Cellar Indication?

[Cartel Monkey]

Hey all,

Forgive me if this has been posted before...I bought the game a few days ago and searched but didn't find (or failed to see) a topic specifically for this.

 

First off...amazing job VS team.  In my 30+ years of gaming this has to be one of if not the top survival games I've ever had to pleasure of playing.  Building pit kilns, charcoal pits, storage areas etc... just hits such a good stride for me and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

 

One suggestion...I'm trying to prepare for winter and finally have a pickaxe.  I wanted to move my storage down to a cellar, which from research needs to be about 7 blocks down?  Is there already, or can there be an indicator that says "cellar" under your character screen to let you know you actually have it done correctly?  I've dug down pretty deep, sealed off any sunlight, yet the temp remains the same as outside and the spoilage goes from 0.27 to 0.26...I'm not sure if I actually have a cellar

[Maelstrom]

Yes you have a cellar.  The spoilage rate is what indicates the cellar is recognized.

Cellars do not need to be 7 blocks underground.  They just need to be no more than 7 blocks (cubic) internal space built out of dirt or rock material - packed dirt, cobble, etc.  Wood does not a cellar make.  Increased benefit if you do dig it out of the rocky ground though.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Maelstrom

[DejFidOFF]

Cellar maximum is 7x7x7 blocks ( of air ). Can be everywhere,no need to dig down. You can build some wherever you want ( or dig for sure ). Only indicator is storage vessel for what I know .) And can be 3x3x3 or 6x5x2 up to 7x7x7  

Edited August 10, 2022 by DejFidOFF

[EreticKB]

Also, if you using Medieval Expansion (or which mod add cellar ice?) you must place cellar ice into cellar or it won't working.

[Cartel Monkey]

31 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Yes you have a cellar.  The spoilage rate is what indicates the cellar is recognized.

Cellars do not need to be 7 blocks underground.  They just need to be no more than 7 blocks (cubic) internal space built out of dirt or rock material - packed dirt, cobble, etc.  Wood does not a cellar make.  Increased benefit if you do dig it out of the rocky ground though.

Thank you (and everyone else)

 

is packed dirt the normal ground dirt you dig into, or do you need to do something special to make it?

 

also, the spoilage in my vessel was 0.27 prior to going into my cellar and now is 0.26 which doesn’t seem like a huge benefit…it’s why I thought something was wrong.

 

Appreciate all the help, I know this is for suggestions so I apologize for the questions.

[Maelstrom]

you have to craft packed dirt (see handbook for recipe) from soil you dig up.  

I'm questioning myself a bit on the spoilage.  Your cellar might not be recognized as a cellar.  First - make sure the internal dimensions (air space as previously mentioned) is no more than 7x7x7.  If that is true, then where do you see the spoilage rate?

[Brotherlui]

The cellar must be completely closed so that it is recognized as such.

Don´t use a door, use dirt blocks. The spoilage rate depends on sun light entering the room. No light, least spoilage.

Use candles inside the cellar to be able to see.

[dakko]

Unless something has changed recently, doors have a very minimal effect on cellars, and light sources (candles, torches, lanterns) have no negative effect whatsoever. [eta: but sunlight does have a negative effect. It can help to have an airlock entrance (so that you have to pass through 2 doors), or have the cellar door facing away from sunlight]

Placing a cellar below a garden (so that the garden serves as the ceiling) will not work. The garden block does not count as a full block.

Edited August 11, 2022 by dakko

[Cartel Monkey]

14 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

you have to craft packed dirt (see handbook for recipe) from soil you dig up.  

I'm questioning myself a bit on the spoilage.  Your cellar might not be recognized as a cellar.  First - make sure the internal dimensions (air space as previously mentioned) is no more than 7x7x7.  If that is true, then where do you see the spoilage rate?

So here's how mine is set up..

Floor and ceiling are both 6 blocks in length (3 rows of 2)

2 side walls are also 6 blocks in length (3 rows of 2, so height is 2 blocks)

Back and front walls are 4 blocks (2 rows of 2)

All surfaces are conglomerate rock, with the exception of one of the 4 block walls which is packed dirt...I sealed the entrance with packed dirt so there is no hallway or door.  The stats on the vessel are still the same...

[Brotherlui]

18 hours ago, Cartel Monkey said:

...... the spoilage goes from 0.27 to 0.26...I'm not sure if I actually have a cellar

In my cellar the stored food perish speeds are:

- Vegetable: 0.19x
- Grain: 0.13x
- Other: 0.26x

So if the value of 0.26 you are mentioning is for Other than your cellar is working fine.

[Cartel Monkey]

1 hour ago, Brotherlui said:

In my cellar the stored food perish speeds are:

- Vegetable: 0.19x
- Grain: 0.13x
- Other: 0.26x

So if the value of 0.26 you are mentioning is for Other than your cellar is working fine.

Yes the 0.26 is for other...however it was pretty much the same outside of the cellar?  Also is the temperature inside the cellar supposed to be lower than the outdoor temp?

[Maelstrom]

temp doesn't matter for spoilage rates, iirc.  Temp only impacts the seraph.

[Derek Shunia]

Temp absolutely matters for spoilage rates. Colder temps = less spoilage.

4 hours ago, Cartel Monkey said:

Yes the 0.26 is for other...however it was pretty much the same outside of the cellar?  Also is the temperature inside the cellar supposed to be lower than the outdoor temp?

The only thing a cellar does is make the maximum temp 5C with regard to food spoilage, so if it's close to 5C outside, you won't see much benefit. And if it's even colder outside, there will be no benefit at all, though I don't believe it'll be worse either.

[Cartel Monkey]

15 minutes ago, Derek Shunia said:

Temp absolutely matters for spoilage rates. Colder temps = less spoilage.

The only thing a cellar does is make the maximum temp 5C with regard to food spoilage, so if it's close to 5C outside, you won't see much benefit. And if it's even colder outside, there will be no benefit at all, though I don't believe it'll be worse either.

That makes sense, but it was 15C outside I believe, so I thought there would be a bigger difference.

 

Seems I SHOULD have a cellar by all indications, just maybe thought I should see a bigger difference in spoilage by placing a vessel inside.

 

Would be cool to have some kind of confirmation....like damp "leaky" noises, or a text prompt that says "it's cold in this cellar" or something like that...idk...Then again I seem to be the one having the most difficulty with it so maybe its just me lol

[BenLi]

mini-cellar is also an option, especially for early game, when the only storage option is vessel:

Make a hole in the stone/pack dirt floor next to your room' wall. Preferably room with roof(*).

Place the vessel in the hole.

Place a stone stairs block(**) on top of the vessel upwards (with stairs down) with pointing to the wall next to the hole. Most probably you will need to be 1 block lower = make another temp hole in the floor and stand in it. When placed the stairs block - jump out and fix the floor.

Result: vessel is located in 1*1*1 cellar, which has stone/dirt on bottom, 4 blocks of stone/dirt on the sides, and stone stairs block on the top. Due to some reasons the game considers partial block of stairs to be full block for this matter. So the vessel has 0.26/0.25(*) others' timing.

How to access the vessel: through the stairs cut.

 

(*) roof of the room shields the sunlight. If having no access to sunlight - it seems that the timing is 0.25. Otherwise it is like with regular cellar: if the cellar entrance is two blocks missing - it is 0.26. If having entrance with door closed - 0.25. If the door is open - 0.26.

Once the mini-cellar is sunlight shielded - the space under the stone stairs block is looking like a black hole. You must have a torch in hand in order to see the mini-cellar's contents (top of the vessel).

 

(**) stone stairs block can be acquired from ruins, the cobblestone stairs are pretty common there.

 

If you need a picture - I can make it for you.

[EreticKB]

Aaaaaaaaand IT'S a "EXPERIMENTS" rubric.

First, @Maelstrom, temperature COUNTS for spoliage rate. Just not "curent" from character menu, but from climate (check /wgen pos climate).

Second, there is no "cellars" in vanilla (m.b. it's just broken and no one notice it). Now spoliage rate depends only on sunlight intensity.

There is proper cellar on right and no-cellar on left.

Edited August 12, 2022 by EreticKB

[Maelstrom]

I would argue the climate is what impacts spoilage rate, not the temp.  I don't know for sure one way or the other, but shouldn't be hard to test - see if spoilage rate differs for the same temp in different climates or not..

[EreticKB]

5 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I would argue the climate is what impacts spoilage rate, not the temp.  I don't know for sure one way or the other, but shouldn't be hard to test - see if spoilage rate differs for the same temp in different climates or not..

I think we says about same thing with diffirent words.

[Professor Dragon]

On 8/13/2022 at 8:08 AM, EreticKB said:

I think we says about same thing with different words.

We also have the Devs. direct words about how Spoilage and Cellars should work:

 

- - - Start extract

• Feature: Food spoilage
  • All food items now have a certain duration where they are fresh after which they will slowly, and visibly begin to rot. Once completely rotten the item will turn into inedible rot
  • The speed at which food spoils depends on the food type and how they are stored. All containers now show their spoilage rate in the block info
  • Pro-Tips:
    • Cooking or Preserving food makes it slightly fresher
    • Keeping a pot of cooked food above 75° keeps it from spoiling
    • A hot climate is a food killer. Spoilage rates there are up to 2.5 times faster. On the bright side, placing food in a cellar will completely mitigate that problem. Extremely cold climates makes food spoil up to 10 times slower.
       
• Feature: Food preservation
  • Added Cellars: Dark spaces are recognized by the game and food spoils slower there. Spaces enclosed in soil or rock are also recognized and will additionally slow down the spoilage rates
  • Added Storage vessels: Made from clay, these vessels can store food items. Stored grains and vegetables get an extra preservation bonus.
  • Added Crocks: For long term storage of cooked food and pickled vegetables. Added crock shelves to store up to 8 crocks. Crock mechanics are still a bit wonky/unfinished in pre.1

- - - End extract

 

It mentions expected behavior for climate, cellars and light levels, and storage vessels.

As does the Wiki: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php?title=Food_preservation#Climate

All of the above is in-line with what I see in the game now.

For the record, I'd also love to have a "cellar flag" - something very much like the current "Greenhouse" flag for soil. It would beat having to place down a storage vessel, look at the stat, pick it up again etc.

Also, the cellar bonus can be "apparently" erratic. I've had a storage vessel inside a mountain, along a convoluted path of doors, ladders and winding corridors NOT get the full bonus. There was definitely no sunlight anywhere near there, and the space was just a few blocks wide behind air-lock doors. But another storage vessel just tucked a few blocks into a room on the surface get the full bonus.

 

I admire the cleverness of BenLi's suggestion with stairs. But to me, such workarounds always seem too "hacky."

My preferred early game method is putting the vessel into a hole in the ground or wall, and then using a hay bale to block it off.

The hay bale gives the same solid block bonus that dirt does, but is much quicker to break.

 

[BenLi]

23 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

I admire the cleverness of BenLi's suggestion with stairs

It's not me.

it's Bogdan Gavrilyuk, Ukrainian gamer, though in Russian

 

[Hyukoroo]

I honestly would like this to be more expanded on in future versions. Mainly due to the fact that I am still learning how to prepare meals in expanded foods which I would like to see that the various meal ingredients have on the expirations dates 

[EreticKB]

On 8/15/2022 at 3:38 PM, Professor Dragon said:

We also have the Devs. direct words about how Spoilage and Cellars should work:

 

- - - Start extract

• Feature: Food spoilage
  • All food items now have a certain duration where they are fresh after which they will slowly, and visibly begin to rot. Once completely rotten the item will turn into inedible rot
  • The speed at which food spoils depends on the food type and how they are stored. All containers now show their spoilage rate in the block info
  • Pro-Tips:
    • Cooking or Preserving food makes it slightly fresher
    • Keeping a pot of cooked food above 75° keeps it from spoiling
    • A hot climate is a food killer. Spoilage rates there are up to 2.5 times faster. On the bright side, placing food in a cellar will completely mitigate that problem. Extremely cold climates makes food spoil up to 10 times slower.
       
• Feature: Food preservation
  • Added Cellars: Dark spaces are recognized by the game and food spoils slower there. Spaces enclosed in soil or rock are also recognized and will additionally slow down the spoilage rates
  • Added Storage vessels: Made from clay, these vessels can store food items. Stored grains and vegetables get an extra preservation bonus.
  • Added Crocks: For long term storage of cooked food and pickled vegetables. Added crock shelves to store up to 8 crocks. Crock mechanics are still a bit wonky/unfinished in pre.1

- - - End extract

 

It mentions expected behavior for climate, cellars and light levels, and storage vessels.

As does the Wiki: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php?title=Food_preservation#Climate

All of the above is in-line with what I see in the game now.

For the record, I'd also love to have a "cellar flag" - something very much like the current "Greenhouse" flag for soil. It would beat having to place down a storage vessel, look at the stat, pick it up again etc.

Also, the cellar bonus can be "apparently" erratic. I've had a storage vessel inside a mountain, along a convoluted path of doors, ladders and winding corridors NOT get the full bonus. There was definitely no sunlight anywhere near there, and the space was just a few blocks wide behind air-lock doors. But another storage vessel just tucked a few blocks into a room on the surface get the full bonus.

 

I admire the cleverness of BenLi's suggestion with stairs. But to me, such workarounds always seem too "hacky."

My preferred early game method is putting the vessel into a hole in the ground or wall, and then using a hay bale to block it off.

The hay bale gives the same solid block bonus that dirt does, but is much quicker to break.

 

Then ingame number says "enclosing cellars don't do anything, only light level counts" and patch notes says opposite, i believe in ingame numbers.