Vratislav

It was much more attractive up to 1.21, when traders mostly had real beds and their chests were open to store your stuff. This time I used traders mostly as cheap hotels . Now it is much less convenient, so not in my last gameplays.

I believe the trap was actually empty. Could be stomped by another animal, or just not successfull catch. When the trap is full, it shall be shaking and help note shall says "contains frightened hen/rooster". Also, I was recently playing with TerrainSlabs mode and I have realized that if the trap is put on the slab, or if they are slabs around, I was not able to catch chicken successfully. It might be bad luck or just combined mechanics that do not count with each other, for sure then I put trap on a flat area of full blocks. What I remember, that also in slopes the success rate seems lower, as animals tend to stomp on the trap from the upper blocks...

4. The new procedural dungeon ruin often seems to have chalk/limestone stones within, if it doesn't have lime itself. 5. For leather production, you may also use Borax.

Bronze tools are also useful for selling to traders, as they simply do not accept better quality tools. Then, casting en masse becomes an advantage, as forging every piece of five-rusty-wheel-worth whatever is not feasible way of doing business (Also the reason I do not bother with knives, scythes or so for sale, despite higher price.)

It would be interesting to have specific processes for particular ores, like different ways of impurities removal or if some kinds of steel was possible to be made only from particular ore. (Maybe too much for base game, but, e.g. Interesting mining mod may be expanded this way.)

Well, I feel that learning curve in VS fits better to the actual situation, hiding metals behind cryptic ore names is part of fun. (And even bigger fun if you install some of geology expanding mods). I do not want to be too harsh, but we may be lucky that mere presence of high-tier ores shows in the low-tier prospecting results at all. We could also be in a situation, where iron is shown with at least bronze pickaxe, and for nickel detection, a steel propick would be required... On the other side, it would remove part of difficulties with lerarnig the names, as until the late game, the player would see only about seven ores, including three iron variants...

Just for pigs and wolfs. I usualy do not make pits for large pelt animals.

In my usual 2 blocks deep pits, spears do the job. For the bear pit, I have that 1 block wide entrance, that easily allows to stab the bear by stone spears until his death.

Yes. If we would know that 1 temporal gear may prevent creating e.g. 10 or 20 rifts, it would make its cost-benefit consideration much easier.

Yes, I call it shopping spree. Elk's bags full of bronze tool heads of all kinds (they are conveniently stackable), several stacks of leather and flax twine. When fancy, then also black leather, blue and brown linen. Clay, if in abundance. And all sellable stuff I just gathered, like aged crates, gemstones, clothes from ruins, whatever. Then, running around my 5-8 trusted traders in the neighborhood during two days. You can make desired tools and clothes/boots/aprons/linen sacks on demand. I do not bother with bread except I am sure that nearest traders will accept it. However, I usually do not return richer, as my bags are full of chandeliers, wallpapers and fancy stuff when I return.

Everything was said right about the mechanics. I usually dig pit traps in early game, so I minimize. For pigs or wolfs, I go only 2 deep 2x3 hole, with 3 blocks perependicular to the assumed animal direction. Also I build a pillar 3 blocks high aside to locate the trap from distance. It is not difficult to lure pigs and volves into 2x3 wide hole on 1-2 attempts, if there is more wolves, then wider hole (like Dilan's 3x5) is better of course. Sometimes, I just build 2-3 small holes in the area with wolves, ant just let them fall there, it usually happens in several days (at least it worked till about 1.20, maybe it changed, as I did not this particular thing recently). - I also usually make 2 deep 2x3 holes nearby my field, that chatches hare or pigs lured by vegetables. If I catch baby goats, then I use fence to fix them there. Bears of course require 4 deep hole (I do usually 4x4x4), and I make 1-wide entrance to have possibility to escape if I fall there too.

The rift ward range is 50 blocks radius cylinder, if I remember well. It may depend on everyone's base development, but as the rift ward is pretty late game device, the most of the area would be already thoroughly lit when the rift ward becomes available. At least this was my experience, when I built it once. Still, I can imagine practical usage, first, if we do NOT want to have the base fully lit for sake of realism (like not to have lit fields around the base), second for construction site in new location, maybe as a safe area in multiplayer servers, or so. So I do not consider the rift ward entirely useless. Also, 50 blocks radius may be bigger to take the advantage. Sometimes, even 25-30 blocks radius may be enough, sometimes 50 blocks is not enough. Maybe, we could have "small" and "large" modifications of the same device? Or to add a possibility to set up effective range between e.g. 15 and 100 blocks, and make temporal wheel consumption dependent on protected area. This would also allow to run the rift ward in "standby" mode with minimum range and consumption, and bump it up, e.g. when player wants to do extensive works outdoors.

Ah, the elusive Terminus teleporter. I made full set of Jonas gear only once, and it took about 5 years to collect all necessary items in a world with Better Ruins boosted loots. I am not sure if I was looking for some of them particularly, as at that time, I had already full trunk of Jonas parts. At least, the for story required Rickety Translocator is quite cheap about Jonas parts. I was able to build it quite easily afterward returning from Tobias all three times I played the second chapter. What I like that also the resonator is Jonas device in principle (athough Wiki does not list it ). But otherwise, I am not a big fan of them. The rift ward can be helpful. I run it in my base for a while, but I haven't seen much effect in already well lit late game area, and need for temporal gears as fuel was a bit discouraging (also for night vision mask). Maybe, if I had some solid resource of temporal gears, but I never went to serious drifter farming.

Well, yes. During the first run, in the middle part of the tower, I went to a desperate measure as I couldn't find the way (also, end of February was not the best season for long darkness). So I generated the tower in creative, found the correct path from the outside, tested to jump in the mock world, and then repeated in survival game.

There is method so safe that it is on the edge of being boring. You even do not need any armor for this. Make 1-2 stacks of rope ladder, go to round coordinates (I use 150 blocks step, as it is easy to set up) and even for density probes, dig straight down to take three density readings vertically. It may be done very quickly. As mentioned above, find the hotspot. For copper, bronze ores and iron, even decent+ readings may bring success, so there is no need to bother more than to split the grid twice (probes 30-40 blocks aside). If you are desperate, even poor or miniscule may be worth to try (e.g. in lime-free areas, Borax for leatherworking may be found even on miniscule). If you decide the density check is worthy, just continue to dig down, and test for node every 10 or 12 blocks. When it pings, you are up to 6 blocks from the ore. If you have too short ladder, you may simply let the hole half-done and try 30-40 blocks aside if the reading is similar. If you are unsuccessful, you may check the Wiki, if the upper stone layer contain desired ore - it may happen that the upper layers are dull. Then you may try somewhere else, or bring longer ladder. If you hit a cave and do not feel comfortable with it (deeper caves = stronger drifters), you may build stone walls from rocks around the ladder to prevent drifters to hit you.