Maelstrom

There is always a deposit under surface nuggets. The ore may be up to 10 blocks below the nugget though. My tips Be prepared to forage for food most of the first summer. Within the first few days plant some grain and veggies so that you can start building a reserve of food and stop foraging. As mentioned, smelt a prospecting pick as your third tool to find bigger ore deposits deeper underground than the surface deposits you find. My day one objective - 64 reeds (4 hand baskets and 1 reed basket), pick up every loose flint I see, grab enough berries and/or shrooms to last through the night, at least 8 logs, at least 32 sticks and 32 grass then find a clay deposit to dig into for the first night, during which I form 1 cook pot, 1 crock, 1 bowl, 1 crucible and 1 storage vessel. While the clay items are firing in a kiln knap 4 each of axe heads, shovels, knife and spear heads.

Considering most of the seraph's previous life was spent underground; my seraph goes for a hole dug in the first clay deposit it finds. There's plenty to do that first night, forming the first clay items and knapping a stack of each tool head.

You can keep your old world. New terrain features (like new trader outposts and rivulets) will only come up in new chunks. Existing chunks will retain their original features, including traders. New mechanics, like blacksmithing are not dependent on the terrain.

WAIT!!! FULL STOP! You AVERAGE 20 hours a week playing this game?!?!! Dayum! I'm impressed!

IKR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Agreed. In my previous 1.18/1.19 world that nice juicy Very High copper reading is smack dab in the middle of a HUGE unstable area that was strong instability on the surface! It was a good 250 block radius. By the time I sprinted to the mine, descended into the depths to prospect for the next ore deposit I was at 80% stability. I could mine one deposit before having to evacuate at 25% (or less) and hopefully spring far enough away so guests didn't start hounding me. @Thorfinn World height was not high enough to ladder up either. It was the absolute WORST unstable zone I've ever encountered. Just GREAT! Now I have another silly story to write about. Thanks LadyWYT!

That's just storage! Thank goodness. I saw that crucible sitting there and was worried you thought that you were going to light the charcoal pit to smelt your copper!

With my current job that one sentence could have taken a few hours between first keystroke and submitting.

Be sure to use the handbook. That will be your savior for a very long time! OTOH it is a heaping helping of fun watching streamers/Utoobers go in blind and think you can punch trees like TOBG.

Mischief of Mice found that a water shaft surrounded in ice was a very quick way to travel. Second only to the raft elevator, which is exponentially faster than the water/ice elevator.

I recall the first update where candles were made in a cook pot not crafting grid. After making my first batch found a cookpot that was contaminated for food, forgetting I had cooked candles in it previously though cooking food near an active rift caused cookpots to be covered with inedible residue. Hmmm... Maybe there's a humorous story in there...

Nope. They are a hard nut to crack.

Agreed. The rainful is wonderful if it isn't constant. There comes a point where it becomes annoying.

Silver lining - your crops grow quicker from being constantly moisturized.

Update season is upon us!!!

That sounds like an excellent story for the *ahem* Humorous Stories thread.

So basically everyone agrees that the main black bronze use case is to flex. My flex? Black Bronze helve hammer head along with one iron, one meteoric iron and a steel one banging away on an meteoric iron anvil.

Nah. copper chisel. Wasting a lot less durability since most if not all of the chisel will be used up in deconstructing the anvil.

Yes. You can break down a copper or bronze anvil into 8 ingots if you use an undamaged chisel.

Don't discount the eldritch (formerly called Lovecraftian) theme of the game. In Lovecraft large beings such as Dave are typically very powerful beings that one had best hope pays attention to you as much as we pay attention to a gnat. My belief is that Dave is one of those elder beings of indescribable power compared to we mere "mortal" seraphim. We are to Dave as gnats are to us and we're best served if we never draw the attention of Dave.

OH! Forgot about this one. In 1.17 I had a home that I planted my reed garden smack dab under a dogone cotton pickin' RIFT! before it repeatedly materialized on said reed garden Do you know how much fun it is to harvest those cattails watching the stability drop like a rock attached to a lead anchor? -1 out of 10 - do NOT recommend!

The horizontal area for rock strata can be huge to massive. Unlike TOBG where surface terrain changes within usually a couple hundred blocks, VS changes can be (and usually is) about 1,000 blocks. Want to find a different surface rock strata? Pack a lunch and run in a single direction for a day or so. Consider yourself lucky that you didn't spawn in granite. Those can be truly massive being close to 2,000 blocks to get away from that bland grayness.

The Curb Appeal is to Die For! Thank you @Broccoli Clock for reminding me about this. After the 1.16 updates had finished dropping I started a new world; having finished my last test world to overcome the learning cliff that VS was back in them thar days. Spawn was in a negatively inclined temporal stability area but copper and tin were readily available due to luck (and not artificially increasing the ore generation rates). I spent the spring getting to a sustainable place and started searching for a place of my own to carve out of the cruel world. North was a horrid mountainous landscape and east was a rugged plain of gravel and sand. West? I don't recall why I rejected it, I think because of forest and more rugged terrain. South? South had a delightful little place at the top of a 15ish block cliff overlooking a vast lowland plain. I'd later discover two iron deposits layered on top of each other about 200 blocks from the home I chose but once again bees were disagreeable far away; about 1,500 blocks or so which was better than the 2,500ish blocks of the previous world (mentioned in a previous silly story). I'd also later find a translocator that would take me 8,000 blocks south to a delightfully warm area I could farm flax year 'round (and also had the wizard of a trader hovering over a death pit, also mentioned in a previous silly story). Well, before I found all of those delightful things I had to learn about the hardships of this place. It was located on the edge of a forest and at the base of the cliff and about 50 blocks away from my home would be a shallow dead end cave that would constantly spawn drifters who would amble up the steep incline to my home during the night and serranade me with their dulcet duets, trios and choirs. Did I mention the forest? Yeah, that would also spawn wolves regularly that would join in the drifter's cacaphony with their howling. During my second summer I deforested the nearby forest except for those wonderful resin bearing trees and was delighted that the wolves caterwauling ceased. GREAT! Now I just have the balasted drifter choir to deal with. So I went and placed a lantern in the cave and blocked off the entrance to the cave. BINGO! No more drifters on calm rift nights. And then 1.17 updates drop. And the bears. No wolves. No drifters. But bears start spawning within my immediate proximity. Come outa my home one bright sunny day and I hear a growl, get wacked by the bear and that wonderful woar woar woar sound as the screen goes to black and white sepia tones followed by asking if I want to rage quit. HELL NO! I'm not going to rage quit!!! I'm gonna go right back in there and RAGE KILL! that dang ghetto bear for that drive by mauling! Then I'm gonna go on a rage kill rampage of anything and everything else that happens to annoy me in even the most minute way, goshdernit! except the sheep that head butts me. I need him alive.

My worst base decision? Hmmm... In 1.15 (then updating to 1.16) I found a wondefully rustic site. It was on the top of a cliffside that was about 10-15 blocks high. A nice view to the south over the lowlands. It was on the edge of a forest and a cavern at the base of the cliff would routinely spawn drifters at all hours of day who would then wander up to pester me. Wolves would howl constantly (until I deforested the area to make finding the numerous resin bearing trees easy to find) and lastly 1.16 brought bears. Bears that would spawn amongst my buildings and murderize my livestock despite fencing 2 blocks tall. Learned that bears could kill through fences and had to build barns for the protection of my meat factories. On a positive note there were 2 iron deposits stacked ontop of each other only about 200 blocks from my front door, soooo I didn't move. But when 1.18 and warnings about jarring chunk borders I moved on to a new world.

Happy 10th to VS! Thank you Tyron and Saraty for taking the risk of developing this most wonderful game!!! Love the homage to the old school rams running full speed off of mountain tops to escape being hunted. So when is 1.22 going to start dropping?