LadyWYT

I like this theory too, however, the main hole I see in it is the time and skill required to build all the stuff we see at the Devastation. Granted, maybe Tobias also built several eidolons and other robots to help, since we see eidolon parts floating around the area. But otherwise it seems like it would have taken too much time for the 500 years that have passed, for the Nadiyans to also completely forget what actually happened there. Perhaps those involved simply refused to talk about what happened with anyone else, and the truth was eventually forgotten, but it seems a stretch. The other bit I have a tough time wrapping my mind around is how did Tobias and anyone else survive the resulting explosion when the machine blew up? That's part of the reason I lean towards it being the Salvation Engine. I don't think it's too important to reveal in the second chapter, as it silently answers the question of how we got to where we are to begin with. I suspect there are much grander machines in the works, that we will either be finding or building later. Fantastical machines aside though, it's Jonas Falx who will be the biggest reveal, unless I'm mistaken. Hmmm...I didn't consider that. That's very possible, though I still lean toward using the Lens in chapter 3. If I'm recalling correctly, I think Tyron mentioned playing around with the pocket dimension mechanic more in the near future, although that could also be in reference to fleshing out the sailboats more. But sticking at least 2 of the 3 locations into chapter 3 would make a lot of sense, as well as make "The Journey" feel even more epic. Not that we don't already do a lot of traveling in chapter 2, but more travel in chapter 3 turns it into more of LOTR-style grand adventure. We'll see! I agree, though it's possible they could opt for multiple endings depending on player choices and that could be the "good" ending. In regards to Jonas sacrificing himself, I think that would be a bittersweet end and rather fitting for his character...not that we've seen him. The poor man's been through so much, and given so much of his own time and resources to trying to make the world a better place only to see his plans almost backfire completely. The worst end for him I can think is if he decided to follow in the footsteps of the Old World nobles as a result of his trauma, and become a tyrant in the New World.

I've jumped off a cliff to avoid a moose at spawn before, on apocalyptic rift activity. It's quite the experience. The other issue that occurred to me about stopping hostile spawns near the world spawn, is that it's really only a temporary fix. If a player is temperamental enough that they're going to immediately ragequit and never try the game again because they got really unlucky with spawn, sure having no hostile creatures at world spawn might mean they play the game a bit longer. However, there's plenty of hostile wildlife and other ways to die elsewhere, which they will almost certainly find in short order, so what happens then? Not to mention that it's a lot more difficult to get geared up in Vintage Story than it is in other titles.

I don't recall who mentioned procedural dungeon generation recently, but I know it's been brought up a time or two in the past, and I've been thinking... I think the Devastation from chapter 2 was a test run for some procedural generation work that we may or may not see harnessed for minor dungeons in a future update. Reason I say that, is that while I know all the story locations are hand-built from scratch(or at least I figure as much), it doesn't make sense that the entire Devastation area is 100% made by hand. It could be, but more likely there is some kind of generation algorithm at work that utilizes pre-built set pieces instead to flesh everything out, given that many of the details repeat over the entire area and there's really only one or two locations aside from the Tower that stand out as unique. That being said, it's still impressive work, and I'd wager a precursor to procedural generation of more complex structures. I'm guessing we might see some of it come to fruition in chapter 3, if that's case, as I'm guessing that we'll be using the Lens to travel to the Rust world or a different dimension. If that ends up being the case, a potential reward could be using the Lens every once in a while to re-enter the other dimension and complete a small dungeon challenge in return for a few goodies, although I'm not sure how well that kind of gameplay loop would mesh with what we have already.

No no no, you see, the last time someone tried it, the world kinda got scrambled and now we're left with all these little grey hobos shuffling about, moaning about their desire for those fabled goodies. . . . In all seriousness though, I could see sandwiches being slipped in to a future update.

I would try the whistle in the hopes that it's just the elk icon that bugged out, and that the animal itself is still somewhere nearby. Otherwise, you'll probably need to use creative/spectator and fly yourself over to wherever the elk ended up, switch back to survival, and soldier on from there.

Your initial spawn in the world will always be at, or close to 0:0, regardless of starting climate. The Polar-Equator Distance in world settings is what affects how far away the arctic region is from the equator, and thus how quickly the climate zones transition from one to the other. The default value is 100k, meaning that if you start in the arctic you'll need to go about 100k blocks before you hit the equatorial zone. You just need to head south for the climate to warm up. If you're having to travel further than you'd like to reach the warmer zones, you might consider starting in a warmer climate, or shortening the polar-equator distance when you create a new world.

First off, welcome to the forums! Best left as a mod. The temporal gears are more in line with the lore, plus it's more interesting than just "sleep in bed". I also agree with the design philosophy on making resetting your spawn more costly; resetting one's spawn point is a powerful mechanic, and one that shouldn't be treated lightly. The current gear method means that you'll generally need to put more thought into when you reset your spawn and how often you want to risk your life. Somewhat already a thing in regards to domesticating animals. However, not all animals can be domesticated, nor should they. I think I'd rather have more efficient recipes in certain cases, such as being able to forge two knife blades from one ingot. Otherwise the metal waste isn't really that bad, at least in singleplayer, and gives the player more incentive to go searching for ore instead of finding one deposit and being set for the game. It's not the most realistic, but for similar reasons stated above...the material loss isn't that bad, and acts as incentive for the player to go interact with the world by seeking out more ore. True, but you can do that already via mods. Would be neat, but would also likely require too much processing power to be worth it. Lanterns. I think more crops is on the roadmap, but not a priority right now since we already have a good variety of food to work with. Now this idea I like, however, bloomeries also aren't that expensive either. Could be interesting for a small survival challenge, however, I could also see it winding up as more hassle than fun. Probably in the same vein as more crops--likely to be added later as time/resources permit, but not currently a priority. You can have this, you just need to adjust the world settings when creating a world until you get the kind of generation you want. Also already exists. Flax twine, linen, and sewing kits can all repair clothes. Armor you can already repair yourself. Tools and weapons can be repaired at the village(found by playing through the main story), as can armor, but it'll cost you some gears. As far as repairing tools/weapons yourself...eh...I'm fine with them breaking. Gives the player incentive to upgrade their equipment, as well as the need to seek out ore every once in a while. Will probably happen at some point along with dogs. Until then, it's covered by mods. Better handled by mods for those wanting that kind of challenge. While I've enjoyed playing with thirst mechanics, I think for the general game it would end up being too much of a chore to keep track of for most players, and it's a significant enough mechanic that it would be a disservice to just have it toggled off by default. This idea makes more sense than the straw dummies, really, but both in tandem would be fine. I think Alchemist and Noble would be better fits, as those are both class types that were also allied with Falx but aren't represented properly by anything currently playable. Farmer and cook are already covered by Commoner, essentially, and mining bonuses are already covered by Blackguard.

I say throw the new seraphs to the wolves and be done with it. Dying immediately to hostile wildlife is somewhat rare, and when it does happen it sucks, but hey, it's easy enough to try again on a different world(or come back later in the event one is frustrated). There's nothing like the adrenaline rush of outrunning a wolf pack and living to tell the tale on a fresh new world, and one acquires those escape reflexes fairly quickly. On the flip side, if I were to make the initial spawn point safer, the most I would do is give a small radius of protection to stop any entity other than the player from spawning, until the player leaves that radius. Then entities can spawn as normal. For multiplayer, it could simply be a toggled feature in the server settings. Which I'm also guessing this is probably why some new players have certain complaints--they came in expecting something like the other block game, and that's not what Vintage Story is. Vintage Story doesn't pull its punches, nor should it; let Vintage Story be Vintage Story, and those who like the game will either develop their skills and season it to their individual taste via settings/mods, or decide they don't like it and move on. Both results are perfectly fine, in my opinion. This is true, but I would also note that the other block game isn't immune from the issue either. You might not be lunch for the local wildlife in that case, but it has its own bad spawns(though "bad" is somewhat relative). The chances of getting one of those spawns is still fairly low, but it's possible, and a new player who happens to get one could decide that game isn't worth their time either and quit.

I feel like stopping people from exploiting the game mechanics is something you can only prevent so much of, as it's something that will always happen to some extent as players figure out the most expedient ways to do things. I also suspect that situations that are "too easy" aren't necessarily bad, as that's in many cases just a symptom of a player playing competently. Tasks should be easier once you have the right knowledge and skills to tackle them. That being said, I get where the OP is coming from. I don't play with cave-ins enabled, but based on his description of it, it sounds like the mechanic could use some extra tuning so it's not so easily avoided .

I know sometimes the lighting engine will derp and go from a nice evening twilight to pitch black instantly. That also happens during an eclipse, however, an eclipse will only last a couple of seconds before switching back to daylight. As for how often eclipses occur...in temperate climate zones they seem to occur about twice a year for a couple of days in the spring and fall, on standard settings anyway. They're supposed to happen whenever the moon blocks the sun. In my experience, they seem inclined to happen either earlier in the morning, or on towards evening. Yeah, that kind of frequency doesn't sound right. Have you tried going north/south to change your latitude, and see if it still occurs? I don't know that there's a "perfect spot" regarding latitude that you could get eclipses almost all the time in-game, but I suppose it's potentially possible.

I'm guessing that you probably could, with enough practice. The other block game has a similar concept of avoiding fall damage using well-timed water buckets.

As long as you're unarmored, it should be possible to outrun shivers. To my knowledge, the unarmored player is slightly faster. I could be wrong though.

Sealing crocks will extend the shelf life, but otherwise my strategy is to just...eat crocks of food, if I have them. Storing food up for winter is fine and all, and you need to if you live in a climate where it gets cold, but if you never use that food then it's practically the same as having never stored it at all. Most things will keep for a while as raw ingredients--meat, eggs, berries, and some dairy are the only things that don't really keep without processing. Depends on the multiplayer setup, really. For a big server it would be a definite problem. For a small server where the players are working together, not so much. I play with one friend, and while it's not uncommon for only one of us to be on at a time, food spoilage isn't really a problem since we're working as a team. The food that does spoil gets turned into compost, and whoever's online has the responsibility of making sure there is always some kind of food available so that neither one of us starves.

Finally sitting my butt down and doing a write-up on my thoughts. In case it wasn't obvious from the title, there will be spoilers ahead, so if you haven't yet played the main story and wish the content to remain unspoiled, stop reading now and come back later once you've played through it. You have been warned! And with that being said, let's dive into it... The Resonance Archive While it's the location central to chapter 1, the library message has been altered to include other location names. Likewise, the old alchemist who left the message is confirmed to be Tobias and not Jonas, though that will become obvious later on. In any case, only two of the mentioned locations you'll actually visit in chapter 2--the Lazaret, and Nadiya. The Spoils could be a reference to the Devastation, since the trader mentions it being a horrible place when asked about it, however, I think the Spoils may be something else given that the Devastation doesn't seem to have had its name changed over the years. The Cardinals likely refers to a proper fortified town, quite possibly a religious hub. The Quiet doesn't really hold much hint of what it might be, but I suspect it may possibly be where Jonas might be hiding. The Lazaret The first of the locations that the player will visit, it's not very big but gets the job down, and the atmosphere here is well done. It was a quarantine zone for those infected with Rot, as well as a place for alchemists to study the victims in the hopes of finding a solution. Judging by the loot that you can find in the cells, no one was spared--commoners, children, even nobles and royalty were imprisoned here and used for research. In regards to the scribbling on the walls, some of the marks seem to just be a tally of days, while some of the "writing" outside the cells could just be research notes...though that doesn't really make as much sense. A lot of the writing seems to be nonsense scribbled by infected, given that the scribbles are somewhat esoteric and seem to depict Rot monsters or other strange images. Which also leads to wonder that given several of the prisoners were likely commoners who didn't know how to write...does being infected somehow give them that capacity? I'm not sure, but it's very unsettling, and given a lot of scribbles are outside the cells, I suspect either the researchers themselves were eventually infected, or there was some sort of jailbreak towards the end. In any case, the location design is solid, though I think it should've been a little bigger, with the clue you need to find hidden better so that players need to actually do some thorough searching to find. The other thing I found worthy of note is that one of the images scribbled on the wall resembles a certain old friend, at least somewhat, though I'm not sure if that's intentional or just a coincidence. Nadiya The name of the village, and the second place you will visit. A quaint little medieval village, though it quickly becomes apparent that the villagers don't really know what happened to the Old World, or what's really going on now as a result. Tobias is a legendary figure that's long dead, in their minds, and the few that know of the Devastation seem to be aware that something horrible once happened there long ago, but are otherwise unaware of what happened and why. To further illustrate that much time has passed since the end of the Old World, all of the villagers have different accents, and none of them can read Old World writing(though they express surprise when you can). The Devastation The main core of the challenge, and likely the third place you'll visit, assuming you didn't seek out Tobias first. I believe the Tower at the center houses the Jonas machine depicted in the Salvation tapestry(which I've dubbed the Salvation Engine), since the Tower machine features a prominent clock-thing towards the top, and several outlying bits of auxiliary buildings that seem to match what's depicted in the tapestry. Additionally, it's made fairly clear that this device is what allowed the player to return as a seraph, as well as what likely wiped out the Rot and started the temporal mess in the present...especially since the entire place seems to be one giant rift and part of it is frozen in a temporal anomaly. In regards to the machine itself, it seems to have been powered by some sort of energy core at the center, which seems to have been overloaded somehow and exploded. The clock-thing at the top is also interesting, since the hands are aligned in the present near the 11 o'clock position, but are in entirely different positions in the past. Though in all fairness, that particular piece might be a device for tracked planets or dimensional alignment, and not an actual clock. Either way, it's interesting to see the differences between the past and the present, and the overall mess suggests that things perhaps didn't quite go as planned when the machine was fired up. As a side note on the Mad Crow--really enjoyed this boss design. I suspect we might see the Crow turn up again at some point, since it's only chased off by the player and not killed. Tobias Tobias's cave is probably the last place you will visit on the journey, although it's possible to visit him prior to going to the Devastation. If you talk to him prior to the Devastation, you can get a little insight into his relation to the player in the Old World, since he apologizes for playing the taskmaster once more. That remark suggests that while the player may not be a close friend, they were at least a close ally in order to be receiving orders directly from Tobias(and perhaps Jonas himself) with relative frequency. In any case, the cave was my favorite of the locations, and the design for Tobias is very smart, since it offers a solid reason for why the player needs to be the one retrieving the macguffins and otherwise doing things. As for why no one seems to recognize Tobias as being the same guy that founded Nadiya...he doesn't get out much, and despite his unique appearance I daresay those that do see him only see what they expect to. That is, a random old man, and not a legendary figure that should be long dead. Tobias's explanation of the player's class background confirms one of my earlier theories, in that the player was indeed part of the Falxian forces and not some random individual pulled from the Old World. Additionally, Tobias also sets the record somewhat straight on how much time has passed since the Old World's end. According to his calculations, it's been about 500 years. The Rot Perhaps the biggest revelation Tobias has to offer...Jonas's experiment failed. At least, mostly. I daresay what happened was an event similar to what happened with the Elder Scroll and Alduin in Skyrim's main story--instead of actually defeating the Rot, the machine simply scrambled time and threw the Rot forward to some point in the future, hence why the Rot is returning now. I daresay it did similar with the seraphs--they're either Falxian forces that died in the Old World and have been pulled back to the land of the living, or they were Falxian forces that were near the machine when it was activated and got flung forward through time as a result. In any case, Tobias makes it clear that such a plan should not be repeated under any circumstances. How he knows that the Rot is returning, I'm not sure. It might have something to do with his time at the Lazaret(poor guy!), though I suspect he either saw evidence of it in his travels, or has heard suspicious rumors. It could also be a result of his alchemy work. Jonas Falx While I don't know where Jonas is, I do believe he's still very much alive given how Tobias talks about him. The two were close friends, practically brothers, and Tobias seems to have crossed paths with him at least once post-cataclysm, since he mentions Jonas being no help when it came to figuring out a solution to the current problems. If Jonas were dead, I don't believe Tobias would be speaking about him in that fashion. I also think it's unlikely that Jonas is corrupted or a seraph, since the player is the first seraph that Tobias has encountered and Tobias doesn't note anything odd about Jonas otherwise. Most likely, Jonas is in a similar state to Tobias--something close to human but immortal--and went into hiding post-cataclysm, refusing to return to society or otherwise have anything to do with his former scientific endeavors. The poor man suffered a mental breakdown from watching his dreams crumble, the stress of the expectations placed on him, and having most of those around him start worshiping him as a god, so it's no wonder he would have that kind of reaction. While I believe he's just in hiding as a result of the mental breakdown, I also won't rule out the possibility that he's died or otherwise been corrupted by something since crossing paths with Tobias. I would think if something like that had happened, Tobias would probably know, since it seems like the two might try to stay in contact with each other given their prior friendship, but it's also possible that Jonas cut contact entirely or that Tobias has been otherwise too busy trying to figure out what to do on his own. Where the story is likely headed For chapter 3, I daresay we'll be returning to Tobias and using the Lens to travel to another dimension in the hopes of gaining some new technology/secrets or otherwise learning more about the Rust, the Rot, or seraphs in general(probably some combination of these). Whether it's the Rust world itself, or whatever lies beyond, I'm not sure, but I expect most of the chapter 3 locations to be those pocket dimensions, though there may be another small location or two added to the normal world as well. There were, after all, three other locations mentioned in the Archive message, that I would assume we would be visiting at some point. I also expect to be crossing paths with Jonas at some point, though I daresay that won't happen until much later in the main story, likely towards the end. I'm guessing we'll end up needing his help to defeat the Rot and set things right, and will probably need to find and navigate whatever trap-fortified bunker he's hidden himself in...and then convince him to help us. Or we could simply be stumbling across his bones and need to piece together whatever fragments of information we can find in his journals. Worst case scenario, we'll need to battle a corrupted Jonas, though I find this unlikely at this time. Another important thing to note, is that if time itself is to be fixed and the temporal storms stopped, doing so may mean that the player character needs to sacrifice themselves to achieve that goal. Now granted, if that ends up being the case, I still expect the player to be able to keep playing their world after the credits roll, as if nothing had happened, since losing a world with a lot of progress tends to make for an unhappy player. But from a narrative standpoint, if you heal whatever "time wound" keeps causing the temporal storms, I daresay you also close whatever rift in time keeps allowing the seraphs to respawn(and by extension, keeps characters like Tobias alive). Of course, such a thing might not be necessary, or the player could be selfish and refuse to go that far...but in that case, the alternative is either having the world potentially fall apart via temporal storm, or being locked away by humanity's remnants if/when they stop trusting seraphs. Those who can't die, after all, would eventually become very powerful, and would therefore pose a significant threat to mortals, so despite the remnants of humanity being friendly now, it's only logical that they will eventually turn hostile. Therefore, the best case scenario, in my opinion, is for seraphs to sacrifice themselves to save the world, either losing their immortality and living out the rest of their now-mortal lives, or simply ceasing to exist in the present and returning from whence they came. ----- Thus concludes my initial thoughts on chapter 2. I think I covered pretty much everything, but in the event I forgot something, I suppose I'll be writing more posts later.

Oh...oh no...it took me entirely too long to realize what was going on here. Welcome to Vintage Story! We've all been there a time or two. On the bright side, absolutely nothing can sneak up on you now!

Welcome to the forums! The teleporter is the end reward for completing chapter 2, much like the glider was for completing chapter 1. Regarding the rest of the story, it's not finished yet. There's at least 6 more chapters to go, and in regards to chapter 3, Tobias himself said he would need a lot of time to work and figure out a solution using the Lens that you brought him. Which is also why the reward for chapter 2 is a teleporter--you'll need to return to him for chapter 3, presumably, so having a teleporter will save you the walk. I'll also note that his cave is located near the village, so the teleporter is still useful prior to chapter 3 assuming you wish to revisit the village for trade and whatnot. The Devastation is definitely going to be hit or miss for a lot of players. Those who don't enjoy parkour at all probably won't enjoy this segment as much as those who do. The Mad Crow feels about on par with the Eidolon in terms of difficulty, however, I would say the Crow fight is a lot more unforgiving if you make a mistake. It might, but then again it might not. Chapter 2 has had some definite growing pains, though after recent tweaks it does feel a lot more manageable than it did on the initial release candidate. I think a lot of it will still boil down to whether or not one enjoys parkour, and there's also no shame in just using creative to skip the parts you really don't like/get stuck on. I've done this a time or two myself. Some of the locations did get tweaked, with some unique curios added to the Lazaret and other unique trade goods added to the village. The village itself isn't quite finished yet, as there are still services that are obviously offered there but not yet implemented. I'll also note that at least part of the reward for chapter 2 is just meeting Tobias and getting the scoop on what's happened since the cataclysm, what's going on now, and what's coming down the pike later. Basically, just a lot of lore that you really only find by talking to NPCs, closely examining the story structures, and piecing the clues together. It's not everyone's cup of tea, to be certain, but those who enjoy really digging into the lore will probably enjoy it. I'd say it's both, really. It probably started out as a just a game, that Tyron decided to build his own engine for. And I mean, if you have your own game engine, why not harness it for other games while you're at it?

Really depends. You don't usually have all the makings for bronze in the same grocery aisle, so to speak...but it's obviously not out of the question as you've demonstrated here. In the current world I've been playing with a friend, bronze was a struggle to get too, or so I thought until I tried to find iron. Oh boy, finding the iron made the bronze look trivial. So many Decent+ readings of magnetite, and all of them(the ones I dug for anyway) completely useless. Gave up on those and tried a Poor hematite reading...found ore first try. Go figure.

Welcome to the forums! I agree with @Cattastrafy too, play the vanilla game first and learn the basics, and then decide what mods, if any, you'd like to add. That also gives you time to tune the game settings to your liking first. One thing I will note though when it comes to mods and VS, is that it's better(in my experience) to keep a shorter mod list, instead of trying to run everything and the kitchen sink--especially if you have more moderate hardware. Big mods that add lots of things also tend to be more demanding on hardware than smaller mods.

"The creatures hide metal in their flesh and their blood flows like sludge. A simple sword will not do here." -- flavor text of falx blades. While the color isn't specified, I would agree, it's probably a dark rusty color or black like oil, given the semi-metallic nature of the monsters and their general color scheme. As for the initial suggestion, I like it. Could be a simple effect that applies for a short time after a creature takes enough damage to begin fleeing. Would also give more incentive to keep healing items on you in case of an accident, if falling below a certain health threshold could make you more noticeable to unfriendly things.

For a mod, sure. However I recall one of the devs mentioning in an old thread that there was no plan to add that level of gore to the game due to some being squeamish about creating that kind of content(for context, the discussion was about more realistic butchering for animal carcasses). Aside from that...a lot of players don't enjoy that kind of gore either, myself included. The animations we currently have are fine, and get the point across.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/verticality Friend installed this on his server and it's proven to be rather fun and balanced so far. However, I do expect that kind of vertical movement to completely break the story locations. If this kind of movement functionality were added to the game(outside of the rope ladders we have), the story locations would probably need a major rework in order to avoid resorting to immersion-breaking "invisible walls" that outright stop the player from climbing around.

Tier 3 for sure. You could probably manage it with tier 2 stuff, with enough skill, but it's risky. Though I think the difficulty of the story content really depends on individual preference and skill level, and isn't necessarily hard-locked to a particular tier of equipment. What I would do instead, is try to give the player more things to do per era, rather than just opting to make pre-existing things more of a time sink or gating every tech tier behind dungeons/enemies. The late game stuff, sure, gate that behind an enemy(which we already have this for some tech). Otherwise, I think it's nice to have the option to speed-run the basic tech tiers, if you want to sink in the time and effort and have the knowledge to do so. However, if you give players more choices to make in the earlier tiers, then they'll need to think harder about how they spend their time. And now to actually answer the question posed in the original post...yeah, steel really isn't that hard to acquire. It might seem daunting to a new player, but once you've been through the process you figure out it's not terribly difficult, just time-consuming. My work-around for the refining time is to simply make sure I have a lot of charcoal/coal stocked prior to starting the refining process, and then just running two refractories at once during winter(what else am I gonna do when it's cold and dark). The output is then 32 ingots per firing, rather than 16. If I had to guess, some players consider steel to be "hard", because you need to have found some very specific materials in order to get it. Bauxite and borax are chief of those, and you may need to travel a couple thousand blocks or so sometimes to acquire these materials. You'll also need to acquire a lot of fire clay, which probably means a lot of crafting due to the recent changes to clay and how the types spawn. It generally takes a lot of fuel as well, and while any coal can fuel the refractories only charcoal or coke will work for carbonizing the ingots. On top of that, it takes about a week in-game to refine the iron into steel, and some players probably don't want to babysit industry for that long. Steel tools are a little over twice the durability of iron, and are a tad bit faster. But unless you intend to be doing a lot of building, iron tools and gear will probably suffice for just beating the story, which is probably why non-builders might find it underwhelming compared to the effort it takes to acquire it.

I think a lot of tech mods for the other block game tend to go this route in order to have a more satisfying result than "the exact same thing as a furnace, but faster and more expensive". I do like the idea though, and think it would work. Also potentially make the crushed ore smelt a bit faster? Bigger bits take longer to heat all the way through, so logically they would take longer to smelt than smaller bits. Would give even more incentive to make an early pulverizer for processing your ores.

For a custom scenario, sure, but otherwise it doesn't fit the established themes and lore of Vintage Story.

In my defense, this is not why I've utterly failed at securing a population of bees before winter moved in. There are several other beehives on our world, I just haven't gotten around to placing skeps near any of them(despite them being within walking distance), as I keep getting utterly distracted by various other things. One of those being... The Bear Incident I was walking around minding my own business, just foraging for food and materials in the local forest, when I intruded upon a black bear's nap. Dear reader, despite playing my usual Blackguard, I must note that this was still very earlier in the game, and I have naught but a copper falx and a single tailored gambeson chestpiece to protect myself. The ensuing battle was fierce, the bear was very angry, and as I stumbled backwards into the nearby lake shallows I swear I could hear the world spawn calling. However, death was not my fate that day, as one last desperate swing of the falx dispatched the beast. By some miracle I was still alive, at just under one hitpoint, with high rift activity and darkness approaching. Thankfully, home wasn't too far away, and so was my hunter friend with the first aid kit. Never underestimate the power of a few extra health points and a bit of armor! It could be the difference between life and death! Welcome to the forums! I forgot some of them did that...until I saw one do it in broad daylight during a temporal storm. I thought it was a bear at first...it wasn't...and it despawned once it finished standing up, which made the whole encounter even creepier.