Maelstrom

Grass does need a nearby block to spread from. How nearby is nearby, I don't know. I don't think it needs to be contiguous like TOBG.

At least you didn't spawn at the top of a mountain with a death dive to get off. Followed by a spawn camping bear.

And here is the benefit of setting up shop in the rainiest of locations.

Unless you get that notification when you're a few thousand blocks from home. I once was exploring for bauxite and wandered north a good distance when that announcement came and immediately started running home. You can read the rest of the tale here.

Take the Long Way Home So a few worlds ago I was ready to make some steel but had no bauxite. Or was it olivine? meh. Doesn't matter. So I was out running straight north attempting to find some olivine, or bauxite, I doesn't recall anymores. But that doesn't matter. I had packed sufficient supplies and equipment to handle pretty much anything I would encounter; some light armor, a sword, a crock or two of food, and standard gear of pick, axe and shovel with space left to take back enough bauxite. Or was it olivine? I can't remember and it doesn't matter anyways but then that nice little warning appeareded... Oh. Dear. Gawds! I was a fair ways from home. I had already slept through one night in my travels for some olivine. Or bauxite? no matter. So I picked up and starts that long run home. What's that? Why wasn't I on an elk? No elk in that world as there wasn't an RA in game yet. So I runs. And I runs and I runs somemores. I jump over murder holes, around ponds, through forests, past wolves, swim through large lakes and keeps. on. running! I runs through the rest of the day. I pop my lantern in my off hand and runs on into the night. Still managing to avoid the murder holes which slows my progress some. But I keeps running in the hopes (faint and distant as they may be) of getting home before the storm hits. And then it hits me. Not some great idea. No. The storm you nitwit! So there I am running over hill and dale feeling like the drunkest of sailors as the land makes it's best impression of the stormy seas from Deadliest Catch. But I keeps running. And running. And running somemores. "Hi Bonnie!" I says as I scream past a surface drifter. At least I'm pretty sure it was Bonnie, but it could have been Clyde. Bonnie has this weird little snaggle rusted thing (I assume it's a tooth) at the bottom of his head where I assume his mouth would be, but I didn't have time to check for it. Day begins to break and I think the storm is nearing it's end... I hope. At lesat it feels like it should be ending soon. But I keep running coz at this point, stopping is only gonna be the death of me and while that is the quickest way home, I'm not too enthused about rebuilding my nutrtion and health afterwards. "Clyde! Where's Bonnie? He's back there a kilometer, I think. Can't chat now, your cousins are murder tonight!" I yells as I sail on by looking like the drunkest of sailors, I'm sure. And I keep running for a few more hours to watch the sun rise as the storm fades just a few hundred short blocks from home. And no bauxite. Or olivine. whichever one I was looking for. Whatever. It doesn't matter at this point.

Looking through the game code would be quicker.

The devs rarely post on the forums and never to answer a question posted in the questions forum. The player base is sufficiently knowledgeable about the game to provide answers to pretty much any question that can be posed.

Just a question... Why you no build an obvious charcoal pit with cobble or stone brick topped with glass? Them's are easier for the dumb blackguards to see than just a dirt pit.

I'll reiterate what @LadyWYT said about the numbers. Essentially ignore them. The only time they should be used is to get an indication of which direction is a better reading from other nearby readings. For instance, if you have two readings of poor, explore in the direction away from the lower numerical return. Once you get the highest descriptive reading start exploratory mining and switch to node search mode on the pro pick. Also as mentioned, if a reading is less than decent, it's better to find a different area to prospect for the ore your looking for.

Oh dear. Forgot about that one. Back to revise the story.

Mining speed can be set during world creation, which means there should be a command to change that parameter after the world is created. I do not know what such command is, there's a command handbook in game and others may respond later.

What Color is Your Battle Pajamas? Not long ago I got into dyeing cloth since I had found some cinnabar which made making and then selling reindeer herder clothes a very lucrative options. Seeing how easy some of the colored dyes were to make made that old white set of gambeson battle pajamas seem rather... well.... boring. And kinda dingy after running around all over creation in them. But I had my brand new spiffy steel chain mail so the gambeson had been tossed long ago. But in my next world I'd have colored Battle Pajamas gosh dernit! So I's kicks off a 1.21 world and after moving out of my clay hobbit hole into my spiffy new cobble and dirt starter home I was able to get on the cheap, I start looking at color options. Let's see... cranberries? Hmmm.. those make... PiNk? Gawds NO! I ain't no girlie seraph! Onions make yellow? interesting, but I don't want to look like I pee my pants at the drop of a hat! Might as well wear the pink ones. Oak logs maaaake.. brown? Crap! That's worse than yellow! Woad makes blue... Alrighty! Blue it is! At least it isn't baby blue.

Great! Just great. That reminds me of another silly thing to write up into a story. Thankyouverymuch!

That's not something that can be easily toggled on or off. I love the new bushes, but they do take some getting accustomed to to see them. In my first world I couldn't find a berry bush to save my life. Found a few mushrooms, enough to get me through half of the first day, but by morning I had started taking starving damage.

Do bloomeries still handle only a small amount of flint? I think the one time I tried it the bloomery maxed at like 12 or 18 flint.

Yeah. Almost a stack of charcoal for a stack of flint after the flint is at about 650 and logs aren't heating it any closer to the 800 burn temp for logs. That needs to be toned down.

Anyone else notice it takes a crapton of fuel to calcinate flint? I think I burned 3 stacks of peat just to get a stack of flint close to 900. Charcoal didn't seem to speed the process any either. Or was I spoiled by the Better Firepits mod?

Johnny Come-Lately to the convo with a comment from left field... "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of the human mind. Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." - Frank Herbert Dune 1965

Speed run to steel?

Best to report bugs on the VS Github.

Yes. Sometime in the past Tyron has stated firearms of any kind will not be in the base game.

Do you mean this one? Humorous Stories

The berry bush re-work has been something commented on / wished for as far back as 1.15/1.16 (about 4 years ago)