Teh Pizza Lady

I was going to reply "AGAIN??!?" but then I remembered it wasn't ever actually fixed so maybe it's intentional. At least we can see temporal rifts again. Those were scary before!

I thought that was just the standard experience when milking a goat. TIL this was a bug.

The only drawback is that the bloomeries require fire clay to make, which still requires calcinated flint unless you happened to get lucky with a clay deposit.

yeah from my understanding of the code it's going to take roughly 64x more fuel to heat up a full stack of flint. The closer to the max temp you get of the fuel, the slower it will heat up. The mod I made simply patches around that code and forces it to cool down at the same rate so that you don't have to keep the fire burning for nearly as long. I also noticed that the cooking temperature for flint is now 1000C which means I think that you would be better off just making a bunch of charcoal and getting it HOT as quickly as possible and then just placing a bit in every now and again to keep it from cooling off too much and resetting all your progress. So it's a bandaid, for sure, but I think I would accept some feedback on how to tune the whole firepit situation so that the thermal management of the fire isn't a needless and arduous task that takes up all your time. Heating things up should take more fuel for a larger stack for sure, but I don't think it needs to be quite so linear.

mostly agreeing. Anyone can still make use of the tool. I think the nuance here is less how much the tool was used or even who used it, which is why people ask, and more how it was used. I wouldn't trust a carpenter with a monkey wrench to cut a board in half, but the electrician using a saw will find your water pipes faster than you think. I think if you understand the code that the tool produced, then you shouldn't have to put a disclaimer that you used the tool to create it. The idea there is that if the correct person is using the proper tool for the job then everything will go okay, but if you're trying to use it incorrectly or for a different task, then things can go sideways fast. Visual Studio comes with CoPilot garbage anyway nowadays so it's likely that nearly every mod produced will have some AI-generated code in it now. I particularly prefer the Windsurf IDE if I'm doing any LLM-guided exploratory programming since it allows me to make use of Claude Opus 4.6, but that is another conversation for another time and the keyword there is "exploratory" in the sense that I'm just noodling around with code, exploring concepts and trying to see what is even possible before committing to a larger project.

I wanted to respond, but I was waiting for time to give you a proper response. I think you're mixing up whether something works with whether or not it exists. "Vibe coding" is 100% a thing. Early on, there were even cases of people trusting AI blindly and doing real damage, like wiping production data because the model “decided” to rebuild a system from scratch without even asking because it couldn't understand how to work with the existing code to make the necessary edits. I've even tested the best coding models and they can barely figure out how to fix issues even when I explain to the LLM exactly what is happening and why. Personally, I have reviewed PRs on GitHub from people doing exactly that, prompting their way through entire program features without understanding any of the output and blindly trusting the AI knows what it's doing. The result was dozens of bloated files, duplicated and inconsistent logic, and the product barely worked after weeks of "effort". So yes, AI needs oversight. But the failure mode you have described is exactly what people mean by vibe coding and not only is it real, but it produces horrid results when not guided by a real developer who actually understands how to program. I also think that calling it "agentic coding" is going to create it's own problems. It can make a workflow sound more deliberate and reliable than it actually is, which risks normalizing over-reliance on AI over good, old-fashioned human ingenuity and creativity. A bad developer will treat it as a crutch and never seek to gain understanding needed to maintain what it is they're creating. A good developer can fall into an entirely different trap, letting standards slip and trusting the AI's output when they haven't fully reviewed it because "it looks right and worked in testing". Both lead to the same outcome: poorer code quality and a code base that is harder to maintain. And back to the PRs I've reviewed on GH. I've used the products behind those PRs and the common issue wasn't bugs. It was that the end product felt flat. The individual pieces worked individually, but the design around them didn't make sense. It wasn't intuitive. It didn't feel human. The difference between generated content and created content is stark. That’s also why you see people asking on ModDB how much of a mod was coded by an LLM. It’s not always anti-AI sentiment. A lot of the time, it’s a practical concern: if something breaks, will the person who made it actually be able to fix it?? I don't want to use a mod that doesn't work and won't get fixed, would you?

I feel like that flax number is a little high. Have you tried the rapids and waterwheels yet that are coming in 1.22?

Welcome to the forums! Glad you're enjoying the game. I'm really hoping to see some sort of advancements in weaponry that we can unlock as we play through the story chapters. Maybe discovering a blueprint left behind that we can use to craft a firearm or something that will be useful as the game progresses, something that we cannot just "discover" through normal gameplay. Overall it's a fun game, it's ONLY in early release, so I hope you continue to enjoy it as it improves and gets more and more fleshed out over time!

I mean I just got an email on my work laptop today that they're now using AI to write the quarterly reviews. Yesterday they published metrics on how AI is being used and just last month GitHub's CoPilot wrote over 50,000 lines of code for my organization. It's pretty sad when you think about it.

Not entirely true. Xskills allows you to earn skills via gameplay, yes, and it is easy to fall behind in multiplayer. However there is a cap on skills because of how the mastery system works in that mod. You can learn skills, but you can only master one or two of them. Maybe three if you take the right talents. I'm not sure.

The problem is that people are mostly distrusting of AI and don't realize just exactly how long it's been around. Facebook moms got wind of it and demonized it without truly understanding what it was they were even saying. Remember Cleverbot from the late 90's and early 2000's? It was the first primitive chat AI program and people LOVED it. But even older was ELIZA from the 1960's which even made an appearance in the Young Sheldon TV show though they never actually said that's what it was. As @LadyWYT said, it's a tool, which can be very powerful when correctly used. I think where a lot of people are drawing the line is when someone who doesn't actually know what they're doing comes along and types a prompt "Create a Vintage Story mod that does xyz and interfaces with these mods. Create a description for it for me to copy to the ModDB website and also generate a README document for it. Also summarize any changes made so I can copy and paste into a git commit message" and sit back and let the AI do all the work. Compare this to "Here's the link to the VintageStory modding API. Find the class/method that allows me to access XYZ and give me the link so I can review it myself." Then while it works, you're free to think about the next steps. It's allowing you to do two things at once. Then you start typing some code, and get something workable and ask it, "Am I crazy or will this code work?" It crunches away and points out a syntax error that would prevent your code from working properly. Or you're trying to remember for the umpteenth time how to setup a Harmony patch. Or you just ask it, "Is it possible to do xyz in C#??" and after it crunches away it says, "yes and here's how". It's one thing to have a vague idea and obtain something passable. It's another thing to have a truly inspired idea and use the tools available to bring it to life in a way that no one has done before. One is thoughtless and uninspired. The other is thoughtful and shows that the modder actually has two brain cells to rub together. One is having your 3-year-old splash paint on a canvas and trying to sell it as an original Picasso. The other is letting your 3-year-old rough in a pencil sketch and you go back over it and clean up the lines and make something truly original, unique, and fun. The AI gave you the rough sketch. It was up to you to figure out how to connect the lines. There's no shame in that. Take pride in your work. The only person whose opinion should matter to you is yours. 99% of the detractors aren't even mod authors anyway.

AI = Artificial Intelligence Currently AI cannot exceed a quarter of what a human mind could achieve. This is why your most powerful computers in scifi games and TV Series use human brains at their cores. That said, it can help organize things, help reason through processes, act as a sounding board, etc, but it should never be in the driver's seat and certainly shouldn't ever perform the majority of the work when developing a game or mod or creating a picture. AI can only replicate that which has already been created. It cannot create anything new.

so it WAS a bug.... interesting. so no more cooking the space trip out of the mushrooms.

I'm going to give a careful and measured response, not because this discussion demands it, but because I want to clarify my position on Anego and because you implied I think they can do no wrong. I do think Anego has missed the mark on some things. However, I’m holding off from speaking until the game is more "finished," in case my concerns become irrelevant as issues are addressed behind the scenes. Side note time. It’s worth noting that the yearly cost of hosting their type of server infrastructure, combined with what Tyron pays his developers and the additional servers they own, means that any spending on "upgrades" is not a one-time expense. Server space, unless you own the physical hardware, is expensive, especially if you want enterprise-level support for critical game systems that must run 24/7. So yes, they have money. And it is likely budgeted at least a couple of years in advance to ensure they can stay afloat while building the framework necessary for Chapter 3 to work seamlessly. For context, I did the math on running TOPS based on Vintage Story’s baseline requirements for a smooth multiplayer experience. Official guidance is 1 GB plus roughly 0.25–0.3 GB per player slot. For a 75-slot server, that is about 18–24 GB of RAM just for the server, not counting the hard disk space needed for the world, which can grow significantly as players explore. Add the CPU needed to calculate chunks for all those players, and a server with this capability costs roughly $60–$180 USD per month, without any extras like automatic backups or DDoS protection. Costs vary depending on the service and configuration chosen. That works out to $720–$2,160 per year. Converting a 20 EUR license to USD (~$23.50), they would need to sell roughly 30–90 licenses per year just to cover server costs alone. When you factor in developer pay and the additional servers they own, the number of licenses they need to sell each year goes much, much higher. Business models like theirs are very risky because once people buy the game, the source of revenue immediately dries up. There are no fallbacks, no merchandise store, no monthly subscription revenue. It is a one-time payment that can never be collected again. So was it a bad launch? No, the game is clearly successful. That is why people are waiting at the door for a chance to play on the only official multiplayer server. Anego probably just cannot afford to spend more on that server at the moment. Sorry you didn’t get to play. If it matters that much to you, try hosting a private server that you and your friends can play on.

The max temp of peat is lower than the max temp of coal. So the fire would be hotter with coal meaning that there's a bigger difference in energy for the stacks to absorb. The way the game calculates it is that the further from the temp of the fire the item is, the faster it will heat until it reaches the processing temperature, then it will rise more slowly, so keeping a fire is more to prevent it from cooling down too quickly. That said, I did release a mod that patches this up a bit so that a stack of items will take just as long to cool down as it did to heat up. Just search the ModDB for Stacks Cool Slowly or click this link: https://mods.vintagestory.at/scs

The fact that many people want to play the game is great! It's good news for the team if their game is that popular and so many people want to play that there is a line to get into TOPS! As time goes on, the team earns more capital to spend on server infrastructure, I'm sure TOPS slots will increase or they might spin up a 2nd server. The game is still in early access so there's no reason to think that one instance defines the state of the entire game.

TOPS isn't the only server you can play on... Just throwing that out there.

I'm sure the mod author would appreciate that if you approached in a way that didn't make it seem like they did a bad thing but more along the lines of "I love your mod so much I made art for it!" or something. Some people can get pretty defensive about stuff like that.

My recommendation is to get an actual mouse if you're going to be doing any kind of gaming, especially on a laptop

I love the berry rework and have zero complaints about it.

It has nothing to do with the nomadic playstyle in my opinion. It has everything to do with basic survival expectations regardless of playstyle. Cookpots aren’t just for settled players. Without one, you’re locking yourself out of core systems like meal nutrition bonuses and more efficient food usage. That’s not a playstyle issue, that’s a self-imposed limitation. Being nomadic doesn’t mean having zero infrastructure. It means carrying what you need and setting up temporary camps. Historically, nomads still stopped to repair equipment, gather supplies, and restock food. Firing clay for an afternoon before moving on fits that pattern perfectly. Locking hide production behind the cookpot doesn’t force settlement, it encourages preparation. You’re not being told to stay, just to engage with a basic survival loop before moving on. And practically speaking, a cookpot is already essential for travel. If you’re moving between locations, having a way to make proper meals on the road is a necessity or you will find yourself having to stop more frequently to gather more food. The same applies to hide processing: rendering fat improves preservation, reduces spoilage risk, and makes the whole process more reliable. If you want anything beyond basic armor, you’re going to have to stop for a while anyway. Tanning hides into leather takes time, and most metal armor depends on it. The same goes for things like better backpacks. Those are long-term prep steps, not signs that the game is forcing you to settle permanently. Nomadic play isn’t about never stopping. It’s about not staying longer than necessary. Taking time to prepare food, process materials, and stock up before moving on is part of that, not a contradiction of it. Using nomadism as a reason to avoid making a cookpot just doesn’t really hold up. This is the real reason the game doesn't really support the nomadic playstyle very well. Things that would make being a nomad worth it (like making a loop of all the traders in the game) start becoming chores as soon as you find out that there are only a few places worth visiting and half of the stuff you gather either goes to waste or gets left behind for use never later.

Not going to lie, I was kind of hoping that the rift bug was just a silent, sneaky adjustment to the rifts and that it would be explained in an official update. Welp, now I have to deal with rifts cluttering up the place instead of going "Woah! This area is NOT okay!" and just being wary of it for a minute. oh well! I can just make my own mod and break them again.

In my humble opinion, I do believe that pottery should be one of the first steps after obtaining flint tools since you will need a way to cook and store meals. You can just cook red meat over an open flame, but it loses nutrients compared to what you'd get if you tossed a couple pieces into a pot with some berries and/or mushrooms. I see it as a space saving measure once you get your 2nd crock which can be sealed to delay spoilage. It's one of those things, for me, that just feels logical once you try it a few times and compare it to the alternative. You get better food that lasts longer and takes up less space in your inventory once you get a few meals established.

Welcome to the forums! The spear changes weren't arbitrary and they made hunter pretty much the default class for many because you could literally machine gun spears at targets. Bows got out-classed and just felt... worthless. Now you can use a spear for the initial attack and swap to your bow and it feels, honestly, good. Because spear damage was nerfed, but bows weren't, you can actually do more damage per second with a bow and arrow now. Because spears were nerfed, they also nerfed the health of some common animals to compensate so that spears wouldn't be a completely useless weapon. So what has happened is that bows (even the crude bow) and arrows just became a whole lot more useful, especially in the early days of your playthrough. Cooking the fat to get the hide is known as rendering the fat. It has to be done because the oil is locked away in the fat cells. Rendering the fat causes them to break down and release their oil. It also preserves the oil because the fat cells get left behind. Fat locked away in a decaying cell is what causes it to go rancid. Rendering it down kills the bacteria, removes moisture and releases the oil from the decaying flesh. You can also do this with beef tallow and duck fat. I actually fact-checked you on the historical uses of fat without rendering it first. Turns out you are correct! However rubbing fat/oil into the hide is less about realism and more about representing that you're making a fine product. In that light, I think your suggestion of allowing fat to work the way it does to produce a crude product but rendering it down into oil could produce a finer product. I'm not sure how that would work in the game as it is, since there is hide and there is leather (tanned using barrels), but nothing really in between. What would YOU suggest for the difference between a hide that was oiled with raw fat and one that was oiled with rendered fat?

I get where y'all are coming from with AI "art" feeling bland or generic. Gone are the days of pranking your friends with ChatBot or similar. My sister once fended off a random guy who kept texting her by feeding his text messages into an AI chat and then copying the responses back to him. He eventually got the hint when his advances were getting him nowhere. AI is essentially an approximation of anything ever written from the dumbest of takes to the most eloquently stated thought pieces. As a result, in order to be coherent, it cannot be creative. In order to be creative, it has to produce things that don't make sense. It cannot produce things that are both coherent and creative. This is established fact. Link takes you to a PsyPost article with more information on that subject. That said, as someone who actually made an in-depth mod from scratch but can't draw, the choice isn't "AI vs handmade art", it's "placeholder until I get an artist to draw something real". Not everyone has the time, skill, or access to an artist especially for free projects as you all have stated. A lot of us are programmers or designers, not illustrators. Using AI for an image doesn't mean the mod itself was low-effort. It means we needed something so the page wouldn't look like a generic download page from a shady 90's website. I'd absolutely prefer to use custom art, but until I can, I'd rather have something visual than a jarring lack of anything at all. I think a better standard is judging the mod itself by the comments, the author's engagement and the content of the mod, not just the thumbnail. As the old saying goes, don't judge a book by its cover... And for what it's worth, I used a local copy of Flux Dev on my PC to create the image so no environmentally exploitative methods were used for it, but I get the concerns. AI is broken and a poor substitute for the real thing and doesn't deserve the attention and funding that it gets. Should I remove the AI image from my mod? Probably. But not until I get something to replace it. I used to be heavy into AI, because I thought it offered me a way to get my creative ideas out of my head. Instead it's only lead me down a path of disappointment of never quite reaching the mark.