Maelstrom

I suspect horses or other beasts of burden would come with an update that includes taming wolves (probably pups).

Well, if you build a drifter proof wall around you and a block of water you can sift gravel/sand all night long without fear of drifter interference (other than their raucous chorus serenading you).

If all else fails you can pan for copper. Stand in a block of water, place a sand or gravel block next to you and right click on the sand/gravel while holding your wooden pan. It will take a while (good night time activity) to get the copper you need and you'll get a bunch of other stuff, so you may want a storage vessel nearby.

Hopefully the alchemy/apothecary mechanic will introduce poison (from those not so edible mushrooms) to apply to arrows.

Maybe play some single player worlds with a variety of customized settings to find something you think your friends would enjoy and restart?

That's what I was referring to. I'll be sure to specify the coding bottleneck in future calls for player patience. It would be wonderful if more coders would step up and help. If my C++ education wasn't 20+ years old I'd offer my assistance with more basic aspects to writing code. But the point is that we players need to exercise patience while the game continues to include features yet to be implemented.

Patience. The dev team consists of 2 people (to my understanding). The next update will introduce 6 new tree types, two of which are rare and require extensive exploring and 5 new crops. It's a lot of work for just 2 people.

I concur with goaliemagics. Make the game enjoyable for you. It's not cheating if you select the customization options that make the game fun. I have keep inventory on, passive monsters (wolves and drifters), higher rates of surface copper and tin and no temporal storms and loving the game (even the grind). It's my first play through while I get accustomed to the grind and intend on turning on some of those options (namely temporal storms and monster agro). The point is customize the game to suit your enjoyment level and disregard what other's might say about it.

Gotta troubleshoot. Unload all mods and add them back in no more than a few at a time to find the problem child.

I think you're including more than I intended. I meant only the visual warping effect of the temporal storm, not drifter spawning. Describing it a different way: I was thinking of a localized temporally unstable area centered on the centipede which over time introduces the visual warping effect from temporal storms which becomes more advanced as the length of time spent with the centipede increases. To my knowledge the only effect of low temporal stability is a poison effect that causes damage. I love the idea of random loss of temporal stability (both in interval length and quantity of stability loss).

Didn't say it would be useful. Provided my thoughts on how the story could be told a bit through use of existing game mechanics. They're suggestions and the devs can do with this as they wish. I'd be surprised if centipedes in any form discussed hear would make it into the final release. I don't like game design where something provides a huge benefit without some kind of drawback to balance out the benefits gained.

More info needed to help. Did barrels disappear from your inventory, during placement in world, or after being placed in world?

Taming wolves has been mentioned elsewhere. Currently one of the traders will buy a wolf pup (which cannot be obtained currently) indicated devs intend on making animals tamable. Sheep/goats can be domesticated which is better than taming. I believe that chickens and pigs will also become domesticated. Check the handbook for more on domestication. I look forward to dogs and beasts of burden that can be ridden and increase inventory capacity for travelling. Patience, I'm sure it'll come as the devs continue to flesh out their game. Remember this is early release (not even feature complete yet).

How about using the visual effects from temporal storms in increasing amounts as time is spent building/riding/maintaining centipedes? Additionally, maybe only temporal gears can be used to remove the temporal imbalance caused by same activities and further exacerbated by temporally instable areas. I imagine one could start with 100% temporal stability, ride a centipede into a deep cave with quickly declining temporal stability and have to abandon the trip within a 60 seconds due to low temporal stability level.

I want stone wall/fence options. Vertical slabs just don't do it for me.

Too much variety can induce analysis paralysis, unfortunately.

It wouldn't be hard to balance iron/steel spears. Higher damage than arrows is balanced by limited inventory space for ranged combat. Lower melee damage is balanced by longer reach than long blades. Do we even need to mention attack speed as another pathway to balancing the meta? Spears could be a niche for players that want a ranged weapon but don't want to bother breeding/hunting chickens. If there's a protein option for vegans then why not a ranged weapon option for vegans as well? I wouldn't look forward to tackling locusts or drifters without a ranged weapon. Historically spears were used until the musket, thousands of years after bows were developed.

The devs have a roadmap that indicates there's a lot left to be added. A poll for the 1.15 update indicated more specifics (like the first major story event) that will be added as the devs can implement them. I understand the dev team is just 2 people, so patience will help.

The beehive has to swarm before the skep can begin to be populated. I believe the tool tips will show how long until the hive swarms.

Querns have inventory slots so it should be possible... Right?

What do you mean I can't use my quern to empty my press of its liquid!? =D

Already knew about that one. Have a nugget on the ground <25 blocks from my homestead taunting me while I search for material to make bronze. Gonna be some time before I can dig out that beautiful silvery metal.

Assuming you have a pick and are mining for ore, rock blocks you mine drop loose stones and should provide all the loose stone you need. The only problem is if you want to craft a specific type of cobble.

Is ore randomly generated regardless of the rock type, or does the type of rock (igneous, sedimentary, etc.) have an impact on the type of ore that generates within it?

To my knowledge loose stones do not respawn. Sounds like they are a desired resource. What do you use loose stones for?