LadyWYT

I'm not sure that metal spikes deal that much damage; I'd more suspect a weird physics issue occurring when you stepped on them, in that the game managed to register multiple hits at once. Similar to how one arrow can count as multiple hits on a creature. But of course, it could have been just a really big poke from that spike as well.

Posting with spoiler tags, just in case you'd like the mysteries to remain. Though I will note that some of these topics have yet to be explained, if they even receive a future explanation. Some things may just be left up to the player to decide for themselves. I won't really say much on this part. However, playing through the main portion of the story will explain a good chunk of what happened and what's going on, in regards to these details.

I would check the lower layers and the grating to make sure nothing is damaged there; those blocks are harder to see, especially if buried, so it's possible to miss one. If it's winter, make sure all the snow is cleared out from inside the furnace, as it won't function otherwise.

I think there used to be some sort of clay block that you could craft and then fire, though it ended up being removed in 1.20 if I'm not mistaken. It'd probably be easier to just re-implement that, and then chisel the block down to whatever shape you wish. End result is pretty much the same, and the fired clay blocks could also be used as materials for other chiselwork.

1. Regarding pit kilns, it's never a good idea to build them in your starter shack. Particularly if your starter shack contains lots of flammable things, like grass, hay bed, reed chests, and yourself. 2. Mark the ore bits that you find on the surface--there's usually a deposit underneath. 3. Nothing but igneous rock for miles tends to make for a more challenging progression. That can be either a good or bad thing, depending on one's preferred playstyle. 4. Never sleep in the open, and never leave the door to your base open while you're sleeping. I got murdered by a sheep once from ignoring this rule. 5. If an NPC describes something as dangerous, it probably is and you should treat it as such, regardless of your skill level. Really, it's a good idea to pay attention to what NPCs say in general. 6. Always examine what you're about to eat to make sure it's actually something you should be eating, especially if you play with mischievous friends. 7. You don't need to rely on caves in order to find ore. 8. It's perfectly fine to dig straight down, provided that you're placing ladders as you dig. Your character will cling to ladders, so it's rather difficult to fall off should you happen to dig into a cavern. Just a few tips that I can think of on the spot. Not necessarily all stuff that I had trouble with, but stuff that may not be immediately obvious to brand new players.

I typically just hover over the basket to see what it has in it, and then move those items elsewhere if needed. I'm not sure that an "empty" button is needed, but perhaps an outline when you select the slot on your backpack slots, to highlight which slots a basket/backpack covers.

Vintage Story is an uncompromising wilderness survival sandbox game inspired by eldritch horror themes. Find yourself in a ruined world reclaimed by nature and permeated by unnerving temporal disturbances. Relive the advent of human civilization, or take your own path. With all due respect...it's not being advertised as a more complex Minecraft. There are a few superficial similarities, but the two aren't even close in terms of gameplay and what's expected of the player. Just because it's a sandbox doesn't mean that it necessarily needs to be easy, or that you get to settle down exactly where you want at the start of the game. Though I'd also agree with the points @Thorfinn already made--there are already several options to easily reset your spawn in the current state of Vintage Story. One of my favorite parts of that interview. I'd not really stopped to consider how much the ease of resetting one's spawn point affects other challenges that a game might offer, but in retrospect, it does trivialize a lot.

To be fair, easy-to-set spawn points would be a good game decision for an easy building/exploration focused sandbox game, which is a strong point of the other block game. However, that's not what Vintage Story is; it's a brutal, challenging survival game with eldritch horror elements and a story to tell. If the core spawn mechanic was changed and made easy, it would lose a lot of the challenges it presents the player with. Death is a steep penalty, in more ways than just potential item loss, and therefore something to be taken seriously and actively avoided as a result. I'd also say it's possible to get the "cozy sim" experience without mods, but it does require turning pretty much all the settings to the easiest possible.

I would presume it's for balancing reasons as well, since spears have significant ranged damage(to be fair, you need to actually hit the target though, and it's not always wise to go throwing away your primary weapons) as well as the most reach of any melee weapon. If you allow spear types past the bronze tier, then you start running into the issue of the other weapons being much less attractive, because they can't really compete with the potential damage output.

I like it, but it's useless if the minimap is disabled. Might be better to just have an option to share waypoints with other players, and leave it at that.

The general loss ratio seems to be fairly consistent, regardless of pit size. I say that just from making a rough guess based on what I've dug out of my charcoal pits, not because I've sat down and crunched every number. That being said, I'd wager the "most efficient" depends heavily on the context of how much you need versus how much effort you want to put into it. A giant pit will net you a LOT of charcoal(like, I think I built a 7x7x7, which isn't max size, and got almost two full crates of charcoal), but will also take a significant effort to fill. A small pit is easily filled, but isn't very useful if you need a lot of charcoal. I would say small pits are the most efficient in the early game, with moderate-size pits probably being the most efficient overall. They aren't as much hassle to fill as the huge pits, and provide decent amounts of charcoal per firing, meaning that it's easy enough to fire the pit 2-3 a week at most. Of course, if you'd rather just have a couple crates of charcoal after one firing, and not need to bother with it for a long time, then making a huge pit will probably be a more efficient use of your time.

I think I just used a bucket or a jug to remove it and dump it into a barrel. Also, welcome to the forums!

Old piece of work that I never finished; the world's long since been deleted and I've moved on to other projects. However, I was pleased with the aesthetic and will probably end up copying the design later.

Depending on reed dimensions, it's a good way to suffocate too. However, I daresay videogame logic would apply in this case and one need not worry about that. Given that the player can already hold their breath for a decent length by default though, I don't think it'd be a particularly useful addition to the base game. Better as a mod, in my opinion.

Honestly, forgot that was a thing, since I always pack a ton of pie when going on expeditions. Pie stacks ridiculously well(but make sure you cut it before heading in to story locations!), and in the case of redmeat pie is especially filling. However, the main issue with packing a practical fridge's worth of pies...is that about half of it spoils before I can manage to eat it, even as a Blackguard. I always pack way too much food for the Archive. Does beat the alternative though.

Haha, sure, why not, in regards to the bears. Bears are basically the boss entities of the surface and early game, so having a class that's stronger at confronting them could be interesting. Very interesting. Especially if the Noble is rather foolhardy in a multiplayer scenario--could see a lot of shenanigans develop as a result. I had considered that as well, since nobles would have more refined manners and thus have some advantage in negotiating. However, I think it's a benefit that's better leveraged by the Tailor, since tailors would need to have good business sense and nobles...generally have so much money that they don't care about prices. If anything, paying outrageous prices for nonsense would be ideal for a noble in some ways, since spending lots of money on frivolous things is a method of indicating your power and status. Assuming that NPCs eventually offer more reactions to the player's class though, I think Noble would be one of those that's either well-liked for their manners, or perhaps despised for their arrogance. Or perhaps they're simply treated like the village idiot, since nobility may be a completely foreign concept in the present and the Noble otherwise proves a bit inept at common labor.

I see you've not found their giant counterparts yet. I'm not so sure that Jonas is responsible for creating the rusty gears, or the temporal gears, for that matter. It's possible that he did, and the process used has long since been lost to the ages. However, I suspect that the rusty gears, and perhaps a portion of the temporal gears as well, actually come from the Rust world dimension. It's been described as a wondrous land filled with giant, impossible machines, that also turned into a dark and dreadful place not long after Jonas began his work(it's also rather heavily implied that Jonas essentially copied a lot of what he saw there). Of course, there's also the theory that rusty gears are simply the remains of temporal gears that have been used up. Either way you look at it, I think the main idea is that the gears are special because their design is too exceptional to be the work of human hands. I'm not so sure that Falx made a pact with any otherworldly entity. It's possible, but as it currently stands, he just seems to have found a way to peer into the Rust world and simply copied the things he saw there, for the most part. I don't think there's yet been a concrete reason given as to why all the automatons went rogue, other than it probably has something to do with whatever turned the Rust world into the horrible place that it is. I think it's also implied that the shivers, drifters, and bowtorn may be the unluckier victims of what Jonas's grand Salvation Engine did to the Old World. Given how prominent of a figure he is in the lore, I would be surprised if we didn't run across him(or what's left of him) at some point, though I would expect it to be an encounter that happens more towards the end of the story. I'm certain he's still alive though, based on some dialogue from chapter 2, though in hiding and wanting nothing to do with his inventions or other people.

Welcome to the forums! I guess it kind of does, since your latitude affects your climate and day length. Building something like Stonehenge would be relatively simple, but building it to be functional...I'm not sure how one would go about doing that in game. You'd definitely need to consider how many days per month you have it set to in your world; by default it's 9, but it can go as high as 30.

I think it's just for variety, plus I suppose if you wanted a more difficult cheese to make, it fills that role nicely.

I was contemplating that, giving them a bonus against tier 4 enemies as well. Still very situational, but allows them to deal with major threats very quickly. I'm not sure I would go lower tier than that, as Blackguard should still be the best overall warrior, in my opinion. The key distinction between Blackguard and Noble is that Nobles don't have the penalty to hunger or ranged damage. Interestingly, the buff to weapon durability means that not only will melee weapons last longer, but so will ranged weapons as well. The main idea behind the Chivalrous trait though is that they make short work of the really tough stuff, but are otherwise fairly average(though solid) fighters. I'd use that for an Alchemist class, really. Not that nobles aren't capable of crafting, but they aren't really ones for menial tasks or manual labor. While they'd make decent fighters, they're otherwise more of a challenge class.

I would say avoid combat if you can, and for the situations that you can't, try to fight at range. They're probably one of the weakest for melee, as they have penalties to both melee damage and total health, so it will take more hits to kill a target while not being able to survive as many hits yourself. For ranged damage, you might try out the malefactor's sling--it may not be as fancy as a bow, but it uses rocks as ammunition, so you should never be running out of ammo. Overall, I'd say that Malefactor is a class that is very strong in the early game, but weakens by a fair margin in the late game, largely in part to the combat penalties.

While most of Falx's allies were common folk, there were a few among the nobility that believed in his cause and lent their aid to his endeavors. Unfortunately, there's not currently a playable class that properly reflects that background, so here's an attempt at what a class like that could look like: The Noble Martial: (+25% weapon durability, walk speed penalty for armor reduced by 25%) Much like Blackguards, Nobles are trained fighters, able to move more easily in armor and get more service from their equipment. However, they don't find themselves in combat quite as often, so their weapons tend to last a bit longer as a result. Chivalrous: (+30% damage to boss enemies, -15% damage to mechanicals) Nobles prefer to face worthy opponents in combat, rather than fighting for the sake of fighting, making them more distinct from the Blackguards. They're also rather clueless when it comes to working with machines, and have issues countering mechanical creatures as a result. Highborn: (exclusive craftable Forlorn Hope estoc and shield) Much like the Blackguard, they have their own sword/shield combo they can craft. With a further tweak, allow the Noble to craft the Forlorn Hope armor, while allowing the Blackguard to craft the Blackguard armor. Claustrophobic: (-15% ore drop rate, -10% mining speed) Nobles don't like stuffy confined spaces, and have no talent for hard labor. Civil: (-10% loot from foraging) While decent at hunting, Nobles aren't particularly adept at otherwise fending for themselves in the wild, preferring civilization to nature. Finicky: (cannot eat spoiled food) A Noble's refined palette makes them a lot pickier about what they put in their mouth. Don't expect them to touch spoiled food. ---- Overall, I expect the Noble to play similar to Blackguard, being stronger in combat than most other classes and specializing in slaying epic monsters. Much like the Blackguard, they also have issues foraging for food, though in the Noble's case they have problems with mining instead of hunting. The Finicky trait is an odd one, but it seemed fitting. At a glance, it doesn't seem like it would affect much, since it tends to be relatively easy to avoid spoiled food to begin with. However, in the early game it could prove to be an obstacle, since food is somewhat a luxury. Likewise, it could present a big problem later if all the food you packed for that big expedition begins to spoil mid-journey. Other classes could just eat the stale food and be fine, but the Noble will need to turn their attention to finding new supplies lest they face starvation.

If you play multiplayer, get yourself a Blackguard friend or two and I guarantee those pies will disappear.

That doesn't really help when there are walls that are just over one block high that you normally can't jump, but could with the ability to climb. There's one spot in the Archive that's particularly bad and would 100% need a redesign, as otherwise the player would be able to avoid a certain encounter entirely and skip straight to the end. One of the locations from chapter 2 would also end up trivialized completely, since it requires some fancy footwork that would no longer be necessary if the player can climb. I think if climbing were implemented in the base game, it'd be better to either implement a version like you suggested now, so that there's not as much to rework, or even better implement something like this: Requiring special equipment to scale walls and things would be a better way to handle such a mechanic without needing a complete rework of existing locations. The existing protections would still apply, preventing you from using items to tamper with the blocks within. Of course, that might lead to a bit of immersion breaking, since you should logically be able to crawl/climb through certain bits, however, we already kinda have that kind of immersion break due to gameplay constraints.

The really sad part is that going by foot ends up being roughly on-par with traveling by elk, although it does depend on the terrain. The elk will outrun a seraph on foot with ease, however, a seraph traveling on foot can quickly cut through forests and climb over mountains that the elk will otherwise have to go around. It is a problem, yeah, though I would say the elk is still overall an upgrade. You're a lot faster on the flat areas and the elk autosteps up to two block heights. The elk can also carry a lot of stuff for you, and given some of the tweaks to the locations there are likely goodies you'll be wanting to bring back. Overall though, I do agree with your sentiment--the elk needs some refining to feel like an especially comfortable way to travel. Tightening the turn radius and smoothing out incline traversal would help significantly.