LadyWYT

If it's the one I'm thinking of...I showed a video of it to a friend the other day. I'm not sure he will come back to Vintage Story after seeing that. I'm also debating whether I want to take a stab at tweaking the model and sticking big googly eyes or something on it, just so it's not so freaky-looking if it's going to be a common encounter. Then again...googly eyes might make it worse...

Agreed. Drifters are scary the first few times you encounter them, but they're never truly terrifying...at least the low-level ones. They're enough of a threat to help teach new players about the world and what to expect from it, and how to think better on their feet, without being overwhelming(exception: apocalyptic rift activity). They're also decent at punishing complacency in experienced players. Same goes for wolves and bears. The skitter(I just feel that's more fitting than "shiver", really)...I expected that to be a rare encounter similar to sawblade locusts. A dangerous monster that is good at hunting you down. A fast mob that hits hard isn't a bad thing, but it shouldn't be a common encounter if it's going to be tanky on top of all of that. Lack of durability is generally what balances fast-moving, hard-hitting mobs. That being said...I'd rather see more "boring" designs like the low-tier drifters and mechanicals for the common enemies, and leave the really twisted stuff for rare encounters. That way it's a lot harder for the player to become completely desensitized to them.

I mean, it could be nothing, or I could be reading the math wrong. But it's quite the jump to go from 64 to 1000, and while it could just be making a more modder-friendly framework it seems a bit odd to make that big of leap. Another boss fight is what I would expect, since you mentioned the RA boss and I generally associate "entity" with mobs. However, if I'm not mistaken, "entity" could include set dressing like the RA machinery and whatnot, so it could indicate that there will be some more complex contraptions to explore as part of the story. Of course, it could just mean Dave's getting an upgrade...getting up close and personal to something his size would require a lot of extra details. In any case, all this is just pure speculation on my part.

Now I wonder if this has anything to do with the ambient crickets/frogs/other small creatures, or if there's something REALLY big in the works for an encounter...

Ah, that would make sense.

The specific one that I use is XSkills; it does a lot more than just water -> salt. You do have to earn the skills first though, which is done by just playing the game, so it's a nice little reward that pops up every so often that helps you do various things more effectively. The salt boiling is under the Cooking skill tree, and easy to unlock. I usually have around 4 cookpots boiling salt at the same time as soon as I unlock that perk, as it's a good use of time during the night. Speaking of cheese...XSkills also has a perk that allows you to get cheese from milking your animals. Granted, it's a very small chance to get cheese instead of milk.

Depending on how well-established/attached to that particular spot you are, you may also want to consider moving elsewhere if you don't want to deal with predators. Unless something has changed, they're tied to specific spawn points, which means that even if you kill them off, they'll eventually respawn. On the other hand, if you need a good source of meat, fat, hide, and bones, and are good at killing them...it could also be a prime spot to settle in.

I forgot about this! I used this setting a lot when I first started playing the game, and while it's certainly not a "hardcore" setting, it helped lower frustration immensely while I was learning the game. There's a lot to figure out, after all, even with the help of the handbook, and even if you know what you're doing it's still fairly easy to die or otherwise suffer unpleasant consequences should you get the execution wrong on some of the gameplay.

Welcome to the forums! Regarding hostile wildlife at spawn...it might be fine-tuned in the future, but that's just kinda what happens occasionally for the time being. Sometimes you just have to make a run for it after character creation. I would say though, that if you're not enjoying that particular world, to make a new one. You should get a better spawn point, and if you keep the old world you can always come back to it if you want a more challenging spawn point. In regards to copper nuggets, it is frustrating to lose them, however, they're also fairly common on the surface as well. You can also pan gravel and sand for them too, although this method is rather slow and tedious.

I disagree--it feels like the perfect blacksmithing/building music, especially if you're forging armor and weapons, or building fortifications. It's also pretty chill for just doing the more labor-intensive chores around the base, or exploring. For combat music, I'd expect intense, fast-paced music instead, in order to match a high stakes fight-or-flight situation. This is actually one thing I really appreciate about the stability meter trigger--when it gets too low, any music that's currently playing immediately cuts out and is replaced by the faint ambience of the Rust world. Super unsettling, especially since it doesn't go away until you recover enough stability.

Not that I am aware of. I've found two that were within about 25 blocks of each other, so either that was a freak occurrence, or it's rather random as to whether or not one will spawn in the chunk. I want to say that they're *supposed* to be. Whether or not they generate with an accessible entrance though(without digging required)--that I don't know. True. I've got the suspicion that an unstable chunk might be a strong indication that there's a translocator nearby, which would make sense given that Jonas tech seems to potentially be behind what caused the temporal catastrophe in the first place. You might also try checking near traders, as whenever I use a translocator it always seems to spit me out somewhere near a trader. No guarantees that you'll find anything with these methods, but there do seem to be trends.

Not that I've played the pre-release, mind you...I'm waiting for things to be a bit more polished first. But judging by the video I saw yesterday, yeah, that's the noise those things make while idling around...assuming they aren't having a fit, anyway. Good luck! I'm not sure that you can outrun these things, though I would happily be mistaken.

I like this idea too. Technically, we kinda have it already, given that a lot of the food will begin to show signs of rot as it spoils. However, it's not always immediately obvious(unless the redmeat has turned green or some similar). I do agree though, that figuring out the timing might be a bit tough. Maybe skip yellow and just roll with red and green. Green for when the item is still fresh, red if it's begun to spoil at all. If yellow is included though, the yellow could indicate that the item only has hours of freshness left before it begins to spoil. The main issue I see here though is the colors might get a bit goofy when you're shuffling inventory around or going through other temperature changes(ie, what might be green in a storage vessel could turn yellow as soon as you move it to your inventory).

I'm guessing it's probably going to be more finely-tuned by the time the update is released. I also wonder if the spawn rate is cranked up deliberately at the moment in order to better check the mob for bugs or unintended behavior. After all, it's a bit harder to test it if it's a super rare occurrence.

Unfortunately I don't think bauxite is an item sold by any of the traders, or that would be an option. You might get lucky and find some in a ruin, although I'm not sure if the rocks in ruin vessels are determined by the surrounding rock types or type. And even if they aren't, that's still somewhat of a longshot. If you want to hang on to that world though and need a break from running, I would go hunting for translocators and repair them. They'll save you a few thousands blocks of travel time, plus you might get lucky and pop out next to some bauxite or other point of interest.

For salt I generally go to a survival goods trader; they typically have halite rock for sale in bunches of 16 for a reasonable price. Of course, I also tend to use mods, one of which allows boiling water down to extract salt. Loving those hot springs though--there's so many! Definitely a good spot for a winter cabin, since standing near a hot spring will warm you right up. Of course, this also appears to be in the tropics, so I don't think the cold is an issue anyway.

I think it depends on the content in question. From what I've seen so far, the devs are pretty transparent regarding the changes they make to the game. The only changes I've seen that could qualify as "hidden" would be major story developments such as the Resonance Archive and the coming second chapter in 1.20. In those cases, the devs tend to be a lot more cryptic about what that entails, in order to preserve the excitement of discovering new lore content for players. Dave?

Absolutely yes! If nothing else, just a method to climb vertical surfaces in general(without ladders). The drawback could be that it has a very high stamina cost to use, and perhaps you have a limited amount of time that you can actually move while clinging to the surface; ie, a minor stamina bar similar to the breath bar while underwater, in that you can't climb while it's empty. Climbing gear could help offset these effects. Climbing in general would be super useful for exploration, and more fun than just sticking ladders everywhere(although ladders would be a safer option). The main drawback to climbing like that though, aside from high stamina usage, is that it leaves you a sitting duck for ranged(or flying?) opponents.

Honestly, I'd just let whittling be a quick, simple method to turn sticks into wood shavings, that can then be refined into wood pulp(paper), used to start fires, used to grow mushrooms, etc. It'd also be a decent way to pass the time during winter, or whenever you just need something easy to do while waiting on something(or someone!) else. Assuming that Vintage Story adds a proper sawmill to its list of machines to build, a sawmill would mostly replace whittling with sawdust as a byproduct. The main issue with requiring branches/sticks to be further refined before they can used for things like tool handles, ladders, etc. is...a lot of those things you need to make quite a lot of, quite often. Especially in the earlier stages of gameplay, when it comes to tool handles. While it might be kinda fun for the first few items, it's going to get very tedious, very fast if you need to constantly stop your progress elsewhere just to make sticks, and unlike other tedious gameplay loops I don't see that kind of loop being very rewarding to complete.

It depends...sometimes the bottom falls out of the cloud overhead and it starts dumping buckets of rains with little to no wind. It's also not unusual for strong winds to accompany heavy rain, though the strongest wind is generally due to the squall line moving through. That being said, for a violent storm with lots of rain, I would certainly expect strong winds to go with it.

Probably just bad luck. If you see a baby one spawn, try to catch it, in case it grows up to be a ewe. Otherwise, I'd keep killing off the rams and checking the location every so often to see if a ewe has spawned. If you want to be really cheesy...kill the rams, log out of the world, and log back in. It should reset all the spawns. Rinse and repeat until you get the ewe you're looking for. Also loving that flower garden in the background!

Really, for this one, I think all you'd have to do is cut any music that's currently playing and start playing the faint Rust ambience instead, for the initial warning. That effect is already in the game once enough of your stability has drained, and will remain in effect as long as stability remains below the required threshold. In this case though, your stability value wouldn't matter, and the ambience condition would continue until the storm actually arrives. Once the storm passes, everything goes back to business as usual. I think this could make a great game setting option, although I'm not really sure about the lore ramifications. You'd think the storms would be more random than they are, but I've also wondered if there's not a specific lore reason on why they seem to follow such a regular schedule. Definitely agree with this, save for the Jonas tech being a clockmaker-exclusive. Some sort of device to track when the next storm will be would be awesome, especially if you've taken a break from a particular world for a while and forgotten when the last temporal storm was. As for Jonas tech and clockmakers...I'd rather keep Jonas tech as end-tier tech for all classes, and give clockmakers either the ability to craft Jonas parts, or some more unique toys for accomplishing tasks/interacting with the world.

Welcome! All good points(and things that bug me in similar fashion), though as I understand it, Vintage Story is only around 10% of the full game it's supposed to be right now. It's also got a very small dev team. So while I'm pretty sure that all these will be added at some point in the future, they're also already covered by mods until then, as @Thorfinn has listed. I dunno, seems pretty realistic to me, even for a medieval setting. If it's food, and you can figure out how to grow it efficiently at-scale, why not plant huge fields of it!

I'm reminded of how Subnautica handles inventory on death. Your current inventory is essentially "saved" whenever you're at a "checkpoint area"--that is, your base. I'm not sure if you actually have to sleep to "save" your inventory, or if you just have to visit your base. In any case, if you die while away from home, you'll keep the "saved" inventory and only drop any items you've acquired since leaving home. A system like that for Vintage Story could make for a nice "in-between" option for how inventory is handled on death; you'd not have to start over with your gear if you happen to die, but trips away from home would still be risky since you could lose any resources you acquired along the way. Now that being said...a flaw of that system is it's quite easy to avoid the inventory loss by simply setting up bases everywhere. You could change what qualifies as a "base" by requiring installation of specific Jonas tech to act as a checkpoint, but that rather defeats the purpose given that Jonas tech is late-game. There's also already existing Jonas tech that makes retrieving your stuff a lot easier if you happened to die--the Terminus Teleporter. I'd wager retrieving stuff on death may also get a bit easier with the introduction of mounts, since those seem to be intended to function as mobile bases themselves. Therefore, my guess is that mounts will make it easier to retrieve your stuff in the mid-game, provided you took your mount with you while traveling, and the Terminus Teleporter will still maintain its function as an upgrade option for this scenario in the late-game. Just as a side ramble though...I get the distinct impression that death in Vintage Story is supposed to be rather harsh by default. It's supposed to be at least somewhat of a struggle to survive, and while experience does make the game a bit easier, it's still very quick to punish cockiness or complacency. That being said, there's also a reason there are so many customization options available, including mods if the options don't already exist in the game itself.

Horses. Definitely horses. I know we've got elks as mounts, which is cool, but I like the traditional horses.