LadyWYT

Welcome to the forums! I'm not sure it's a factor of time spent in the character creator, as much as it is being indecisive on the voice and switching that particular option too many times. It's certainly something I'd expect to be fixed in the future, but for now the workaround I've found is familiarizing myself with the vocal options on a throwaway world, and then setting the character voice type at the very end of the customization process on a new world.

I wouldn't be surprised to run into some cultists at some point. They'd probably be rare, but if the majority of survivors can start worshiping Jonas, it's certainly not out of the question that some could take a darker path and worship the monsters and evil machines instead.

I think this is something many players forget as well. It's okay to change the game settings or install mods if you're struggling in an area--that's partly why those options exist. I did the same when I first started playing, and gradually increased the difficulty as I got better at the game. I less look for suevite/meteor rock, and more look for circular indentations in the ground and dig down to see if there's suevite underneath. Meteor chunks don't always generate on the surface, but almost all meteors will have a crater pattern, so it's worth marking/investigating those indentations. Most of the time you'll hit suevite/meteor just beneath the dirt, although I have seen a meteor or two that was buried underneath a layer of rock as well. I have seen it spawn on warm/hot starts, however, it is a lot more rare in those climates. I think in those cases, it spawns in the cooler chunks. Luckily, you don't actually need peat for anything; it's just a very handy early game fuel source for pit kilns and the like.

Clay is similar to surface copper, in that it's certainly there, but difficult to spot and usually found a couple days into the game. Based on my experience, I'm thinking it goes unnoticed simply because I'm trying to rush things a little too much, and in my rush running around I'm missing critical details that are easier to spot when walking. That's not to say that pushing for quick progress is bad; it can certainly be done. But sometimes it's more beneficial to take a step back, slow down, and be a little more intentional/thorough with your actions. As others have already noted, clay doesn't spawn in the arctic(although I think that was changed to allow very small deposits to form occasionally), deserts, or at extremely high altitudes. Clay also doesn't seem to spawn in forests, or if it does, it will be difficult to notice since it will probably be buried under forest floor. Clay also tends to be easier to find in areas that get a lot of rain, and doesn't require a body of water to spawn although that does depend on clay type. Red clay spawns at higher altitudes rather than sea level, and usually isn't by water. Blue clay spawns close to sea level and will usually always be next to a body of water. Fire clay can only spawn naturally in bauxite biomes(which in this case, can be deserts) or underneath black coal/anthracite deposits. Clay is easier to notice if you play with world map colors enabled, since you can look for the circular discolorations on grassy areas to find clay and peat. Additionally, you can also find clay occasionally in cracked vessels, or acquire it via panning. Certain traders will also buy and sell various clay types, so it's worth checking with them as well.

Welcome to the forums! Interesting alternative to a thirst mechanic, and laid out very well. However, I would be concerned about this kind of mechanic being harder to manage than the current cold mechanic. For the cold, all you really need to do is wear warm clothing and stand by a fire occasionally when you get too cold, and it's rather easy to figure out when you're getting too cold as well. Getting wet will chill you down faster, sure, but I will note that in the current state of the game...you can actually warm up by going for a swim in freezing water. Counterintuitive, yes, and I don't know why it works, but it does(albeit the rate you warm up is slow). As for getting too hot...I could be missing something, but it seems like that would be harder to notice in the game, especially since it's relatively easy to be outside in hot weather than cold. I think a better, simpler option is to just give the player a debuff if they stay out in the heat too long. An additional trait system--both for temporary and permanent effects--has been floated by the devs, but whether or not it gets implemented remains to be seen. Assuming it does though, all you'd need to do is give the player a light debuff(small loss of movement speed) whenever the heat is starting to get to them, to prompt them to find a way to cool off. The light debuff could be removed after spending a few moments in a cool room, drinking a refreshing beverage, or going for a swim. However, should the player ignore the light debuff and continue exposing themselves to the heat, then the debuff could be upgraded to a more serious penalty(more movement speed lost, with a bit of health), that will take longer to recover from. You could still apply bonuses to heat resistance by wearing light clothing and appropriate headgear, as well as apply penalties for wearing heavy furs in the summer.

Sometimes they do--it's easier to see exposed ore on the cliff faces. I've had fairly good luck getting decently high ore readings when prospecting around mountains as well. Sometimes you have to search around the base a little to find the sweet spot, but mountains do seem to be good places to prospect.

Honestly, I'm not sure. I assume that it is, but it could have been changed to be a rare occurrence to prevent cheesing the bunny mechanics, or it could be bugged and no one's noticed. In any case, I know it was a thing at one time, so I always just fence in my fields and beehives to be on the safe side(plus it looks nice).

Oh good, the Nadiyans won't be wondering where all their chickens went anymore!

There are different flora and fauna you can find on mountaintops, as well as glaciers. Mountains are also required terrain for the first story location.

It varies depending on world seed. Rock layers tend to cover a fair bit of territory, but it's also relatively common to have bauxite covering just one mountain, or patches of sandstone here and there...you get the idea. It's also very variable on resources too. Borax does spawn in sediment rock, but it's also very possible to get large swaths of sediment rock with very little borax to be found. The general rule I've observed for world generation is that most maps will have a handful of resources that are quite plentiful, but be lacking one or two critical things. It's fairly rare that you get everything you need within a thousand blocks of spawn, although it is possible.

I like the idea, but I think it works much better as a mod than as an addition to the base game. Rusty gears already serve as currency in singleplayer, and minting your own coins for purely decorative purposes is...a bit too niche for what should be in vanilla singleplayer, really. Similar reasoning for multiplayer as well--rusty gears already serve as currency and are readily usable at both NPC merchants and the built-in auction house system. Likewise, there are also lore reasons that rusty gears have been adopted as the world's currency.

Welcome to the forums! This is already somewhat of a thing. You need to fence off your crops or else animals will happily invade your farms and eat the plants. Likewise, you also need to make sure there are enough nutrients in the soil for the plant to grow; different plants require different types of nutrients, and low nutrient values mean longer growth times. Additionally, not all crops can tolerate the same climates. Some crops favor hot weather and can't take the cold, while some favor the cold and can't tolerate heat. If the weather gets too hot or too cold, the crop will be damaged and provide less yield at maturity, or it may even die from too much exposure. For late game farming, you can build greenhouses to extend growing seasons beyond what might be normal for your climate, and invest in terra preta for the highest coil nutrients and fastest growth times. Fertilizers can return nutrients to the soil and are more easily obtained, meaning that crop rotation becomes much less necessary.

Welcome to the forums! As others have mentioned, you might try looking in a different direction, or take a crack at a different map--one that spawns you in something other than granite. Granite layers can cover quite a lot of territory depending on the map, and while those maps can fun in their own way, it may not be the challenge you're looking for at the moment. I will note though, that you really only need borax for steelmaking. If you're just after a material to begin leatherworking, you can purchase lime sometimes from commodites/survival goods traders. You can also get lime from grinding up seashells(two lime per shell), as well as sometimes find chalk/limestone rocks as loot in cracked vessels and ruins.

At a glance, I like the new terrain. It's somehow a bit less jarring than it was previously, and will likely be a lot more fun to travel across. However, I do think players will want to play around with the settings a bit in order to get the land/ocean ratio they prefer, as the default heavily favors a lot of land and little ocean.

I always feed them a bit every now and then while they're brooding, as it seems to help them stay put on the nest or otherwise return to the nest faster if they've been scared off. It's difficult to get through the first couple of chicken generations, but once you do it gets easier to raise them without hassle. I'll also note that you'll want to keep an eye on the chicken pen anyway to make sure there's not a fox or some other predator that's spooking them, as spooked chickens aren't always a player's fault. Bears and wolves are easy to notice, but foxes can be hard to spot, especially if there's a lot of tall grass or other plants around.

Welcome to the forums! As @Krougal said, it's a known bug in 1.21 RC3. According to the report on github, it's been fixed for the next release. Whether the next release is the stable release of 1.21, or another unstable RC, remains to be seen.

Could be, though I would chalk it up to just being a gameplay thing for balance. Gold and silver aren't particularly easy to acquire en masse like copper, tin, bismuth, and zinc, thus black bronze is the least attractive option in terms of material cost. However, if you give black bronze slightly better stats than the other types, now the player has more of a reason to pick black bronze over the other types. Probably this too. I'd also wager it's called bronze and not brass due to being part of the bronze tier of equipment. Players who are looking for the next step after copper will be searching bronze, not brass, and the only brass items you can really make at the moment are lanterns and torch holders. If you called it bismuth brass, it might be a more accurate name, but it would probably confuse many players and lead them to overlook the alloy when progressing.

I'll also note that I asked Tyron in the announcement thread whether Vintage Story players would need to pay for the new game if it begins as a VS module but later becomes a separate game, if players would get it for free, or if players would get it at a significant discount. The answer seems to be that players who already own VS will get a copy of the new game for free, or at a significant discount--either option feels fair to me. It ensures that previous VS players don't have to fork over a lot of money for something they really already owned and played with for a while. @Thorfinn mentioned this a while back, and I didn't think too much of it at the time. However, after poking around in the code for modding purposes and watching updates roll out, I'm inclined to think it's a much more accurate description of what Vintage Story is than I first thought. Yes, it's still a game, but it's also very much a game engine in itself, that anyone with the grit and know-how could overhaul into a brand new game via a mod. It's not an entirely foreign concept either. People have done similar with mods for Skyrim; Enderall is technically a separate game, but it's also a total conversion mod for Skyrim. The Skywind and Skyblivion fan projects are also total conversion mods.

Welcome to the forums! You can also smelt quartz you don't need into glass and sell it to some of the traders, making a tidy little profit over time.

Just for the record, you can use the chisel tool to rename the chiseled blocks as well.

For Cool climate zones, cattails do exist, but aren't common. You'll find them in the few warmer chunks that are scattered about. As for the arctic itself...you'll need to locate cracked vessels that hold arctic supplies. The other alternative is using a mod like Wildcraft: Trees and Shrubs, which adds special cane sticks from certain trees that can be used to craft handbaskets and basic storage chests. Unfortunately, that mod also hasn't been updated, and does not seem to work on the most recent game version. Krougal's hit the nail on the head though--the colder climate starts are for those looking for a more challenging game.

When I first started playing, I delayed the full ten days, and started shortening it a bit as I got more experience with the game. Nowadays, I don't set any delay at all and just take whatever comes. Sometimes that means having nothing but high rift activity the first few nights, and sometimes it means having a full week or so of calm before calamity strikes.

Given what I've seen while lurking on Github, that bug seems to be fixed. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's a stable release sometime within the next week.

As a general rule, Blackguard needs one less swing to kill a target in melee combat, but will need one extra shot to kill a target at range. Keeping in mind too that not only do Blackguards have the health and melee boost, but they also don't suffer as much movement penalty from armor. Not as much as you might think. Sheep don't run away when you approach them, and will attack if provoked, so it's very easy to start a melee fight with them. Same case for boar, although boar will be aggressive without provocation if there are piglets around. Deer are more difficult to goad into a fight since most will flee at your approach, with male moose being the exception. However, male deer can still be goaded into a fight if you are close enough to warrant them charging, should they be attacked. Rabbits will take two shots, until you have a recurve bow(can be purchased from trader) and iron arrows, or a longbow and arrows better than iron. Bronze spear works as well, but copper does not. Chickens are the better small-game option for hunting at range, since they only require one shot from a basic flint spear.

It depends on one's playstyle, I suppose. The bonus to mechanicals sounds good, in theory, however Blackguard will still hit harder in melee while being more durable at the same time. Likewise, Hunter(which also has the Fleetfooted bonus) will hit harder at range, and will have a much easier time landing shots due to increased range and accuracy. The main draw of Clockmaker in combat, in my opinion, is the locust pet. However, the locust pet is rather...underwhelming. They aren't that durable, even with the health boost they get, and they're easy to lose or otherwise will despawn after a time. You can also only have one locust at a time. I can also understand why the locust taming isn't terribly strong, as it would make it easy for Clockmaker to be too strong of pick compared to other classes. The bonus to translocator repair is okay, but it falls off rather quickly late game, when one has plenty of temporal gears. So as it stands now, Clockmaker is pretty weak at the moment, since there are other classes who can basically do the same thing but better. However, I will also note that while Clockmaker is heavily tied to working with machinery as its main theme...there's really not much in terms of machinery for them to tinker with. Once late game tech receives an update, I'd wager the class will see some improvement and be a more attractive pick than it is currently.