Maelstrom

I started in 1.14.10 when EVERYTHING that needed baking (clay items, bread, quicklime, torches and a whole lot more) was put through the firepit. It felt like the rudimentary elements of the game were in place but the game wasn't refined yet. 1.15 gave pit kilns and clay ovens and it felt like the refinement of basic mechanics had started. Be aware the dev team is small. Like Tyron plus another part time coder small. Just a couple months ago an animator was hired, I assume to lift some of the coding off of Tyron's shoulders. There's a few others that develop story and art, but coding is pretty much a one man job. Having such a small dev team is part of what makes this game so GREAT! The vision is clear and they are steadily working on crafting their passion to it's final state (in about 25 years give or take a decade).

I would KILL for a reliable power source that does not require a year and a half of farming flax. It would be cool to have a boiler powering a steam piston connected to helve hammers for end game tech right now. Seems like that might be a logical step for 1.21. Then 1.22 implements steam powered boats before another round of de-janking in 1.23 and story elements in 1.24. But now I'm just pipe-dreaming, coz that's 2 years worth of updates.

Correct. I, too, carry a stack of flint when I enter the copper age just to make sure If my precious copper tool breaks before I have more copper to replace it with, I'll still have a tool. I usually don't craft anything but picks and hammers until I have a good supply of copper though.

Improvised armor is also a life saver. It will get destroyed with the first melee attack, but it gives you a second chance to survive a surprise encounter with a wolf, bear or other mean nasty that can one shot you early on. Plus it doesn't take up the off-hand.

Gambeson armor is a top tier EARLY game necessity. It'll allow you to easily survive hits from wolves and the lower tier drifters, opening up shallow cave diving where you will begin finding translocators. Thrown spears do more damage for the single durability it uses. Three thrown spears will take care of wolves, surface drifters and most medium sized animals (bighorn sheep, deer, etc). For temporal storms, I empty my inventory and carry 12+ spears. If you run around in a circle in a big open space (like 100 block diameter) the drifters will tend to line up in a big conga line (especially if your run around the perimeter of a building). Throw spears while performing the Monty Python Maneuver (aka running backwards away from the enemy) and you can take down double headed drifters while buck nekkid. When you run out of spears run around collecting them again. Be sure to target drifters that are about 5 blocks away; otherwise you may see your spear corkscrewing away into the distance (which is quite hilarious to watch). Additionally, you can also run through drifters without taking damage, so long as they haven't started an attack animation.

Bears became an alternative right of passage in 1.17. There's a reason why animals are more aggressive than in our world. Dig into the in-game lore to piece together the why's and wherefor's. In my current world, just after I had settled upon my temporary home (which would become my permanent home), I was running buck nekkid through the bushy neighborhood one calm rift activity night sporting nothing but my single flint spear and a couple of tools. Turned the corner around a two block tall bush and saw this amazingly carved statute. My first thought was, "I don't recall statues in the patch notes". THEN my brain understood I was looking at a brown bear standing on it's hind legs. I don't think the bear noticed me as I turned tail 90 degrees and ran, which was something coz I play blackguard and they aren't exactly the fleetest of foot. Didn't take a hit so I guess I must have had a miraculous momentary Malefactor bonus.

I might add that this "disable sleep" feature is totally unnecessary. Sleep is by default inactive unless proactively activated. On MP servers nobody bothers trying to activate the feature.

I concur with @Krougal given my 1.19 experience. Maybe this weekend I'll attempt a parallel installation of the 1.20 update.

To add some context - About a year ago Tyron estimated the game is about 10% complete. At this time late/end game does come fairly quickly and player created objectives become critical to continued playing in that world. Alternately, you can follow @Thorfinn path and start a new world for that fresh new car smell again.

Mantle level basalt spawning is dubious. It comes in patches, kinda like quartz and isn't a consistent layer just above the mantle. Plus in vanilla with cave-ins enabled digging out basalt from above causes weird block collapsing behavior. blocks disappear into the mantle leaving a void, but that happens BELOW the level of blocks you're digging at.

Needle and thread repairs 75% but the original post was written before this item existed.

The beautiful thing about starting in basalt is the higher durability tools obsidian creates.

I assume you don't play with the Primitive Survival mod (or which ever one spawns packs of crabs anywhere and everywhere)?

You should know that fertility isn't a season thing, except for snow covering it. But the mentioned mod makes that a moot problem.

The different fertility soils is most visible from the side of the block. Darker color means higher fertility. If I start in an huge expanse of low fertility soil, I'll gather my essential materials and pick a direction and run. While running I'll glance at the side of the dirt block to check it's fertility level. You shouldn't have to run more than a day, usually half a day will do. The worst I've had it was a pretty food barren world and running would consume too much satiation and it took two days at walking speed to get to a medium fertility area.

I do not know. I haven't done underground gardening. For warm climates farming in the sky with Lucy (pardon the pun) will be more productive as temperatures drop with increased elevation.

Yep. VS can be like this. I have started two worlds where spawn was in the middle of low fertility soil plains for hundreds of block radius. Pick a direction and start running. Eventually you'll run into vast expanses of medium fertility soil. Along the way you may see patches of high fert soil. Typically those patches spawn about 20 to 60 blocks of soil. I suggest marking those in the early game when inventory space is limited, that way you can come back later to gather that precious resource.

First - the pre-catastrophe world wasn't earth. BUT it would have had it's own constellations. Second - All that is needed is some brighter stars to serve as whatever constellations the devs decide to create. We players will then figure out how to use them for navigation at night. The tricky part would be procession during the year, which would make nigh time navigation a bit harder, but add an element of realism.

It's more for cold climates. Underground gardens at the right world height level can farm nearly all year round in the harshest of climates.

Weeelll... Again, welcome to VS. EVERYTHING is a resource and resource management is key to this game. When I say everything is a resource, I mean things like time, your satiation level and in this case - inventory. Carry on is a popular mod that allows you to throw a storage container on your back for additional carrying capacity. It does essentially what you're asking and only costs 24 reeds to craft a reed basket, which should be easy on day one (unless you go polar bear challenge).

Uhhh... Glad we could help?

I think TOBG suffers from a lack of vision at this point. Mojang is just changing things in response to player opinion. NEVER a good thing for a game.

Welcome to VS. Remember that the handbook is your bestest of best friends. Be sure to go through the guides if you are unfamiliar with something. Other than that, enjoy and be aware that even the dirt wants to kill you.

Biome generation is a combination of a few factors like rainfall, latitude, altitude to name a few. Rock strata is not one of those factors though. At least to my limited understanding.

According to wiki walnuts are not sold by agriculture traders. Acorns, pine, maple, redwood and kapok. But not walnut.