About Homo Sapiens Mode

[Karl Kernow]

I enjoy playing in Homo sapiens mode, but as I tend to get bored when playing on my own, I’m looking for a multiplayer server. Here’s my post.

I’m not here today to talk about promotion or looking for servers.
I simply want to hear your thoughts on the appeal and shortcomings of Homo Sapiens Mode.
The reason for this is that I find myself somewhat lamenting the overwhelmingly small number of multiplayer servers for Homo Sapiens Mode.
So, I think that if I can take other perspectives on board, I might be able to come to terms with that fact a little better.

Rather than a formal discussion, I’d simply like to hear information such as ‘I’d like to see this kind of feature’ or ‘I’m playing Homo Sapiens Mode with this mod installed’.
As this is my first time posting in this thread, I apologise in advance if I’ve made any mistakes.
Also, as I’m using a translation tool, please forgive any unnatural English.

[Karl Kernow]

By the way, why do I like Homo Sapiens Mode?

Firstly, it’s because there are no terrifying elements such as Temporal Storms or Temporal Rifts.

I’m quite sensitive to sound myself, and I don’t like the sounds of the rifts or the eerie sounds of Temporal Storms.

I’m also not keen on the rusty monsters. It’s simply because they’re disgusting.

 

With those elements absent, I want to listen to the sound of the wind, feel the arrival of summer in the chirping of the cicadas (as I’m Japanese, I simply don’t perceive these as noise), wander in search of a place to settle, and be moved by the majesty of the sea and the height of the mountains.

I don’t want to spend my nights cowering in fear of monsters or rifts.

 

This game offers a great sense of tranquillity. At the same time, it’s enjoyable to feel a sense of powerlessness and insignificance amidst nature, whilst gradually acquiring the wisdom to overcome these challenges.

That’s why I play Vintage Story in Homo Sapiens mode, and I really enjoy it.

That said, I have absolutely no intention of dismissing other modes.
Nor do I wish to belittle those who play in other modes.
I just want to point out that the elements I’ve mentioned are more than enough to raise my stress levels and break my spirit—yet they’re also brilliant elements.
It’s just that I don’t particularly like those things XD

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, Karl Kernow said:

I simply want to hear your thoughts on the appeal and shortcomings of Homo Sapiens Mode.

I can see why it's appealing--it's pure realistic survival, without any of the sci-fi/supernatural elements of the base game, and that's also why it exists. Enough players asked for pure realistic survival that the devs added an option to turn off the lore content entirely.

That's also the biggest weakness of the game mode though. While it's a nice feature for those that just want realistic survival only, it's not the game mode that Vintage Story itself is developed around, and thus it's never going to have the same amount of content or development attention. Content that fits into Homo Sapiens mode has to be viable for the other game modes without disrupting balance, but content developed for the other game modes doesn't have to fit into Homo Sapiens. Otherwise you end up trying to develop, balance, and maintain two different games at once with the same team, which tends not to work very well.

One thing that does need to be addressed in Homo Sapiens though is black dye and grey dye. Currently, the recipes require rusty gears or metal scrap, which makes sense given that this is how black dye was traditionally made once upon a time. However, neither of these items are obtainable in Homo Sapiens. The player really ought to be able to soak iron nuggets in a barrel to create black and grey dyes.

[Atemo]

28 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

One thing that does need to be addressed in Homo Sapiens though is black dye and grey dye. Currently, the recipes require rusty gears or metal scrap, which makes sense given that this is how black dye was traditionally made once upon a time. However, neither of these items are obtainable in Homo Sapiens. The player really ought to be able to soak iron nuggets in a barrel to create black and grey dyes.

For this, I used to use https://mods.vintagestory.at/dyecoaldye but I have no idea if it still works in the latest versions of the game. Seeing something like that, be it with coal, iron, or other, in the base game would be neat, even outside Homo Sapiens.

[Zaph42nd]

10 hours ago, Karl Kernow said:

I enjoy playing in Homo sapiens mode, but as I tend to get bored when playing on my own, I’m looking for a multiplayer server. Here’s my post.

I’m not here today to talk about promotion or looking for servers.
I simply want to hear your thoughts on the appeal and shortcomings of Homo Sapiens Mode.
The reason for this is that I find myself somewhat lamenting the overwhelmingly small number of multiplayer servers for Homo Sapiens Mode.
So, I think that if I can take other perspectives on board, I might be able to come to terms with that fact a little better.

Rather than a formal discussion, I’d simply like to hear information such as ‘I’d like to see this kind of feature’ or ‘I’m playing Homo Sapiens Mode with this mod installed’.
As this is my first time posting in this thread, I apologise in advance if I’ve made any mistakes.
Also, as I’m using a translation tool, please forgive any unnatural English.

For me Homo sapiens mode focuses on what the game does exceptionally well, survival in the early-game. Its main weakness aside from story content missing is that at a certain point it becomes making your own fun which is either appealing or a little discouraging to some players. I think Homo sapiens works very well for multiplayer servers where semi-realistic survival comes first or you want something akin to a "peaceful mode". As to mods, I really recommend rivers + world-gen, Salty's manual series and immersive mining are also worthwhile additions to a homo sapiens run for me at least since they further incentivize logistics builds (roads, waterways, etc...) and slow the game down significantly (adding more of what makes Homo sapiens appealing to me at least)

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Personally I would like to see Homo Sapiens mode fleshed out a bit more. Sure some things just won't be accessible because they are related to the lore and that's fine. But I agree that there needs to be alternative pathways around those items, especially for creating dyes. Maybe someone will create a Homo Sapiens overhaul mod, and by that "someone" I mean me, but I'm currently swamped with IRL stuff and my current mod I'm working on so I'll have to pass on that for now.  

[Thorfinn]

Things like other recipes for dyes of existing colors are trivially easy. In some cases, it's nothing more than adding the name of a material to a list. And as a bonus, you know exactly what's in the mod you are using.

I'm probably going to do something similar to the chapters as a mod, though probably not using claims, but I want to get bored with the Stone Age and Phanerozoic critters first.

Edited 20 hours ago by Thorfinn

[Zaph42nd]

1 hour ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Personally I would like to see Homo Sapiens mode fleshed out a bit more. Sure some things just won't be accessible because they are related to the lore and that's fine. But I agree that there needs to be alternative pathways around those items, especially for creating dyes. Maybe someone will create a Homo Sapiens overhaul mod, and by that "someone" I mean me, but I'm currently swamped with IRL stuff and my current mod I'm working on so I'll have to pass on that for now.  

For sure, some things are still story-gated which I've never fully understood, at least mounts aren't anymore but for a while couldn't get an elk in Homo sapiens. For me biggest drawback is losing a few building blocks, decorated pots for example aren't really accessible nor are most items sold by furniture traders (which is a shame but expected) and then of course balancing out what to do in the end-game stages 

Edited 20 hours ago by Zaph42nd

[Thorfinn]

3 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

For me biggest drawback is losing a few building blocks, decorated pots for example aren't really accessible nor are most items sold by furniture traders..

I've been pondering this for a while. There are mods that add recipes, but that gets to be pretty big. Lately, I've been considering just introducing craftsman NPCs very like the merchants who barter for goods relevant to their needs, almost as if it were a functional economy. The furniture guy probably could do his own smithing, but he'd prefer to trade, say, two chisels and a saw for, well, whatever the furniture trader sells now. Maybe he'd take some fresh fish or smoked meat, leaving him more time to do his thing.

[Zaph42nd]

4 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I've been pondering this for a while. There are mods that add recipes, but that gets to be pretty big. Lately, I've been considering just introducing craftsman NPCs very like the merchants who barter for goods relevant to their needs, almost as if it were a functional economy. The furniture guy probably could do his own smithing, but he'd prefer to trade, say, two chisels and a saw for, well, whatever the furniture trader sells now. Maybe he'd take some fresh fish or smoked meat, leaving him more time to do his thing.

For sure, I've also thought it'd be an interesting addition to the classes system already in game, surprises me there's no artisan/craftsman class, closest is the tailor or clockmaker, although of the two only the tailor really gives recipes that may have some utility outside of story-mode (tailored gambensons are just good all round gear and the extra outfits you can make are a nice addition too). I admit, however, that I am biased towards tailors, it's the class I usually play for Homo sapiens because otherwise balance feels a little off (hunter and malefactor both feel a little overpowered in Homo sapiens, blackguard doesn't really feel right, commoner is just average)

Edited 20 hours ago by Zaph42nd
More on classes

[Thorfinn]

I'm not all that big on the roleplay aspect of the game, so adding classes has no appeal to me, but for people who like that kind of thing, that would be easy enough to do. Just look at any of the dozens (hundreds?) of mods that add classes. For recipes, you would probably have to break complicated things like chairs down into sub-assemblies, kind of like the way you do large gears. Maybe put nails and strips into the crafting grid to get (say) a dozen nails and a few mending plates?

[Feltmeow]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

One thing that does need to be addressed in Homo Sapiens though is black dye and grey dye. Currently, the recipes require rusty gears or metal scrap, which makes sense given that this is how black dye was traditionally made once upon a time. However, neither of these items are obtainable in Homo Sapiens. The player really ought to be able to soak iron nuggets in a barrel to create black and grey dyes.

As far as I know these two items are still obtainable in Homo Sapiens on the current version; panning regular sand or gravel has both in their drop table (as well as a few other items suggesting prior human activity), and for some reason random rusty gears will still spawn occasionally in caves. I imagine they didn't want to create a whole separate drop table for sand/gravel that only applies to Homo Sapiens, but the rusty gears in caves I'm really not sure about why those are still around. A lore explanation I've liked is that Homo Sapiens occurs in a timeline where humanity completely disappeared, and is so far in the future that there's virtually nothing left but arrowheads and those indestructible rusty gears.

That being said, iron nuggets as dye sounds like a much less tedious way of obtaining grey/black dye in the late game, and would be much nicer than being forced to engage with the few relics that break the idea of being the first human in the world if you want those colors of dye.

[MKMoose]

2 hours ago, Feltmeow said:

As far as I know these two items are still obtainable in Homo Sapiens on the current version; panning regular sand or gravel has both in their drop table (as well as a few other items suggesting prior human activity), and for some reason random rusty gears will still spawn occasionally in caves. I imagine they didn't want to create a whole separate drop table for sand/gravel that only applies to Homo Sapiens, but the rusty gears in caves I'm really not sure about why those are still around. A lore explanation I've liked is that Homo Sapiens occurs in a timeline where humanity completely disappeared, and is so far in the future that there's virtually nothing left but arrowheads and those indestructible rusty gears.

Panning has a drastically narrower loot pool on Homo Sapiens, and as such it does not provide metal scraps or rusty gears, and neither does it provide arrowheads. The only items obtainable in Homo Sapiens from panning are stones, native copper, flint, blue clay, quartz, clear quartz, sphalerite, native gold, cassiterite and lapis lazuli. Or that is how it should work - if it's bugged, then that's another matter.

Regarding rusty gears in caves, though, that seems like it's a bug. They should be disabled on Homo Sapiens, but instead their chance is just reduced to a third of the default. It may be intentional to make gray and black dye obtainable, but it's still inconsistent the description of the playstyle which you can read on world creation:

Quote

Removes all lore content and evidence of current or past civilizations. You are the first and only human on the planet. Stronger focus on realistic survival [sic]

 

6 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

One thing that does need to be addressed in Homo Sapiens though is black dye and grey dye. Currently, the recipes require rusty gears or metal scrap, which makes sense given that this is how black dye was traditionally made once upon a time. However, neither of these items are obtainable in Homo Sapiens. The player really ought to be able to soak iron nuggets in a barrel to create black and grey dyes.

Certainly wouldn't say no to another method of obtaining gray and black dye, though I would personally prefer if it was a reasonably realistic method. Iron by itself will more readily make red or yellow pigment, if anything, which we already pretty much have in the game. The most common, standard source of black dye (as well as, perhaps even more commonly, black ink) were oak galls combined with iron sulfate, or sometimes other tannin-rich barks or roots with other iron salt mordants.

For gray, though, wool is naturally quite gray already, so there is little reason to deliberately dye it gray, and the same goes for quite a few other materials. When gray was actually desired, mixtures of white and black would have been quite common. And what kind of an exciting color is gray, either way? Can't imagine most people would deliberately use gray for any purpose at all, not for aesthetic purposes anyway, and historically it was indeed quite rare and only really gained proper use with military or formal wear.

Edited 15 hours ago by MKMoose

[Juwan Alexander]

Is the only difference between Homo Sapiens and other modes the lack of access to certain dyes, though? I'd say it is as fleshed out as it can be, but I would say that anything that needs adding to Homo Sapiens is also something needed for the base game as well. I can't see how they'd be able to neglect it since I don't believe the game is close to being finished, let alone fully polished.

[ifoz]

20 minutes ago, Juwan Alexander said:

Is the only difference between Homo Sapiens and other modes the lack of access to certain dyes, though?

Homo sapiens removes all lore content.

This includes;
-Traders and other NPCs.
-Ruins / dungeons.
-Story locations.
-Monsters.
-Quite a lot of decorative clutter blocks and clothing that is found in ruins, since there are no ruins.
-Anything that is exclusive to trading, since there are no traders.

It's basically just a pure wilderness survival mode, though as it's been said earlier the game isn't really designed for / balanced around it.

Edited 8 hours ago by ifoz

[Juwan Alexander]

13 minutes ago, ifoz said:

Homo sapiens removes all lore content.

This includes;
-Traders and other NPCs.
-Ruins / Dungeons.
-Story locations.
-Monsters.
-Quite a lot of decorative clutter blocks and clothing that is found in ruins, since there are no ruins.
-Anything that is exclusive to trading, since there are no traders.

It's basically just pure wilderness survival, though as it's been said earlier the game isn't really designed for / balanced around it at all.

This I already know and understand, so let me rephrase the question. What does it do as far as gameplay is concerned outside of these changes? Black and grey dye requires items that are impossible to get in Homo Sapiens from what I have read in this thread, so I understand why that would be an issue if you like them. However, from what I can see, Homo Sapiens seems more like Ultimate Ironman Mode in OSRS in the sense that you lose access to certain gameplay mechanics that are really just conveniences at the end of the day.

The base game should have everything you need to make black/grey dye in a realistic manner based on several articles I've just read:

https://www.asiantextilestudies.com/black.html

https://artechne.wp.hum.uu.nl/exploring-historical-blacks-the-burgundian-black-collaboratory/

The current recipes seem more like placeholders/extra use for those items considering that it would be incredibly easy to stockpile them late game. I could be wrong, though.

Edited 8 hours ago by Juwan Alexander

[MKMoose]

3 hours ago, Juwan Alexander said:

What does it do as far as gameplay is concerned outside of these changes? Black and grey dye requires items that are impossible to get in Homo Sapiens from what I have read in this thread, so I understand why that would be an issue if you like them. However, from what I can see, Homo Sapiens seems more like Ultimate Ironman Mode in OSRS in the sense that you lose access to certain gameplay mechanics that are really just conveniences at the end of the day.

In terms of hard differences which seem clearly unintentional, the missing dues would seem like the only issue. Though there are quite a few other things which might be considered undesirable and potentially unintentional as well - from missing mechanics, through a few other unobtainable items, to minor or major differences in terms of how accessible certain features are:

• Setting custom respawn points is not possible without temporal gears, so the player will always respawn near the world spawn.
• Several items are unobtainable:
  • Blackguard and Forlorn Hope armor as well as the Forlorn Hope estoc,
  • a lot of clothes and accessories which can normally only be purchased or looted,
  • sleek doors, wallpapers, carpets, paintings, decorative storage vessels, iron fences and a lot of other decorative blocks, including all clutter as well.
• Several things are much more difficult to obtain:
  • salt, saltpeter, potash, lapis lazuli and alum need to be found and mined manually, whereas normally they can be purchased cheaply from traders,
  • taming wild elk is a long, frustrating process, and albino elk cannot be found in the wild.
• Icy climates are borderline unplayable, since some basic resources including reeds (normally obtained from arctic supplies) can only be found in warmer climates.
• Gemstonesm which currently have no purpose besides sell value, become useless even when you do rarely find them.

These are not necessarily dealbreakers, naturally, and they could be considered intentional in some capacity, but I think it's quite clear especially considering clothing and decorative blocks that the game wasn't really designed with Homo Sapiens in mind, since ruins and traders are a quite integral element of it. Combine that with any sort of real threats being borderline nonexistent, and the challenge (because that's how Homo Sapiens is often presented, be it justified or not) can get a bit tedious and boring if that's all it's seen as.

 

On 9/14/2026 at 6:05 AM, Karl Kernow said:

Rather than a formal discussion, I’d simply like to hear information such as ‘I’d like to see this kind of feature’ or ‘I’m playing Homo Sapiens Mode with this mod installed’.

Besides worldgen mods, one of my recent favorites is Frontier's Map, as it offers a great alternative between having a full default map and no map at all. Wanderer's Sketchbook is also nice for a similar purpose.

As for what features I'd like to see? I don't think I can reasonably list them all. Though put most simply, I would love to see existing gameplay broadened and fleshed out in a way that feels cohesive with the rest of the game. I don't appreciate more things being tacked on arbitrarily or designed in ways that don't fit other game mechanics, and I don't appreciate the early game being ridden with inefficiencies, annoyances and unavailable items that make any gameplay prior to the Bronze Age or potentially even Iron Age somewhat lacking and more frustrating than it needs to be. Wood carving, bone carving, woodworking, knapping, chiseling, weaving, wickerwork, cold forging, pottery, glassmaking, iron smelting, sand casting, foraging, gardening, composting, hunting, trapping, butchering - all of these and more could be developed as integral parts of the game with their own small progression chains largely independent of the simplistic metal tiers, with interesting and fun crafting processes.