LadyWYT

Loose items will despawn after a few minutes, at least, if the chunks are still loaded. Logging out causes them to despawn immediately, to my knowledge. Turning the keepinventory rule on can help with the item loss, but until you return to a more stable area and recover your stability, or otherwise turn stability mechanics off, death is still going to be a problem. Respawning doesn't restore stability, to my knowledge.

I would say it's fine to use low fertility soil to farm, but fertilizer shouldn't be relied on in that case. It's better to just make bigger fields, rotate crops, and make sure that the crops are planted as early as possible in order to have enough time to mature before frost(which is going to be tough on the first year). As for farming in general, yes, terra preta is the best dirt, and requires compost to craft, but building an entire farm out of terra preta is a task to be completed over several in-game years, and not the first year or two.

I disagree here, because there are a lot of designs that get labeled as "good" or "bad" due to the individual preference, and that goes for games in general, not just Vintage Story. If someone really hates a particular feature and doesn't find it fun, you're probably not going to convince them it's a good design, because to them, it's not. I think it's also worth noting that a lot of older games have "bad" designs when it comes to their mechanics; things are inconvenient, clunky, confusing, too complicated...the list goes on and on. Many newer games tend to prioritize player convenience. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, exactly, but it seems to me that older games tend to hold up better over time and attract new players, while newer games tend to fall to the wayside and get forgotten. Or just...turn on keepinventory and don't worry about losing stuff? I'm pretty sure that's why the devs added that feature. I'm not saying the game needs to constantly grind players into the dirt, but...it's advertised up front as "uncompromising survival". I can't say that I really understand what the point of making challenges or that kind of setting is, if the end result is going to be giving the players the options by default to strip out every single challenge from the general experience. Or for that matter, I don't really understand why some players keep playing VS despite begging for it to copy some other game's mechanics. Wouldn't they be happier playing the other game that was designed with X mechanics in mind? What works in one game doesn't necessarily work in another, and part of what kills some games is they change the features that endeared them to fans in order to try to appeal to a broader audience. Sometimes the game doesn't die, but it will be haunted by its past--just look at Minecraft--and won't have the hardcore following it perhaps once had.

It's been a while since I played the tutorial, but as I recall, once of the things it teaches is how to make and light a torch. Otherwise, as I said before, Vintage Story doesn't do a lot of hand-holding. Some things the player will just need to spend time reading through the handbook, thinking things through themselves, and learning through trial and error. Sometimes that means making mistakes and dealing with some pretty brutal consequences. This is how most players started out, really. Learning how to secure a food supply and avoid/deal with threats is the key to progressing through the rest of the game. If you can keep yourself fed, and do a decent job of keeping yourself alive otherwise, you can do most everything else in the game with relative ease. I will note though that creature aggression can be turned down in the settings, and you can also set a grace period for how many "safe days" you get before monsters start to spawn. On the latter, rifts will still spawn, but won't produce monsters until the grace period is up. Fishing is better done with a fishing pole--you can use a worm grunter and a stick to collect worms for bait. For hunting, thrown spears are the best, though it takes practice to learn how to aim. Keep in mind that gravity will apply and spears are a heavy projectile, so you will need to account for projectile drop when setting up the shot(that is, aim above the target to hit targets that are further away). Most wildlife tends not to want to be dinner, and tends to be capable of defending itself, so hunt with caution and make sure you have bandages to fix the injuries. The larger the animal, the more dangerous it tends to be--sheep, goats, and deer all have tier 2 attacks, and the males tend to be more aggressive than the females. If you're using a fishing pole, you don't need to actually see fish in the water in order to catch fish. That being said, you'll want to fish in bodies of water that are reasonably big enough to contain fish(so not puddles), and you'll want to fish from a variety of spots to avoid overfishing an area. Raw foods or simple foods like fat or cooked meat are fine for the start of the game, but aren't very filling, so it's not ideal to rely exclusively on these to sustain you long-term. Cooking those ingredients into proper meals with a cookpot(or turning them into pies later with a quern and oven) will provide food that is not only more filling, but pauses hunger drain for a while. If you've not read the basic progression guide in the handbook, I recommend taking a few moments to do so. Doesn't hurt to flip through some of the other guides in the Guides section either, as that will give you ideas about other things you can do in the game and goals to work towards. Most raw fruits and vegetables will have 80 points worth of saturation, though there are a few exceptions. Mushrooms may or may not be poisonous or induce certain effects--it depends on the variety. Psychedelic effects won't be listed in the tooltip or handbook, but poison will; the former won't hurt your character but the latter will, so you'll want to check the tooltip/handbook page of mushrooms you aren't familiar with before you eat them. If it's Standard difficulty, the game will still be pretty tough(especially compared to Minecraft or other similar games), but it should be manageable. However, if it's tougher than what's fun, I'd recommend making a new world and giving Exploration difficulty a try for a more relaxed experience while learning, or otherwise make a new world and customize the game settings to whatever kind of difficulty you feel is appropriate. I can't stress this enough though, make sure you read the handbook guides! Vintage Story is quite complex, and while it is technically possible to ignore the handbook and play completely blind...it's probably not gonna be an experience that most players would consider fun.

Right, which is why I said that penalties should only start to occur after a few days. It probably also wouldn't be a bad idea to let that kind of feature have some sort of toggle so that server admins can turn it off, as otherwise players can end up having to essentially "time out" since not all players might share the same schedule. From a singleplayer perspective, needing to sleep once in a while doesn't feel as intrusive as it does in Minecraft, since days in Vintage Story are actually long enough to get stuff done while Minecraft days are relatively short. I think there's also a difference between slapping the player with a small debuff after a few days, that could be safely ignored for a few days longer before it absolutely demands attention, and dumping some monsters on the player to harrass them until they sleep(monsters that are tough to deal with because they're fast fliers, no less). To be fair, it could turn out to be a monkey's paw. But I've been testing a mod system out for a friend lately and the general idea(without spoiling too much) is to buff the player and make those buffs stronger with work, but with the built-in drawback of progress slowing the longer the player goes without resting. In this case though, "resting" can either be sleeping in a bed(which decreases the exhaustion faster), or simply taking it easy/going AFK for a bit(which is slower, but better for multiplayer). Since monocles seem to be a major point of discussion, it's worth noting that technically, monocles are already in the game since you can occasionally find traders wearing them. It's just not an accessory that's available to players...yet.

I don't think respawning needs to follow a real-world process, since it's not exactly a realistic mechanic to begin with. It is, however, part of the lore, and shattering an esoteric item with similar properties to the player is believable enough, as well as a fair design choice to get the player to think a little about how and when they use that kind of power. I do agree though that beds don't really feel incentivized enough. They're great for passing the time, but for a game that's trying to lean into realistic survival, staying up all night and going entirely without sleep is kind of silly. There should be some drawback to going without sleep, but it's also very easy to get that kind of penalty wrong--just look at Minecraft, for example. I think this is where the status effect system will come into play, in that going a couple nights without sleeping won't hurt the player, but going longer than that without any sleep will start to rack up penalties. Maybe the player finds themselves moving more sluggishly the longer they go without sleep, or perhaps they become more susceptible to disease. Difficulty for the sake of difficulty can be a mistake, but so can convenience for the sake of convenience. It depends on the devs' design philosophy and goals. In the case of Vintage Story, having a keepinventory rule feels fair to me, because some players prefer a more relaxed experience with less challenge, and that kind of setting takes some of the pressure off without removing the challenge entirely. A bed spawn setting goes too far though, since it's both a copy of TOBG/commonly used, and removes whatever challenge is left from the game.

I mean I wouldn't be surprised if they were. They are fairly powerful even when not optimized; the main drawback is you have to build in a specific location to make use of one.

The tutorial will walk you through the basic gameplay controls and concepts that you'll use to progress through the rest of the game. The handbook contains detailed information about most everything in the game, as well as a handful of guides about various processes. However, it's important to note that unlike many other games, Vintage Story doesn't do a lot of hand-holding, and leaves it up to the player to figure things out for themselves. For players who'd prefer a little more hand-holding though, there are several good video guides on YouTube, and the forums have several guides and veteran players to ask for help as well. There's really not a lot you can do in the dark, since nighttime is legitimately dark in this game. How long night lasts depends on the time of year; on default settings I want to say night lasts around 6ish hours. Before night falls, you should have crafted and lit a torch--the firestarter does not work on every attempt so sometimes you need to try a few times to actually get something to light. If you have the means to make a torch and firestarter now, I'd recommend lighting a torch so you can see what you're doing. Make sure you don't submerge the torch you're holding, since dunking it in water will put it out. If you don't have the means to make a torch, you can feel around and try to find a stick and some grass to make one, but at this point it may also be better to start over fresh on a new world. Berry bush rarity depends on the local climate conditions, and not every berry bush will have fruit on it at the time. Sometimes they can also be hard to notice until you figure out what to look for. Do note that while berries are a good early food source, it takes a while for the bush to produce a fresh crop of berries, so you won't be able to rely on just a berry patch or two to survive. Mushrooms are a good food source as well, but like berry bushes, they take time to respawn, and may or may not be common in the local area. Unlike berries, mushrooms can be poisonous, so it's a good idea to check the tooltip/handbook to make sure the mushroom in question is safe to eat. Cattail/tule roots are a good source of emergency food, but you will need to cook them before you can eat them. Keep in mind that using the roots for food will destroy the plant, so it's not a long-term solution and removes resources from that area. Hunting and fishing are perhaps the best early food source, since meat is quite filling. However, both require patience, and hunting can be dangerous since some animals will fight back. Just to make sure all the bases are covered--make sure you're playing on Standard or Exploration difficulty. Wilderness Survival and Homo Sapiens are the toughest preset difficulties, and while it is possible to learn the game on these difficulties it's going to be a much more punishing experience. Of course, the settings for any gamemode can be customized to one's liking at world creation, and many settings can be adjusted via the console after world creation.

Look at the gear on your hotbar; that is your stability meter. Normally it's teal, but when it's gray like this that means your temporal stability is entirely drained. When this happens, temporal storm effects are triggered, monsters will spawn nearby, and your health will drain until you recover enough stability to keep such effects at bay. The only way to restore temporal stability is to spend time in a stable area, sacrifice a temporal gear and some health, or kill tougher monsters. To determine an area's stability, take note of which way the gear is spinning. If it spins clockwise, the area is stable and the meter will refill. If the gear isn't spinning, the area is either neutral, or it's stable but your meter is at 100%, in which case it won't spin. If the gear is spinning counterclockwise, then the area is unstable and you should keep an eye on the meter so you can leave before it drops too low(around the 30-40% mark is where you need to start being concerned).

Welcome to the forums! Which game version is it? According to Google, it looks like the issue might be related to outdated graphics card drivers, or missing .net framework. If you're trying to run 1.22, make sure you have .net 10 installed, as 1.22 requires it; otherwise, checking your drivers and updating them might solve the issue.

I mean...if we're gonna just copy TOBG, then why bother making Vintage Story at all? If I'm recalling correctly, Tyron himself clarified the spawn thing in Oscillascape's interview a while back--the ability to choose a spawnpoint is quite powerful, and he wanted that choice to actually mean something. If a bed spawn mechanic has to be added, then the player should need to work for it. Sleep in the same bed 20 times in a row to reset spawn. Allows an "easier" method while still being different from TOBG and making the choice actually matter since the player can't just reset it on a whim.

I dunno...there were "fire arrows" after a fashion, but they don't exactly work as they're often portrayed in movies and other media. For actual addition to the game...I don't really see a point. It would be more interesting to have poison-tip arrows, or perhaps a bodkin versus a broadpoint so the player can have an arrow that's better at punching through certain armor versus an arrow that's more suited for hunting(causes bleedout but lower armor penetration).

To my knowledge, creative mode doesn't make a difference. Water wheels are, however, affected by the number of rapids blocks that are turning them, and creative mode will allow you to build the most ideal setup since you get to choose where to place the rapids for maximum effect. I'm guessing that's probably what's happening here.

Sounds like a tale worthy for this thread:

Welcome to the game and forums! This isn't normal behavior. Did the axe break while you were chopping? Are you using any mods or is this the vanilla game? Reloading the world might fix it, but if this happened in vanilla then it's a bug and should be reported on the bug tracker. If you're using mods though, then it's very possible the issue is being caused by one of the mods, in which case you'll need to disable them, ensure vanilla is working properly, and then do some testing to figure out which mod is causing the problem.

I would say it's just bad luck. As with many resources in Vintage Story, bauxite can sometimes be at spawn, within a day's walk of spawn, or may require traveling several miles to acquire. If it's looking like the latter, fixing up broken translocators can be a great way to cover a lot of ground quickly.

Maybe, but that's how you get players complaining about not being able to build and enjoying such machines without making their base too unstable for habitation or otherwise disabling temporal mechanics entirely. I think the opposite would be a better argument--the player can make an unstable area stable, or create a "safety bubble" during temporal storms, but they need to build and fuel a big machine in order to achieve such.

A status effect system will definitely give the game a lot more flexibility, but I'm not convinced it will really solve the "problem". I've a hunch that some hunger tweaks/rework might be coming, but I also expect a rework of the system to bring with it a lot of similar complaints if it's implemented.

I mean I don't entirely disagree that stability could be a little more punishing than it is. As to the "why" players don't like it...I dunno, I'm not one of those players, and the answer will vary depending on who you ask. The general impression that I get though is those players find the mechanic annoying or disruptive and would rather just go about their business than need to plan around it. It's also not uncommon for the complaints to arise from players who didn't understand the stability/didn't pay attention and built their base on an unstable area, or who otherwise found a nice spot they wanted to build but couldn't because the area was unstable. Yeah I'm not a horror fan. If the game was focused on the horror aspect I probably would never have played it nor recommended it to friends. As it stands, the horror element is fine because it's there as a background element to make the story/environment more interesting, and not there being shoved in the player's face to force a reaction.

There've been at least a couple of mods that tried to implement the concept, but they weren't very popular and are out of date. Older mods sometimes work on newer versions, but 1.22 saw some changes to the code that broke a lot of older mods, especially those affecting entities, so it's not likely those mods work anymore.

I have similar feelings; to me it feels like a nice little reward for getting better at the game. Most smithing recipes are pretty mindless. I'm not really sure how this could be fixed, aside from maybe splitting the hub into halves and then welding them together like one does iron+ anvils. However, that drives up the material cost and locks the waterwheel behind borax, so...maybe not the best option. You'd need to shrink the hub recipe somehow, which is a little difficult to do without it feeling overly simplified.

Welcome to the forums! Sometimes it takes greenhouses a few moments to update properly. You could also try moving the glass slabs to the upper half of the block instead of the lower, and see if that changes anything. It's been a while since I've built a greenhouse so I don't recall if the slabs need to be flush with the inside or outside. Possibly. If you have a mod that affects greenhouses, that would be a prime suspect. If you think it might be a mod issue, the easiest way to figure it out is to disable your mods and test on a fresh world to see if vanilla works correctly. Once you've verified vanilla is working as intended, you can re-enable mods one by one and test as you do so to see when the issue reappears. Also check to make sure that all your mods are updated for 1.22; older mods do sometimes work on newer game versions, but 1.22 changed some things in the code so a lot of older mods won't function properly without an update.

In my experience tickets are usually handled within 24-48 hours, especially on weekdays. Depends a lot on what the issue is and how busy the support team is. Issues like this tend to be resolved rather quickly though. Don't forget to check your spam folder, just in case the email got dumped there.

Diving bell. I don't think we need a giant sea monster, since it's not really a nautical game and I think sailing should be a somewhat peaceful experience(also saves the trouble of trying to account for naval combat). But some smaller monsters would absolutely be appropriate. They could be found near shipwrecks or submerged ruins, providing both a challenge and an indication that there's treasure to be had. They could also be located in the deep sea, since monsters seem to get spookier the deeper one delves, but this also requires some sort of diving equipment so the player can actually go that deep. On the case of deep monsters, I've sometimes thought it would be cool to have some kind of "lurker"; basically a small fish-like machine with flashlights for eyes that is attracted to players and watches from a short distance--just enough for it to be not quite clear what they are. They don't swim fast, they don't have a lot of health, and they don't do any damage, so they're harmless by themselves. However, there's never just one, and once the player has enough lurkers watching them then they discover the true purpose of the creatures--a guiding system for a much larger, hostile monster that lives in the area. The general idea is for the player to leave the area before too many lurkers show up and summon the big monster; fighting the big monster is a risky prospect(but could drop a trophy or some nice loot). Killing the lurkers could buy the player some extra time in the area before the big monster appears, but killing them too quickly will result in the monster showing up faster. Of course, for the water's surface, there's always a literal ghost ship option. Imagine some kind of ancient-looking steamship somehow still adrift...and finding out that it's not only moving of its own accord, but actively following you.

Welcome to the forums and the game! Make sure you're using the correct login credentials, since your game account and forum account are separate. Likewise, make sure to check for common errors such as caps lock or hitting the wrong key. If you've been through the basic troubleshooting steps and still can't log in, then you'll want to open a support ticket so the team can take a look. https://www.vintagestory.at/support/