LadyWYT

If there has to be an obvious visual cue, this would definitely be preferable to some kind of screen overlay, obvious textures, or obvious sound distortions. Visually, I just prefer the beauty of nature to be preserved throughout the world, with the story locations and other rare instances being the few exceptions to the rule. To cite Thaumcraft as an example that adds obvious messed up areas to the world; I did play with that mod several times, and it was interesting, but Minecraft also isn't a game that really tries to be rooted in realistic nature and process(despite some odd design decisions). So finding weird, whimsical, or downright creepy stuff scattered about is rather expected. Were you playing 1.21 or 1.22? If 1.22, what very likely happened is you stepped into a rift, or otherwise had one spawn on top of you. Outside of the cog drain, it's not currently possible to notice rifts otherwise(outside of a cluster of monster spawns if it's dark enough), as they're missing the graphics, sounds, and the cog spins clockwise for whatever reason.

Yep! So is licorice, though I don't know what nutrients either require.

It is optional, at least at the moment.

I disagree. The unstable areas are hazards that can sneak up on players that aren't paying attention. In my experience, it's quite doable to hang around in one for a day or two before needing to leave. If one doesn't pay attention though, they may drop more stability than intended, or otherwise go venturing into caves or potentially even a temporal storm with a decent chunk of their stability missing. In short, yes, it is subtle, but that's also part of the appeal, at least to me. There's just enough hazard there to require a little extra planning and caution when dealing with those areas, but they aren't going to be eyesores that require no thought to avoid. Fair, but in turn I was using that as part of my example as well, on why I don't really like the suggestions I've seen about changing visuals about unstable areas. Rusty metal textures aren't natural textures, same as rusty metal scraps and other things related to the Rust World. Rust is a natural process, yes, but when you find stuff like that out in the woods that's generally someone's garbage dump, or a long-abandoned residence. That is, it's man-made, and not natural. In the case of Rust World corruption, that's not natural either, so if I see it scattered around in pockets everywhere, that are a common find, then the world is going to feel less like a natural living world that I'm trying to survive in(with horror elements as a backdrop) and more like a standard videogame setting with omnipresent monsters and horror features. In short, it ain't my cup of tea.

The main hurdle I see to making the damage the same, is that Blackguard and Hunter throw a wrench into that balance. If the melee damage is too high Blackguard will be too strong, since the extra reach makes it harder for a target to get away from a brawl. If the ranged damage is too low, then a lot of players are going to be upset, since I think more players tend to throw spears than use them in melee. I do like this proposal though--it feels pretty fair. I would throw a quiver into the mix as well, with the idea being that the player can fit it with a poison capsule to soak their arrows in until they're fired. To my knowledge, poison loses effectiveness when it dries, and it's not really practical to try to poison a spear or sword in the middle of combat, nor is it always an option to poison the weapons right before a fight occurs.

Fair enough, but I do like examining designs. Plus it's fun trying to reason why a design might be off-putting to some.

I can't really recall transparency being an issue when scaling an image. What tends to be more of a problem is pixels versus vectors. I'm probably butchering the terminology here, but basically, vector art utilizes smooth curves, so it's easy to resize the image without losing image quality in the process. A rasterized image--that is, one made out of pixels--can be shrunk much easier than it can be made larger. Shrinking a rasterized image is usually easier to do since the software is just removing pixels from the image to make it smaller, which makes it a bit easier to preserve design quality(not really an issue though, since small images prioritize saving space so preserving detail isn't a priority). When making a rasterized image larger though, the software is adding more pixels to the original image so it makes its best guess on where to put them based on what's already there, hence why image quality suffers more the larger you try to make the original design(ie, it gets really pixelated, really fast). There's also stuff like image dpi(dots per inch), which is basically just how many pixels an image has per inch of image--if I'm recalling correctly, the standard for print is 300 dpi, but it's also been quite a while since art school. With the logo itself, I don't think it's the edge transparency that is a problem, as much as it is perhaps the lack of a defining outline. The colors the logo uses are similar to the background coloring of the menu, so some of the details start blending in as a result. A dark colored outline around the logo would make it much easier for the eye to tell where the logo ends and the background begins.

The hotbar cog is fairly obvious, yes, but like I said before, it's also fairly easy to forget about since it only takes up a small portion of the screen. Visuals that cover the entire screen, however, are pretty much impossible to ignore unless they're extremely subtle...which kinda defeats the purpose if the intent is to make unstable areas more obvious. Parts of the world are unnatural, but the world as a whole appears to be mostly natural, outside of a few specific locations and events like rifts/temporal storms. That is, the unnatural parts remain in the background, for the most part, and aren't sitting there staring the player in the face. Placing locust nests, rusty debris, and weird rusty textures around an unstable area like Thaumcraft did with taint would make the unstable areas extremely noticeable, yes, but then the world as a whole just doesn't feel natural and the player's not lulled into a false sense of security as a result. It also makes it pretty much impossible for unstable areas to ever catch players off guard as well, which in my opinion isn't really ideal. The more ideal design, to me, is a beautiful, natural world that's inviting to explore and interact with, with some unnatural elements in the background that will catch the player off-guard occasionally, and provide brief moments of suspense in areas where the unnatural is highly concentrated. That is, part of the reason certain story locations have the impact that they do, is that the anomalies within are quite rare, and specific to those locations. If such anomalies were absolutely everywhere, then such things would just become...common...and not really be interesting to find anymore because, well, they're everywhere.

It may be somewhat dependent on when the crop growth checks occur, but I'm not sure. If that is the case though, the growth checks could be happening at night, or during the cooler parts of the day. To my knowledge there's not, but if you are using mods I wouldn't rule out some sort of weird mod interference either.

Really depends on how big the interior of the building is. Things like hay beds, tool racks, reed chests, thatch roofing, etc. are quite flammable so putting a pit kiln indoors without setting anything on fire can be tricky.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/cuneiformwriting

As an artist, I have to side more with @ifoz here. While the hand-drawn look and detail of the logo isn't typical of a lot of modern design...that's also what helps the design stand out from competition. There's nothing wrong with sleek, extremely simple logos but when those designs are what's everywhere then it's going to be the old-timey ultra-detailed illustration that stands out. It would be the opposite if the common design trend was old-fashioned overly detailed art--the simple vector designs would stand out simply because they're so different. The title font is mostly fine, in my opinion. The colors go together quite well. The only thing I'd be inclined to tweak is the little notches at the ends of the lettering; the font is supposed to mimic quill writing or old fountain pens, perhaps, but I don't recall those tools producing little notches in the lettering like that. It's not a big flaw, but I think it might be just enough to make things look a bit off.

I do this too, though I do like to have a set of meteoric iron armor for display, and a lined lantern for extra brightness. Gold and silver I'll use for Jonas contraptions as needed, but otherwise...it's pretty much just the fun of hoarding shinies. Gemstones are included in that mix.

I did report the issue on the tracker, so it's definitely on the radar for now.

This really can't be stated enough. I died on my doorstep during a storm once, despite having steel equipment, simply because I stayed out fighting when I should have taken a moment to step back inside and heal. Steel armor is very protective and mitigates most incoming damage, but corrupt and nightmare level opponents still hit very hard. I would steel armor is the difference between instant death/serious injury and a respectable bruise.

I somewhat agree, however...wood that is burning will get very hot. This is probably an overly simple explanation, but I think lower heat tends to be more ideal for a lot of cooking, since lower heat cooks the food more evenly. High heat risks cooking the outside before the inside, which can be ideal for some dishes but not all. I also think the cookware itself places a pretty important role, in that it does absorb heat from the fire while also acting as a sort of insulator so whatever's inside isn't getting too hot. Or at least, that's the explanation that comes to my mind. Pretty much, however, a pike could have an interesting niche in caves or base defense--that is, situations that you're able to poke at enemies from safety. Spear balance I'm still mulling over. I don't think they should hit as hard as they did in previous versions, as the math there seems just way too strong, especially when you start comparing character classes. The new spears do, however, have a much slower windup, which might be the primary balance factor, since in previous versions the spear could be thrown basically as fast as the bow could be fired. Overall, I'm more inclined to say that spears and arrows should both be able to be quenched, tempered, and sharpened, with perhaps some limits on how many times the item can be tempered and quenched. The arrows seem like they should be easier to work with, especially since they're easier to lose in combat, or otherwise fire and forget about. A spear could potentially have higher damage per shot than a bow, but it seems fair to require a bit more smithing effort from the player to get a spear to that point, with the drawbacks of being an expensive loss if the player is unable to retrieve the spear, and the slow rate of fire making it more likely that the player really only gets one shot before the target closes the gap. Either way, I'll definitely have to play around with it more, and potentially rope my hunter friend into helping test some things out. Spears shouldn't be so weak that they just wind up ignored by most players, but they shouldn't be so strong that they become the default weapon of choice for every situation either.

I love my scrappy cheese and you know the story would be told in the funny story thread, but...it's just not the same as doing it legit. Generally when I do that kind of thing in the game, it's a bit spontaneous and something I roll with just to see if I can actually manage it, rather than utilizing cheese or coming back later with better gear and an actually good plan. Where it tends to get the most interesting is when the creature tries to flee. Most larger animals are faster than the player, so once they start to run it's usually not possible to physically catch them. A few well-placed rocks might be in order in that case.

Interesting. The bear spawns do seem to be a little higher now, but so do other creature spawns. I've seen lots of deer, and a big flock of chickens, but maybe it's just the quirks of my particular world. In any case, while I've seen several bears, I can't say that I've seen any of them get aggressive yet. While I do give them space, I have been relatively close to a couple(close enough to trigger an attack in previous versions) and they've paid me no mind.

Gotcha. This would make sense, given that it is summer time and the times I recall seeing them in the past it's been in warm weather. That being said, it is a bit strange that the particles are only present in certain areas, despite the areas being pretty much the same temperature. I'd really hope not, as that's way too obvious and removes all the thought from figuring out where to settle and paying attention to one's stability in general. It also makes the world as a whole look explicitly unnatural. The hotbar cog is noticeable enough to watch easily from the corner of one's eye, but also limited to a specific area of the screen's border, so it's relatively easy to forget as well. As a mod though, sure, why not. It'd be interesting to play that way a time or two, but it's definitely not something I'd want to play with all the time. I like that the world feels natural as a whole on the surface, and it's not until you encounter specific things or specific places that you get reminded that some things are amiss.

Has been fixed in pre2, though it was a rather funny bug. Apparently it's possible to use a bucket to retrieve it, but yeah...not the most intuitive way to get it based on the handbook. I'm not sure if the change is intended or not, but given that the food is boiling hot when it finishes cooking, it does make sense to let it cool down first before trying to eat it. I've chalked it up as a similar situation to seraphs being able to hold blazing hot crucibles in their bare hands once upon a time.

So I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think I may have just stumbled upon a legitimate visual difference between stable and unstable surface areas. When messing around in 1.22, I noticed faint particles floating about in the air near my base. They aren't insects, and I don't think it's a new effect as I seem to recall seeing such particles in previous game versions but never really paid them any mind as I thought maybe it was just some sort of dust or other ambience. When I stopped to really think about it though, the particles seemed remarkably similar to the temporal ambience in certain story locations, and thus I started to wonder. I visited the nearest unstable area to see if the particles were there, and they were not. The stable areas nearby, however, did have the particles, save for the stable chunk that was rather windy. I suspect the wind and related particles might overwrite the strange ambience, so on a calmer day those particles might be present. Here is a shot of the sky in an unstable area. There are no particles to be seen. And here is a shot of the sky in a stable area. Notice the faint particles floating around. As I said before, I'm not completely sure that these particles are temporal ambience, but it would seem that may be the case. I'll have to start paying more attention between the stable and unstable areas.

Right, but from what I've heard the first quench is basically no risk. The player can continue working the item indefinitely to keep increasing the stats, but the returns diminish and the breakage chance increases for each additional quenching attempt. Basically, there's a sweet spot in there somewhere, but the breakage risk is there, I think, to keep players from just pushing every tool to the absolute maximum with little effort.

Try sticking it into a barrel of water, or toss it into a water source to cool it off. I think that's how the quenching is supposed to work, though I've not messed around with that mechanic yet.

I mostly agree, however, it would be a prime spot for an adze. The adze could be used to strip logs and craft support beams instead of relying exclusively on the hammer and axe, with probably other uses as well. I think it could probably be a more time-consuming way to create boards, with the tool itself still being locked to metalworking so the player needs to reach copper in order to make and use an adze. That being said, the adze head could be cast via mold rather than requiring the anvil to forge it, in turn allowing the player to have earlier access to things like troughs for livestock and planks for building, while keeping some things(like pies and leatherworking) locked until the player acquires the anvil(need a chisel to make the quern).

@MKMoose One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet in the spear discussion--spearpoints can be tempered and quenched to boost durability and damage. Obviously there's some risk involved for players who push the limits, but it looks like the first quench is risk-free while offering the biggest boost. How big that boost is, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that it might boost a steel spear's damage up to 6.5-7 for ranged damage, with the potential to go higher with further quenching(8 maybe, or perhaps even higher than that). Arrows, on the other hand, can't be tempered or quenched, giving spears quite an advantage when it comes to ranged damage potential, especially if spearpoints can be sharpened at the grindstone for crit bonuses as well. The bow would still take fewer inventory slots and be faster to fire, but I'm not sure that the faster fire rate would make up for the lack of quenching and sharpening.