have to be in the copper age to make planks to begin with, it would just add more value to barrels as an item.

Curious what you guys think!

[qualicabyss]

I think making them more expensive would be fair, though I would also like a clay alternative to be added

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, SnapJelly said:

As the title suggests I find it a little strange how cheap it is to create barrels, a bucket requires 5 planks to make while a barrel only costs 3 but is noticeably larger. Any other people feel like the barrel should cost way more planks to make?

I mean...if we want to be pedantic about realism in crafting recipes, I don't think just adding more planks or only focusing on barrels is enough. https://mods.vintagestory.at/vsrecipes

The linked mod changes a handful of recipes to include metal hoops and nails. Technically, you could probably make several of the same things exclusively from wood, simply by employing some creative joint techniques. However, things like nails and strips, and metal hoops, also tend to be quite useful and easier to use for making various useful items.

Now that being said, I think one important thing to consider is that changing recipes to be more expensive like this also tends to irritate players, even if the changes do make sense. Especially when the items in question are things the player will likely be making many copies of, like barrels. It's also going to slow down the overall pace of the game, which is fine for players who prefer slower-pace games, but is probably going to be frustrating for players that would rather just complete the lower tech tiers quickly and focus on the later game content.

2 hours ago, qualicabyss said:

though I would also like a clay alternative to be added

Clayworks has an interesting take on this. You can craft large clay urns that perform the same function as barrels, but with a 40L capacity rather than 50L. It stills gives the wooden barrels purpose, while keeping the clay urns as a viable option later into the game thanks to the color options available.

[Sunny_Sometimes]

Hoops were originally wooden--represented by sticks in the recipe--and that continued to be common long after metal hoops became available. Willow was common for this purpose and has been teased as an upcoming tree type.

I think the issue is more the amounts of material and effort needed to construct them. Cattails ought to be part of the recipe, really (they're literally referred to as cooper's reeds in the tool-tip), for a barrel to be water-tight. And the buckets in game are also coopered, so their recipe roughly equating to half a barrel with a handle added would make sense as well. A "strong wood-type" restriction might be reasonable too.

Coopering in general has a lot of opportunities for in-world crafting and mini-games, imo. Maybe you'd need to make a hoop first and put in on the ground to add planks for staves. You'd take that raised assembly and put it over a lit fire pit for a length of time before being able to bend the staves with a rope (bucket wouldn't need this). After that, add the rest of the hoops to complete the shape (and get your rope back). Casks with wooden hoops require a lot more of them and this could be reflected in-game (using metal hoops would speed-up the construction process). Adding hoops could require a hammer, but removing hoops should probably be more flexible, for accessibility. The heads could then be crafted with planks, cattails, a saw, and an axe; and the end hoops would need to be temporarily removed to put the heads in place. That's still oversimplifying the process a lot, but it's much more representative and requires some effort without adding new tools or excessive tedium.

The opening/closing of a barrel could then necessitate loosening an end hoop with a hammer/crowbar/etc. to remove/add the head. Bungholes could optionally be added, allowing the cask to be easily filled and emptied without touching the hoops but restricting it to liquid contents like wine, etc. only. You might even be able to disassemble a cask entirely into hoops and staves, which could then lead into a greater variety in cask sizes. Since they're already bent, larger staves could be cut-down into smaller staves and reused, and liquid-only casks could be remade back into regular casks by replacing the bung stave/head. Hoops and staves could also be stacked like planks, making storage easier when you have more barrels than you need.

Maintenance and durability mechanics would probably be too far in the weeds for (mainstream) fun gameplay. And needing to fill a new cask with water and let it swell-up for a few days would just be a time sink.

I do think barrels should be able to be moved around more with their contents inside, provided they're sealed. Their real-life counterparts are known for rolling along the ground, after all. Perhaps (filled) smaller casks could even fit in a player's basket slots.

[Rainbow Fresh]

Could the barrel be more expensive? Yeah, I guess. Logically it makes sense, gameplay wise it makes no difference. You still need planks which means no barrels till you learned to liquify shiny rock. The base material is still just wood of which you just need to shop down one mega oak and be settled for days. It really makes no difference. However does it need to be more expensive? Not really. Barrels are a thing you will always need more of than you think, especially if you have hoarder tendencies, but eventually you will have more than enough and never need to craft one ever again. It changes nothing other than ever so slightly increasing the minimum tedium required everytime you "Oh boi, time for yet another barrel to make/store XYZ".

As for metal hoops being added as requirement... No thank you. People before me already explained how that is not realistically necessary and having mods like Hydrate or Diedrate which add iron-age+ tuns and stuff have already proven to me mechanically that that extra bit work and resources made me really uninterested in investing into it for simple liquid storage. So if the baseline barrel already costed metal... It would just be a pain. Either the pain of investing way more precious resources for something so basic, or the pain of living off of one barrel for everything and just storing/moving around everything else in a million buckets instead.

[River Oak]

Coopering is a highly skilled profession that doesn't get as much acknowledgement as it deserves these days, despite being critical for society until the 20th century.

Quote

Coopering in general has a lot of opportunities for in-world crafting and mini-games...

I hadn't thought about it until now, but you're right, coopering is a great candidate for being removed from the crafting grid, which Tyron has said he wants to do as much as possible.

Quote

I think one important thing to consider is that changing recipes to be more expensive like this also tends to irritate players, even if the changes do make sense.

Let them whinge, lmao. With how much I see people complain about changes that make the game harder, it makes me think they'd complain about current game mechanics if they were new ideas instead of established gameplay.

[River Oak]

On 8/9/2026 at 8:33 PM, qualicabyss said:

I think making them more expensive would be fair, though I would also like a clay alternative to be added

Pithoi and amphorae would be nice to have, but if they were, I wonder how you'd encourage players to upgrade from them to wooden barrels

[SnapJelly]

5 hours ago, River Oak said:

people complain about changes that make the game harder

well that's kinda why I thought about this in the first place, I don't even think it would really make the game harder, because by the time you can craft barrels you'd have access to an abundance of copper and planks so barrels being so cheap stood out to me.

I could only really imagine making a recipe so cheap is to encourage players to engage with the systems it provides but ya know, that doesn't really seem to be an issue here, you could still make dozens of barrels easily even if they costed 30 planks each or something crazy like that

5 hours ago, River Oak said:

Pithoi and amphorae would be nice to have, but if they were, I wonder how you'd encourage players to upgrade from them to wooden barrels

for me personally I think If clay alternatives existed in game I would still upgrade to wood as soon as I could simply because then I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of clay forming and fireing the vessel, but if we're on the speculating path I could imagine various ways they could enourage players to switch to wood even if clay was an option.

For example you could make the clay ones single use, or give the wooden barrels a functionality that you could transport them when full, or simply make the wooden ones hold more liquid, or give the wooden ones better spoilage rates. stuff like that.

[Rainbow Fresh]

6 hours ago, River Oak said:

Pithoi and amphorae would be nice to have, but if they were, I wonder how you'd encourage players to upgrade from them to wooden barrels

55 minutes ago, SnapJelly said:

For example you could make the clay ones single use, or give the wooden barrels a functionality that you could transport them when full, or simply make the wooden ones hold more liquid, or give the wooden ones better spoilage rates. stuff like that.

Why would you need to upgrade though? Why does an amphorae need to be an "inferior predecessor" to the barrel just because you can get clay going before copper aka. boards? The clay storage vessel has a reason to exist even when you have upgraded to a warehouse full of trunks, because specifically the earlier clay variant has the advantage to spoilage rate that the wooden chest doesn't. In contrary, the wooden chest has more storage than the clay vessel.

Same could be applied to liquid storage. Using clay-based storage mediums could improve spoilage rates for liquids inside at the cost of having less capacity. 25L for an amphorae vs. 50 for the barrel. Otherwise, both could be carried if that was ever implemented in vanilla. Both could break or slowly rot away over time (as the current barrel recipe has no form of treatment against water damage to the wood in its current recipe) if that was to be an intended mechanic. One could reasonably argue that all in-barrel crafting mechanics (mixing), which require the barrel to be *sealed* could only be done with a wooden barrel, as secondary tradeoff. Making clay-based liquid storage vessels a small and simple form of early storage that, due to better spoil rates, retains value later down the line and the wooden alternative being the bulk cargo option with better crafting capabilities at a higher price and normal spoil rates.

That said however, the reason why more interactions with fluid storage do not currently exist is probably because... there are no notable fluid interactions. The barrel serves more the purpose of a niche crafting table for specific recipes that you plop down and let sit there for a week. After all, the Seraph does not need to drink and as such alcohol is an optional luxury. Having Aqua Vitae handy for the highest grade of healing item could be handy but then again, according to the wiki that stuff never spoils anyway so the longevity bonus of clay vessels would be useless again. So the only liquids the base game has that you'd want to store are all bulk-based and don't really spoil anyway: Aqua Vitae, Water itself and many different barrels of color for your fancy clothing.

[SnapJelly]

27 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

The clay storage vessel has a reason to exist even when you have upgraded to a warehouse full of trunks, because specifically the earlier clay variant has the advantage to spoilage rate that the wooden chest doesn't. In contrary, the wooden chest has more storage than the clay vessel.

Same could be applied to liquid storage. Using clay-based storage mediums could improve spoilage rates for liquids inside at the cost of having less capacity. 25L for an amphorae vs. 50 for the barrel. Otherwise, both could be carried if that was ever implemented in vanilla. Both could break or slowly rot away over time

I mean... yeah? That's pretty much what I said

[Sunny_Sometimes]

On 8/9/2026 at 11:05 PM, Rainbow Fresh said:

As for metal hoops being added as requirement... No thank you.

If there's a more in-depth coopering mechanic introduced, I could see metal hoops being required to create the barrel but not to hold together its final form, if a metal-tech restriction is desired.

Even with metal-hooped casks, the hoops used to form them are solid and much thicker than the riveted-sheet-metal hoops used in the final construction (can see the difference in this video). So an in-game coopering process might require the same metal hoops currently used in shields, as construction tools, and then the final cask would be held together with hoops made from either nails & strips or (a higher number of) willow rods.

 

12 hours ago, River Oak said:

With how much I see people complain about changes that make the game harder, it makes me think they'd complain about current game mechanics if they were new ideas instead of established gameplay.

Very much agree there lol. Making a game "harder" is a near-uselessly nebulous concept to begin with, imo, for how plainly it's usually discussed.

1. Adding more steps to a process = harder.
2. Making a process boringly repetitive or uninteresting = harder.
3. Requiring precision in player skill = harder.
4. Requiring the consumption of limited resources = harder.
5. Punishing failure = harder.
6. Locking progress behind luck-based choke-points = harder.
7. Locking progress behind grinding = harder.
8. Restricting player choice and problem-solving avenues = harder.

None of those are interchangeable in how the player experiences them, and I'd argue that all of them can have positive or negative effects depending on both the context they're used in and which of the others they're combined with. But they are interchangeable in the sense that they can counterbalance each other. Replace a contextually un-fun form of difficulty with a more tolerable one, and you can make gameplay more enjoyable while still adding value and reward to player effort (the main intended product of difficulty). That's the big edge that this game has over a game like MC, imo, but it still has a lot of room for improvement.

Say you add a coopering mechanic that involves a multi-step crafting process, and, for the sake of example, is also limited to certain wood types:

• The difficulty inherently added by that description is primarily Type 1, with a dash of Type 4 and risks of others.
• Making the process happen in-world and with distinct steps reduces Type 2 difficulty (large-gear crafting is a negative example of this).
• Ensuring that there's at least one valid wood type in all climate regions minimizes Type 6 while still giving value to the material and encouraging the player's attention to its procurement.
• Allowing the final hoops to be made from either wood or metal decreases Type 4, Type 6, and Type 8, to degrees that vary by circumstance.
• Increasing the variety of cask uses and craftable sizes and styles significantly reduces Type 8.
• Making certain cask sizes/styles required for certain uses increases Type 8 (e.g. can't soak a huge hide in a tiny cask), but being realistically flexible in that restriction would temper it and even decrease Type 2 and Type 7.
• As this would be a mainstream crafting mechanic, Type 5 difficulty should probably be restrained, with any implementation coming in the form of needing to redo a step or as an optional counterbalance risk to speeding-up the process.
• Likewise, Type 3 should probably be restrained to a player's competence preventing slip-ups and increasing speed, as opposed to punishing lower skill with a lesser final-product.

[River Oak]

Thought about clay a bit more and realised the clay storage vessel is pretty much an amphora/pithos already, it just can't store liquid, and that made me think, "Why can't it store liquid?" and then, "Why can't the barrel store dry goods?". There'd have to be some system stop you mixing dry and wet goods, maybe similar to the residue covered pots but not permanent. Sure, letting barrels store dry goods wouldn't change much mechanically, but it would be nice to have more variety in how we decorate our homes and workshops, and considering the 119 different species of butterfly and huge variety of decorative plants, Vintage Story clearly isn't afraid of having useless things just for variety and looking nice.

[Sunny_Sometimes]

55 minutes ago, River Oak said:

"Why can't the barrel store dry goods?".

I think barrels should absolutely be usable for dry goods! They regularly were historically. And for continued storage too, not just a specific process. It's always seemed silly to me that we brine food items to preserve them and then take them out of the brine to be stored elsewhere after an arbitrary length of time. All the liquid just disappears too.

Making them a storage container that could (slowly) be rolled along the ground by the player, stored on their side, etc. could make them much more mechanically interesting as well. They might even float when sealed, depending on their contents (would take a pretty big one to fit a Seraph inside). Crates would still be more space-efficient for dry goods, but with the tradeoff of not being watertight or movable by hand.

57 minutes ago, River Oak said:

There'd have to be some system stop you mixing dry and wet goods, maybe similar to the residue covered pots but not permanent.

It would need to be conditionally possible. Combining the two is how brine, lime water, tannin, dyes, etc. are made, after all.

[SnapJelly]

Well I am glad there seem to be people on the same page as me about this, I was on the fence about making this post cuz it seemed so redundant but I am clearly not the only one who noticed 

[Hyrum Behnke]

On 8/11/2026 at 11:03 PM, River Oak said:

Thought about clay a bit more and realised the clay storage vessel is pretty much an amphora/pithos already, it just can't store liquid, and that made me think, "Why can't it store liquid?" and then, "Why can't the barrel store dry goods?". There'd have to be some system stop you mixing dry and wet goods, maybe similar to the residue covered pots but not permanent. Sure, letting barrels store dry goods wouldn't change much mechanically, but it would be nice to have more variety in how we decorate our homes and workshops, and considering the 119 different species of butterfly and huge variety of decorative plants, Vintage Story clearly isn't afraid of having useless things just for variety and looking nice.

I think that they should use the liquid crafting system they use for cooking pots. Would it be weird to store liquids and drys together? Sure, but it probably wouldn’t be that immersion breaking.

[LadyWYT]

On 8/11/2026 at 10:03 PM, River Oak said:

"Why can't the barrel store dry goods?"

It can. There's just no benefit to storing such goods in a barrel, other than it looks pretty.

 

On 8/11/2026 at 10:03 PM, River Oak said:

There'd have to be some system stop you mixing dry and wet goods, maybe similar to the residue covered pots but not permanent.

Eh...I think this might be asking for trouble, really, since the game would need to account both for what's in the liquid slot and what's in the dry slot. And there's a lot of stuff that you can put in the dry slot that realistically should be affected, but isn't(for example, I store the helve hammer's angled gear in the quenching barrel when the hammer is not in use).

I think what I'd rather see is barrels becoming dirty depending on what they've been used for, simple to what happens with cooking pots, with perhaps a way to clean both pots and barrels. After all, while there is quite a bit that's simplified for gameplay purposes, you probably shouldn't be making foodstuffs in the same barrel that you used for composting and chemicals like sulfuric acid and chromium sulfate.

[Sunny_Sometimes]

38 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It can. There's just no benefit to storing such goods in a barrel, other than it looks pretty.

I think the point being made is that the storage of dry goods in barrels being beneficial is a realistic use-case that the game is currently missing out on.

Imo, barrels currently feel like a gameplay device (an auto-crafter for certain recipes) that's been dressed-up to avoid instantly breaking immersion, instead of existing as an internally-consistent item in the word that can be interacted with. Sorta like a barrel-shaped trash can at an amusement park lol. That's not an assertion that realism automatically equates to good gameplay, to be clear, but that there's a tangible difference between simplifying or tweaking reality for gameplay/performance reasons and starting with a mechanic and working backwards from that.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I think what I'd rather see is barrels becoming dirty depending on what they've been used for, simple to what happens with cooking pots, with perhaps a way to clean both pots and barrels. After all, while there is quite a bit that's simplified for gameplay purposes, you probably shouldn't be making foodstuffs in the same barrel that you used for composting and chemicals like sulfuric acid and chromium sulfate.

I agree there. I wonder if the upcoming status-effects might add a risk of disease if we don't wash our dishes lol. That would definitely annoy some players, but I think I'd find it fun and engaging while not being too intrusive.

From what I know, wooden casks are mainly flushed with water/steam to clean them. If it's a type where the head's taken off to access the contents, there'd be room to reach in and scrub the sides too. More extensive cleaning involves disassembling the cask, shaving-down the insides of the staves to bare wood, and then reassembling and re-charring the inside.

[LadyWYT]

13 hours ago, Sunny_Sometimes said:

I wonder if the upcoming status-effects might add a risk of disease if we don't wash our dishes lol. That would definitely annoy some players, but I think I'd find it fun and engaging while not being too intrusive.

I doubt it would go that far, but I could see there being penalties for eating raw meat or other undercooked foods, or perhaps being too reliant on lower quality foodstuffs like bushmeat. I could also see a lack of fruit nutrition making the player more at risk of disease; some players will let it drop over the winter because temporarily losing a bar of nutrition isn't usually a big deal, but being more at risk to colds and other illness would definitely be a good motivator to pay more attention to nutrition, without being too intrusive.