Vratislav

Nice!

The idea of making bread on the spot is just too clever! I have not many traders that buy bread, but it is really worthwhile to establish bakeries next to these two that do. Most probably, I'll store flour, as I have automated quern in my base.

It does work well for lower settings as the requirements on the quality of the effect there are not as high as with high end setting. Also, the short view distance can be annoying even with actual landscapes, especially in multiplayer or in the late game, when your base (or developed area around) is so extensive that it is already not covered by one look. So, anything that helps, is... helpful. Of course, there is lot of space for improvement, as the principle here is much simpler than in the TOBG mod.

This is important. Although potato owners acknowledge the fact they have weak computer, it does not mean they are not affected. If the low view distance will make landscape unenjoyable for them, many may leave the game and if there becomes a word that the game has playable landscape only on strong iron, it would also affect its sales. It may be partially addressed directly in the world generation if many settings of world "hefniness" (world height, landform scale, gravity and so on) were coupled together. There may be several presets for the worldgen "heftiness" similar to these for graphical settings, coupled with recommended view distance.

I'll extend this, because it also says it is correct to keep rivers (at least the main ones) on the ocean level and to "fake" the flow by designating the flow speed, as it is in the mod. Only minor streams should run down from slopes. It will allow bigger local height differences so it decreases requirements to the overall world height, and also makes world generation easier.

There is one more good reason why so scaled down landscape is fitting to the game, and it is because of scaling down the time. If the day-night cycle takes 40 minutes, it is scaled from the reality 36times (not to speak about further scaling by the yearly cycle). So the landscape should be also scaled to reasonably to have realistic feeling time passing time when traveling. It should not take half a day to climb that 1 km high (1000 blocks high) mountain that is "realistically" generated mere 2 km (so 2000 blocks) behind the base! Actually the landscape height differences is about 128 blocks from the sea level to ice spikes (on default), this should be comparable with like 4000 metres in the real landscape (let's say Alps in Europe). So the "climate" of the landscape is scaled down about 30 times, that is quite comparable with the daily cycle speed. Also, the perception of scaling down is not so drastical. For realistically percieved landscape, the absolute elevation is not as important as local differences and the steepness of slopes under the mountain ridges. Bottoms of valleys under mountains are not as low as the ocean. For example Innsbruck, surrounded by 2,5 km high Alp ridges, is located in 600 meters, so local height differences are about 3/4 of the absolute height. The centre of Sklarzska Poreba, located in 650 meters under the 1,5 km high Krkonose, reduces the local height difference even more and no one will talk me out that the Krkonose ridge is impressive (see pic). You get feel of pretty impressive mountains with local height differences under 500 meters, if the slopes are rocky. Aslo, if distance is scaled down more, hills become more impressive despite lower elevation. So, if someone has beefy computer, he can bump both the world height and view distance to 512 and he will get local height differences up to about 300 blocks, that is already scaled about 1:10 to the Alps and on the edge of the perception of mountains in real scale. This is 1 km high mountain ridge, observed from the opposite ridge that is about 500 m above valley. The distance to the ridge about 6-8 km. Do we really need to have such landscapes 1:1?

We are getting close to simulate a water cycle, or at least to pretend its existence. Maybe with an atribute, how high water is actually at the source block, so small water bodies could be drained quickly, if a ditch is opened. Rain could add the water amount in the blocks and sunny hot weather could decrease it. But it might be difficult to maintain an ingame balance, not to speak about computation requirements.

Oscillascape has fresh interview with Tyron that deals also with this topic. I think it addresses these concerns quite well.

I think that it is possible to have good waterwheel mechanics even with almighty bucket, if the game can distinguish between "natural" and "bucket-created" water source blocks and if the bucket-created water source block wouldn't be considered as a valid power source. Then it is possible to to calculate a size of water body both upstream and downstream of the assumed waterwheel up to some distance, and use it as a base for waterwheel power output, without big risk of cheating. The size of downstream water body is as important as the upstream one to prevent unrealistic setups. If we place waterwheel into sea-level magically flowing river like in Rivers mod, the power should be pretty weak. Like to power one quern, you would need minimum 1000 water blocks (10 x 100 area of moving river) both upstream and downstream claimed by one mid-size wheel. It can be played that narrower rivers flow faster, thus providing higher output per water block. But even the fastest flowing "flat" rivers would still provide less power per block than waterwheel with water from above, placed between two water bodies with different height. Still, the power would depend on sizes of water bodies above and under the wheel, but multiplied by the wheel size that is able to fit there. The "bucketing" then would be used only to fill ditches necessary to join the wheel with both water bodies, but not contributing to the power calculation. This would allow enough creativity to build waterwheels in desired spots. connected to the naturally generated bodies of water by elaborate ditches. But maybe there are unsolvable issues with this approach... (Also the wheel size should play the role. It is feasible to have at least three wheel diameters, where 1-block one-resin-cheap wheel would be so weak that a quern would be powered only from upper water (and forget about helve hammer at all). 3-block wheels would be expansive like large gears and feasible for quern on lower water or one helve hammer for upper water. And the magnificent 5-blocks diameter waterwheel would be powerful on upper water but expansive as five large gears. Also, bigger waterwheels should be connected by axis on both sides as close as possible, and bigger clearance from supports should decrease the maximum output, maybe with exception of two wheels side by side. And if we wanted to play even more, then adding climate and weather patterns is the next step. The optimum power may achieved only when there is raining in the collector area, and falls almost to zero if the weather is hot and dry for a while. And of course, no waterwheel moves when temperature falls under zero!)

I do not want to discuss a technology I am not much familiar with. The actual Rivers mod defines areas (called "tectonic plates"), that probably works like continents, where rivers are generated in one run. Then terrain is set up but it cannot fully avoid crossing of rivers and hills, so tunnels are rough solution (at least as I understood it from my very superficial reading of the mod's source code). To provide really believable landscape, there is rule that water always flows down, and the landscape respects this, that is a bit against random generation methods, at least as I know. Of course, there is a lot things like meanders, canyons or rapids, that have reasons why they were created (like faults, or so) and whole concept of erosion. And this is a question how the terrain generation with rivers should aspire to be based on these "realistic" principles, or how clever tricks will be used to imitate them. I am sure that it will not be painful, if large rivers (that in real landscape flows with inclination much smaller than 1%) will be in the sea level, if they will pretend to flow and valleys will be generated with more random elements than in the actual mods. This will allow to simplify rules. In smaller scale, small rivers or streams (probably unusable for sailing) that will be not very long (up to like 100-200 blocks) can be inclined with occasional rapids that will increase the water level. This may cover the most of the landscape. Still, ravines or even river tunnels can be generated, it happens rarely in real world and it will work if it will be made with some noise. Also we are in game, so landscape that is a little wild is fully appropriate. Then, given by terrain generation, a rock strata can be developed from it. It would be nice to have deep layers of sediments in the valleys of wide rivers and the mountaineous regions had harder rocks just under the surface.

Really nice, all the combination with that aged pieces. Btw., where are these floor tiles from? I am planing a bathroom too and they looks very fitting...

I agree with both of you partially. The vanilla mechanics for releivng blocks is not very logical, on the other side, the Quarry mod is a bit OP. Maybe if the big slab just got placed in the quarry as unmovable item and we had to relieve particular stones and rocks to carry them. This way, the relielving rocks would be effective, but we would not allowed to put ten giant slabs into a chest under our bed. Also, 7x7x7 slab size with steel tools is huge. If one size was limited to 3, it would be still not bad.

I second to this advice. On grassy biomes, one can just take a copper that hits his nose when collecting other stuff. But for the rocky biomes, it is good opportunity just go to a nearest hill or other vantage point and take a good look around. (Also, a Zoom Button mod is my great friend for this ). The most unlucky I was with the copper, it took me like 10 days to find enough on the surface. And my mistake, I was wandering only in grass and around lakes, even looking for the copper there did not work. When I moved into rocky biome, I have found several copper deposits almost immediately.

Capturing animals can seem difficult but it is not as much. Also it needs to be done only once per animal kind (if you are lucky). For chicken and hare, basket traps work well, you just put them nearby animals. If lazy, you may dig a 2 deep hole and put the trap inside. Then you carry the trap with animals into prepared pen and feed them from small trough, that's all for taming them. Especially chicken are good starter, because eggs are sustainable source of the protein and feathers are useful for arrows or good to be sold. The only peculiarity is that two cocks cannot stand each other and fight to death. But the generation is determined by chick, so it does not matter which generation survives the fight. For pigs and goats, there is actually new kind of trap in 1.21 version I haven't tried yet. You may catch young animals there and feed them from trough till adult. Before 1.21 it was much more difficult as these animals had to be chased to desired location (or the player had to be chased by angry animal trying to attack him ). I suppose now it is much easier. When animals are in the pen, everything is about regular feeding, just keep troughs full. You may build some sophisticated pens to separate next generation from the old one, but I did never bother. It was easier to kill old generation animals before the new one grew into adults. From third generation, butchering is one-hit action, later the animals are calmer, goats are easier to milk and so on.

I think that trading effectively and successfully requires finding the best possible routine and practically to establish "trade route," depending on which traders occur around one thousand blocks around the base. Well established route means that you know what to make for selling and you may be quite sure that you sell the most od your load (and that you meet also the traders you want to buy from them). Also, well established route may mean that some parts of the route needs to be improved to make the errand fast, like making a path through a forest, or establish beacons for better orientation. My actual trading trip consists of several agriculture traders, some survival goods, clothiers and building material traders, about 8-10 in total. It takes 2 days on Elk and I already know the route so well that I can take the middle part during the night. I almost never take finished products to sell. I take universal ingredients and make required products on the spot. Because I visit only four kinds of traders repeatedly, I can focus on selected bronze tools (I am lazy to smith for trading, so I do casting of hoes, axes, shovels and picaxes for this purpose). I just make several tin-bronze and bismuth bronze variants od them, and I do not build the tools, as the casted parts are stackable. I make the finished tool at the moment the trader is offering to buy it. Then I take as much leather and threads I can, and also some blue and brown cloth. This allows me to make many finished products (bags, clothing, boots, etc.) just on the traders' spots. I was trying to take also black leather, but the amount of finished things is not as big to be effective. The second technique is just to load particular cheap things like linen sacks, beehives and store them (or their ingredients) directly in the traders' chests. Then the deal is done later, when the trader makes his offer. Similarly, I take soybeans when I have the harvest, and do the round among Agriculture traders, storing the soybeans in their chests till the moment the particular trader would be interested in it. I do not bother with bread and other quickly perishable items, as they cannot be stored this way, and if the shopping is unsuccessful, they lose too big part of durability during the trip. Exceptionally, if there is need for quick money, I may make scythes, saws or other smithed tools that are significantly better deal. Also lanterns are good deal to make.

My least utilized mechanic (i know about) is cheese making. I have never get to milking goats, so I did not have an opportunity to make cheese at all during 500+ hours of gameplay. My most favourite mechanic is chiseling.

I was stupid enough to visit a Better Ruins' flagship location in the begining of March. That place is located in the middle of freezing biome and when I climbed at it's top, there was -42 °C. I had to burn wood in its kitchen to heat myself up repeatedly while making short runs to fight monsters and find loot on other levels. Also, I have realized that being near to hot firepit heats the seraph's body only when a firewood or something else is actually burning. When the firewood runs out, your body temperature stars decreasing despite the adjacent firepit has 300+° temperature. Was not satisfied with it, fortunately, there was enough wood in the ruin.

Well, I am not too effective as I have no specific setup for harvesting monsters. I do usually up to five kills of 3+ tier monsters and one to two dozens of others.

I am sure that regardless to the worldgen, it is worthwhile to explore a little in the beginning. Either you die (and may start a new world), or you find some spot up to 1-2 thousand blocks that is good enough to become loved in time. For my successful gameplays, I have always found satisfying spot mostly up to 500 blocks from the spawn, once or twice up to one thousand. Yes, the early game with distant spawn is more challenging, but it also improved my survival skills. About landform mods, I was most satisfied with Plains and Valleys. If I remember, it was on standard settings in 1.19. (landform scale 100% , upheaval 30%). I am not sure how they deal with new 1.21 defaults that expanded default landform scale significantly. Recently tried Terra Pretty, but it did not satisfied me (I have tried like 2 or 3 worlds with it so not so many). Also, I am exact opposite of CigsAndHam, as it is a landscape I see that brings ideas what to build there .

I was not able to read trough all recent release notes, I only vaguely remember there were some tweaks of loot from monsters in 1.21 and 1.21.1 . But after I have upgraded on 1.21.1 version, the latest heavy temporal strorm was like huge improvement in loot falling from monsters. It spawned mostly corrupt bowtons and I received 4 temporal gears during this storm (three from bowtons, one from nightmare drifter). It might be just a great luck, as my experience was like one temporal gear from 2-3 storms previously (or was I so unlucky in tenths of temporal storms before?). So I just want to ask, if I was just lucky, or if the loot tables did really change recently.

Well, late game. I have steel tools (tier 3 furnace), large flax fields and automated pig feeder. So it was possible to establish an "usual trading route," selling leather products, clothing and bronze tools en masse to several Agriculture, Building Material, Clothing and Treasure Hunter traders around. Really, flax is OP in late game as it provides both fibres and grain for pigs in large amounts. This earns enough gears for buying wallpapers, colored glass, chandeliers and luxuries. Been travelling far, I have most of obtainable resources. The most time in the recent gameplay was spent on repairing shiny armors and copper tubes for item sorter. (And in 1.19. when building first part of manor, I have spent soo much time travelling among building traders for red clay shingles.) I was also lucky to find white marble deposit underground nearby to base when digging for iron, so that the corridor ceiling comes from. Still, some resources are scarce. I have no easy access to coal, sulfur, salt and lime (it took me like 10k block of travel to obtain large batch of limestone sand for white wattle and daub ). But I like riding my Elk. Also, it is not fully vanilla. The QP Chisel tools are essential, particularly pantograph that copies patterns among chiseled blocks (I have spent steel one already). Also, most of collected items and some materials are from Better ruins. Recently, I have added Stone Quarry that quickened stone collection for the new manor wings, but it would be possible also without it.

I did not have much time to play VS during summer, but still, some base improvements are here to be shared. Spring of year 6 and continuing. Still tasks to do. You may check previous stage of the development here. I have expanded the manor part of the castle by adding two wings that allowed me to provide ballroom and dining room more suitable space. The ballroom takes whole western wing and uses full height of the building. There is custom furniture and piano moved from large "better" ruin. The room is still unfinished, I have tried to make curtains in creative but not yet made them here. The dining room takes one half of the eastern wing. I still need to make custom table and chairs. I have changed interior style to be more noble in the whole first floor. Also, obtaining several more chandeliers helped a lot. The room behind the left main entrance, previously planned ballroom became something like corridor. Similarly, the room next to it is also rather empty (I do not show it). A corridor with a main staircase was rebuilt entirely. Stairs were remodelled to gentler slope, and the ceiling was made as posh as possible: Other rooms in the first floor. A "moody saloon" is located between the entrance corridor and the dining room. Room for playing games was moved from the second floor to the first floor. I really like how many wallpapers are in the game: Rooms in the second floor are not yet rebuilt. I will show only an amenity that was desperately missing in the manor building: The old castle interiors were also improved. In the Knights' hall, a new gothic cupboard was made, there are new shiny armors (Forlorn Hope and meteoric iron plate) and some details were changed. The cupboard is functional, you may put scrolls and books inside. There are other rooms I haven't shown yet. The museum in the old tower has improved valut, so it is worthy to show: Also, I have moved the original armory in the manor to its zero level, under the ballroom (as ceiling shows, I have to do something with it). I have used wattle and daub for walls instead of much expansive plaster. The armory is already full of weapons from ruins. And as inspired by the other discussion, I have made small item sorter to throw the most common stuff when returning from errands. It sorts just several kinds of stones, clay, dirt, cattails, grass, flax fibes and some other things that are permanently clogging an inventory when on journeys: The expansion of the manor interrupted a road around the castle. Because the castle is located in narrow ridge among three lakes, I had to build a bridge for the road bypass. And this is all for this moment. Have nice time playing Vintage Story! (sorry I can't get rid of the duplicate picture here:)

I think Stone Quarry mod is also a good candidate to help. https://mods.vintagestory.at/stonequarry

Also, I am not sure with the mechanics, but the core of the problem may be not the delayed unfreezing, but the exact opposite: that the water is actually freezing in the border of loaded area, where it should not happen. There is mechanic that lakes ice starts generate from shores, so shore and neigbouring ice probably initialize further freezing. And I feel like the border of loaded chinks is by mistake (or due to some more complicated reasons) considered as a shore or an ice. So the freezing is activated by the whole border of loaded chunks needlessly.

Welcome to the forums! This is actually well known problem. The ice is not unfreezing fast enough on the edge of loaded chunks. In recent updates, there were some mentions that it was partially addressed, but yeah, the everlasting ice is still there. What works, is to move a bit towards the lake and to be occupied there (like to build there or do some chores) until the ice melts. Actually, my base in long play world is located among three lakes, so I am pretty much destined to have ice borders there usually till end of May or even longer.