LadyWYT

I meant that it may streamline smithing a bit, because I think it lets you simply hammer away on item until it's done. No need to constantly shift modes or turn the piece on the anvil. It also looks like you can change how many voxels are moved per hit, which should also speed up the completion time.

If it helps, there's also the "immersive method" of cheating(mild spoiler warning): And of course, there's no shame in cheating to skip the parkour if it's really not something you enjoy. In fact, now that I think about it, someone may even end up making a mod that enables the above solution by default, rather than needing to enable it with creative.

The reason I don't propose an alternative to your suggestion is that I can't currently think of a good alternative that wouldn't change the entire dynamic of the current game. Generally speaking, I consider the Standard game mode to be the premier version of Vintage Story that everything else is balanced around, with Exploration/Wilderness Survival modes being a close second. Creative mode is for testing things out, or just building without any limits. Homo Sapiens is a great addition for those who just want a real-world survival experience, but ultimately takes a backseat to the modes with the lore content. I'm also not a fan of just using a world setting enable/disable a thing either as a fix for those who really don't want that thing, especially when it comes to systems that change the game significantly. In some cases it makes sense, but in this case it does not. That's why I say that these ideas would be great as a mod, but not so much for the vanilla game. That way the option is there for those who want to play that way, without throwing everything else off.

Agreed. Though I don't mind tree leaves as bushes, it would be nice to have some proper bushes that can be replanted as decoration. I know one of the Wildcraft mods uses the cutting concept to propagate berry/fruit bushes, in addition to adding a bunch of new bush crops.

Bowls and jugs of aqua vitae are used in combination with clean bandages(craft from two flax twine) to get alcohol-soaked bandages. While those are highly effective healing items, they only last for one hour before drying out, so you pretty much have to wait until you need them before you craft them. The current light sources are any kind of fire, oil lamps, torches, candles, and lanterns. Torches are the best early-game light source, as they are cheap and offer a decent radius of light. They do, however, burn out after a couple of days if not placed in a torch holder(they're fine in your inventory), and they aren't waterproof. Oil lamps are also cheap, waterproof, and never burn out, but they also do not offer much light. Candles require beeswax and flax fiber, and don't offer much light. You can, however, pan them from bony soil occasionally, and they are needed to craft the best light source currently in the game: lanterns. I think they're mostly fine as they are. None of them are so strong that they overshadow the others, and the weaknesses each class holds really isn't that bad. Most of the time what it boils down to is being able to kill an enemy with fewer hits rather than needing an extra hit, or being able to take an extra hit while being attacked. Many of the class exclusive recipe items can be found as ruins loot or purchased from traders, though turning off class exclusive recipes will allow them all to be craft normally. The only thing you'll miss out on regarding those recipes is the tuning spear's locust taming ability: that ability is tied directly to being a clockmaker, rather than to the item itself. I don't believe Tyron intends to add a skill progression system. However, there is a mod that offers one: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/247 It's a design choice, though I expect someone will change it via mod sooner or later. Clay items can be fired en-masse more easily using the beehive kiln, though this is more of a mid-late game option. You'll need access to iron, and while you can use fire clay bricks in its construction, refractory bricks are much more durable. Fire clay also had its spawning rules changed in 1.20, and now only spawns naturally under black coal/anthracite deposits, or in small deposits in bauxite biomes. https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/10411 There's two different parameters that govern it: light level, and rift activity. On the surface, it both needs to be dark, and there needs to a rift nearby in order for enemies to spawn. Underground, or in enclosed spaces, it just needs to be dark, with enough space for a monster to spawn. If monsters are spawning in one of your structures, you either need better lighting in that spot, or need to place some clutter(like crates, pelt rugs, firewood, etc) to make it harder for them to spawn. You can change the amount of respawns that a temporal gear allows to infinite, which helps make it a little easier, but otherwise I don't expect the system to change without the use of mods. I believe Tyron noted in an interview with Oscillascape that the player's ability to change their spawn point is a very powerful one, and thus needs an appropriate cost to reflect that kind of power. Temporal gears are usually acquired through killing monsters, but they can be acquired in other ways. They sometimes appear as loot from panning gravel or bony soil, though it's rare. They can also be purchased from treasure hunters sometimes, provided you have a few rusty gears to spare. I'll also note that there's no shame in "cheating" and just giving yourself a temporal gear to reset your spawn point either. A helve hammer speeds up the smithing process significantly, although it's quite a resource investment. Otherwise, XSkills offers a perk that makes smithing much easier, though it requires specializing in smithing in order to use it. There's also this mod that you might consider, which streamlines more processes than smithing: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/4046 Brown coal doesn't burn hot enough to smelt things in a bloomery or cementation furnace. You can, however, refine it into coal coke in a coke oven. Quartz might be an exception to the heat rule, but it's easier to just prevent brown coal from being used as bloomery fuel to begin with. That way players don't load their bloomery with brown coal and then wonder why their iron isn't smelting. A good portion of the lore requires the player to just poke around: pan bony soil, delve into underground ruins, examine tapestries, etc. For the main story though, you'll want to speak to a treasure hunter and ask them if they know about any interesting places nearby. Complete the resulting quest to receive a map to the first location, and return to the treasure hunter with a tale of your experience there to continue the adventure. Actually, given that the devs seem to be rather generous when it comes to their game, they may end up offering a way to link your Vintage Story client to Steam, if/when Vintage Story ever releases on Steam. There's no guarantee of that, of course, but I could see it happening.

Could you build a worse prison at the world spawn instead? That way anyone who uses the "exploit" instead of solving the puzzle as intended is really only setting themselves up for a harder time, heh heh.

I had a pond incident last night on my Blackguard. Ran across a bear, didn't have armor, jumped into a small pond nearby and swam to the bottom. Since bears don't know how to swim underwater, and seraphs have decent lung capacity, I just sat there on the bottom and poked the bear to death. 10/10 adventure, would do again.

I will note that the addition of new enemies in 1.20 changes this dynamic. They hit much harder and are more difficult to deal with than drifters, so while a highly skilled player could technically just stick to bronze they're probably not going to have a good time. The addition of better bags also requires the player to have access to steel in order to craft them, as you will be needing to process chromite. Already covered, for reasons stated above. I also assume that more enemies will be added at some point in the future. I would say this technically already exists in the game, given that acquiring better gear lets you venture into more dangerous areas without as much risk of immediate death. What I really don't want to see though, is a system where enemies always match the player's tech progression. I have played games that used that system of difficulty scaling before, and while it technically meant the enemies always presented a "challenge", it also meant that I never felt like I actually progressed. There's not a lot of point in going to the effort of acquiring really good weapons and armor if you're still killing enemies at the same general rate as before. Best left to mods, in my opinion, as I don't see the average player enjoying having all of their hard work wiped out by something they couldn't prevent. Infrastructure like livestock, fruit trees, and machinery takes a lot of time and effort to acquire--easily a few hundred hours' worth of play. One could argue that stone structures could be more resistant to most disasters, but if you look at the aftermath of most disasters...there's often not a lot of stonework still standing either. If something like this were added, it would essentially have to be an option that's turned off by default. I'm also not sure how you'd go about calculating some of the effects, like an earthquake hitting with soil instability turned on. It's likely to cause a huge mess that you can't really ever fix, that also likely takes a lot of processing power that could have been used for other things in the game. There's also the issue of disasters likely needing loaded chunks in order to occur; if players are warned in advance(like they are for temporal storms), then they can simply leave an area for a while and come back later to avoid the damage. If they aren't warned in advance, however, then they don't really have time to prepare for disasters that could occur in that area. The last problem I see is that parts of the main story are built with the expectation of the player leaving home for extended periods in order to complete certain tasks. Not only would it be really disappointing to return home and find out that your entire base has been wrecked by a disaster, but it would also be very frustrating to die far away from home due to a disaster you couldn't prevent or otherwise avoid. Likewise, you'd need special protections in place for lore locations in order to ensure that the story remains able to be completed...which in turn is going to break immersion if a disaster rolls through and leaves certain bits magically unscathed. Again, good concept for a mod, not so much for the main game. Vintage Story already has some of these themes, with the general setting, the temporal storms getting worse as time goes on, and the new travel expectations...and I also recall seeing several complaints about each one of those(some of them quite colorful). So I don't really see that kind of environment being enjoyable to play, outside of players who are specifically looking to live as a nomad in an apocalyptic wasteland. Which, I'll also note, being a nomad doesn't support the kind of settling down and base-building that fancy gear and tech requires. Another concept that's great for a mod, but not so good for standard gameplay. First and foremost, the lore does not support the concept, as seraphs don't seem to age as they are no longer subject to the usual laws of time(hence why they respawn upon death rather than staying dead). Aside from that, it's generally not a lot of fun to play a character that actively gets weaker over time, instead of one that gets stronger. Those looking for a hardcore experience, however, can already achieve such by limiting themselves to one life only in the settings upon world creation.

Sulfur and obsidian technically count, as you can find bits on the surface and proper ore down under those bits. You can also find silver bits on the surface, as well as gold, though I've only ever found silver.

You might try one of the proximity chat mods for this, that way players can still talk to each other, but ONLY if they are close enough to carry out a conversation. Generally this kind of mod is aimed at roleplayers, I think, but it could possibly work here as well. As for setting the spawn individually...I don't know that you could do that outside of making players use a temporal gear/bed(with mods) to set their spawn at a specific point, assuming you're wanting to lock each player in their own personal cell. If you just want to keep them all respawning at one general point, you should be able to change it with the following: /serverconfig defaultspawn [x y? z] You can leave out the Y value here to just go with the Y value of the spot at X/Z instead, to reset the world spawn. /serverconfig setspawnhere Resets the world spawn to wherever you're currently standing.

I'm thinking it was a change both to help smooth out the tech progression, and to make a more believable recipe in that you're now "shaping" the stone blocks into the quern shape, instead of just having crafting grid magic happen. I do like that idea.

/worldconfig temporalRifts on That should enable the rift mechanic in your world. Also, welcome to the forums!

I think if there had been a few more clues on which way the player was supposed to jump in certain areas, it would have been a lot better. The design was very cool, but I was spending too much time as a pancake, so I ended up just skipping half of the parkour and using creative to get through that portion of the story. That being said, I wouldn't want the "correct" route to be too obvious either like it is in some games, because then it doesn't really feel like anything's been accomplished at all. It's also a story arc that I figure having an operational terminus teleporter would be exceptionally useful, but I also figure most players probably won't have built one either.

Ah, that would be why it's not on the wiki: there's no location like that in the vanilla game. Are you playing with mods? As I recall, I think there was a quest like that added by the Better Ruins mod, though I never completed it. I think the trader in question was a luxuries merchant as well, though I'm not entirely sure. In any case, if you've got the map, you can probably just head to the location and see what's there. Unfortunately I can't offer further information than that regarding the location. But I do recall Better Ruins being a high quality mod. So if you enjoy exploring, you shouldn't be disappointed. Nah, if it's your world, you get to decide what rules you play by. I've used creative a few times in my own worlds to test things, as well as fix mistakes. As for the vanilla story, I think it is technically possible to do the chapters out of order, but it's highly unlikely to happen due to how the script is designed and locations are placed.

Welcome to the forums! Which university are you talking about? I'm assuming you've done the Resonance Archive, as the elk can't be achieved until after it's completed. But just in case: Resonance Archive: This is the first chapter of the main story; you'll need to find a treasure hunter, ask him about interesting places, and then complete the resulting quest to get a map to this place. Once you've completed the Archive, you can go back to the treasure hunter to describe your adventure, and receive clues to chapter two. It's also at this time he'll sell you the elk. Chapter Two: There are four different locations for chapter two, each one with its own significance in lore. Chapter two is quite the trip and quite different from the content of chapter one as well. The treasure hunter will give you the clue to find the first location. The wiki also has a bit of a walkthrough for each location, though despite being barebones right now it does contain some major spoilers. One important thing I will note about the trip though--it's a much longer trip than the Archive, so make sure you stay on top of your inventory management and pack whatever you think you might need. You may also want to pack some extra temporal gears to reset your spawn as well, as there are a couple of challenges that are quite difficult. It's also a trip you really only need to make once, as subsequent trips will be much shorter, though I will not say how.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/17225 This mod looks like it's aiming to be the Vintage version of the old Smart Moving mod from the other block game. Worth trying out/keeping an eye on for those who'd like that kind of option in gameplay.

It is not. I'm a lore nerd, but even I've had to retrain some of my thinking when it comes to how Vintage Story handles things. While it does give hints, it's still not straightforward in most cases, so you'll have to think about it a bit. There was more than one occasion that I found myself lying dead on the ground thinking "You know, I really should have seen that coming." The Resonance Archive handles things in a similar manner, both with NPC dialogue, documents, and set design; you can figure out some of what you're in for by examining various clues, although the exact meaning may not become obvious until later.

I can confirm that it does not. There is, however, something in the Archive that can mitigate fall damage. In retrospect, there were a couple of hints of what I was about to get myself into, that I also brushed off as simple narrative set dressing. Very much was not. Not that Vintage Story doesn't exaggerate a bit with its narrative descriptions, but I'm going to start paying more attention to warnings from NPCs and lore documents.

@Thorfinn might be able to offer a better answer than mine, as he plays permadeath and I do not. As for what I experienced and how I would expect it to stack up for those that do play it: It's probably going to be a rough time. Now to be fair, I did not have the smartest game plan when I tackled the challenges of chapter two, and I think there were a couple of things that might have been overtuned(I played through a couple of versions ago). A highly skilled player could probably manage without dying, but I agree with @SlateSlavens, you're not likely to accomplish it the first time. The content is quite different from chapter two, and while most of it is pretty easy, the challenges that are there make the Resonance Archive look like a tutorial area, in my opinion. For your first playthrough, I'd recommend giving yourself an extra life or two, instead of limiting yourself to just one, to potentially cut down on frustration. That way you don't have unlimited mistakes, but you're not going to potentially lose a ton of progress because you got caught off-guard either. Depends on what you're comfortable with handling.

Welcome to the forums! I don't believe graphite currently has a purpose, other than being a collectible knick-knack you can display in your home. It may get a use in a later update though, and there may be a mod or two out there as well that add uses for it(though I can't recall any that do).

Not a permadeath player, but played 1.20 quite a lot. The only times I've really died were to dealing with bears and wolves in the earliest portion of the game, and later on to silly mistakes brought about by my own complacency. Doesn't mean the new mobs aren't dangerous, but like the other monsters we have, dealing with them is mostly optional. I tend to wait until I am appropriately geared before delving into caves or braving the temporal storms and nightly rift activity.

This is why I end up fighting raccoons for the berry bushes in the earliest stages of the game. Especially in colder starting locations.

I once had a hole next to my house that I walled off a section of to avoid falling in myself. It did have a way to climb out though, so every once in a while a drifter would spawn down there and make his way up to the rim, pause to throw a rock...only to promptly fall back down into the pit. Since there is a brief wind-up in the rock-throwing animation, this often resulted in the rock getting launched straight up into the air as the drifter disappeared from sight. It was not uncommon to hear a subsequent "thunk" as said rock proceeded to fall back to earth and bonk the drifter on the head.

Ooo, great question. I think Maelstrom has the best advice, in that if you find yourself in this situation, it's best to leave out a portion of calorie-rich food, much like you would feed an outdoor pet. Blackguards are great at keeping areas free of threats and it's not hard to keep them happy, so if you can convince them to hang around they'll happily keep your base free of pests...provided you keep them fed. In the event that you really don't want such uninvited guests though, the most important thing to remember is do not try to use force to get them to leave! Force is acceptable for Malefactors who try to steal your shinies, but Blackguards are very tough fighters. In the event you do manage to anger one, the best thing to do is run away and find some horsetails to help heal any wounds inflicted(you may need quite a lot of them). As for keeping them out of your food stores, you could try padlocking the cellar door, but this is likely to be ineffective as Blackguards are good diggers and most are smart enough to tunnel their way in. The better way to discourage them from eating your foodstuffs is to simply stick to a diet they won't appreciate. Most Blackguards aren't terribly picky eaters, but like @Maelstrom mentioned, they do love calorie-dense food, and that comes primarily in the form of redmeat. If you stick to a vegetarian diet, you can still get protein from food like soybeans, and it tends to result in fewer stolen meals(though that depends on what the Blackguard in question is willing to eat). If the above isn't working, you may need to consider a more drastic approach: poison. This method is risky though, as it relies on the Blackguard not paying attention to what they're eating, and there's a chance you may forget and eat the poisoned meal yourself. The good news is that most Blackguards don't think too hard about food, so if you form the base of the meal from a nice redmeat stew they will likely eat it without question. The best way to poison the stew is to use funeral bells as at least one of the ingredients. Funeral bells are a must because they are guaranteed to kill a Blackguard; anything less potent will be capable of killing you, while only giving the Blackguard nothing more than a bad stomachache. Hmmmm...have you seen any Malefactors poking around? They're very hard to catch in the act, but they have a penchant for shiny things.

Fair point. I would make it infinite, since other mechanical things do not degrade from use, and making them degrade isn't the best idea for reasons I stated previously. That being said, whichever method was chosen(wear-and-tear or no) needs to apply to all machinery, and not just one. Haaaaaaa...more like 80+ stacks, with my current setup. It's not the biggest possible charcoal pit, but it's big enough to produce at least a standard crate-and-a-half of charcoal per firing. Maybe two crates. Really wouldn't want to do that with immersive firewood chopping!