LadyWYT

Love it! I think a lot of players don't fully realize just how dangerous the VS world really is. Aside from the monsters wreaking havoc, there's still the standard threats to survival, such as injuries, disease, and age, even though a lot of that is handwaved due to it being a videogame. Additionally, even if we assume that medical science had some massive improvements over what it was for the Middle Ages, it's not like it's really feasible to go running to the nearest medical clinic for treatment of injury or illness, since...well, there really are no clinics outside of the rare settlement. The doctors that do exist realistically wouldn't be leaving their settlements, given they offer a valuable service and are almost unreplaceable should something happen to them. I've generally chalked it up to them not escaping the ravages of time, and that's why we find nothing left but stone for surface ruins. Underground conditions tend to be more stable and protected from the elements, hence why a lot of artifacts and creature mummies tend to be found hidden in caves. Thus underground ruins tend to be more intact. I do think though, that in the event of procedural dungeons, it would be interesting to have the rare ruined outpost on the surface, as it's not out of the question that some survivors tried to start new settlements and succeeded for a time, only to be later overrun. Perhaps it was monsters, but perhaps it was bandits, or potentially even some tyrannical faction trying to re-establish Old World nobility(depending on which way the devs want to take the story).

That is how you preserve juice though--it ferments into wine. The reason wine satiety was nerfed, is that its shelf life was extended significantly. Before the change, wine had more satiety, but didn't last long at all. If you're after long-term fruit preservation, I'd recommend turning fruit into jams and jellies. They keep a very long time in unsealed crocks, and in sealed crocks they can stay tasty for several years. Now if only jam could be used in meals...

The command should be /tpstoryloc tobiascave

True, but in that case, it should be theming only. Otherwise, if the counter to the monsters is magic charms and rituals, then it's no longer realistic survival and steampunk sci-fi, but generic fantasy. Really not ideal to have that kind of abrupt tone shift. Really, I figure a status effect system would solve a lot of the complaints...as well as produce several more(though hopefully not). And with a proper herbalism system, it's possible that some effects might require certain treatments in order to heal efficiently.

The main issue I see with this, is that it requires a lot of code tinkering in order to even make it work, and that's not something you just toggle on and off. There is an option already there to allow underground farming, which doesn't require code tinkering other than just removing the requirement for natural light and allowing artificial light to be sufficient instead. Otherwise, the idea works as a mod, but not for the base game, due to the amount of tinkering likely required to implement it, and the fact that the core game design just doesn't support this kind of farming. What's being proposed here, is essentially just allowing most any crops to be farmed anywhere, at any time of year, which is way too easy. Honestly, even for the modded route, it's likely easier to just remove temperature requirements from crops entirely, or otherwise give them a wide enough range that anything goes, instead of trying to modify the entire world itself.

Possibly, though my reasoning behind it being realistically more like 100-200 people, or perhaps even just 50, is that's enough of an adult population to support 10-15 guards, as well as keep family trees...well...looking like trees, and not telephone poles. In any case, it's easier to have extra people to cover the workload in the event that there's a casualty(the victim doesn't have to die, but they will need someone to fill in for them while recovering from serious injuries). If Nadiya were actually as small as it is in game, they're in big trouble if certain citizens die, or otherwise too injured to function. Pretty much. I use the Ghosts short story as a good benchmark for what they're capable of. The general reason for why the player knows everything they know isn't quite a complete handwave for gameplay reasons; the player character was once a part of Jonas's forces, and may have personally worked alongside him on occasion. Thus it stands to reason that the player learned several things about Jonas tech and other various useful things, and a certain NPC says as much when giving the player a certain schematic. I think the reason that rotbeasts drop things like temporal gears and Jonas parts, is that they were most likely also part of Jonas's forces once, before getting turned into monsters. Honestly do not see the logic here, as it's still just shifting focus from homesteading, survival, and exploration, to a dungeon crawler game. More complex, difficult dungeons is fine for some better ruins loot and side questing, but that shouldn't be a primary method of progression as much as it should be a nice little distraction. If anything, I'd be more inclined to advocate removing Jonas part drops from monsters entirely(save for the mechanicals), and instead having some sort of late game crafting loop where the player actually has to make their own parts.

I actually tried this in Minecraft with mods, although I don't remember which mods I used. While the mods did what they advertised and made the terrain a lot more realistic...it also made the game pretty boring, since there was no longer any real variety in the landscape. While the current terrain in VS might not be ultra realistic, it's still believable while offering enough variation as to not become dull. Though one feature I would like to see, is perhaps some proper plains regions. We do sort of have them now, but they do seem to get covered in brush frequently. Not that I would call Kansas-style grassland the most exciting landscape, but it does have a certain minimalist charm that I find fascinating, since I'm used to mountains, hills, and forests.

In fairness, I'm not sure that the village is accurately scaled either, as it's really more of an outpost than a proper village. Realistically, I would expect a village to be around a hundred or so inhabitants, but that's not really feasible to implement for a game like this and still keep the performance and level of detail we currently have. So things get scaled down as a result. As for traders, they're supposed to be getting reworked next update, and from what I've heard they're going to be living in fortified shelters similar to what the treasure hunters now have, rather than the wagons we're used to seeing everywhere. So I would expect to see proper fortifications, though I will note that most current traders seemed to be armed with at least one weapon. Yeah, that was basically my reasoning too--kills two birds with one stone. Or I mean...technically most of the landscape is combustible, if one is desperate enough. Maybe. At the very least, shivers should be able to clamber over fences with ease, since they're a large monster and seem built for mobility anyway. As for opening doors...I'm not entirely sold on that, although it is quite funny to read the occasional story about players who install mods that grant drifters that ability, without realizing the installed mods grant such. Overall, drifters don't really strike me as intelligent enough to figure out how doors work, so I wouldn't expect them to open doors as much as I would expect them to simply beat the door down. The obvious counter here, is to simply allow the player to install a bar over the door in order to reinforce it, since a standard lock mechanism won't be strong enough. Then it's just a matter of the player remembering to actually bar the door at night/during periods of high rift activity.

Oh that's just Dave playing the Sims in VS; I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I would actually argue the opposite, to an extent. In the context of temporal storms, it does make sense, given that a temporal storm is essentially one giant, particularly nasty rift that allows monsters to bleed through into reality with ease for a short period of time. I think the better solution for temporal rifts specifically, is to place more weight toward them spawning in unstable areas, rather than in a certain radius from the player. The only way to fully stop rift spawns within an area is still going to be the rift ward, but that way the player can at least deal with the rifts a little more easily by making sure they settle in a spot with good stability and then fortifying the perimeter of their base. Honestly, the game already does, at least somewhat. Building a perimeter and lighting it up will cut down on the spooks, and fortifying said perimeter with rift wards(once you obtain them) should stop all spawns outside of whatever temporal storms drag in. Ironically, given what some of the NPCs say about the monsters and the design of certain locations, the monsters absolutely are capable of climbing fences and smashing through doors and windows. Likewise, the monsters, according to the lore, are incredibly resilient to damage. The versions of the monsters implemented in the game are more nerfed versions balanced in favor of player fun, than how they realistically should be. The corrupt and nightmare tiers are more what I would consider what the toughness of the standard surface monsters actually should be. The bonfire idea I could see being a useful mid-game strategy to keep low tier monsters at bay, but not high tier ones(those should remain incredibly serious threats). I think the heat is also a reasonable excuse for why a bonfire would keep spooks away, but not lanterns, despite both providing lots of light. And of course, bonfires could also be used to keep hostile wildlife away from your camp as well, since that's much more intimidating than a measly little campfire. Though to keep it balanced in terms of resource cost, perhaps it requires the firewood equivalent of a small charcoal pit to actually get started, and then utilizes whole logs as fuel once established(but for a longer burn time in exchange for being unable to cook on said bonfire). Overall, I still think the best way to deal with rifts and monster spawns should be Jonas tech.

You also have to account for chiseled blocks, which is a nightmare in itself. And even then, it could still be cheesed easily enough by always making the base of the block stone, so that the chiseled block type always qualifies as stone. From that point, it's just a matter of chiseling every single block in the base to prevent spawns. I heavily disagree. The current balance of combat is fairly realistic, in that it's something the player does in order to stay alive, and not something that should actively be sought out. Combat means risking injury, even with good equipment, and injuries are detrimental to survival. By increasing monster loot, and making said loot more lucrative, what happens is the player starts being encouraged to hunt down the monsters for rewards, instead of focusing on survival and only dealing with the monsters when necessary. That kind of balance is great if the focus of the game is meant to be on combat, but not good if the main idea is to survival, homesteading, and exploration. Or instead of getting some esoteric unexplained loot droop from monsters, take the concept of "temporal fibers" and add it to a weaving gameplay loop as some sort of late game material. That way there's also some sort of reasonable explanation for how those fibers came to exist(the player utilized technology to make them), instead of the player being left to wonder how a horrible rot-infested creature can produce something so valuable. As for stopping spawns with dreamcatchers and candles...as a mod it works, but not for the base game. Stuff like that enters the "generic RPG fantasy" realm, and if it were really that easy to keep the monsters away, NPCs would be surrounding their homes with handicrafts instead of building strong fortifications. The feature is especially valuable in storms, where you may not have time to loot. Even if the falx didn't extract all the loot, it does make monsters killed via falx easier to loot since you no longer have to wait for the harvest animation to play before looting.

My strategy with fruit trees is to leave the ones within reasonable travel distance of base intact, and get my cuttings from the trees farther out. That way, I can pick the wild trees when year one rolls around. As for planting the cuttings...I'm easily planting 20-40 minimum at a time, so even if a lot of them don't survive there should still be several that actually do take root.

I like this approach. Throwable grenades would be useful against packs of enemies, or for achieving effects like smoke screens(perhaps this stops enemies caught within from targeting you for a brief time). Noisemakers could attract rotbeasts to specific areas, while flares could do the same for bells(apparently those are attracted to really bright light). Flares could also provide much more light than torches, at the expense of having a faster burnout time. Caltrops could slow down entities that step on them, or disappear after a short time if not stepped on. In any case, I think this kind of approach would allow the player more options, without needing to rework the locations already in the game.

I mean, it would definitely be a useful option to have for making custom maps. If it were something added, I'd expect it to be in a story update, or perhaps procedural dungeons, so that the feature can be showcased properly. It's still a feature I'd prefer to see more in procedural dungeons than story locations, I think, simply because those aren't really plot critical and more meant as entertaining side quests. Thus the more intricate details and tougher challenges can be left to main story locations, while procedural dungeons could be more relaxed and handle a greater variety of problem solving. As for keeping main locations "exciting"...I think a better option might be including secrets that have specific conditions to unlock. That is, perhaps the secret is only unlocked by a certain class(or certain class items), or perhaps the player needs to make certain choices in the story in order to have certain options available later. For example, instead of demanding more reward for your efforts at the end of chapter two, perhaps the player could forgo the immediate reward in exchange for something better later. Or perhaps there could be side quests for certain NPCs that increase your reputation with them, that eventually yields access to secrets later. Of course, these secrets wouldn't be critical to completing the main story, but rather just fun little side bits. Technically, this is already a thing, in that one location from chapter two. It works a bit differently, but it's the same general concept of working one's way through things...er...frozen in time. Of course, that's also the lore reason why the player can't just go tampering with things in that area too; without spoiling too much, the area is a giant anomaly, and it's either not possible to mess with things, or messing with things would have catastrophic consequences. I'm inclined to think it's the former, and not the latter, in that everything is literally frozen in time. Other locations, like the Resonance Archive, seem to have similar anomalies occurring, but not to the same extent.

It could be just meals in general, and not necessarily cookpot. I just tend to think "cookpot" when I think saturation, especially since pies stack more conveniently. Redmeat is the most critical ingredient, if you want the meal to be lasting a while before getting hungry again. It's the kind of thing I'd figure that would be noted in the handbook: spices add saturation value to cooked food. I definitely would not make a special meter just for tracking it, since that runs the risk of making the interface too cluttered.

Oh nice, I'm glad my rambling helps somebody. Picking apart the lore and trying to figure out how it all fits together is a favorite hobby in the game, although it's been a while since I've done any written delves.

Actually, the player should be able to kill small animals like chickens and rabbits on default settings, with only one flint spear, assuming that the player is throwing said spear and not stabbing. The only class that cannot do this, is Blackguard, as it takes two shots minimum to kill. I have to disagree here. First and foremost, nerfing the hitpoints of wildlife(especially to that extent) will make the predators essentially no threat, and make hunting way too easy. One benefit of investing in livestock is having an easy supply of meat, fat, hides, and dairy once you get the herds going. Likewise, picking the Hunter class offers an advantage early on by making it easier to kill things at range, and getting a bit more reward for one's butchering endeavors. Secondly, while it may seem a bit harsh for wolves and bears to be killing new players that easily, it is at least somewhat realistic(unless one has very good weapons/armor, the odds are absolutely stacked in the large predator's favor) and teaches the player a very important lesson early in the game about how the game's world operates. That is, the world is dangerous, and while the game will give the player a fair shot at success, it absolutely will not pull punches or otherwise stack the deck in the player's favor, as other games tend to do. Success or failure hinges heavily on the player's own ingenuity and efforts. As for predators not actually being that aggressive in real life...there are lore reasons for why wildlife is more aggressive in Vintage Story, although it has yet to really be explained. I did this too, however, I wouldn't say my immersion was broken. Rather, it was a rare shocking reminder that Vintage Story plays by a different set of rules than the other block game, or even titles like Skyrim. The puzzles themselves aren't terribly difficult, but they aren't so simple that the player won't have to actually search for clues or think about how to solve it for a little bit(puzzle doors in the draugr crypts, anyone?). Likewise, the player can't just break blocks to bypass the challenges within, or otherwise tear the entire place apart in order to cart it home. I would agree that it's restrictive, and that having a few more options would be nice. However, as you've already noted, it's difficult to pull that off without enabling the player to cheat and bypass the challenges. Likewise, it's also easier to design a dungeon location with a more linear route/challenges, and then spend more time detailing the set pieces or hiding little goodies around for the player to find. Currently, that also seems to be the design the VS devs are working with, given that the path through the location puzzles is fairly straightforward, but there's a lot of storytelling going on with the set design and lots of hidden goodies to discover. The Resonance Archive itself has at least three or four hidden locations to find; it's not unusual for those nooks and crannies in the walls to turn out to be more than just background detail. Like I said before, some of this is already part of the location design, as there are hidden bits that are easily missed, until the player figures out that not everything is just set dressing. As for placing blocks...I think that's a big "maybe". I think it's a concept better suited for procedural dungeons, while saving really special things(like the special bit from chapter two) for story locations. As for enemies interacting with placed blocks...rotbeasts don't seem intelligent enough to really do stuff like. Mechanicals like the locusts might, but creature AI needs more improvement to handle something like that, really. Overall, I think one of the present weak points of current location design, is that it's not always obvious what the player can interact with/is supposed to interact with. Obviously, extra goodies aren't that important, and there mostly as a fun little reward for a player's exploration efforts. Objects related to the main story recently got an improvement, in that they now emit particles if they are something the player can interact with(like lore books or the library resonator). Interesting. I'll have to go try to find the interview at some point. It makes sense that there would be some more nefarious humans out there, especially given that many NPCs suggest as much, however, I would also expect bandits to be a fairly rare occurrence out in the wild. The wilds are, after all, incredibly unsafe, and the idea behind being a bandit is making your living by stealing other people's livings. Can't really do that if there's no people to steal from.

Adding on to this, there's also that mysterious inscription in the Lazaret, that may or may not have been made by our good friend Tobias. I forget how the inscription reads exactly, but it references a crack in the firmament and witnessing the gears of the mechanisms that make the world turn, among other things. Now, from the sounds of it, whoever wrote it was not in their right mind, however, the passage likely points to the author witnessing the Rust world bleeding through into reality. Of course, the author could have also been telling the truth, in that if the premise of Vintage Story's reality is an antiquated theory of the world, the gears we see during temporal storms could be part of a literal mechanism(not the Salvation Engine!) that makes the world turn. I don't think this is quite right. It's possible some survivors took to worshiping the Great Machine, but the lore suggests that the survivors were turning from whatever their prior faith was and worshiping Jonas himself as a deity. Tying into the above, I'm not sure that there's a specific answer to the question, as much as it is left up to player interpretation. The main setting of the Old World seems to be central Europe, so Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy would have been the most prevalent religions, though I would say that most religions prevalent in Africa, Europe, and Asia during the late medieval period likely had some sort of following among humanity's survivors. It also stands to reason that the survivors carried on those traditions over the years as a way of maintaining their heritage and some sense of "normal". However, as I mentioned before, the lore also makes it pretty clear that many survivors had turned to worshiping Jonas as a deity. It's clear from NPC speech that at least most of them believe in some sort of divine figure, but whether they're referring to an actual deity or to Jonas himself isn't clear. Honestly, I basically just chalked up "The Morning" as more poetic myth than actual fact. Things do seem to get worse the deeper underground one ventures, yes, but I don't think that's due to an eldritch entity as much as it is a separate dimension trying to merge with reality, or perhaps literal machinery that operates reality having a major malfunction. This one I think is both a legend of surviving humans, and actual fact. From the sounds of it, a young lad from one of the remaining settlements ventured too deep, found a ruin, was chased deeper into said ruin by a shiver, and encountered an active eidolon before somehow managing to escape in...well, mostly one piece. For whatever reason, the mechanical horrors seem to mostly only be found deep underground, presumably lurking around what were once underground bunkers and workshops. My guess is that after the cataclysm that ended the Old World, such mechanical monstrosities eventually faded from memory and become more the stuff of legends. The occasional explorer would manage to encounter one and survive, thus keeping the legends alive as cautionary tales rather than being forgotten entirely. I think they're a mix of both, really. Certain dialogue from Tobias suggests that some individuals were turned rather than disappeared like the seraphs, which points to the rotbeast monsters perhaps having been human once. If they were human and twisted to such horrible forms, that might also explain why they have such murderous intent toward human survivors and seraphs alike, but leave other living creatures alone. Possibly. I suspect the cause will become more clear in later chapters, but I am inclined to think that the Rot was an unintended side effect of messing around with prima materia/temporality. It seems to be implied that even Jonas himself didn't fully understand what made his creations tick, however, I get that impression that Jonas(and at least most of his actual followers) were smart enough to realize that caution should be exercised while exploring the tech. However, I have the suspicion that others perhaps didn't have such caution and tried to hijack Jonas's work for their own selfish ends, and created a disaster in the process. Of course, it's also possible that Jonas perhaps made some sort of a Faustian bargain with an otherworldly entity in exchange for knowledge of prima materia, and gotten way more than he bargained for in the process. I'll post this behind spoilers just in case, but: I agree with most of this, save for I'm not sure it's an eldritch deity as the mastermind behind it all, as much as it is basic consequences for tampering with esoteric forces that really shouldn't have been tampered with. Or at the very least, I think it's a lot more unsettling if the feeling of some malevolent eldritch entity is there, without any actual confirmation that one exists. As for what happened to Jonas after the cataclysm...hard to say for sure. I'm quite certain he's still alive...or at least, as much alive as the player is, anyway. As for what state he's in, that I'm not sure. I doubt he's human anymore, since anyone who was at "ground zero" when the Salvation Engine was activated seems to have either been turned into a monster, or a seraph. I don't think Jonas was turned into a monster, since Tobias seems to have had some interaction with him after the cataclysm, so it's more likely that Jonas is either a seraph(or a super-seraph, if such is possible), or in a state similar to Tobias--ie, not a seraph but not quite a typical human either. As for what Jonas is up to...based on the "Breakdown" lore entry, and what Tobias said in passing, I think Jonas most likely suffered a complete mental break after the Old World was brought to an end, and went into hiding, likely swearing to never pick his old work back up.

And this is why you always use crude doors when playing with friends.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/22371 Technically, it's kinda already somewhat a thing. Kind of. But yeah, something like Distant Horizons is pretty much mandatory if one is going to play with epic terrain scales. Given how well Tyron and co. have optimized Vintage Story already, I think it's just a matter of time before they figure out some work-around for larger scale terrain features.

This is why, barring any major breakthroughs in drastically improving performance at very high render distances, terrain really ought to be scaled down like it is now. It's nice to have grand landscapes, yes, but if one doesn't have the render distance to actually see it then it's not all that enjoyable. And not everyone has the beefy hardware required for exceptionally high render distance. However, I do think that certain types of terrain could easily be fitted to a grander scale, without the need for high render distance. Plains or small, gentle hills are a good example, since a lower render distance will work decently well for getting the "vibe", so to speak. That is, the plain will still have that Kansas feel, since the player could go for miles without seeing a single mountain or hill. As for a mountain proper...that doesn't work so well on a lower render distance, since the player won't be able to actually climb to the top and view the surroundings for miles around. They'd be aware they're on a massive mountain, yes, but if the view is exactly the same as at the foot of the mountain, there's no real point.

Given the couple of snippets I saw, I'm guessing that metal tools will still be at risk of breaking. However, it looks like the player might have more control over how likely those tools are to break, via the tempering process. I'm guessing that tempering tools to be harder will allow them to retain a sharper edge for a longer time, with the tradeoff being a higher chance to break. Less tempering probably results in a softer tool that won't hold an edge so well, but won't be as prone to breaking either. Is it true to real life? Eh, kind of. In real life, you can recycle broken metal tools back into something usable, but in the context of a videogame like Vintage Story, I think some risk of breaking(and losing the tool) is needed to help keep things balanced. Otherwise, the player will never need to seek out new ore deposits.

In my experience, Tyron posts only occur every few months, when there's concrete news to post. That is, what's getting posted is actually going to be in the game, and not speculation, unless it's otherwise explicitly labeled as such. While that does mean fewer news posts, that does mean the posts we get are a lot more detailed.

They might be irritated at first, however, I think players would warm up to such a system relatively quickly once they figure out it allows most foodstuffs to qualify for meal saturation, and not just things stewed in a cookpot. The main concern, I think, would be pies becoming too strong, however, pies are locked behind the quern and it's not really feasible to carry a whole table and bread oven with you for cooking on the road.

Unless it's a quokka, that is.