HalfAxd

I really love VS, but have to agree that the boss fight in the RA is extremely frustrating... I was constantly being thrown all over the room... reloading a dozen times to try and figure out what works was not fun... in the end I used god mode and was done with it. Really love the design of the rest of the RA.

I use a number of QOL mods but not things that unbalance the game... Most importantly... if Knapster didn't exist, I would have given up on VS long ago...

Agreed... iron is not too bad a process to get through... I have not attempted steel mostly due to the perceived PITA the process appears to be. I love exploring in VS, not being stuck at my meager base grinding. I might take bites at the steel apple over time and slowly advance toward that goal, but I'm not in a race to get there. Again, that's the beauty of this game.

For what it's worth... 1. Move South or out of higher elevations 3. After moving South but before creating your new base... burn all the vegetation in the nearby area... easy and fun to watch 4. Take a bunch of torches and a stack of dirt when going into caves... run in and plant torches as you go... if a drifter spawns and there is room, avoid it and plant more torches... run around like this and light up as much as you can... retreat out of the cave and deal with anything that follows... go far enough away (32 blocks?) and they should de-spawn... The light you left in the cave should keep them away when you go back in. If you hear bowtorn either find a corner to get around or build a quick column of dirt to hide behind... if it's just one/two bowtorn together, rush them after they shoot at you... If the cave splits off into many branches you can seal off a branch with dirt to save for later... you can even use a door if the cave is important enough... Caves can be fun to explore!

I'm using one of the step-up mods and I think that is helping me jump up over the barricade... thankfully...I'm not a fan of the boss fight.

Don't you need a drop from Eidolon to progress to story line 2? Just asking for a friend ;)

I'll be honest and say I've avoided the unstable branch primarily to protect the mods I use. I have no visibility to how many people are testing the unstable branch, but if it is too few then I'm willing to support the cause and focus more on helping VS get thru testing to improve quality.

Eel were a major source of food in certain parts of the world (still are?) and hung out near water wheels and the sort. Might be interesting

There is a red flower (can't remember the name) which I've seen glow brightly in low light... maybe the source of the evil red glow?

Have you tried creating a new world to see if the spawning issue persists?

I thought I'd found a bug... I kept losing a tool rack in my smithy and gifted back my hammer and tongs a couple times... What the heck... is it on the bug list? Nope... maybe I should write it up... (I didn't get that far) Finally came to realize one of my pit kilns was a block over at ground level encased in cobble stone... I'd been burning my own tool rack the entire time!!! Doh!

I'm currently using slab path blocks to build a King's Road South to the RA. Digging tunnels thru mountains for the stone needed... paths across large bodies of water... small forward bases to stock pile materials in crates... burning large swaths of land to clear the way... It's a huge waste of time but relaxing

You can throw spears about as fast as you can hit the button to do it... works really well on those short range encounters. Agreed... don't have to do it, but when the alternative is running across the map to pick up my berry pie... well, you know...

Love the reference...“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”

It won't be of immediate help, but I use the Player Corpse mod which marks all of your death locations on the map... very useful, it can get a little embarrassing...

VS does have an interesting mechanic if you stay hidden (sneak) the animal won't know which way to run when hit and it will only run a short distance and lay down ( I assume to rest). This allows you to stalk the animal effectively by continuing to sneak up for the follow-on shot. This also forces you to make decisions regarding what terrain to "push" the animal toward in a effort to keep line of sight (aka. push it toward the open field)... again, pits/cliffs are historically effective in this way. On bleeding out... IRL not all hits will cause the animal to bleed out. I would love to see hit placement have specific effects though... would be cool! I totally agree on having a better feeling bow mechanic... I really love the bow in 7 Days 2 Die... feels satisfying to use... Enjoy!

I find bowtorn to be trivial on the surface. What annoys me is finding 2 or 3 of them immediately upon entering a cave... maybe that's part of the de-spawning issue mentioned previously? They are not hard to kill but they take some of the fun out of exploring...

The hunting mechanic is actually pretty realistic from the perspective of using crude spears and arrows... running down a wounded animal is what happens even hunting with guns. In game this brings the historic use of chasing animals off cliffs or into pits as a viable tactic. I like having to work for my kill. I agree the current rapid fire spear spam is OP... but I do take advantage of it!

Thank you... I only gave myself a gear to replace the one accidentally burned in my off-hand by mistake.

I've accidentally burned two temporal gears before realizing why it happened (the gear going to my off-hand)... really frustrating... I quickly looked up how to give myself a gear thru the UI.

I like the audio cues we currently have (bowtorns, wolves, clicking shivers)... while it would be nice to hear a bear coming, there is real tension in blindly walking thru a forest wondering if you are about to have your face bitten off. For my style of play, I'd hate to see tropes like combo moves, rolling around on the ground, etc. in VS... keep it simple...

Welcome to the sickness! Experiment with pits for protection, trapping/hunting...

That captive rabbits breed like... 'er... rabbits.... OMG my pen is full of rabbits!

Torches do wonders!

I use peat before firewood when I have it... I'll have large stacks of it whenever available... I use wood for building...