LadyWYT

Not without a mod, and I'm not sure if there's any mod that adds such a feature currently.

Sure, but I'm looking at it from the standpoint of...it only takes 2-3 hits with a decent weapon to kill a surface monster on default settings, and that's what the rifts produce. Early in the game it would be more of a problem, since the player doesn't have access to the better weapons and armor yet, and a rift ward certainly won't be an option here. However, late in the game, when the rift ward can actually be acquired, it's no longer very useful because iron and steel will make short work of anything that pops out of a rift. Unless the rift activity is high, and it usually isn't, the rifts and monsters both should be easily manageable. And as a general rule, the player should have their base lit up well enough to see what's coming, as well as pay attention to their surroundings. While AFKing to wait on a task isn't an uncommon practice in the other block game, I don't think it's a strategy that should be at all encouraged in Vintage Story, since one of the main points of the general game design seems to be getting the player to pay more attention to what they're doing and account for the potential consequences their choices could have.

This is why I say that such a change would reduce the value of rift wards. The main reason to build them is to keep an area rift-free. However, rift wards are somewhat expensive, so if the player can just...kill everything that comes out of the rift and thus close the rift almost as soon as it opens, then why bother building rift wards at all? Honestly, the lighting rules probably need some adjustment. I don't love the idea of preventing monsters from spawning in spaces that qualify as insulated rooms, however, that's probably a decent tradeoff for removing the spawn protections from artificial lighting. That way the player doesn't have monsters spawning indoors, for the most part, but they can't expect to skip making rift wards by placing lanterns everywhere. Placing lanterns could still cut down on the number of monster spawns somewhat, but it's not going to be nearly as effective as daylight or a rift ward. Bring back the rift bug. It made rifts invisible and removed the sound. The stability drain still happened, but at a much slower rate, and I think the gear turned the wrong direction while it was draining. In any case, the only way to notice there was a problem was the appearance of monsters in the area, unless you happened to look at the gear and actually notice what was going on. In fairness I'm not sure most players would go for this, but it was a pretty fun bug while it existed. If we look at the NPCs for an example of what kind of bases are expected for the world, pretty much all of them have palisades or other defensive structures like bunkers, walls, towers, or actual forts. So yeah, I agree here--not everyone likes fencing, and it's not a hard requirement to succeed at the game, but it's not an unrealistic design choice at all. In which case, it's a good idea to give the player some palisades and stakes to build with. They don't necessarily need to be functional, but it would be nice to have a perimeter fence that looks like a proper defense rather than something you'd find in a suburban backyard.

Tagging on to what @Maelstrom already noted, you might consider making a creative world and placing some blocks of blue clay and red clay so you can get a better idea of what to look for. Clay is definitely easier to spot from the side, but not every deposit will have the sides of the clay visible, so it's important to pay attention to the ground nearby in order to notice changes(clay and peat will both have patchy grass on top rather than a full layer of grass). And that goes for more than just clay--paying attention to the ground can help you notice changes in rock types, deposits of ore near the surface, and other resources that may not be immediately noticeable. Looking in grassy fields is generally the best method of searching, since there won't be much to obstruct your vision. I will also note that colorblindness could make the clay more difficult to spot. If that is a factor here, you may want to search for a mod that makes clay stand out more, or politely make a request for such a mod here: https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/forum/34-mod-requestsideas/

I wouldn't recommend TOPS for new players. It's not that it's a bad server or anything--to my knowledge it's a great one. However, it is very popular, so it's not unusual for there to be wait times to get in, and the wait times can be rather long. Additionally, servers that have a lot of active players also tend to pass time quickly and pick the areas near spawn clean of resources. TOPS is also the official public server for testing the game, so server wipes aren't uncommon. Personally, I would say singleplayer is better since that allows one to tailor the game to their exact liking, as well as pause the game or otherwise log out without needing to worry about time passing. For jumping straight into multiplayer though, it's probably better to look through the listings on the Multiplayer section of the forums or ask around on the Discord.

Weird, because I've had days where I've opened and closed the game multiple times. I never had to relog unless I was switching installations, and never had problems otherwise. I'm not saying it could never happen, of course, just that it would be a very strange problem if that were the case. Especially since mod testing/troubleshooting often requires opening and closing the game multiple times, and having separate installations for unstable/stable releases isn't that uncommon(at least, I don't think it is).

Right, and I'm not saying combat is entirely to blame. But when it comes to complaints, I think many people can easily point out the effects of something, but don't necessarily stop to fully consider what's actually producing the results they're encountering. It's easy to point at temporal storms/monsters and say it's a system that needs some work, and that's not entirely untrue. But I do think several of the complaints ultimately lead back to combat, because if the combat were smoother, dealing with the monsters would be less hassle.

This is kind of the direction the game is headed in, but I think it's important to note that the game world is designed to be dangerous, with very few places that are truly safe. Just because you can't see the dangers doesn't mean they aren't there, and the drawback to making the world mostly predictable/controllable is that you get Minecraft. Not that Minecraft is bad, but that's one reason Minecraft isn't as satisfying to play in some ways--the game never really pushes the player to get better and there's very little that's a real threat. It's not the worst idea, but this makes rifts much less of a threat and opens to the door to players ignoring the rift ward entirely. I think a better solution would be to take this idea, but make it so that rifts change their locations frequently rather than opening in one place and then sitting there for several in-game hours(as long as the player is in the area). That way they're still dangerous and the rift ward remains valuable for dealing with them, but they aren't locking the player out of certain areas for entire days. The random nighttime spawns aren't really random though. Monsters are more likely to appear from rifts during the night, since they like darkness. A calm night won't have monsters, aside from the rare one that strays from a nearby cave. However, a calm night could easily turn into a nightmare if the rift activity goes from calm to high. And that's one of the things that really helped set Vintage Story apart from Minecraft, at least in my experience. Some dungeons should definitely have more monsters, as well as traps and puzzles, but I don't think every dungeon needs to be swamped with monsters. Sometimes it's enough to just have a creepy atmosphere to keep the player on edge, but not actually throw anything particularly dangerous at them. As for the "loot run" respawns...in general, loot runs happen rather quickly, so unless the location is extremely far away the player should be able to carry off all the loot they want before anything respawns. If they can't do that because the monsters are respawning too fast, then they tend to end up frustrated more often than not. There's also the fact that dungeons that have set spawns and allow respawning aren't places that the player will be able to really clear out and turn into a base. That's not necessarily bad, but I think the purpose of some of the dungeons is that they're locations the player could choose to clean up and call home if they so wished. There's also the potential issue of dungeons getting turned into mob farms, if the monsters respawn fairly often and the locations can be altered without affecting the spawns. In fairness, I don't think mob farms can ever truly be stopped, since games will always have a few exploits or "cheaty" strategies, but it is something to consider. The only other thing I really want to note is that I don't think monsters themselves are the problem. I think the issue is more that combat currently has some issues, like hitboxes and animation timing, that make combat a little clunky and frustrating to deal with sometimes.

You should be able to play without internet access, but I think you'll need to have logged in at least once on that device while connected to the internet, so the game can store the login information in the files. After that, you should be able to play anytime, with or without internet, as long as you use that login information. I will also note that if you switch game installations, you will also be prompted for your credentials every time you switch between them, but you should still be able to enter that information offline and continue playing.

It heavily depends on your gameplay settings. If you play with increased hunger rates or longer months, you'll need more food. On lower hunger rates or shorter months, you don't need as much. On default settings, having a few shelves full of stews sealed into crocks, a couple of storage vessels full of grain and vegetables, and several pies/a couple barrels of wine should be plenty to keep your nutrition up on standard game settings. Dairy is usually best handled by cheese, since cheese keeps very well, but cheese also takes a while to make. Milk will keep for several days during the colder months, and if your sheep/goats bred in the fall they'll usually give birth during winter and provide more milk. Protein can be easily had from hunting, butchering livestock, collecting eggs, or eating soybeans or fat. Honey qualifies as fruit, and never goes bad. That being said, wine is a much easier way to preserve fruit nutrition for a long time, as is turning the fruit into jam or pies. Jam keeps for a very long time even in an unsealed crock. Wine is probably the least nutritious option, but it keeps for a very long time as well, and the mashed fruit can be fed to most livestock. This is mostly personal preference, although it also depends on what livestock you have to work with. Pigs reproduce quickly and will eat a wide variety of food. Chickens only eat grain, which keeps a while, but you do need to keep them fed in order to keep them producing eggs(one portion per chicken per day is my general rule of thumb). Sheep and goats can eat hay, which is easy to acquire and store, but they must give birth in order to give milk, and only give 10 L per day for 20 days. It takes 25 L of milk to make one wheel of cheese. Also keep in mind that you only need to feed livestock if you intend to breed them. You'll also need to feed them before butchering if they're at a lower rate, but this usually isn't a problem since it's easy enough to cull older livestock(which will be the fat ones) as needed before breeding. Cheese making will use up the pickled veggies. However, it only takes 2 pickled vegetables per full barrel of milk, and each full barrel will yield 2 cheeses. The more expensive part of cheese production is the amount of extra salt required to process the curdled milk into proper cheese. I think it's around 20 salt for every 2 cheeses. This goes back to what your game settings are, and your personal preference. More filling meals like meaty stews tend to be better choices, since each serving provides more energy than say, a portion of soup or vegetable stew. A good handful of shelves filled with sealed crocks of meaty stew should be enough to last most of a winter on standard settings, especially if you're supplementing it with fresh meat from hunting or livestock.

It really depends on the context of who's giving the reaction, who's receiving the reaction, and the post that was wolfbaited. In many cases it's used to indicate a stupid post/unpopular opinion, but it can also be a friendly way to laugh at silly mistakes. And then of course there's a few that just don't make any sense, no matter what way you look at it. For myself, I tend not to use it unless I'm laughing at a silly mistake. There's a limit to how many reactions you can use on the forums at a time, so I prefer to save mine for reacting to content I really like or otherwise found very interesting/useful.

Are you playing with any mods? It's possible that a mod could be interfering with the process somehow. If vanilla, I'd check your game version. If it's 1.22.4/5, then it's likely a bug.

Honestly, I hope it remains somewhat vague. I wouldn't mind seeing a few more details, of course, but part of what makes that section of lore interesting is that much of it is shrouded in mystery and left up to the player's imagination. It's possible, but my general theory on it is that the foodstuffs they had access to was mostly whatever they managed to bring underground with them, with some of the more fortunate bunkers perhaps having decent areas on the surface to contain hunting/foraging/farming some food. As for how many mouths they had to feed...I get the impression that it was perhaps the minority of population that sided with Jonas and followed him and his friends into the underground. Regarding how long it took to complete the Machine, and how long that part of the population remained underground...probably not more than a couple of years, at most, though I would guess more a few months. The main reason I say that is the Rot was working rather fast on its victims, and there's only so long that people and animals can effectively work without enough food, rest, and water. The population also didn't really have much else to work on but the Machine, and given that that was the only way they knew of to ensure their survival...well, it's a pretty good motivator for working quickly. Eh, not really. They make perfect sense as flavor items, and that's mainly why the class-exclusive items exist. Fun to use, slightly better in some ways than their more common counterparts, but not absolutely critical to playing the game.

An interesting theory, but not really possible considering that the tower explosion happened after the Grand Machine's awakening(which caused the temporal storms to start happening) and the Old World's downfall. It's not yet known exactly what happened to Jonas after the Grand Machine awoke, though it seems a fairly safe assumption that he's still alive(or at least, was alive long enough to cross paths with Tobias post-calamity) but perhaps no longer fully human.

I think it's mostly for gameplay balance. If copper and bronze tools were more common among the drops, players would probably stop bothering with the normal progression and instead rely on vessel RNG to get their first tools. For a lore explanation about why there's not more metal tools to find, I'd wager that most of the metal tools have already been scavenged and put to use elsewhere. Which would make sense, since mining doesn't exactly seem to be a popular profession anymore and a lot of Old World knowledge was lost. I also figure that some of the ruins aren't from the Old World, but rather the ruins of some of the unlucky settlements that sprung up after, which would also explain the distinct lack of advanced technology. Which is pretty much why I figure it'd make sense for metal scraps to be included in the loot. Perhaps as uncommon loot, but loot nonetheless. Metal tools and other pieces of metal might be very valuable in terms of salvage, but if it's all corroded or rusty then it's probably not worth the effort and risk of hauling it out of the ruin and transporting it to someone who's willing to buy it. Maybe, but one could argue that all the classes were kind of in the same boat regarding the whole food situation. Ironically, malefactors may have had better access to food in some cases, since they could still salvage whatever happened to be left on the surface. Not that the underground didn't have supplies, but not much lives or grows underground, and the food that is stored in those refuges is going to be heavily guarded. That's not to say that malefactors were eating like kings either, but it's easier to skim a little from whatever food you scrounged up on the surface than it is to fight the Blackguards for it underground.

An iron man challenge would definitely make those things more frustrating. Regarding hunger, I think what tends to frustrate most players is that they forget to bring food with them and end up getting to hear their character complain about it, or they're newer players that haven't yet got a full grasp on the game and still struggle to keep themselves fed. Which is understandable, but I also think the players tend to overcorrect when trying to offer a solution to these issues. The best workaround I've been able to find so far is allowing the player to build some fat reserves and then burn said fat to avoid hunger damage for a short time; that is, they can go a little longer between meals as needed without getting penalized or annoyed by character complaints, but it's not something they're going to be doing very often nor are they going to be able to go days without eating anything at all. Wolves are kind of hit or miss; sometimes there's more and sometimes there's less. I think at the moment they're over-represented, as are many animals, simply because there's not that many animals that exist in the game yet. I would also wager that if/when illnesses and injuries are added to the game, along with harmful plants like poison ivy, hostile wildlife spawns could be turned down a bit further since there will be more existing hazards to challenge the player. Ironically, wolves do offer something of a warning growl before they actually become aggressive. However, I think the line between "warning" and "attack" is rather tight, and most players tend to move rather fast, so I think that might be part of the reason wolves seem to be more inclined to attack first and ask questions later. From my own game experience, I've walked up on several wolves and had them run away or take no notice. It's never a guarantee that they'll do that though, so it's still better to avoid wolves when possible unless you're prepared to kill them. Throwing them meat I would say would be a better way to tame them, rather than just buy tolerance. While buying tolerance isn't the worst idea, I'm not really keen on players getting the notion that they can just toss a scrap of meat at a predator and walk away entirely unscathed. From the animal's perspective, they probably aren't going to be very interested in food if they feel actively threatened, and will likely be more interested in attacking the threat to either kill it or drive it away. The other drawback to the "buying tolerance" idea is that the player ends up with a more serious problem by teaching the local wildlife that they're basically a walking snack dispenser. In which case, the animal in question might begin to actively hunt the player.

I use whatever is most convenient. Some games that is tin bronze, some games that is bismuth bronze. Black bronze I never use, outside of the rare tool/weapon if I happen to have a few gold and silver nuggets lying around. The only real difference is that while bismuth bronze might be more durable with less attack power, it does require more material to make(and thus uses more storage space) and cannot be used for the treasure hunter quest. Bismuth, zinc, and tin are all common enough that it's fairly easy to find High or better readings, but I'll take what I can get. They're also common enough that digging at worse readings isn't a big deal and yields something useful more often than not.

Incidentally, if we want to make the class gameplay a little more distinct, I don't think it's necessary to restrict them to certain weapons or render them almost useless for certain crafting loops. One overlooked possibility is disease/injury resistance. Malefactors, for example, might be incredibly resistant to some of the more serious illnesses, like malaria or cholera, since they're used to being in some rather disgusting scenarios thanks to their past. That makes them a more valuable choice even into the late game, since some illness could be quite difficult to cure and/or pose a significant penalty if the player has it. Blackguards could be more resistant to certain physical injuries(like broken bones) thanks to having a stronger constitution than other classes, but being stronger means they need more food...which means that any injury/illness that boosts hunger rate will hit them harder than it will other classes. Classes like Clockmaker and Tailor might be more susceptible to certain illnesses or injuries, since they don't have have rugged physiques or sturdy immune systems. This idea also lends more value to a devoted Doctor class, since treatments administered by Doctors could be more effective at dealing with illness and injuries. This makes Doctor a strong support class for multiplayer, as well as a solid choice for singleplayer in the event the player isn't too keen on being held back by disease and injuries. That too, or allow them to drop from cracked vessels. That would be more useful than the rocks, stone tools, and some of the other random bits that can drop from those things.

As far as we know, the Forlorn Hope is a dead faction that was wiped out in the Old World's last moments. However, there's always the chance there could have been a handful of survivors, or the more likely scenario that someone else chose to resurrect the order later, similar to the Knights of the Nine quest from Oblivion. The Hanseatic merchants are the traders the player encounters in the world in the present day. Personally, I don't really think a trader class fits that well, since it overlaps with Tailor(stated to have refined manners suited for city life) and Commoner(the catch-all class for most of the common medieval professions). Realistically, most nobles that were aligned with Jonas likely perished among the ranks of the Forlorn Hope...at least, the male ones. Most of the elite fighters of medieval times tended to come from the nobility, since it was the nobles who actually had the time to train and the resources to afford proper equipment. That being said, there could have easily be several that were more useful in scholarly roles, and it would make for a rather interesting class to play since the noble would essentially be a fish out of water. The civilized world is long gone, leaving the nobles to fend for themselves, and the new world that emerged perhaps doesn't hold the concept of nobility in the highest regard. Overall, I think a Plague Doctor or some other medical class would be a good addition, as well as a Noble class. The Doctor isn't exactly a common profession since it does require some specialized knowledge and skills(even for medieval times) and has mechanics that would stand out from existing classes. Mechanically, the Noble would probably have some overlap with existing classes, however, the main thing that makes this class interesting is the lore that goes with it and how NPCs react to such a character. Either way you cut it though, the game needs better medical gameplay(injuries, illness, medicines, etc) before a Doctor could really exist, and there needs to be a more fleshed out reputation system for the Noble to function well as a class. I don't think this is a good idea for any class, not just Malefactor. The game itself is balanced primarily around singleplayer, and thus every class needs to be able to both complete the main story and enjoy all the main content that the game has to offer, without needing to resort to turning off class-exclusive recipes or joining a multiplayer server. Weaving and sewing, while not proper gameplay loops yet, seem intended to be major parts of the game that the player is meant to interact with, perhaps weaving their very own rugs and tapestries and having more control over clothing design itself. At least, I would be very surprised if that's not the intent, given how excited Saraty in particular gets in the interviews when discussing such mechanics, as well as given the changes that have been proposed to armor crafting for 1.23. Similar issues to the above--there's not really a good reason while malefactors(or other classes, for that matter) would fumble around using tools made of metal, but not have any issues using the same tools constructed of non-metal parts/scrap. They might struggle because they aren't as strong or have an aversion to violence, sure, but those are qualities that will apply to a situation and won't be based purely on choice of weapon/tool. I would also note that it's counter-productive to the general game design, in that players are intended to actively improve their tools by seeking out better metals and creating better alloys. The better choice to make here, I think, if the goal is to encourage using scrap weapons, is perhaps allow such things made by a malefactor to be a bit more durable, or otherwise make the materials a little easier to find so that classes in general can access them more easily in the early part of the game, where such things are most valuable. Currently, scrap weapons aren't particularly useful, because caves are dangerous to explore without proper equipment, and dungeons are too rare to be a reliable source of scrap. Generally by the time the player has acquired scrap to make weapons, they've already got access to copper and bronze, which are much better materials to work with. Not necessarily. I could see them being similar to Blackguard, but perhaps having a damage bonus against boss/mini-boss enemies specifically, and otherwise do normal damage. It plays into some of the typical knight tropes, as well as perhaps puts the player in the strange role of actively seeking out some of the worst sorts of trouble rather than avoiding it.

They do exist, but on default settings they're quite rare. I think the land coverage by default is 97.5%, which means that there will be an ocean or two to encounter in the world...eventually...assuming you didn't get lucky enough to spawn next to one. My personal preference is setting land cover to 80%. That leaves plenty of land to work with, so I won't get stuck on an island or anything, but also provides just enough large lakes and the occasional ocean to make things interesting and give value to the sailboat. I would say hang on to your old world so you can pick it back later if you really want, and start a fresh world to have a change of scenery for a while. If you want to stick to vanilla, you could try different strategies, or just play normal and see how fast you can progress now compared to before, or even switch the starting zone and play in the tropics or arctic instead of the standard temperate. Mods are really up to personal preference, though if you're looking to freshen up the game this is the route you'll probably want to take. I'd recommend keeping your modlist fairly small, especially if you're not experienced with modding, since that makes it much easier to figure out and fix problems when they arise. For modding 1.22 in particular, it's important to make sure that the mods are updated properly for that game version. While older mods often work on newer versions of the game, 1.22 introduced several changes that broke many older mods. If you do go the modded route, also make sure you disable your mods before returning to any vanilla worlds. If you forget this step it won't necessarily break the world, but you might end up with some ? blocks to clean up, which isn't always fun.

I'm guessing what happened is that when your game crashed, it "reset" your progress back to some point prior to completing the Resonance Archives, so the game is marking your player character as not having explored the location. In which case, having the items in your inventory isn't good enough since you've technically not completed the area, at least as far as the game is concerned. Fixing it should be a simple as returning to the Archive library and interacting with the resonator. You can use teleport commands and creative/spectator mode to bypass obstacles as needed. Reading the dialogue isn't necessary(though if you haven't read it I would highly recommend doing so--dialogue and other writing often has important information or context about other things), but do make sure you click through the main message anyway so that it counts as being listened to. From there, you should be able to exit the Archive and speak to the trader in order to receive directions to the Lazaret and an opportunity to buy an elk. Do make sure that it's the same treasure hunter that you spoke to for the Archive though, since the quests are specific to the individual trader and not the generic trader type.

First off, welcome to the forums! The main problem you run into here is that...it's a videogame, and players will act accordingly. Food might be easily dealt with and thus not much of a "challenge", but it's also something that will ruin all other plans the player might have if they fail to properly account for it. Allowing the player to ignore food entirely and rack up a starvation debuff instead has been suggested before, and attempted via a mod or two, but the main issues such a feature presents is that players can more easily ignore food preservation, and can easily lock themselves into a "death loop" from which they can't really escape without starting a new world. Neither one is particularly ideal. Agreed. I only partially agree here. Animals should have more nuanced behavior, yes, but encountering large predatory animals should get the player's attention. Aside from unexplained lore reasons for the heightened aggression, it is still a videogame, and making the predators completely nonaggressive unless the player basically walks up and provokes a fight only teaches the player that 1. they can ignore wildlife and do whatever they want, leading to 2. the player making the mistake of believing the world is safe. In Homo Sapiens mode, the predators are the only enemy, so without aggressive wildlife there's no enemies to actually challenge the player, which can be rather boring. And while it can be quite frustrating to die to a bear/wolf on your first day of playing, letting the wildlife be legitimately dangerous is a very effective way to teach players that the game will allow them to face more than they can handle and won't necessarily give them an "easy out" if they get into trouble. That kind of design is especially important when you consider that many players buy Vintage Story expecting the same kind of experience as Minecraft, when the games couldn't be more different. That's not to say that there's not room for improvement regarding wildlife behavior though. The aggression could be toned down a little, with certain animals perhaps giving more advance warning before attacks, or some individuals being more aggressive than others in order to keep the player from getting too complacent about being close to dangerous wildlife. More animal variety would definitely help, since different types of creatures behave in different ways. Status effects would make the hostile encounters more interesting, since getting mauled could easily leave the player alive with plenty of health, but inflict a serious injury that will need time and proper care in order to heal. This seems to run counter to the established lore and devs' intended design. If you talk to various NPCs and read through the various stories, the impression is quite clear that all is very much NOT fine in the world, and traveling outside of fortifications is a rather dangerous prospect due to the rifts and monsters lurking around. As for the monster spawns in broad daylight, it used to be that rifts would only spawn monsters at night, and thus be completely harmless during the day. However, they were recently changed to spawn monsters in the daylight as well, albeit at lower rates than at night, and the devs confirmed that this behavior was intended. I'm guessing this change was made to better reflect the established lore, and encourage players to be more cautious during periods of high rift activity as well as encourage players to invest in things like rift wards in order to protect areas from said rifts. Which is perfectly fine, but this is also where the game settings and mods are very important. They allow players to season the game to their own individual taste, without changing the game for every other player in the process. One setting that is currently missing is probably making some kind of distinction between monster aggression and wildlife aggression; several players have expressed a desire for peaceful wildlife but aggressive monsters, so splitting the creature aggression into two categories wouldn't be the worst idea. As for hunger, there's already an option to adjust hunger rate, as well as food spoilage, so I don't think much more needs to be done on that front. That's not to say the devs won't add more nuance to that mechanic in the future, just that I think what we have now is fine, and trying to make it overly "realistic" tends to end up creating many more problems than it solves.

Welcome to the forums! I think they are. If you had a pit kiln nearby, that's probably what happened to them. That being said, crude bellows will eventually break after enough use, though you would notice quite easily if this were the case.

Oversight, I'm guessing. Fish flee if the player tries to hit them in melee, probably to prompt the player to use a fishing pole and bait to fish the "proper" way. Projectile weapons probably weren't accounted for since there's probably not a lot of people that go around shooting at fish.

I enjoy steel-making, so I usually end up at steel sooner or later on worlds I actually play on. As for what I upgrade to steel...I cast a vote for everything, since it really depends on my mood at the time. Tools/weapons/armor that I use frequently are the most obvious choices, but it's not unusual for me to make "silly" things like steel hoes even if I don't use the item itself very much. At that point, it's purely for style, strictly because I can.