damage by an unknown force

[JaimeGin]

So, I have only been playing the game for a few days. But the mechanics of it all seem easy enough to understand. However there has been something that is happening right now in my current game that makes no sense. Ok, I found a nice area where there are mountain peak type protrusions rising up from the ground level. I took one of these valleys and built a den into in. Everything seems find, however.. While doing some hunting for meat, I killed a wolf. While collecting the meat and such I started taking damage. Jumping around I looked to find that I was all alone. There was nothing near me, the blue time wheel thing in the middle was full and not moving at all. My hunger level was at somewhere above 90%. I cannot for the life of me figure out what it was that was hurting me. I was inside one of the valleys, that I know. So, I ran away to my base after collecting the materials and shut down the game and booted back up. Just now I was playing, more hunting. I killed two of the sheep things, ewes I think they are called. This was inside of the valleys near my place. While carving one of them up, I started taking damage again. This is a different valley than before mind you. So, I finish up what I am doing quickly and exit the valley. I am looking for shimmers, or some kind of distortion. I cant find anything. Here is also the thing. When I run around in that same valley, I take no damage whatsoever. I can jump and run and be fine. It is when I stop and stand there, I start taking damage. Just outside of the valley entrance, I can stand there and I am fine. But the moment I move into the valley, I start getting injured. Again, the blue time wheel thing is full and not rotating in any direction. My hunger level is above 90%, my character profile says that my nutrition is meat is around 40% and vegetables is near 10%, the other 2 are empty. There are no animals around, not even bunny rabbits. No distortions or shimmers to indicate an invisible enemy. I am completely at a loss to what it is that is happening. I cannot find anything online about this happening to anyone else. If any of you other players know what it is that is happening, please let me know. My own little valley seems perfectly fine. I take no damage while I am there, I take no damage elsewhere as I search for materials. Like hunting down and map marking copper and other ores, I can stand there for a good long while and nothing will happen. I can cut down trees elsewhere and I am fine. It is just, at the very least, these two valleys near my base of operations that I take damage from some unseen force. If this is a normal thing, a normal game mechanic, than I dont want to bother the devs with a bug ticket. But if it turns out to be a bug, I can send them a copy of this description and go from there. Thank you to any who decide to give me any information on these incidents.

[Streetwind]

Potentially a bug.

One thing you can do is bring up the chat window. It actually has three tabs. One of them is a combat tab. And everytime you take damage, it prints there exactly how much and from what source. Please check to see if anything gets written there if you take damage from the mystery source, and report back.

[Stroam]

Please record a video and submit it to bug reports.

[Jason Shipman]

Could it be an unstable area?  Is your temporal gear black (that spinning wheel at the bottom of your screen)?

[SomeGuy]

Hi! Very late reply, but I encounter this same issue sometimes when mining deep underground in 1x1 shafts with rope ladders. Sometimes going down/up with them you will at random get damaged even though hunger and temporal stability are nominal and no enemies are nearby. I opened my damage log and the game said I was damaged by gravity, even though I had not fallen at all and was climbing down a ladder slowly.

Turns out there is no scary mystery creature, just a gravity bug

Edited July 1, 2023 by SomeGuy
Spelling*

[Streetwind]

That is very strange, I have used rope ladders in single block shafts excessively in my last playthrough, and never had this issue.

Are you playing on a server, so that network latency could be a problem? Or CPU load?

[SomeGuy]

I am playing on singleplayer, so latency can't be it. My PC is a mid-end gaming PC and my processor is an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core, though I'm not sure if CPU load is the cause. I've encountered this phantom damage issue 3 times in 100 hours and it has exclusively happened when going up or down shafts, at least in my experience. This was the first time I checked the damage log for what happened though (note: the first two times had the same conditions, aka nominal hunger, temporal stability and no enemies nearby), as I hadn't thought of doing that the first two times. Got the idea from this thread after I went searching for if others had encountered this issue as well.

It is a rather strange issue, as fall damage should only be happening when falling from a sufficient height, yet sometimes the game seems to issue fall damage when climbing ladders in shafts.

The first time I encountered this issue was quite a few weeks back, but I do recall it rather well. I was prospecting for tin and found a chunk with a good reading for it, I then started digging my 1x1 shaft and used rope ladders to go down. I dig 3 to 4 blocks, put down ladders, go down and repeat. But when I was around 15 to 25 blocks deep, mining down as usual and then I get damaged 3 times in rapid succession (around 0.25 - 0.50 seconds in between). My hunger was fine, temporal stability was high and there were no enemies in the shaft (I block the top with a fence and I hadn't dug into a cave). As I was still new (and terrified of the underground haha), I panick and immediately leave the shaft and find a new place to dig. At the time, I thought I accidentally broke 1 block into a cave and a locust got in, but there was no locust light and I hadn't actually opened a cave either. Was quite the experience though, gave me a good scare lol.

The second time I don't remember very well, as I only got damaged once and I just kept mining as usual. But the third happened yesterday, so I recall it well. I was prospecting for iron and found a chunk with a good reading, so I proceeded to dig my shaft and go down until I found the deposit. I was around 50 to 60 blocks deep, enough for my temporal stability to slowly start depleting, but things were going well. I had dug into some quartz and found gold, but kept going down as the iron was my goal. I eventually got a high reading for magnetite and kept digging down and using the propick every 5 blocks down or so to see if the reading got better - it did! I got a very large reading and directly hit the disk shaped deposit. I was now at the bottom of my shaft (rope ladders going the whole way down of course) and was just about to dig the iron on the wall, until I get damaged out of nowhere. I quickly climb up my ladder, panicked, thinking a drifter spawned in the dark or something (even though I had a lantern on my offhand keeping things lit and the walls were covered by ladders and there were no openings on the shaft walls, meaning drifters could not spawn) but then I get damaged again while going up the ladder. I quickly continue my way up and block the ladder - after which, I get my bearings and open the shaft. I go down, yet find no creature or opening, I get damaged once more while going down my ladder. I check my hunger and temporal stability, but both are nominal. Then I realize it is another instance of phantom damage, just like the last 2 instances. I then go searching for answers and stumbled into this thread - which lead to me opening my damage log and seeing that it was gravity damaging me. Naturally, I was a bit perplexed by this, as I had not fallen at all, since I was on a ladder the whole time.

Strange times aye.

Edited July 1, 2023 by SomeGuy
added more*

[Thorfinn]

15 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

Turns out there is no scary mystery creature, just a gravity bug

Pretty sure what you are seeing is being "phased" partially into the ladder. Usually happens when you are too close to the ladder you are adding when extending it. Really easy to duplicate with regular ladders. That can also happen when nearby partial blocks nudge you one way or another, too.

Move until you are against the wall opposite the ladder and the pain should stop.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Thorfinn

[SomeGuy]

5 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Pretty sure what you are seeing is being "phased" partially into the ladder. Usually happens when you are too close to the ladder you are adding when extending it. Really easy to duplicate with regular ladders. That can also happen when nearby partial blocks nudge you one way or another, too.

Move until you are against the wall opposite the ladder and the pain should stop.

Thank you! Had no idea this kind of issue existed. I appreciate the insight!