LadyWYT

By "private" I mean unofficial server, essentially; it can still be open to the public, but isn't sanctioned as an official server. In the case of Vintage Story, it'd be the kind you'd set up for playing with friends, or that a YouTuber might set up for their viewing community, instead of something like TOPS where it's run by the game studio/parent company.

"Monsters" is the general catch-all term, since that's what they are. "Mechanicals" narrows it down to entities like locusts and bells, that don't seem to be some sort of composite creature. At least, that's how I generally look at it.

As I've always understood it...it's kind of both? The ESRB ratings exist for a reason, and there's a reason you have to enter your birth date or whatever to access the pages of games like Skyrim on Steam. As for online community content such as public servers and the like...those aren't rated, and if the server is run by a private individual/group(that is, not an official game server) then it's up to the server owner to manage their own community. And this is where everything I said above can be thrown out the window. When it comes to government involvement, it hinges less on what the law actually says and the intentions behind it, and more on who is enforcing/interpreting said law. If the people in charge are unscrupulous, they will have no qualms about twisting the law and abusing their authority to get what they want.

Right, but I generally plant warm-weather crops like carrots, flax, or onions after the spring turnip harvest so I get a full summer harvest, and then plant turnips in the fall for that last vegetable crop...that I really don't need, but like to have anyway.

Assuming medium or better soil, September is fine for planting cold crops since the growing season will last until the end of October. Turnips only take 9 days to mature by default, so you can get away with planting those late September and still expect a harvest. As for rye...you'll need to plant that at the very start of September or the very end of August if you're going to get a full harvest from it, since it takes considerably longer to grow than turnips. Keep in mind too that you can use greenhouses to extend the growing season by a few days, so if you aren't sure that you'll have enough time for the crops to mature, you might consider planting them in a greenhouse to buy yourself a bit of extra time. You do need to be careful though, as greenhouses can stunt plant growth with too much heat, and won't fully protect plants from harsh winter weather.

There's not a clear answer as it really depends on your base's microclimate. For temperate zones though, I would say that you can safely plant cold-hardy crops at the tail end of March/first of April, and planting other crops mid-late April. My general strategy is keeping an eye on the nighttime temperature and planting the appropriate seeds once it reaches the minimum temperature needed for the seed to survive. I say nighttime temperature, because the daytime temperature can get decently warm in early March, but will cool off too much at night and damage whatever's been planted.

Welcome to the forums! Songs will usually play all the way through once they start. However, if you stray too far from natural light, venture too close to a rift, or a temporal storm starts, whatever music is playing will quickly fade out and be replaced with the appropriate ambience. In any case, I think the current system is mostly fine, however, I do agree that there should be an exception for certain underground spaces like cellars. Essentially, if the space qualifies as a cellar or insulated room, you shouldn't hear the normal underground ambience and should either silence, the continuation of the current music, or different ambience that still indicates you're underground but not in danger. That would resolve the issue of going into your cellar to get ingredients for a delicious stew and being met with the creepy cave ambience.

Welcome to the forums! I don't know if you can force client-side mods to download, but you could just package them all up into one folder, send that folder to the users, and have the users copy/paste everything in that folder into the proper location. They aren't having to go mod-hunting that way.

The general rule of thumb I use for temperate climate is plant turnips and rye in early spring or late summer/early fall, and plant everything else late spring/mid-summer. Turnips and rye are cold-hardy, so while they won't grow if the temperature is freezing they can tolerate some cold before they get damaged or die. Everything else you pretty much need to plant after the danger of frost has passed.

I mean, I remember barren oceans from the other block game. No fish, no coral, no seaweed, just water. Nothing but water. Traveling them was very easy given there was no terrain or monsters to serve as obstacles, but it wasn't fun(and not just because the early boats were terrible). The aquatic update changed all that by adding seaweed, coral, plenty of fish, dolphins, shipwrecks, and the guardians/ocean temples, along with improved boats. Not only did boats become much more usable, but there was also something to see out in all that water when traveling, and goodies to look for if one is inclined to explore. Similar case with oceans and large bodies of water in Vintage Story. Once there is some actual life to the water, and a proper fishing system or some sort of curiosity to find(sunken treasure, ruins, etc), or even a way to really explore underwater...I don't expect water travel to be very exciting at all. It's simply an easy way to get from point A to point B, but without anything interesting to look at.

Welcome to the forums! To my knowledge, default world settings are getting adjusted in 1.21 to account for oceans, since there's now actually content to be had for such large bodies of water. Otherwise, I agree with what @Lugh Crow-Slave already noted--aquatic content is still lacking, and needs more refinement before too many adjustments happen. Otherwise, players will end up with a lot of water but nothing to really do with it, which isn't very fun.

Pretty much this. The temporal storms and associated monsters can be a little tedious, sure, but they're meant to be supernatural environmental disasters/hazards that you have to occasionally deal with in order to accomplish your goals. There are reasons to brave the storms(temporal gears, Jonas parts), that will likely be more attractive reasons once more late game tech is added, but otherwise monsters are not something the player is supposed to be actively hunting for goodies. If you make monster drops particularly lucrative, then they stop being hazards that could wreck your day and start being...mobile loot boxes, essentially. As for avoiding the tedium of temporal storms, there's already the option to sleep through them, or disable them entirely. Both options are disabled by default, so you'd need to either enable them at world creation, or run the appropriate command and reload the world. And as a final note on monster loot...that is one advantage of having robust mod support. There are several out there that adjust the monster loot tables, and it's also relatively easy to make a new mod if there's nothing currently in existence to do the job.

https://lophi.bandcamp.com/album/vintage-story-ost Here you go--it's a name-your-price kind of deal, but the listed suggested price is $10 USD.

Oh, that's no bug. That's a will o' the wisp, from Primitive Survival. To my knowledge they don't do anything except look pretty/mysterious; you can't catch them for display and they will despawn after a while. They're just a neat bit of ambience.

Actually...I would check this one. Either go into creative/spectator and look around for a dinosaur, or spawn one of those particular ones in a creative world and see what noises they make. Parasaurolophus and related dinosaurs are thought to make noises similar to trombones and other horns, so that may very well be what you're hearing, if not one of the other dinosaurs.

I think the mod does a great job of providing immersive cues, instead of needing to rely purely on text warnings. That being said, I think for the vanilla game, text warnings should always be an option to go with the environmental cues, that players can toggle on/off. Environmental cues can be easily missed, depending on circumstances, and there are some players that probably need the more blatant text warning in order to avoid getting caught off-guard.

@Narg This is likely cause by Salty & Proto's Temporal Symphony: https://mods.vintagestory.at/temporalsymphony It removes the text warning from temporal storms and replaces it with a camera shake, rust particles, and a rusty screen tint, among other things. I would check your modlist to see if it's installed, as it's the most likely cause. That being said...assuming I'm right, good luck with the storm!

I think your view distance needs to be 300 or better for Dave to appear. Also keep in mind that he does move around, so he won't always be in the same place, and if there's mountains, forest, or other terrain nearby it may be very difficult to spot him even with an appropriate view distance.

Except that player class actually matters in regards to parts of the main story--changing it on a whim would make things more confusing, in regards to continuity. Likewise, your choice of class should be an important choice in regards to how the game plays, and not something that you can just change whenever you feel like it. Setting the class exclusive recipes rule to "false" will allow any class to craft and use any recipe--you can set this configuration either at the world's creation, or by running a command and reloading the world after creating it. I will note though that while the locust-taming ability requires a tuning spear, the ability itself is tied to the Clockmaker class, so that is the one exception to the class-exclusive rule. As noted above, there's already a way to craft anything on any class, so this kind of change isn't needed. As for the Commoner class...yes, it's lackluster, but the main purpose is to be the "vanilla" class for new players, or players that just don't really want to be dealing with extra things in their gameplay. It has no benefits, but it also has no drawbacks, so it's good for just a straightforward game, or learning the gameplay basics and figuring out what kind of playstyle you'd prefer.

Welcome to the forums! It's a gameplay balance thing, same as mushrooms = vegetable, despite actually providing protein as a primary nutrient in real life.

I'm pretty sure that's why the chapter 2 locations are placed so far away--it's not just for narrative, but to keep players from stumbling across them before they've completed chapter 1. The RA is difficult to find without the map, so it's unlikely that the player will just stumble across it(though it has happened); the chapter 2 locations are a lot more noticeable, even from a distance, in some cases. With the longer distances though, it's unlikely that most players will be stumbling across them. That being said...it doesn't really hurt the story if you do chapter 2 before chapter 1. It is possible, and the story still makes sense, although it might get a little confusing meeting a certain "old friend" and whatnot if you've not been to the Archive. That, and it's a shame to miss out on the Archive anyway...really cool place.

Fishies! Now I just need a way to catch them, and an aquarium to put them in so I can collect them all!

I'd like this too. The copper spearheads I typically end up using, at least early game, but the arrowheads I rarely bother with. In the mid-late game? Yeah I'd rather just melt that stuff down and turn it into lanterns or something else that's more useful. That way it's not cluttering up my chests and I can get some value out of it, instead of just tossing it.

Welcome to the forums! Given what one of the devs said on the matter, I doubt we'll see something like this in the vanilla game, at least in regards to more in-depth butchering. Meat smoking though, I could definitely see being added. Link to full comment:

Oh I know If the in-game plate armor was absolutely realistic regarding the movement speed, there'd be absolutely no reason to use any of the other armors in most cases. Could it be better than it is? Probably, but I also don't think it's quite as bad as others say. I agree, plus you can use the elk to stow all your luggage too. You can currently make the entire trip on foot in roughly the same time as it takes on elk, however, you're going to need a LOT more food if you do that given all the energy you'll burn while sprinting. Likewise, if you're on foot, wearing armor will slow you down, but not wearing it makes you much more vulnerable to accidental death.