LadyWYT

So I think I figured it out. It wasn't a mod messing anything up, as I backed up my saves and started over with a fresh install. It seems the antler/horn mechanics have changed just a bit sometime between now and 1.19's first release, probably to make them more of a trophy item than things you can get several chests full of from wiping out the local wildlife. Come springtime in game I was able to pick up a set of shed moose antlers, so I now have a nice home decoration! In regards to horns, I'm assuming it's like @Grummsh noted earlier--a much rarer drop from hunting, and I assume that probably applies to antlers as well.

I've been playing the current 1.20 iteration and not run into any major hiccups or glitches, barring one time I had the world crash in a certain area(which worked fine after reloading the world, no further issues). So I would say it plays fine, but of course it's always best to wait for the stable release if you're intending to play on older worlds, or otherwise intend to sink a lot of time into a new world.
As for when it'll release...as @Thorfinn already said: when it's ready. Given that the current version is a release candidate, that generally means that all the major pieces are in place, and the only things left are bug fixes and minor tweaks. In the case of 1.20, there are a few minor bits that still need polishing on the new lore stuff, but most everything that is supposed to be there is there. My guess would be we might see a stable release sometime after New Year's.

Welcome to the forums!
For pottery/brick colors, I believe it may take certain types as clay, as well as firing in a beehive kiln. Pit kilns are limited in the colors they can produce. As for patterned bricks...no clue. I've only just started scratching the surface on new building materials. I suppose it's possible a few things could be creative mode only, but I'm more inclined to suspect that perhaps not all recipes have been implemented in this build yet. The release candidate contains most all the content that it's supposed to have, but there's still a few things to be properly finished before it launches.
Wish I had a better answer. 😕 I'll have to pay closer attention the next time I'm playing.

Plus 1.20 is right around the corner, which would be an ideal time to start over fresh. Although for future reference, I do believe there is an option to copy existing world settings--that includes the seed as well as all the other adjustments you made when you first created the original. Useful if you find a world that you really like and want to keep around in some form or another. 😁

First off, welcome to the forums!
As Thorfinn said, you can always tune things like water/land distribution, terrain roughness, forest coverage, and more under the world settings. For more diverse biomes in a fashion similar to what Minecraft has, you'll want to go to "Climate Distribution" and chance that from "Realistic" to "Patchwork". That should make it so that biomes are randomly distributed and potentially save you the legwork of needing to travel tens of thousands of blocks before the climate changes. As far as I'm aware though(never played Patchwork so can only guess), the seasonal changes will still apply in temperate/colder biomes, so it might be a little jarring to see or cut back on the survival challenges.
The main lore content is found via talking to a Treasure Hunter trader. He'll give you a task, and reward you with a map to the first major story location. It's quite a trek, but some of the goodies you can find there are other bits of lore about various things. As for other lore content...the more minor pieces are kinda scattered around in various places. Some of it you can find by talking to the traders about various things. Some of the traders sell things that provide insight(Artisan traders and tapestries); some items have flavor text that provides insight into what once was, or what might have happened. Panning bony soil is a good way to acquire lore books and other valuables.
As for caves, it's not unusual for them to be empty. Sometimes you'll get lucky and find some exposed ore, or some long-forgotten ruins that may or may not hold anything of interest. Surface ruins sometimes have basements that have extra supplies, sometimes a lore fragment or two.
In regards to world settings though, there's not really much you can modify here to make finding the lore easier, aside from perhaps smoothing out terrain to make traveling easier, and removing a lot of the survival challenges so you're not as likely to die while out and about. You could go the modded route with Better Ruins in order to have more interesting things to explore while still being "lore friendly", but it's not quite the same thing as the vanilla game. I will note though that the next update is right around the corner, and will be featuring a mount and a proper boat in order to make traveling around easier, as well as the second story chapter.

Aside from decoration, don't they slow down entities that move through them? Or am I thinking of the other block game?
You can also use them to prank friends that haven't been online in a while.
Otherwise I don't think they serve much function.

Hello, and welcome to the forums!
Hmmmm, try checking to see if you're running in Windowed or Fullscreen mode. You might try Fullscreen + Always On Top; my guess is that while you're playing the mouse might not be locked to the primary screen, and you might be moving the cursor off-screen for some clicks without realizing. Setting the mode to "Always On Top" will keeping the game maximized even if this happens. If that is the case, there's probably a better way to fix it, though I'm not sure exactly how.
The other thing you might check is the Windows taskbar settings, assuming you're playing on a Windows machine. That's if the game minimizes when you click the specific part of the screen where the Windows taskbar would otherwise be. I think I had an issue with that once, and the most I recall is playing around with the taskbar settings until I got it fixed.

I'm pretty sure this is a feature and not a bug; I believe it's called a "supermoon". Basically, it's the point that the moon is closest to the earth, so it will look bigger than normal. It's a thing in real life, although the effect isn't quite as dramatic as it is in the game.

Welcome! Are you playing on 1.19(the current, stable release), or the 1.20 pre-release? If you're playing on the pre-release, it's possible you've found a bug, as pre-releases aren't stable and often have a lot of rough issues to sort out before they're properly ready for launch.
If you're playing on 1.19--first I would make sure that you have at least one empty space in your inventory(which is probably only the hotbar when first starting). If there isn't space for you to pick up the newly created axe head, it will just fall to the ground after creation, and should be visible nearby. Now if that's not the case, I would move any world files you care about to a separate folder, and reinstall Vintage Story entirely. Start a new world(no mods!), and try again; it should work. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes things get messed up in the code, and the fastest way to fix it is usually backing up any of the game files you care about and starting over with a fresh installation.

Some of the items you can find in ruins, I think. I know I've found pieces of hunter garb as a blackguard. Otherwise, you're probably out of luck unless you either create a new world, or pop into creative mode for a moment and spawn the items back in.

I would make some tools with more durability left in them, and try again. If one is too used up, you won't be able to craft the item.

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 believe so, yes.

Welcome to the forums!
I'm never gonna unsee that now, until it's fixed. On the brightside, you could place a full block instead and chisel it to get the same look without the texture issues.

It varies. The typical surface copper deposit will probably be about 10-15 blocks diameter. Other surface metals will be similar; it's quartz and coal veins that get huge.
If you want to mine out the entire vein though, the node search function of the prospecting pick will be your best friend. It won't tell you where, exactly, the last bits of ore are, but it will certainly help you determine when you've found all there is to find in that area. It's also important to keep in mind that ores in Vintage Story spawn in large flat disks(for the most part) that follow the terrain pattern of the area. So you'll need to take changes in elevation into account and possibly dig a block or two higher/lower in order to mine the entire vein.

Right now? Resonance Archive. Let's just say it has a large collection of lore, some of which can only be found there and others that can be found in multiple places. Talking to the traders is also a good way to get some lore tidbits, although what they have to say right now is a bit limited.
Otherwise, as @Thorfinn mentioned, panning is a decent way to get some of the lore books, although I do believe it's panning bony soil specifically. The books are still a rare drop, however, you can find bony soil in most of the surface ruins. Lore books and tapestries can also be found in the ruins themselves(some tapestries can only be acquired via ruins), and sometimes certain traders will sell them as well(artisan traders for tapestry pieces, for example). In regards to monsters dropping any kind of lore thing...to my knowledge, I don't believe any of them currently do, aside from the bells--I think they have a chance to drop a scroll, although I might be thinking of the tuning cylinders for the resonators.
There's also the flavor text that accompanies the classes and many other items in the game, often clothing, accessories, weapons, and certain pieces of armor. You don't need to actually acquire the items in order to read the text in this case; you can just browse the handbook for items that fit into those categories and see if the item page has any sort of special description to go with it.
Outside of the game, the Story portion of the forums is a good place to browse for fan theories, stories, and other discussion related to the game's lore, as well as ask questions about the lore itself. There are also a couple of short stories on the Vintage Story website, that I don't think are actually in the game at this time.
https://www.vintagestory.at/stories/storyexcerpt-themorning.html/
https://www.vintagestory.at/stories/storyexcerpt-ghosts.html/
I think that covers most of it. I'm not really sure there's an easy way to find all the lore in one convenient spot, although that's one of Vintage Story's strength--it makes you find the pieces and put them together to form your own conclusion of what happened. 😁

Welcome to the forums! It's a bit of a tricky question to answer, but I believe for the most part all that's needed is for the chunk to be loaded. However, if you leave a particular chunk for a while and come back sometime later(such as coming home after an extended exploration trip), I think how the game handles it is that it updates everything to whatever state it should be in based on how much time has passed. So crops will grow, animals will give birth, food will rot, fires extinguish, etc. The only issues I've run into is that the distiller seems to continue using fuel but will stop distilling liquid if you stray too far from them(more than a few chunks), and sleeping will fast-forward the burn time for fires without doing the same for anything the fire is cooking(ie, the fire burns through all the fuel, but whatever it happened to be cooking will still be in the same state). The exceptions are pit kilns, refractories, coke ovens, and charcoal pits--those all take the time skips into account.

The teal gear? That's your temporal stability. If it falls too low(I think around 25-30% remaining), nasty monsters will start to appear as you're essentially losing your grip on reality and crossing over to a different dimension. If the gear ever drains completely, you'll start losing health until you either recover some stability or die(which should recover a little stability, I think).
If you're in a stable area, the gear will spin clockwise and start regaining any stability that's been lost. If you're in an unstable area, the gear will spin counter-clockwise and begin to turn from teal to gray as you lose stability. If the gear isn't moving at all, then you're either in a neutral area, or at full stability already. These rules also only apply to the world's surface; underground is always unstable, and will become more unstable the deeper underground you go. The one exception to the underground rule, I'm pretty sure, is the Resonance Archive.
Aside from returning to a stable area to recover your temporal stability, there are a couple of other ways to restore it. If you have a temporal gear, you can hold it in your off-hand slot and activate it with a knife(or it could be the other way around, I don't recall) to sacrifice a bit of your health in return for some restored stability. Killing Nightmare Drifters will also restore some stability, although this is probably the option of last resort in most cases due to how tough they are(they also don't spawn except during temporal storms, the deepest parts of the world, or when you're at 0 stability).
Edit: As far as reducing the rate at which you lose stability, I'm not sure if there's an option for that in the world settings. If there isn't, you might take a look at the XSkills mod. It has some perks you can acquire for reducing the rate you lose stability and increasing your recovery rate.

I think this mod might cover what you're after: Restore Old Animations https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/12339
If that doesn't work, this one might: No Hands https://mods.vintagestory.at/nohandsfp
Hope it helps! 😁

Not a mod, but a built-in recording system! https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php/Adjustable_FPS_Video_Recording
I've never used it, so I can't really help any further than that. However, that link should be able to at least get you started.
The only other convenient option I can think of is that if you play on Windows, I believe Windows has an option to record your screen. However, I would recommend Vintage Story's recording system rather than Windows recording; Windows is fairly basic and you're likely to get a better result with Vintage Story's system.

Hello, and welcome to the forums! This mod may achieve what you're looking for: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/5603  It's a bit old, but judging from the comments it should still work in 1.19. And it should stop all the monsters from spawning, not just the drifters, while leaving wildlife and ruins alone.
Otherwise, if you're going completely unmodded, the only way to disable monster spawns completely is to pick the Homo Sapiens game mode. However, picking this game mode will remove all lore content, which includes ruins, traders, and anything else that's not part of a real world survival experience.

Thorfinn covered most of it, although I think the "best" approach depends somewhat on your chosen class and preferred playstyle. I play Blackguard mostly, which is strong in close quarters combat but weak at range. A Hunter, however, will want to stay out of melee and pick targets off at range, and wearing heavy armor will interfere with that kind of combat.
Personally, I don't really worry about going out during the storms until I have iron weapons and armor(bronze at minimum). Flax fiber is more easily farmed from flax plants, rusty gears are easy enough to acquire via ruin loot or selling things to traders. Temporal gears I really only need a handful of, and these will occasionally drop from lower tier drifters, which don't pose as great of risk. The main prize of temporal storms, in my opinion, is the Jonas parts that can(but don't always) drop from the double-headed drifters. Jonas parts can't be crafted, but are necessary for crafting the late game steampunk gizmos.
If you're really intent on tackling temporal storms with early game equipment, I would build a small watchtower that drifters cannot climb into or spawn in, and then use that as a vantage point to pick off the drifters at range. Spears will do more damage than arrows at this stage of the game, but will have a shorter range and do not stack, so if you're going this route make sure that you have plenty of spears to throw. On the other hand, if you don't mind some really cheesy strategy--build a small covered box(maybe like 5x5 and 2 blocks tall), and chisel out some holes that are big enough for you to poke a spear through, but not big enough to allow a drifter to crawl through. Make sure you have plenty of spears, knives, and healing items, then hide in the box during the storm and poke away when the drifters come after you! There are better ways to build killboxes than this, but you get the idea.
If you're fighting them melee, you can hit them and then step back out of range right before they swing to dodge the hit. You are correct though, that it is very tough--if you get the timing of your movement even a little bit wrong, the consequences can be dire with good gear, or fatal with early game equipment. Of course, I really don't recommend tackling them melee in the early game, lol, at least without a killbox or other major advantage. They take around 4-5 hits to kill with a good weapon; with a flint/copper spear it's going to take even longer.

Sorry, I should have clarified--they should spawn where they originally spawned as long as there's not a whole carcass in the area. 😁 A bony carcass is fine though. The spawn points for wildlife are fixed points in the game, so the creatures will eventually respawn at those points if killed. You can sometimes exploit this by exiting and reloading the world to prompt more animals to spawn after a hunting expedition.

On the in-game model, the shirt seems to be a loose-fitting tunic style that comes down to the knees and is possibly split on the sides on the lower half.
I think it's a deliberate style choice. The utility of the design is likely for better freedom of movement(possibly for riding horseback), although in that case you typically see the split in the front/back, and not so much the sides.
I think it really depends on what your character's personality is and how you want to depict them. Overall, from the in-game appearance of the Blackguard attire, I get the impression that Blackguards have either been through worse than other survivor classes(which is very possible, given their profession), or that they don't really care about personal appearance and thus look more ragged as a result. Perhaps it's a combination of both.
In any case, if your character is of a similar mindset, perhaps they too look a bit rough around the edges. Or perhaps they're a neat freak and prefer to keep the shirt tucked in at the waist. They could be incredibly vain and have an embroidered shirt in good condition. It's also possible that perhaps they prefer a neat appearance, but have been through a lot of dangerous situations of late and haven't been able to properly maintain their attire. The options you pick for presentation tell the character's story.
One thing I will note though is that if the character is wearing chainmail or similar armor, you'll want to leave the shirt untucked similar to what's portrayed in the game. Reason being that you'll want to keep the armor from chafing or catching on other articles of clothing.

If the trees are in newly created chunks I don't think they'll have any fruit until the next year. It's a little odd that trees in existing chunks aren't producing fruit though. Do you have any mods that could be affecting them? The only other thing I can think of to try is to check the settings and start a new world/play a different existing world to see if it's an issue there.