LadyWYT

Drift of drifters Stalk of shivers Quiver of bowtorn Maybe?

There's a rebalance patch for Combat Overhaul that someone made: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/24963 The only real competitor mod that I recall seeing is Bloodshed: https://mods.vintagestory.at/bloodshed Has its own weapons pack as well: https://mods.vintagestory.at/bloodshedweapons

Very nice! I dunno why, but the drifter reminds me of the Lorax. I think it's due to the bushy little mustache bit on the "face". Same here. Until you see one stand up on its hind legs and start doing a creepy interpretive dance.

Someone already did similar with Skyrim--I think the result is called Enderal? Likewise, there's the Skywind and Skyblivion projects that use the same concept: Skyrim's engine, but switching out assets and rewriting the code to make it function as an entirely different game. I think similar has been done with Minecraft as well...modpack overhauls, super-realistic shaders and textures...I think someone even turned it into an RTS, somehow.

Welcome to the forums! By sanity, are you talking about the teal gear in the middle of the hotbar? That meter tracks your temporal stability; sanity isn't a stat in the game(at the moment). Temporal stability hasn't really been explained in detail, but it's very different from sanity and carries more serious implications when you lose too much. The best way I can really describe it is that temporal stability essentially determines how much of a foothold you have in the present time in the real world...lose too much, and you start slipping through time into a different dimension entirely. That's not to say this is a bad idea, I would just implement it differently. Instead of restoring temporal stability(there is already a method to do this in the game, using a knife and a temporal gear), perhaps it gives the imbiber a small reduction on incoming damage. That allows players to use alcohol to be a bit tougher in a fight(which could be very useful if they don't have particularly good armor yet), with the risk of drinking too much and losing accuracy/coordination.

Just to rule out this possibility--I know it's not due to some tracks being seasonal, as the issue isn't limited to seasonal tracks. The only solution that's crossed my mind is backing up files and doing a fresh install of VS, but that's typically the last resort method to fix a thing.

Try searching in plains and other grassy areas instead of forests. It's not that clay can't spawn in forests(I've found a deposit or two in a forest before), but I think it's more unlikely. The bigger issue with searching in forests is that if it does spawn, the forest floor will cover the top of the deposit, so even if the clay is there it's not likely to be at all visible. In a grassy area though, bits of clay should poke through the grass on top, making it much easier to locate a deposit. It's probably not a bug, but it could be a world with fewer clay deposits than normal around spawn. You might try making a throwaway world or two and run around in creative(/gm 1, though it could be /gm 2, I don't recall for sure) to see if you have any better luck finding clay deposits. If you do, then it's probably just bad luck with the world you're playing on.

Vintage Story's main storyline is somewhat sequential, in my opinion. While it is written to be linear, it's also flexible, in that there's an ideal order of completion but one doesn't HAVE to complete it that way. It's entirely possible to skip Chapter 1 entirely and jump straight to Chapter 2; however, it's unlikely to unfold that way unless the player either knows what to look for and deliberately makes such a choice, or just explores a LOT of territory before ever bothering with the treasure hunter's quest. I'm fairly certain this is why locations for Chapter 2 are located so far from spawn--it reduces the likelihood of newer players accidentally missing parts of the story, given that Chapter 2 locations are more easily spotted than the Chapter 1 location. The distance is also an effective narrative tool for driving home just how big and lonely the setting is, which is one nitpick I have with a lot of modern fantasy adventure titles. Skyrim, for example, is supposed to be a vast wilderness dotted with ancient ruins and small strongholds of civilization. In actual gameplay though, you can get from one town to the next with a 5 minute jog, and it's difficult to really go from one hilltop to another without running into some sort of civilization(friendly or otherwise). Granted, the world wasn't built to scale in order to give the player things to do around every corner without making it a slog, but the drawback is that it's hard to take the world seriously as a result. In Vintage Story's case, a player can't afford not to take the world seriously when planning their travels, because they can't count on there being a safe haven over the next hill to rest and resupply in should they run into trouble. I will say that Chapter 2 will still make sense if one somehow misses Chapter 1. However, the impact probably won't be the same. Chapter 1's location is very interesting and a shame to miss, and it also provides at least some background information on why the world is the way it is. Without spoiling too much, there's also an item there that will likely prove useful in the adventures to come. My take on "lore-rich" versus "story-based" is that the two really go hand-in-hand. If the world isn't lore-rich, it's hard to have an interesting story, and vice-versa. In the case of Vintage Story, there's plenty of lore for the player to discover, and an obvious story to tell regarding the player and a handful of related NPCs. However, the story is not the sole purpose of the gameplay, and the game doesn't push the player to complete it in order to have fun.

I forgot about that. Oh yeah, for sure. To me, certain important parts being harder to acquire is the trade-off for taking the less-risky paths. It'll take a player longer to get stuff like temporal gears and Jonas parts that way, but it's still a viable option if they're willing to put in the time. I tried to explain it in my initial post, but I think it's also a bit tricky to really explain without some kind of demonstration. Essentially, all it is, is a requirement that the monster is killed by a player directly(or a player-owned pet/ally) in order to count towards spawning a guaranteed special monster. After a player kills around 10-15(haven't pinpointed a number, but it seems a fair range), a special monster(such as a double-headed drifter) will spawn near the player. That is, no boiling drifters alive in a hot spring, getting them to kill each other, or killing them via fall damage or some other indirect method. I'm sure there's still a way to build a sort of grinder, that still ensures the player can get the last hit on monsters so the kills qualify towards a special spawn, which is fine in my book. It would be quite a bit of effort to do that(and players are very good about figuring out workarounds for things like that regardless), so I don't really see it being an issue if they can find a way to build such a thing. As for multiplayer, I figure that all monsters killed by players will count towards the special spawns, making it rather lucrative for players to fight together instead of separately. In that case, when enough kills are reached to trigger a special spawn, it will spawn near one of the players who contributed to the kills in order to ensure it spawns near someone actively hunting said monster, and not someone who just wants to wait out the storm. Ideally, I figure a change like this would result in at least a small handful of chances for a player to get a lot of good loot, instead of the current system of just hoping for a special monster to spawn. Special monsters will still spawn at random too, as they do now, but with that kind of change players can also influence how many they encounter during a storm. As for changes to loot...I didn't really want to go adding anything to the current loot tables, aside from metal scraps. Current loot is a bit underwhelming in some ways, though I chalk that up to there being not enough uses for temporal gears and Jonas parts at present.

I mean...at least the rifts aren't spawning in the house. That's happened a couple of times on my friend's server.

Well if the creatures get worse the deeper you go in the world, maybe they get better the higher you climb? I'm wondering if a rift can spawn at the top though, and bring any monsters with it. If they can...those drifters are going to be in for quite the shock.

Welcome to the forums! It may(or may not!) be a bit anachronistic, but I like it. Especially what happened to the sailboat a buddy and I have on our server. It uh...kinda got frozen in place. Completely unusable, although it looked cool. Yeah I agree here. An icebreaker attachment would be nice for keeping sailboats more useful in cold weather so that they aren't completely defunct(even if that would be realistic), but that kind of utility should be a significant investment so that the weather remains a challenge to sailing, and not something you can ignore completely by throwing some copper onto the front of the boat. I'd also add that if the sailboat is pushing its way through ice, it should be at a slower speed than what you'd get from sailing in good weather(that is, little to no ice).

Hmmmm...this would make climbing down cliffs a lot smoother.

In the current game? Yes. You can find them in certain story locations, maybe ruins as well though I'm not sure(I've found the occasional Jonas part or two in a ruin). Temporal gears are also a rare drop from panning; I think it can be gravel, sand, or bony soil, although I'm not sure. I tend to see them drop more often from bony soil when I get then from panning, but I'm pretty certain I've gotten a couple from normal gravel as well. It's still a very rare drop though--killing monsters is the fastest way to get them. Regarding my rebalance proposal, I see temporal gears being possible as part of the passive loot table, but still very rare. That way a player could get lucky and find one very early in the game, without needing to do a lot of panning or risk their lives against monsters. However, if one relies only on the passive post-storm scavenging, I wouldn't expect them to get more than a small handful of temporal gears a year. While temporal gears don't have much use now, I'm guessing that small handful won't be a sufficient supply to rely on once more Jonas tech items are implemented. Hmmmm, sneaky. I hadn't considered this. That being said, if a player goes to that trouble...eh, why not let them have the payout? I don't think it would break anything given the last-hit rule proposed for the more active loot system, and it sounds like it'd be a fun challenge for a more passive playthrough.

Durability shouldn't affect whether or not you can butcher the carcass. The worst that will happen with a low durability knife is it will just break, but the carcass should still be lootable. Though I will note that I am still playing on 1.20.7 due to playing on a friend's modded server. It's possible something changed with knife durability and carcass harvesting between then and now, but I don't recall seeing anything in the patch notes on it. Welcome to the forums! Just to make sure all the bases are covered, were you holding shift while right-clicking on the carcass? Flint knives are fairly slow at the job, so it'll take a couple of seconds for the harvesting animation to finish and the loot window to appear.

First off, welcome to the forums! Clay is a resource that's fairly common unless you're either in the arctic(changing in 1.21 I believe) or in a desert region. Once you've seen the blocks it's easy to find, but until you know what to look for it can be hard to distinguish deposits from surrounding grass. The most noticeable difference is the side texture of the block, as it will have a mottled reddish, bluish, or tan color depending on the kind of clay. The top of the block will be grassy, but patches of the clay will show through. If you are playing with true colors enabled for your map, clay deposits and peat deposits often show up as circular discolorations in grassy areas. The two main types of clay you can find are red clay and blue clay. Red clay is probably the most common, spawning at a variety of elevations(except perhaps mountain peaks) as long as the region isn't too cold and has enough rainfall. Blue clay has the same temperature and rainfall requirements, however, blue clay will only spawn near sea level, usually by a body of water. Fire clay is the clay type you will want for industrial purposes, however, it only spawns naturally under black coal and anthracite deposits, or in bauxite biomes. If you don't have a natural deposit of fire clay available, you can easily craft fire clay from the other clay types by mixing them with powdered calcinated flint. Blue clay can be panned from any sand or gravel. It is, however, a somewhat uncommon drop. If you're relying on panning to acquire clay, you will need to do a LOT of panning in order to get clay in any decent quantity that way.

Maybe instead of having strong winds damage the windmill, just have it wear down over time while working? That way you can use it safely at the most optimal times, but still have a reason to shut everything down when it's not in use.

I like the idea, but...if I were a trader, I would 100% be doing my best Moneybags impression and charging players a small fee for a safe place to spend the night.

Not really. There aren't any enemies to challenge your settlement or anything, unless it's maybe a mod feature. The worst that can happen is accidents, natural disasters(which are optional), and your own poor planning. Colonial Charter roughly quadruples the content in the game, I would say. I don't think you can name the villagers in Banished, but you can in Farthest Frontier, which is a sort of spiritual successor to Banished offering more RTS-like options for gameplay.

It's not as inconceivable as you might think. The Ancient Warfare mod operated on similar concepts. Banished is a small city-builder type game that also follows similar logic, especially if you play with mods like Colonial Charter. The premise is deceptively simple, but getting a settlement to 100+ people is relatively difficult, since there's both a lot to manage and it's not really possible to just change your plans on the fly if something doesn't work. You have to really plan several steps ahead in order to keep your town running smoothly.

The immediate idea that comes to mind is take Vintage Story's temporal storm mechanics and monsters, and rework the motifs a bit. Now instead of time storms, mechanical monstrosities, and eldritch horrors, maybe you have an evil wizard teleporting his orcish armies around, or an undead dragon with a slew of skeletons trying to break free of a dimensional prison. From there, you could add in more NPC settlements and let them explain the new lore as needed.

I wouldn't zoom the player out into an overhead view of the kingdom area; I'd implement some sort of map table instead. When you interact with the table, it brings up an interface with a small model of the settlement, along with a list of options to make managing some things a little easier.

You know, generally I argue against things like windmill maintenance, as it seems like it would be aggravating to need to check it fairly often or to come back from an expedition and have things falling apart. However, if there's prior warning like squeaky parts, so the player has more time to react, that seems fair. Plus upon further thought about the concepts laid out in this thread...applying brakes to stop your machines ought to stop them from wearing out if they aren't running, which also feels like a very fair implementation of a maintenance mechanic. Maintenance can still be a bit time-consuming, when a player has to do it, but the player can also cut down on the amount of maintenance they need to do and how often, by simply applying the brakes when the machinery isn't in use. I'm more inclined to support that kind of mechanic with that sort of implementation.

There used to be a couple of Minecraft mods for that kind of thing, back in the day: Tales of Kingdoms and Ancient Warfare. The former dove heavily into RPG aspects(though was never finished, to my knowledge), while the latter was less about RPG mechanics and more about the player creating infrastructure and NPCs to manage. There are probably a handful of other mods that do similar, at for Minecraft, but it's an area that's still being explored on the modding side of Vintage Story.

I dunno about for seas/oceans, but if rivers are ever implemented, that does sound like it could be an interesting mechanic as a local challenge. A player could avoid that kind of trouble by not building in the obvious floodplain. In the event they really want to build in such an area though, then building structures like dams or dikes would allow them to do so. Not really sure about this one, but if it just cracks a few blocks instead of destroying things, and you can fix it with some clay/other materials, then it sounds like it might be fair. Though I would expect it to be an optional challenge that's toggled off by default, much like lightning starting fires. Given how destructive tornadoes are, I really don't see them being a thing, outside of mods. I like this idea, but without the destruction. Most meteors aren't that big and burn up in the atmosphere, which would make for some fun stargazing activity at night(especially if there are meteor showers at certain times of year). It would also be cool to find a chunk of meteoric iron every once in a while, from the rare fresh meteor. As for the meteors big enough to leave craters, I think the craters we already have is enough. I'm not sure how easy it would be to code all of these into a mod, as coding is not my area of expertise. However, one really great thing about Vintage Story is that it's designed to be easy to mod, in terms of both playing with mods and creating them. So even if you don't have prior experience with creating mods, it's a good place to start learning.