LadyWYT

Persistence hunting isn't a good argument to make when it comes to game mechanics, since that requires chasing an animal for several hours to a couple of days in order to tire it out to kill it. Additionally, the player isn't a human, nor does the player get tired; couple that with the fact that the usual complaint about hunting is that the player basically has to chase down and wear out their prey with several shots... Basically, persistence hunting isn't a very good method when it comes to videogames. Better options would be more trap options, locational damage, blood trails/tracking, prey dying to injuries, or otherwise giving some prey animals a weakness to bows/spears to make them a little easier to hunt. Disagree here, at least somewhat. Crude spears are, well, crude, and if they could easily oneshot deer and other larger prey animals there would be no real reason to invest in better spears and arrows, at least when it comes to hunting. I would say similar for even copper spears/arrows. It's not that such things couldn't drop prey in real life, but from a game balance standpoint the player ought to have a reason to upgrade from basic stone/copper, and those upgrades ought to feel like a reasonable upgrade. If an iron spear/arrow is doing essentially the same damage as a crude spear or copper arrow, even for specific jobs, it's just not going to feel very satisfying to invest in. There's also the factor too that the player is supposed to struggle a little in the early game, with "surviving" switching to "thriving" as the player acquires better tools and weapons to work with. I think if large prey animals like deer could be easily killed with the earliest weapons, Vintage Story would probably start to feel a lot less challenging due to the lack of survival pressure.

For the vanilla game, I think a "custom class" option would nice to have, but it should be an option that's disabled by default and require the player to actually enable it in order to use it. The reason I say that, is that each class has specific lore tied to it, complete with some special class-dependent reactions from NPCs--obviously, that kind of stuff isn't going to happen with a custom class since there's no way to plan for it, so the best the player can expect is "I have no idea who you even are nor do I really have a reason to care" from NPCs. There's also the fact that premade classes are at least reasonably balanced when it comes to strengths/weaknesses, and a custom class won't necessarily be balanced. Hence why I say the player should have to enable the option themselves--that way they know exactly what they're signing up for. And of course, for multiplayer, it needs to be a toggle, since you don't want your players making broken classes or naming them rude things.

You'd need a way to smelt steel bits back into ingots; as it stands now there's no fuel hot enough to accomplish this.

The thing about flight in videogames is that it's very hard to balance in relation to survival challenges and other methods of travel. Flight makes it very easy to avoid terrestrial threats and obstacles, while adding flying enemies in an attempt to provide challenge tends to frustrate the player more often than not. Minecraft's elytra and phantom, and I daresay happy ghast, kinda prove that point fairly well. The elytra, as fun as it is, renders most other types of travel useless, since it's relatively easy to acquire and is much faster than other typical travel methods. The phantom might technically be easy enough to avoid or otherwise deal with, but most players tend not to enjoy dealing with them since they don't really add anything interesting to the mix. The happy ghast is probably the best balanced of the three, but they can get lost by breaking leads and while they can be useful for building their slow speed makes them rather tedious for actual travel. In short, I think some kind of flying machine could be added to the game, but it's the kind of tech I would expect to see very late in the game and locked behind completion of specific story content, in addition to being quite limited in what it can actually do. If patterned after the Wright flyer, I would expect it to be mainly a novelty transport item, and not something that actually flies very far or is capable of hauling cargo. I'd more expect to see some kind of airship, since that would be more capable of transporting cargo around and the slow speed and high cost would help keep it at least somewhat balanced against other methods of transport. In the meantime, there is this mod, if you're keen on toying around with air travel in the game: https://mods.vintagestory.at/vsairshipmod

That would be Hayden Davenport, also known as Lo-Phi. https://lophi.bandcamp.com/album/vintage-story-ost https://www.youtube.com/@lo-phi-music The only exception that I'm aware of is the hurdy-gurdy track, which is the handiwork of Andrey Vinogradov. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHXabV5Rpb189xfscq-zq7Q

Welcome to the forums! I'm guessing that it might be because it's a bit of a niche resource, and the rarity is meant to push the player to explore and pay attention to their surroundings rather than just visit the nearest pine tree and acquire all the resin they need. But I also think it's also due in part to RNG, since I've had maps that had lots of resin trees within the same chunk. Do keep in mind that resin can generate on any of the four faces of a log, and can also generate very high in the tree. It's very easy to miss if you aren't looking at the tree from the right angle or the resin is otherwise too high to be seen. This could be bad RNG, or it could be a factor of your world's climate. Flax won't generate if it's too cold, so if you chose cooler spawn parameters or otherwise settled in a colder area, then flax will be harder to find. Flax and other grain crops also look similar to tall grass, especially in their younger growth stages, which can also make them difficult to spot. It's also worth noting that grain crops were changed in 1.22 and now have half the yield in return for spawning in larger, more frequent patches. If your world was created prior to 1.22, that could also be why flax is hard to find--you'd need to visit fresh chunks to get wild grains to follow the new spawn rules.

As of 1.22, it shouldn't require that to kill a rabbit. I've been able to kill them with one shot of a flint spear, as a Blackguard. That wasn't possible before.

Relevant poll: In any case, I do like the idea of needing to dry pottery before firing, lest it shatter during the firing process. That being said... I think this goes too far, as it makes the early game a lot more punishing on newer players, as well as makes it a lot harder to store clay in general for later use. It might not be terribly realistic to have clay be some mysterious substance that never dries out unless it's shaped into something, but I think most players would prefer the compromise of realism and convenience. Realistically, it's possible to lose an entire batch of pottery if something explodes in the kiln...at least, to my knowledge it is. That's probably too extreme for a videogame though. I think it's more than fair to just make the shatter risk relative to the percentage of dryness the pottery item is. At 100% dry, the item won't shatter at all; at 90% dryness it's probably still safe to fire if the player is in a hurry, but it could shatter; at 10% dryness the player really shouldn't be trying to fire the item as it will almost certainly shatter. I think this is best simplified as a mechanic that the player can use to recycle pottery shards/unwanted pottery items into usable clay. With the introduction of a mortar/pestle and a wooden bowl, pottery shards could even drop from broken cracked vessels or panning loot and thus serve as a way for the player to acquire some clay for basic items if they're having trouble locating a deposit. I don't think it should be something that the player can make a "super-clay" out of though. What I would add here--let players reuse pottery shards for mosaic decorations. That would be a better incentive for the player to deliberately shatter pottery or otherwise invest in a beehive kiln. For those wanting more robust pottery mechanics, this mod might prove interesting. I ran across it the other day and haven't tried it myself, so I can't say how well it works, but it looks quite interesting: https://mods.vintagestory.at/clayworks

It's probably the kind of thing that will become a little more refined with a status effect system, but otherwise I feel hunting in videogames is a little hard to balance. If it's purely a hunting game, then it's easier to justify killing animals in a single shot, because the entire game is based on the premise of actually finding the animals and then getting close enough to line up the killshot. Vintage Story, however, has a lot more things to do than just hunting, including livestock. Hunting can't take too much time, or else the player becomes frustrated that they don't have time to devote to things other than basic survival; it also can't be too easy, or livestock ceases to have much value. In my case, I know that if I could reliably drop deer and boar with single shots(or maybe two), I wouldn't need to bother with livestock at all, since the only real advantage at that point is dairy(which can be skipped). As it stands currently, livestock is valuable because with a little work, it ensures that players can avoid dealing with dangerous animals and environments, and have clean kills via the butcher knife instead.

It goes beyond AI and modding, as those just happen to be the popular topics at the moment, and is rather something that tends to happen for any subject that the community has fairly strong mixed sentiments about. In my recollection, temporal mechanics, combat, and new game updates are some of the worst offenders. I will also note that in my experience, the discussions can get rather heated, but usually manage to remain relatively civil. Would it be really nice if discussions like the above could be had without the threat of devolving into slap-fights? Yes, but it's also the internet--people's opinions vary widely and it's easy to forget there's an actual person behind the screen. As a result, some give into emotion and end up posting things that they otherwise wouldn't say to someone's face(at least, not as they typed it). Is there a fix? Eh, not really. The best advice I really have is to model the kind of behavior you'd like to see. If someone starts getting heated, be the calm one and try to reason with them, if possible, and if they insist on getting personal about it then consider using the report button and/or the ignore feature rather than get personal in return. If you're the one that's in the process of losing temper, then it's probably time to take a break(a few minutes to a few hours, however long you need) and go outside, do something relaxing, or grouse about it to your friends if you need to...just don't let it loose on the forums. And of course, when debating something, saying "I like this/don't this" is a perfectly valid response, but is also purely opinion--it doesn't give other users much information to work with. Explaining what you like/dislike about a thing and why may not necessarily win people to your position, but they'll at least have a better idea of where you're coming from and be more likely to arrive at a compromise.

Not necessarily. The fact that their homes are intact structures is enough to stand out from the rest of the landscape, for the most part. Given all the monsters about, they're likely more focused on keeping both themselves and their wandering clientele alive, so palisades, stakes, and other defensive measures take priority over aesthetics. It's not really what I would call proper camouflage, as that would entirely blending the structure into the surrounding landscape a little more. I'm guessing camouflage also doesn't help that much against monsters, since monsters don't seem to have any eyes. Camouflage would be more useful as an anti-bandit measure, but even then, bandits are more likely to stick to the areas around settlements, where there's more relative safety and stuff to steal. Depending on the trader, some employ this method. Although the "brightly-colored flag" isn't so brightly colored anymore thanks to years of use.

Yes and no. Unstable areas will produce negative temporal results, but not all negative temporal results come from unstable areas. Temporal storms and rifts are temporary events that can cause temporal stability to drop even in areas that are otherwise stable. It's quite possible, especially if the cellar was dug fairly deep. The best way to test is probably to dig a small shaft in the affected area of the cellar and see if the stability gets worse as you dig deeper.

I would say that your mileage will vary heavily. Caves might have none, one, or more than one--the larger the cave, the better your chances of finding multiple translocators. Typically, translocators are similar to trader spawns, in that they'll have a "buffer zone" between them, but occasionally you might find a couple that are very close to each other.

Welcome to the forums! To my knowledge, no, rooster fights won't startle hens off nests. If the chickens aren't a few generations old though, they will spook rather easily if you're too close to the chicken pen. It could also be that a fox is lurking somewhere nearby and trying to have himself a chicken dinner. A bear or wolf you'd easily notice, but a fox is small and thus harder to see, and will also flee if you get too close, which can make it harder to determine whether or not you've got one disturbing your chickens.

Diving bell. I don't think that the ocean is supposed to be peaceful, given that in reality the ocean is a rather treacherous place. However, aquatic content hasn't been fleshed out very much yet, so until there's more reason for the player to be out on the water or a way for players to really explore underwater, there's not a lot of reason to add aquatic monsters. When it comes to aquatic rust monsters, I'm not sure they're really needed, outside of maybe some kinda of rogue automaton guarding a shipwreck or underwater ruin. The water shouldn't necessarily be a default "safe zone" for the player when it comes to dealing with monsters, but I think most players probably will get annoyed if they're assaulted by monsters on land and sea, annoyed if they lose their sailboats/cargo to monsters, or might otherwise find the challenge uninteresting if it's the same type of challenge posed by land monsters. Thus I think it's better to stick to more natural threats when it comes to the ocean, like sharks, squids, jellyfish, etc, as well as the good ol' oxygen meter. Sharks aren't typically dangerous themselves, but injured players would definitely want to stay out of the water lest the scent of blood send the sharks into a frenzy. Jellyfish stings can be lethal. Squids can be terrifying, especially the Humboldt squid, and would be good candidates for potentially hunting the player. Octopus don't tend to be aggressive, but some of them are extremely venomous, and they can also be curious...which can be dangerous since they don't exactly understand how diving equipment works. As for oxygen, even with diving equipment, the player can still drown easily enough if they get too greedy or get lost in underwater caves.

You can tell whether an area is stable or not by watching the teal gear on your hotbar. If it's spinning clockwise, that means the area is stable. If it's not spinning, that either means the area is neutral, or that the area is stable but you're at 100% stability(in which case, it won't spin). If the gear is spinning counter-clockwise, the area is unstable and you will need to keep an eye on the meter and leave before the meter drops too low(typically around the 40% mark is when it starts getting a little dicey). If you don't see a teal gear on your hotbar, then temporal stability has been disabled for that world and isn't something you need to worry about unless you turn the mechanic on. As for rift activity, it's variable, and can change in an instant. Generally, you'll want to save your underground activities for days of calm or low activity, and avoid the underground during days of higher activity, since that generally means more monsters.

First off, welcome to the forums! A new world would be advisable. You don't necessarily have to use the default world size, but the size you have listed is much too small even with the location distance cut in half. For 50% distance I would say you'd probably need at least 10,000 blocks tall by 20,000 blocks wide, though I would probably go with 15k x 30k just to be safe, if having a small world is important. Keeping in mind those dimensions most likely won't be applicable when more story locations are added in the future.

Scenarios like this are when I typically pop into creative mode, fix whatever happened, and then pretend it didn't happen. Really depends on what you want to prioritize when picking a base location. In my experience, rapids aren't terribly hard to find, but they aren't necessarily in a spot I consider pretty, or there may be other locations that have more value(like higher fertility soil, ocean front property, lots of berry bushes/fruit trees nearby, etc).

Probably easiest to just type out a list.

I stuffed some locust nests under there too, since they conveniently look like stalactites. Thanks! There probably is, but for a desktop icon I'd be more inclined to use a silhouette of the thing with "VS" stamped on top, or different art entirely(like one of the gear examples earlier in the thread).

@Tyron Rather than just stick to verbal feedback, I decided to take a crack at redrawing the logo. My plan was to keep as much of the original design as possible(with a few minor additions), but draw it in the styling of the new. I scaled back the mechanical parts, so there's just enough there to get the viewer to start asking questions about what's going on, but not so much that it's going to give away the plot, so to speak. As for the nature motifs, I opted to keep it simple so that while there's a lot of detail, the viewer doesn't get overwhelmed by too many things fighting for attention at once. Some of the colors are a little muddier than I would really like, but not bad for an afternoon's work. Drawn in Procreate, for those wondering.

Welcome to the forums! It might help to post a mod list, since that narrows down the options at least a little bit.

Echoing what others have said, the easiest way to tell is the sound. Rapids are LOUD, and sound much more energetic than regular water flow. They also have a few more particles that bounce around, as well as a brighter color and slightly different "watery" overlay. Probably also worth noting that if you play with the Watersheds mod, it can make it a little harder to tell since that mod tries to add running water sounds for its streams, but the streams aren't necessarily rapids.

This is the bigger issue with the system, in my opinion. Small items should require a single portion of glue to fix, medium items two or three, and large items three at minimum. Still gets a bit pricey, but resin and charcoal are renewable so...not that big of deal, at least in my opinion. Tapping trees for resin, as you mentioned, would help(along with allow other possibilities like syrup production), but there could probably also be bone glue or something as an alternative as well.

Sure, but I'm guessing most players probably wouldn't be too excited about the addition of cultivated flowers if all that can be done with them is make dye.