LadyWYT

Given there's at least six more chapters to add, I suppose we'll find out!

Correct Kind of. Ores do have a certain depth threshold for spawning(in that it's the highest level you could find that ore at, but it could spawn deeper), but those values vary from ore to ore. To my knowledge, there is no convenient place to look that information up, aside from digging through the game files themselves. It's best to just prospect until you find a good spot to dig, and then dig a shaft down(sampling via node search as you go, if you have it enabled) until you either find what you're after, or cannot dig any further(in which case, time to find a new spot and try again). The further underground you venture, the stronger the monsters get, and the more likely the area is to be unstable. It is possible to find stable/neutral areas deep underground, but very rare. An outpost won't help unless you play with temporal stability turned off. Aside from learning to work quickly and taking periodic breaks on the surface to recover your stability, you can also kill monsters to recover stability, or sacrifice a temporal gear and a bit of health to regain some stability instantly. When there is no longer anything you wish to dig up, of course. Depends on your personal preference. You don't need to light everything up, but the darkness makes it difficult to notice incoming threats. Torches are a good, cheap source of light that will help cut down on monster spawns, but do bear in mind they will only burn for 48 in-game hours unless placed in torch holders. Oil lamps are very cheap and thus easy to use to light things up, but they aren't bright enough to actually stop monster spawns. Lanterns are the best in terms of lighting things up and stopping monster spawns, but given they're somewhat pricey for that kind of work, you'll be wanting to pick them back up when you're done with the mine entirely. Prospecting is tricky; as a general rule, you want to dig at sites that read Decent or higher(ignore the percentage, save for narrowing down the exact dig spot once you've settled on a dig site). However, the density search only gives you an idea of what might have spawned in that area, and not what actually did. While Decent and higher readings are the most likely places to find that ore, it's also worth digging at Poor/Very Poor spots, especially if the ore you're after is rare, or that's the best readings you have to work with. As for when you go after iron...entirely up to you. If the available ore is hematite, it should be relatively easy to find, especially if you have good readings to work with. If the available ore is magnetite though...that's a lot harder to find, even with a good reading. If the hard rock layers are predominantly andesite, it seems to spawn more consistently, but I think magnetite deposits might be smaller than hematite deposits, and thus fairly easy to miss. I'm not for certain on that theory either though--I just know that I've dug at several good readings for magnetite and found nothing to show for the effort. Hematite has never posed an issue. It is important to note that Minecraft-style mining doesn't work very well in Vintage Story, given how different ore distribution is between games. In Vintage Story, different types of ore require different types of host rock, and some ores are very specific when it comes to what kinds of rock they can spawn in. Likewise, Minecraft ore nodes are almost uniform from chunk to chunk, and tend to spawn in clusters/bunches of ore blocks. In Vintage Story, ores vary wildly from chunk to chunk(this is due mainly to the host rock requirements), and spawn in flat circular disks rather than bunches. For Vintage Story mining, you're really better off using the pro-pick to find a good dig spot, and then sinking a vertical shaft or two and using occasional node searches as you go to see what's actually there. Don't worry about potentially falling to your death--when using ladders, your character will not fall unless you physically move off the ladder block.

Not to throw too much shade, but not all mod authors make sure their code actually works either, or plays nicely with other mods. Likewise, it's important to check that the mod version being used is a stable release, and not a dev version. Dev versions are still very much works-in-progress and will likely have issues. There's also the good ol' bug or two that escapes notice in testing, and makes it into stable versions. Helped sniff out several of those while assisting a friend with mod development.

It's also worth noting that they put 1.21 focus to a vote, on whether players wanted new content, bug fixes, or something else, and the overwhelming majority(I think it was something like 2/3 of the vote) went to bugfixes and polish(to Tyron's apparent shock). That's not to say that players don't want new content, but rather that the playerbase as a whole is okay with new content getting delayed if it means that it will release in a more finished state. Which in my opinion, if it's not ready for testing, it really should be delayed. Test versions of a concept don't need to be perfect, but if it's too ridden with bugs then the average player is going to be focused more on the bugs and less on the content. I vaguely recall that being a thing in the earlier days of Minecraft. Oceans were huge...but had absolutely nothing in them, and boats were an absolute joke(you almost couldn't look at one without it falling apart). It was a source of general complaints, at least until the aquatic update.

I also look at it as, the more settings you include in vanilla, the more cluttered and confusing the menus get. It's great to have a high level of customization and all, but there's a reason that running jokes exist about players spending more time in menus just configuring things, than they spend actually playing the game. Not to mention that mods are a great way to test various ideas and see how well different implementations could actually work. Plus mods are a great way to customize one's game to very specific preferences, without changing the game for everyone else in the process.

I second this--would rather have one generic fish fillet, but different species of fish which produce different meat yields depending on the size. A salmon or mahi-mahi should produce a lot more meat than the common pond perch. Spear fishing is one of my favorite things to do in Primitive Survival. Very fun, and would definitely be a great fit for the vanilla game. Also...fish farming. I'm not sure how it would work, but it would be neat if you could stock a large pond and manage the population to have a steady supply of fishy protein. Though really, I'll just settle for having a pretty fish pond or aquarium to look at, since I do love my little fishy friends.

Right, but it's also not possible to cover everything in the vanilla settings either, hence where modding comes into play. Mods are still completely optional, but allow for much greater customization.

I will note that while it's fine for different systems/strategy to shine in multiplayer, the core systems need to be bearable in singleplayer. Using the refined tool handles as an example: if we assume that those can actually be crafted with early game tech and don't require late game stuff, it still bears consideration that the player will be going through a LOT of tools over the course of the game. It might be fun to make fancy handles for a few special tools, but probably not so fun to have to manually refine a tool handle for every single tool that needs to be used(especially ones that break easily). Possibly, but I'm thinking along the lines of, if each drifter is guaranteed to drop one flax fiber...I can make a pile of drifter bodies with ease, so at that point I'm going to be hunting them down at all hours and crafting myself linen sacks/gambeson/windmill within the first in-game month or two. And if the drifters are being dispatched via falx, there's no real need to stop to loot them either.

Bear With It Had just finished Chapter 2 with my hunter friend the other night and was in the process of riding back home. We had covered about half the distance when he had to go AFK for a few minutes. In the process of sitting there waiting patiently(and totally not carefully parking my elk's hindquarters right in front of his face), I noticed a large brown bear lumbering its way over a nearby hill and shuffling its way closer. Hunter was still away, so that left two options: deal with, or leave it and see what happens. Of course I opted for the former--I'm not a complete monster! Donning my armor, I hopped off my elk and charged to meet the furry intruder. In the middle of the resulting brawl, hunter returned to his keyboard, of course, and had to figure out what on earth was happening since he could only hear the carnage taking place and not actually see it. About the time he stumbled away to get a clear view was about the time I killed the bear...or so I thought. Turns out that while I hit it hard enough for it to produce sad bear noises, it was a very good actor and used the moment's confusion to make a break away from me...and straight for the hunter. I could only watch in horrified amazement as the injured bear proceeded to chase my hunter friend around in a circle before...uh...hugging him to death. I managed to dispatch the bear shortly after, and revive my friend of course, but if you thought we were out of the woods you would be sorely mistaken. The rift activity went from calm to apocalyptic about this time, and remained that way for most of the ride home. In spite of that fact, we did manage to make it home in one piece.

...I never knew that was there. That's awesome!

Gotcha. Regarding the early game, I do agree that there's perhaps a bit more that could be added. However, I would also counter the same point with the fact that...the early game isn't really anything more than a stepping stone to teach players the basics of what they need to know for the meatier parts of the game. Stone tools are just enough to allow the player to survive and acquire copper tools, and the copper tools are just enough to get players to bronze. The bronze tier, while not the best, is where the game really starts to open up to the player, since it's durable enough to last a while and tackle things such as the first story chapter. It's also tough enough to mine iron and quartz, which opens up better equipment materials and better access to greenhouses. Late game content, however, is currently barebones. Aside from steel, there are a couple of Jonas tech devices to craft, but that's really it. Once the player has steel, there's not really anything else for them to do once they've completed the main story(the parts that exist, anyway). Given that the mid-late game is where the player will be spending the majority of their playtime, more options are needed in those areas, or otherwise the player is blasting through what's essentially the tutorial tech tiers and having...not much to do after. I wouldn't be against this, but on the other hand, I like leaving a trail of monster carcasses in my wake. Partly because it makes it difficult for live monsters to navigate, but also because it's fun to carve a path of destruction for my friend to find later in multiplayer. Quite a bit of life has been added to the water recently, and fishing has been teased. I've heard rumors that rivers might be in the works, but we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised though if aquatic content gets even more love in the near future. From the practical standpoint...it's a lot easier to account for a few select methods in terms of gameplay balance, than it is to try to implement every option under the sun. That being said, it's possible that such features are planned, but just not a priority to add right now since there are already methods of handling the function in the game(ie, mine halite or trade for it, and focus on fleshing out late game tech or other missing gameplay like herbalism before worrying about boiling seawater for salt). That's essentially what we're getting though--updates to critical parts of the game that are otherwise lacking(like actually adding a way to fish, adding more tech options, etc). As I said previously, the early game is pretty solid already for the amount of time the player is really intended to spend at that tech tier. For more focus on stone age/primitive tech in particular, it's really best to use mods to make that kind of experience the main focus of the game. Otherwise, the game ends up being too "front-heavy" on content(which is already somewhat of a complaint) and feels sorely lacking once one advances past the early game.

Right, but it's not unheard of for the generation of certain ruins or story locations to get screwed up, hence why I suggest reporting it on the bug tracker. Sometimes it's a broken world seed, sometimes it's a bit of code governing a particular structure gone awry; hard to say for certain.

About that...https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/35820 Somebody already tried to implement a similar concept via mod, and the comment section...well, speaks volumes.

Welcome to the forums! To my knowledge, the vanilla game doesn't support this...yet. Maybe some day. I think there's a mod or two that may allow it though.

Out of curiosity, what is your operating system? I vaguely recall a Linux user having similar issues a while back, and it turned out to be a result of some customization they did.

Yeah, that's not how it's supposed to look. If you're not using mods at all, we can rule out mod interference as the issue. The easiest fix is to pop into creative and cut a path through before popping back to survival. However, I would also go report this to the devs on the bug tracker, in case it's a broken world seed or some other issue.

Not that I expect it to be in the game(apart from a mod), but...noodling.

Honestly I figure just leaving it at "the other block game" is funny enough. Keep 'em guessing which one you're referring to.

First off, welcome to the forums! As @Loosebearings already noted, choice of class can make a big impact here. Blackguard has the highest hunger rate of all the classes, with the worst wild food gathering ability to boot. It's possible for new players to pick this class and manage just fine, but they will definitely struggle more than they would picking any other class. Honestly, it sounds like you might be approaching food supply from the standpoint of the other block game, and that kind of logic doesn't apply to Vintage Story. Crops take time to grow, and won't grow at all if the weather isn't appropriate for the crop in question. Animals are more realistic in that you need a male and a female in order for them to reproduce, and the offspring require sufficient time to mature. When it comes to animal proteins, prey animals are also much more valuable than predator animals(likely to prevent the player from relying too heavily on hunting bears and wolves instead of prey animals or establishing livestock). For the early game, it's best to hunt and forage a fairly wide area in order to make sure you have enough food to work with while you get farms and livestock established. Likewise, you also need to make sure that you have some way to store the food that you can't immediately use, since most will rot rather quickly if not preserved. Wolves howl quite a lot, so they tend to be easy to notice. Bears unfortunately tend to be quieter, but in the case of both bears and wolves it's a very good idea to be mindful of the surroundings and pause to take a good look around every now and then. The best way to avoid getting mauled, is to spot the danger and avoid it. As for why they're so aggressive...there are lore reasons, but it's also to help keep the game challenging(especially for the Homo Sapiens game mode). Except the monsters are there primarily as an environmental hazard; that is, they're an obstacle for the player to work around, but not something the player actively hunts in order to advance themselves. If the monsters are consistently dropping things like flax fibers or other low-level useful items, the player has more incentive to build "grinders" or otherwise focus on killing them efficiently, than engaging with intended game loops like ore mining, farming, etc. They aren't everyone's cup of tea, hence why there is an option to disable the mechanic. Currently, there's not really much to do on the water either. Once more aquatic content is added, I would expect the default worldgen settings to change in order to support more water. As it stands, I've found that setting Landcover to 80% produces enough oceans for the sailboat to feel useful, while still leaving land-based travel as the main focus. Your mileage will vary though; if the defaults aren't cutting it, best to make some test worlds and play around with the settings until you find a combination that works. To my knowledge, the raft is craftable without the need for metal tools. The sailboat is a major upgrade, as well as a much fancier vessel, so it will require much better tools and materials as a result. In regards to salt, finding a deposit is very useful, but also not needed most of the time. Survival Goods and Commodities traders both sell salt for quite reasonable prices, and trading is the way I typically acquire salt myself since it's very convenient. If one is playing Homo Sapiens though, trading will not be an option. This is true, however, I would say it also depends on what a player is looking for. Modding one's game to suit personal taste isn't a crime. Likewise, as you've noted already, Vintage Story is still early in its development. In spite of there being a lot of content already, the version we have available to play at the moment is probably more of an early alpha version than anything, which is why certain sections of the game still feel rather undeveloped(of a planned eight story chapters, only two have been implemented). Now that I think about, I suppose that's one of the benefits of panning over mining for one's copper. Panning certainly isn't exciting, but it is safe, and you don't need to process the ore you get from it(aside from smelting).

I don't think you're the only one that's added a signature since the creation of this thread. There's been a few more cropping up, which has been pretty funny to witness.

There's a Hindu statue that can be found, as well as a Horus statue. For the most part though, real world religious references tend to be easter eggs to find, and not really a focus. Without spoiling too much of the lore/story, gears are what seems to have taken hold as religious symbols, with perhaps traditions loosely related to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. That being said...I don't think there's a mod that adds a wearable Star of David, but you might be interested in these ones: https://mods.vintagestory.at/ageofconfession https://mods.vintagestory.at/soundofconfession Age of Confession especially adds a variety of decorative artifacts from real world religions.

To my knowledge, this is how stability works already. Or at least, it's supposed to. It's not, but that is the price one pays for safety. In order to be completely safe from a temporal storm, the player needs to build a small bunker to hide in. This is if the player doesn't want to risk death, which honestly I think the respawn mechanic might be an overlooked strategy for early game storms. I died the other day taking on a double-headed drifter in a light storm; only had gambeson and Blackguard shortsword, so not the best equipment but not the worst either. However, I was able to deal with the drifter fairly easily in spite of the death, and the resulting loot felt worth it. Ideally, the death isn't necessary, but it does make me rethink whether a death or two is really that bad, or whether it's an advantage to prepare for and utilize until equipment can be upgraded. You don't need to return to the surface to recover stability. Killing monsters is an option, as is sacrificing a temporal gear and a bit of health. It's also possible, though very rare, to find stable areas underground. And this is why there's an option to turn the mechanic off.

Probably, but that would also probably include reworking the current damage/armor system, which I'm not sure is necessary.

I know I might steal this for incorporating into a mod later... But otherwise, I would probably keep starvation as it is, unless the devs re-enable the bodyfat mechanic that's apparently hidden the code. The starvation mechanic may not be particularly realistic, and might be annoying, but it does keep food supply important to the player throughout the game, as well as keep the player alerted to their condition so they don't starve by accident. If starvation were actually realistic, then the player either wouldn't need to worry about food at all since they can just eat a meal once every few days and be fine, or they're digging themselves a hole of stacking debuffs that will be very difficult/frustrating to recover from. Overall, I think it's an idea better suited for mods, and not the vanilla game. The health boost from nutrition is more useful than you'd think, but not so useful that it's going to feel frustrating if you can't fill a bar for some reason(looking at you, dairy!). Also keep in mind that when the player dies, nutrition is halved. The health loss isn't great, but it's generally not such a discouragement that the player won't go back to take another shot at whatever they were doing. If the player is losing active buffs though(like increased damage, and better damage resistance)? They're probably going to get frustrated if they end up dying to a boss or something, and then have to wait a while to recover the full buff before trying again.

For simplicity's sake, we can assume that containers will affect how fast pottery dries, though that's also fairly realistic as well. If you can't finish the project at that moment IRL, you cover it and lightly spray it with water as needed to keep the clay from drying out. As for firing wet pottery IRL...that's how things potentially go BOOM in the kiln--that, and air pockets in the clay. From a gameplay standpoint, if wet pottery is fired then it has a chance to break during the firing(the chance correlates to how wet it is) and produce a pile of pottery shards instead of actual useful pottery. In theory, a player could probably stuff their kiln full of slightly moist pottery, fire it, and get most of the pottery as a finished product, but the most ideal route is just...letting the stuff dry thoroughly before firing. To help players distinguish between wet and dry raw pottery, there could probably be some sort of gradient added similar to the gradient used for cooling metal, in that wet raw pottery will have a much darker shade than dry. Yeah, that concern crossed my mind as well. However, there are still a lot of other things the player can be doing early in the game while waiting for it to fire, and 24 hours maximum for drying time doesn't seem like that big of a delay. The simplicity also makes the mechanic easy to understand and deal with, so it's just a matter of figuring out a little patience and planning ahead, which are crucial skills throughout the game. Pretty much. The main benefit I see, aside from "realism"(which isn't always a benefit), is that it just smooths out the early progression loops a little bit more. Regarding new players potentially getting frustrated, I think it depends heavily on the demeanor of the player. Given what happened with the change to fire clay, I'd expect plenty of complaints from veteran players as well. Players that enjoy more realism and don't mind taking their time will probably be fine with it, but players that want to rush through everything/prefer easier routes probably won't enjoy it that much.