Echo Weaver

This seems like an odd hill to die on. The resources required for the proposed feature would be vanishingly small, considering all the visuals and time-skipping are already implemented. It's literally twiddling some numbers on the backend. Noticeable resources are used for things like models and animations. Computers are very, very good at basic arithmetic. ETA: Also, if you turn it off in the config, it will take exactly 0 additional resources because the code won't execute. I'm perfectly happy to play it as a mod if someone wants to write it.

The third option, which has been mentioned several times, including my post above, is to turn the feature off in the config. This would be exactly the same as not implementing the feature at all, except that players who want it can use it. You don't seem to find this satisfying. Could you elaborate on why?

I'll jump in and say that since the game went to the trouble of implementing a sleep mechanic, I think it should do something other than skip time. Moreover, I find it weird that higher-quality beds allow you to sleep longer. For just time-skipping, I haven't wanted to sleep as long as 7 hours, much less 9, so why craft beds beyond hay bales except that it looks cool? (Fww, looking cool is a totally valid motivation.) I guess the idea is that nice beds provide broader time-skipping options, but as mentioned before, manual wakeup is wildly imprecise. I really like the idea of sleeping affecting healing and temporal stability. This way, all the effects are positive, and ignoring sleep won't cause a penalty. Those who don't want to sleep just don't have to. I also think it's fine for this to be something that is easily turned off, along with the many other world customizations. Sleep has always been weird and annoying in that other game in multiplayer. I wish I could turn it off there. At the very least, I think there should be a mechanic for specifying precisely the hours you want to sleep when you go to bed, at least for higher-end beds. That makes the time-skip much more useful.

Right. That was the wiki entry that got me asking in the first place. It describes the new limits on underground farming, but it doesn't explain why one would want to do that or how much the original value of underground farming was reduced.

Yeah, clearly my preferred form of exploration does not cover enough ground fast enough. I guess I should do the reverse of preparedness -- just grab some ready-to-eat food and run naked for a long distance, marking anything useful on my map? Are medium and high-quality soils visually different enough to grab my eye as I run past? The suggestion still stands. Running around the world like a crazy person in the first months of play in order to build a viable farm is not a terribly immersive part of a typically very immersive game.

OK, that makes sense. I assume underground temperatures tend to equalize, with a hotter surface leading to cooler temperatures underground and cold surface leading to the reverse? Is underground gardening still effective at 19.x?

I haven't been able to find anything other than low quality soil in my world. I've explored around quite a bit and consequently been killed by wolves far from home enough times to be really annoying. I even installed the mod that makes high quality soil give off particles, and I haven't see any of those yet (though I only installed that a couple of days ago). I've read the forum posts on this topic, which all conclude, "Medium quality soil should be easy to find." With the lovely light and shadow in the game, I'm not even sure I would see the color difference, though since I haven't seen anything for comparison, that might not be true. Perhaps I should have been more careful with my seed. I just picked this one because it was lovely at spawn point. But it seems to me that I shouldn't have to pick a seed for soil quality options. Which brings me to the suggestion -- In the real world, one can upgrade soil with improvements. We have a set of fertilizers that can increase soils temporarily over their nutrient levels, but other than bonemeal, they're so difficult to obtain that it's not worth it. I can't even craft our way out of the soil quality hole now that the compost-to-soil recipe requires high quality soil out of the gate. It seems much more logical an immersive to me that we should be able to upgrade soil to the next level with a recipe involving the three fertilzers and/or compost. It doesn't have to be easy, but it does offer a viable farming path for people like me who don't find running randomly around the world looking for soil to be terribly fun. I love to explore, mind you, but this particular exploration I just find annoying.

I was reading through release notes for previous versions, and I found a detailed description of nerfs for underground gardening... which indicates that this is something that plenty of players were doing. What makes underground gardening appealing? Is it possible to get a lower temperature underground so that heat-sensitive crops can grow?

Haha. In my world, I'm right next to a huge basalt biome. I had no idea that was rare.

Welcome! I've been playing for over a year, but just coming back from a long break. This seems like a good group of fans.

I enjoy Minecraft, and I've had great fun in the past building servers with themed modpacks to play with my friends. But what I was I adding? Umm... animal husbandry, expanded farming, immersive cooking.... I was also adding magic, so it wasn't all stuff I get from VS. I'm sure I'll want to go play Minecraft again at some point. I do agree that it has been built out in so many random directions at this point that it's just a mishmash. VC feels like an actual world, and that makes up for any particular MC feature that VS might not have (ok, I really love sea turtles and fishing up random magic items).

What version are you running? There was a bug that sounds like this, but it's fixed in the most recent release.

Ok -- this is interesting. Can you stack ladders up in the air without attaching them to a vertical surface? I have never tried this.

Yeah, it really does sound like you're having more consistent nighttime drifters than what I think of as normal. I can't recall ever seeing a drifter on a calm night, and I'm not sure I've ever seen one on a Low night UNLESS there was a rift in the yard (I only hang out that close to rifts if they're right at my base). I don't suppose it's possible your base is on temporally unstable territory? Or maybe, like Thorfinn said, you're on top of a cave? Though I assume then you'd hear moaning at all times, not just at night.

I've generally been more concerned with how fast I can BUILD one. The taking down has been less of a concern. But I take your point.

This is true for wolves, but I don't think bears? I've seen bears in grasslands plenty of times. I agree with this. I think that your sense of good gameplay just isn't universal. I find that the current state of nighttime danger on nights of medium+ temporal stability makes me feel extra attached to the comfort and safety of my base. Having predictable times and locations where we can feel safe to go out exploring combined with times/location when we need to build a quick shelter or run for home seems like a good balance. I can think of some other mechanics that could provide this. One might be just using the temporal stability meter. I do think that rifts should spawn drifters during the day at least some of the time or do something else bad. But there's a good horror reason to make life more dangerous during the night (i.e. darkness), and what VS does seems fine to me.

Haha. You made me look up Darkwood. It looks awesome.

That's true too. I don't like tearing up the landscape, so I often put back the dirt if I dig down to take propick samples or whatnot.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but drifters don't spawn every night. They spawn on nights where the temporal instability is Medium or higher. I like this mechanic. I can stay out some nights without much concern, while others I need to get back to my base or build one quickly. I appreciate the sense of safety that comes from my base, but for that safety to matter, there has to be danger out there to protect myself from. Also, it's worth pointing out that until you get to very nasty drifters that I've only seen from high-level temporal storms, wolves and bears are more dangerous. In some ways, I find that to be an odd choice. OTOH, it does me that on the surface, the biggest dangers are unrelated to whether it is dark outside or not.

I make a bunch of low fertility soil into path blocks using the hundreds of stones picked up from mining. So that's a thought. And I carry around about a half stack of soil to use to make a quick nerdpole. Otherwise, yeah.... I do dump extra dirt.

So, all models are wrong but some models are useful. The game mechanics are trying to model realism while being playable as a game. Thus the 9-day months because nobody wants to play 30-day months. It seems to me that, in nature, if a wild-grown tree has lived through enough winters to reach tree size, then it must be able to live in the climate it sprouted in. That means it should be able to live through an average winter. Only a dramatic cold snap should be able to kill it.

I'm not sure if I understand. If, when you use the same seed, you always get a ruin in the same spot, I assume that would tell us that ruin placement IS dependent on seed, at least as far as placement on the map. It sounds like there are several other variables are randomized, like the loot and what parts of the ruin are missing.

Huh. I actually wasn't sure whether ruin placement was based on seed. That's useful to know.

Huh. That does sound like unintended behavior. Good catch.

It would be lovely to see a game motivation for making alcohol. The mechanic for doing it is lovely. There's just no reason to do it beyond roleplaying.