LadyWYT

I just buy halite from the survival goods traders, and call it a day. If I happen to stumble across a halite dome while out exploring, great, but otherwise I don't really need salt. The little bits that I might want for cheese and stuff are easily supplied by traders.

Possibly, but in my experience, it's easier to ride around swaths of impassable/nearly-impassable terrain than it is to try to blaze a trail through it. However, I think if you were to employ this strategy, it'd be most efficient to do this in a forest. Use some shears to clear a better path and mark out the path so you can use it later on the return trip. Pretty much my general experience and thoughts. Smoothing out the uphill riding for one-block slopes would be a significant improvement, as currently it's rather jank. I might also change the elk's walking speed to be a bit faster than the player's walk speed, in order to make it feel better to ride in those rougher spots where you need to slow down. Otherwise, the elk tends to be a bit faster than travel by foot, and will also save you a lot of food cost since you won't be burning through your stamina while riding. It also allows you to wear your armor while retaining movement speed, as the movement speed penalty from armor doesn't apply when riding. Not necessarily. The elk's swim speed is slow, sure, but it doesn't tire and you don't get wet from the swim while riding. So it's simple enough to just find the narrowest point of crossing and swim the elk across. If it's wintertime and cold enough for the water to freeze, you can also leapfrog the elk over the ice patches. I still prefer the elk overall, I think, but traveling by foot definitely wasn't bad. It did mean that there were more options when it came to cutting through very rough terrain, but the drawback was more limited inventory space to work with.

Welcome to the forums! This ability is only available for a certain portion of chapter two of the main story--you'll know it when you're there, as it will come with a prompt in the chat and a clock icon will appear on your hotbar to indicate that the ability can be used. Spoilers for the ability: I will also note that it's easier to scroll over the icon on your hotbar and right-click to use it, instead of hitting the Y key, though you could also rebind it to something else. The other important thing to remember is that it does have a short cooldown on use, so you will need to time its use somewhat carefully.

Shears, my friend. You need a pair of shears to increase the yield of sticks from branches. Not yet in the game, but a mod like Primitive Survival adds some proper fishing options. You didn't need the hammer and chisel to craft the quern prior to 1.20, but the balancing change does make sense. It was a little too easy to get to the better foodstuffs before, plus it doesn't really make sense to toss stone blocks into the crafting grid with a couple of sticks, and have a perfectly shaped quern. I know some have suggested a mortar/pestle as an early alternative to the quern, and there is a mod or two that adds that. However, the drawback to a mortar/pestle is it's very slow compared to the quern, and easily rendered obsolete since the quern isn't really that hard to get, even with the crafting tweak. Agreed, there could be some quality-of-life improvements here. I'd wager it's set up the way it is due to material colors. Red clay is pretty dark, so it doesn't make sense that it would produce a light-colored daub, unless it was one with a red or brown tint. Drystone blocks require ashlar blocks to craft, which requires a hammer and chisel. They're also sturdier than cobblestone, requiring a pickaxe to break instead of your bare hands. I think it's fine as-is. Beehive kiln for mass-production of pottery and bricks. Late game tech, but useful if you're going to be firing a lot of things. You already can--the first two slots of a cookpot need to be meat, and the third can be a fruit item. There's a good variety there, and if you are using mods like Expanded Foods the options are increased further. I'd wager more food options will be added to the vanilla game in the future, it's just not a priority right now. Ctrl + Shift + Right-click. Some tools need a wall two blocks high to place this way. Once you get an anvil, you can make nails and a saw(for boards), and start crafting chests, trunks, and crates. Otherwise, good inventory management is critical in the early game, as space is at a premium. I'll also note that you can store many items on the ground itself, though it will get messy. Easier fix is to simply switch your gamemode to creative(/gm 2, I believe), give yourself the finished product while tossing the mistake, and use /gm 1 to set yourself back to survival. No need for mods! It's probably a code thing; once you use the ingot to start a product, it no longer counts as an ingot but rather as that item. There is a way to repair your stuff...just not something you can do yourself as a player outside of mods. Without spoiling too much, there's an NPC you'll meet later(assuming lore content enabled) that can repair some things, for a price. There's a HUD mod that can help you see whether or not a space counts as a room, greenhouse, or cellar. Otherwise, the best way to tell outside of using mods or debugging commands is to simply enter the room you wish to check and see if your body temperature continues to drop. If it does, you have a problem with the insulation for that space, or it's too big to retain heat. For cellars, all you need to do is look at the spoil rate of the containers within. If it's a very low value, the cellar is functioning. For a greenhouse, I believe hovering over the crops planted within will display how much benefit they are receiving from the greenhouse, if any. You can always buy more seeds from agriculture traders, as well as find them in ruins or collect them from wild crops. The wild crops are fairly common save for the cold climates, and can still drop seeds even if they aren't mature(though it's not guaranteed). The best way to collect a lot of seeds is to simply look for wild crops and harvest them whenever you find them. If you have access to salt, you can salt your hides to let them last longer. Otherwise, it's best to go ahead and turn them into leather if you have the means, turn them into pelts, or simply let them rot and turn that into compost. Rabbit hides I turn into parchment for crate labels.

Also helps when you can outrun the Blackguard that's trying to make you share your food.

If you're busy hiding under cover, you're not out fighting what the storm is throwing at you now, are you? I stand by my earlier point--it's a decent idea for a challenge mod, but I don't see it being an appealing mechanic for a lot of players. Livestock is a significant time and resource investment, and not everyone wants to keep their animals locked in a bunker. Likewise, if players can just be insta-killed in a temporal storm regardless of gear, they aren't going to be thrilled about trying to fight in temporal storms, even if it's a very rare occurrence. As for the health drain...that technically already exists. If you're out fighting in the storm, you're going to end up taking damage. If you take enough damage, you'll want to take cover and heal, before rejoining the fray. If you add a constant health drain on top of the damage you'll already take from enemies, all you're really accomplishing is forcing players to spend more time under cover rather than fighting, regardless of their skill or gear.

It indicates which search mode your prospecting pick is set to, and only displays when held. Currently, you're set to the density search mode.

What's the feasibility of perhaps adding in special bodies of water that have variable levels? Like puddles after a big rain, that evaporate in a few hours, or perhaps temporary watering holes forming in deserts and savannahs after it rains, that dry up after a few days? That way you could keep the simplified water physics that we have already, but still have some more interesting water features to find and interact with, without cooking your PC(hopefully).

I've not really noticed an increase in bears; the most bear trouble I've had is when playing with a friend, since we seem to have a knack for building our base near a brown bear's territory. All it really means it a lot of bear stew(thank you Expanded Foods!) and some free entertainment whenever one of us ventures into the woods without armor.

Odd. It looks like he's parked in a stable, so he should still be inside, but have you checked around the nearby area to make sure he didn't get out and wander off? The bone flute has a limited range, so if he managed to wander off(assuming icon is glitched) then he might be too far away to respond to the whistle. I'd also make sure that there's enough light inside--not sure if they despawn or not due to lack of light, but I would assume they do. If he despawned, that could have also caused an icon glitch, I suppose. The only other thing I can think of to check, outside of restarting your game or checking any installed mods, is to make sure an ownership medallion is equipped(which it should be, if your mount has an icon), as the bone flute won't call your mount otherwise.

I like the idea, but I would take it a different direction: tracks/other signs are visible to all classes, and instead serve as indicators of where certain animals are more likely(but not guaranteed!) to spawn. So finding a lot of claw marks on trees could indicate a high likelihood that a bear is somewhere in the area, while hoofprints would suggest a larger herbivore like a deer or goat. I'm not entirely sure how feasible it is to code though. If I'm not mistaken, I think there are fixed spawnpoints for creatures in the world, so I would assume that a handful of appropriate tracks/signs could be generated within a certain radius of the spawnpoint, in order to prevent players from too easily building traps on top of those spawns. The other issue I see potentially is the lack of respawning tracks/signs, should they be destroyed. Maybe there could be some sort of seasonal check around the spawnpoints to replace any missing details? I would say that perhaps the spawnpoint ceases to function if too many markers get destroyed, but I think that would make it too easy to deal with predators if that were the case.

Isn't this just the phantom from the other block game, after a fashion? Except perhaps even more irritating? Given how much people hate the phantoms, I don't think adding a flying monster to Vintage Story is a good idea, save for perhaps special circumstances for a story location or something. A decent idea for some sort of challenge mod, but I don't see it working well in the vanilla game. Domesticated livestock are a big investment, and it REALLY stings to lose them. I suppose players could just lock them away in a bunker, but that's not really fun to do aesthetically, or every time you play the game either. Likewise, it's not really fun to have to sit in a bunker for every single temporal storm either. If a storm can just kill you on the spot if you're not in the appropriate shelter at the right time, it's going to actively discourage players from even trying to go out and fight. It's also going to make for rather unpleasant travels when trying to complete the main story, as there's a very good chance that most players will be facing at least one temporal storm when working through chapter two.

It likely does, since you'll become hungry again after eating raw/basic foods than you will after eating meals. So you can end up eating more in a shorter amount of time, thus putting more points into nutrition.

Clicking quote will quote the entire comment, but you can also just highlight the part you want to quote specifically and click the green "Quote Selection" button that appears. One other thing worth noting when it comes to hunger rate and keeping your stamina bar full--preparing meals in a cookpot or pies in an oven will keep you full for much longer than eating raw/basic cooked food, especially if it's a meaty dish.

Would love to live out the fantasy of being a medieval Floridaman by having gators in the water, in warmer climates of course. That being said, I think it's okay for cattails to be easy to gather; there's already several ways for players to die early on, veterans and newbies alike. If anything, I'd be more inclined to add snakes for that kind of challenge instead. Let a snakebite serve as a temporary debuff to the player, that they can either treat with rudimentary medicine or simply wait a couple of days for it to wear off(which makes it easier to die to other things if you opt for this route). I'd be okay with this, though I would take it one step further: if the player feeds the predator enough pieces of meat, the predator learns to associate food with the player and actively begins hunting the player, looking for a handout. That way you can still use the strategy to save yourself in a pinch, but you can't rely on it alone to keep you safe from predators indefinitely.

Welcome to the forums! As @idiomcritter has already noted, farming schedule really depends on what kind of climate you chose to settle in, as well as what kind of seeds you're wanting to plant and in what kind of soil. As a general rule, for the default temperate start, April is the earliest time to plant most crops without worrying about frost damage, assuming no greenhouse. The latest time you can plant crops and still get a harvest hinges more heavily on how much time the crop needs to reach maturity versus soil quality and whether or not it's planted in a greenhouse. Without a greenhouse, the latest I tend to plant is early September--most crops should be harvestable by mid-late October, though some might suffer some frost damage. By the end of October/early November the weather has generally become too cold outside of a greenhouse for any crops lingering to reach maturity.

The storms feel mostly fine with iron gear; at least, I've not really had too much trouble on the standard difficulty. Iron soaks up most of the damage, and good footwork and reflex is still warranted for tier 4 enemies. I do still need to go inside where it's safe a time or two, depending on the enemies the storm throws at me, in order to strip my armor off and heal though. If I have iron gear though, I also generally have some bandages and alcohol on hand to make healing a cinch. Steel gear is even better, of course, but I do still find myself needing to pop back inside at least once in order to heal. I would say that the rift ward has more value now, given that an active rift in your base during a storm can mean stronger monsters that won't just disappear as soon as the storm is over. After playing through chapter 2, I think the terminus teleporter will become even more valuable as more story chapters are added. Granted, one can just reset their spawn with a temporal gear, but you don't always want to carry gears on you. I think 1.21 is rumored to be an update to Jonas tech options, so I'm guessing there will probably be even more uses for Jonas parts and temporal gears soon enough. As for Jonas parts...I feel like the drop rates for them during temporal storms got nerfed, given I used to get a Jonas part most every storm and now I seem to never see them. That being said, it could just be really bad luck on my part, and I'm also not sure that buffing the drop rate for storms is the right answer given there are other places to acquire the parts that are "safer". Or at least, more predictable. Some major story locations have several as loot, which encourages the player to explore those locations thoroughly. Likewise, Jonas parts can drop from locust nests, bells, sawblade locusts, and other nasty things found underground, which gives players a good reason to delve into the deep regions of the world. What would be nice though, perhaps as a future option, is being able to trade in parts that you don't want/need, for parts that you DO need, rather than relying on RNG to acquire what you're after. There's an NPC in chapter 2 that would believably be able to offer that kind of service, and that's probably also an opportune time to make higher level tech more accessible to the player before they get further into the story, if they haven't already managed to acquire the tech.

If it helps, those particular things aren't able to climb over fences, despite being good climbers.

There's already a system in place for it, or rather, being worked on, at least regarding changing your hairstyle after character creation. It's not yet working, to my knowledge, but the groundwork is clearly in place for it to eventually be an option. Spoilers ahead for chapter two: As for natural hair growth: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/9016

I believe you need to wait for them to fully mature before they can be bred.

Welcome to the forums! If I had to guess, it's probably a case of just getting a working mount system in place first, and then adding more mounts/domestication of mounts in later. Likewise, I'm guessing that gating the elk behind the Resonance Archive's completion is meant to avoid trivializing the first story chapter. It's quite a trek, though very manageable, and once you have the elk you appreciate it a lot more. I like the idea, but I don't think it works for a full nomad playstyle. Livestock in Vintage Story actively requires settling down in a spot for a very long time, given how long it takes to breed and raise the animals. Likewise, most livestock requires a few generations' worth of breeding before they start behaving like domesticated animals--ie, losing fear of the player. Having the elk be able to be domesticated and used as a mount without the need for purchase from the trader would be nice, since it would offer an option of acquisition that both does not require gears, and that works in the Homo Sapiens game mode(where there are no traders). Technically, it's an early-game thing, but 3/4 of the story has yet to be finished. I would also note that depending on the playstyle one chooses, and the rules they impose on themselves with that playstyle, it may not be possible to acquire or utilize everything that the game normally has to offer, and the "normal" strategies may no longer be the most effective either.

Well now I have to go test it to see if it works. I know there's a bug where as long as you don't touch any movement keys while falling, you won't take any fall damage. Not sure if that one's been fixed yet or not, but I've been avoiding using it so I don't get in the habit and go splat when it does get fixed.

I'd argue the opposite--the water physics in the other block game are very much NOT more realistic, nor are they much better than Vintage Story's. In Minecraft it's much easier to fill large areas with water, and you can avoid all fall damage by simply landing in a centimeter's worth of water(that you can also place yourself via a bucket if timed correctly). In contrast, Vintage Story doesn't let you get away with those sorts of antics(mostly), and while it takes a bit more effort to fill in a large area with water, I can't really think of that many times that I've wanted/needed to do such.

What latitude did you settle at? In my temperate playthrough there's only a couple of eclipses in the spring and fall. Not sure if the eclipse numbers would be the same for other climate regions.

The game doesn't take moon phase into account; the only thing that matters(currently) is whether or not the moon is positioned over the sun.