Zaph42nd

Sticking with the same world but moving north or south by a couple thousand blocks is a fun diversion, temperature differences means your base has to adjust especially in arctic conditions (greenhouse matters a lot more). As for other ideas, I'd suggest looking into building up infrastructure (roads, canals, markers, etc...) and maybe think about dappling in automation, usually those are good late-game tasks since material costs get exponentially higher with time. As far as my goals in longer-worlds, I've actually started looking into making steel tools for every tool-type which means even niche tools (though this is something I've only done on one world so far) since the steel-making process takes substantial time and resources. Far as mods go, rivers is nice but works best on new worlds, I'd recommend also getting a mod like shipwright which expands boat-options since the default boat works best on oceans (which do spawn very rarely in normal worlds, albeit they aren't as wide or vast as you can achieve in modded world-gen) or large-lakes

Not sure on bones for repair but agree bear-hide armor is a bit weak as it stands since the cost to get it is pretty high, hides and pelts are good for repair since they are semi-common compared to bear-skins but I digress. Armor rework may fix this, at least assuming bear-hide armor takes the role of either an under-garment or over-garment to existing armor (this makes it more valuable for getting extra warmth from armor that may otherwise not be a great fit for winter or simply add additional buffs for getting an already somewhat difficult armor-set).

Definitely agree on both points, I wish we could also adjust spawn-rates in world-settings by default, currently the passive/aggressive/off just doesn't really feel right, would be good to just be able to set light-level limits for rust-monsters (possibly a sub-setting on temporal or story-content?). Chase-radius reductions would be good for bears/wolves, I've always felt that chases were way too long and territorial behaviors weren't well expressed... Namely I feel like bears/wolves and other territorial creatures should have a capped distance from their spawn where they chase the player (in essence creating a territorial space which you can either plan to sneak around or fight for) but suspect that'd be somewhat difficult to implement. Far as deeds go, the idea is neat but I wonder if perhaps could utilize Jonas-tech to prevent hostile spawns rather than deeds or trader-interactions. Maybe as a reward for story-content to incentivize exploring the story further? It'd also fit nicely with the other Jonas-tech in game already (translocators) which behave akin to admin/server-owner commands. In the interim, land-claim systems could be expanded further to also include spawn behavior reductions. Far as passive-settings, I'm not against the current approach but it does feel a little bit odd especially for mobs that normally behave hostile, but then again I rarely play with passive mobs enabled since it feels like it detracts from some of the survival challenges the game presents

Have noticed the other change is being able to utilize Game-Mode (Sonoma feature) automatically which allows CPU/GPU prioritization, although I'm not sure if that really brings much performance or stability changes. I have also noticed fewer issues with resolution scaling and window management too. But Vintage Story I've always had some performance hiccups on my Mac, nothing game-breaking aside from minor stuttering every couple of hours (which I suspect has to do with rendering or chunk-loading), mods definitely seem to have the greatest negative impact to my performance in game though irregardless of ARM64 build.

For snow shovels I've mainly used them for cosmetics rather than actual utility since rarely do you need snow-blocks and if you already invested in a decent shovel, it'll do just as well. Still, agree with others that it's not bad for edge-cases or if you want more cosmetic-flare to either your builds (placing/propping against blocks looks very nice and making paths look a bit more used is nice I suppose). Far as buffing goes, would be good if durability was increased somewhat, although with how rarely it gets used, not sure what the ideal durability actually is

Regarding hostile mob spawns, my recommendation is to try out Low Light Spawns which allows you to configure a specific light level other than 7 for monster spawns (default for the mod is 5, I lower to 3 which means almost no surface drifters or other rust monsters). For bears, wolves, and other animals, I believe there are probably some mods to make them not attack unless provoked (e.g. you attack first) but not sure on exacts (in-game you can only set aggressive, passive, off for behaviors but I've never tweaked these). So to answer the question, mods help you tweak settings further as do some other edits to spawning behaviors, the game feels a lot more enjoyable to me with rust monsters requiring very low-light conditions (e.g. those found in caves or story structures) and disabling temporal storms (this can be done easily in settings upon world creation) but ymmv depending on how difficult or easy you want the game. As for default options (no mods), I suggest playing around with world-settings from one of the presets as it allows fine-control over a lot of (but not all) mechanics

Probably almost never since it's still a world-goal? Poll probably needs to be adjusted a little

Curious about y'all but rarely find myself motivated to go beyond meteoric iron tools in most saves (aside from my long-term saves) which makes me wonder, how often do you make steel-tools? And what tools do you get to the steel-age? I usually only upgrade my pickaxe, axe, and chisel to steel, rarely if ever any other tools or armor (armor especially unlikely with the high material and time costs)

Pies are pretty good overall, as far as meal transit, elks can carry cooking pots so transporting meals can be done (sort of), albeit pies are usually a bit more convenient than making meals (meals are, however, good for longer storage in theory with crock sealing and cellars). Specifically for crocks, I prepare meals and seal them away for winter or just as a forget-it and return food source since meals can cover all the food-groups easily (and cellars + sealing can mean food that lasts greater than an in-game year) which is nice for winter if you don't plan to migrate south (or prefer more northern areas for bases)

Fair far as hit-boxes and detection goes, I've noticed that too and it's especially an issue with swarming-type enemies (locusts), feels like something where sweeping-type hits may be better although I'm not sure how that'd get implemented. Damage increases more so would be supplemental, although I'm more favorable to damage-increases/scaling with tool-grade (metal age) and quality (tempering, durability, etc..), therefore incentivizing blacksmithing, upgrading your weapons, and quenching/tempering (which itself feels like it doesn't really contribute much to combat) since the current system doesn't have substantial jump ups (1-2 difference doesn't feel like it incentivizes making weapons in every metal-age). Definitely agree on sound design as a major needed addition, I think adding in an extra sound cue either from enemy response to being hit or an actual swinging sound would go miles to improve combat feel, while enemies already react somewhat to being hit (slight recoil and muted hurt-sounds) it's not really much. Good points, I think active hit/block could be interesting but maybe not really suit for Vintage Story given that ranged weaponry would suffer (as in, you'd be missing out on a game system, kind of an issue with Skyrim too since "stealth-archer" is quite broken and not fun). Morrowind-style progression would be interesting but maybe a bit clunky since it'd require adding in more RPG-like systems that could feel a little out of place in the sandbox setting.... Conflicted on it but do think hit-box changes are a good start as is increasing weapon damages.

Regarding combat, one of the biggest gripes I have always had was the "weight" behind attacks, feels like animation timing and damage could be increased or adjusted to make hits feel more significant, it'd also help if enemies equally hit harder (but slower) to incentivize balancing your attack timings and blocking (you'd also need to learn how enemies attack and respond accordingly). If combat is more "weighty", I suspect it'll be a lot more satisfying to fight albeit I've always thought fighting is not the primary-solution to most of the encounters you'd have in VS (actually often times getting some distance works just as well, although some enemies and animals still chase endlessly which I feel like somewhat hurts that side of combat) so would also need some reworks to AI behaviors (e.g. losing pursuit of a fleeing player, set territorial behaviors, etc...)

Love the idea, it also reminds me that quite a few existing in-game plants and trees already have the potential to be used for alchemy or medicinal purposes, birch bark for example is known for its anti-inflammatory properties and sometimes is used for topical poultices, poppies acting as natural sedatives, etc... All of these would expand the use of trees, flowers, and non-crop plants which at the moment aside from beekeeping (and on occasion dye-making or poultices) and, for trees, a way of getting wood, serve more aesthetic purposes or very niche-use situations

While mentioned a few times, I'd like to refresh/rehash the idea of introducing and expanding simple machines to the game to assist in creating more complex contraptions, namely screws, pulleys, levers (already sort of in game), and wheel and axel systems. These could supplement the already existing rotation-based automation solutions (querns, mills, etc...) by allowing players to build rudimentary storage-transfer devices (e.g. basic elevators capable of transferring chests up/down large shafts), move water in more unique-ways (e.g. archimedes screw systems, wells, etc..), and have more options to mid to late game bases while still largely fitting in universe. While some mods exist for this purpose, I think more simple machines would also do nicely for vanilla as a way to expand and encourage automation as players advance to the Iron Age and beyond

Always thought ambient music or no music at all fits very nicely with VS, namely think dynamic soundtrack would be very nice since the more cheery default music sometimes feels a little out of place when you are being chased by bears... That said, for vocal-forward tracks, I really like more folk/neofolk music since it feels more thematically appropriate given the setting and all

Somewhat doable already by tweaking landform scale, landcover, etc... I think Rivers mod (and Watersheds) helps a lot too for giving more scope/scale to the world and justifying longer trips or building more infrastructure projects. I'd also suggest looking into reducing surface deposits in settings since it makes locating resources a bit more tedious/involved (at least till you get a prospector's pick). Otherwise agree on the need for more world-gen spacing/depth, but I suspect that will come when rivers become a vanilla feature

Def worth trying, one suggestion though is play with configs a little since by default can't grab/climb soil which is a little annoying for vanilla world-gen (very few sheer cliff-faces) (easy to fix though)

On the whole not too many plugins, mainly world-gen changes or movement changes or content that expands or enhances vanilla systems, specifically... World-gen: Rivers (classic but gives a lot more life to the world), Watersheds (gives Rivers a bit more presence/prevalence by adding sources), Continental Worlds (more realistic and fits well with Rivers), and Vistas (testing this one still, usually I play with Terra Prety but doesn't work perfectly with Rivers) Movement: Salty's Climb (more mountainous world-gen makes this a must), Salty's Catch (good for cave-ins and other accidents you may be able to save yourself from), Salty's Immersive Mining (fits nicely with a more slow and difficult early game), Salty's Manual series (reducing crafting grid is nice) Content: big fan of Shipwright (fits well with Rivers and justifies building canals and other similar infrastructure), Ancient Tools (resin and mortar/pestle allow more early-game/stone-age processing), Infantryman's Dolabra (nice multi-tool that doesn't feel too off from vanilla), Walking Sticks Lite (cuts down to just the basic walking sticks, use the og mod for more options), Slowtox (alcohol now has more utility), Cup Mod Revival (plays nicely with Slowtox's buffing mechanics), Frontier's Map (an option for mapping w/o map features, plus it's easy to pick up and use) I've tried bigger mod lists but on the whole I think the game is more than content rich for my playstyle (Homo Sapiens/Wilderness Survival) so not much to add or change....

Perhaps a parlor-room or den would be a good fit? Historically these rooms would be just past the foyer of an estate and were mainly guest-entertaining spaces or hobby-rooms, could deco with fireplace and mantle, shelves of odds and ends, etc... Optionally could omit the sitting room/parlor in favor of a more spacious foyer...

Like all these, for temporal storms would be interesting if the day before clocks were just ever so slightly off time-wise. You'd still be able to see the time via the setting/rising of the sun, but clockwork devices would be off by x number of minutes based on the intensity of the storm.

Mixed on this, on one hand I think that mods are a good "what-if" tool for exploring how vanilla mechanics could be expanded or tweaked but alone don't provide enough understanding of where gameplay/system improvements are. I'd argue you still need to play some vanilla before coming to a conclusion on the current-state of game systems. Vintage Story I think is good about this as is Minecraft, both games whose modding communities have, in some ways, shaped what vanilla is and the scope/scale of vanilla/unmodded content over the years (content changes more than vision changes), though both of which have modded gameplay varies either drastically or slightly from vanilla in fundamental ways (ways which would go against the vision/goal of the game).

Definitely like the idea, while charred breads and salted/preserved foods aren't bad as last-resort/long storage options, would be nice to have something like hardtack or pemmican fill the niche of travel-rations or foods that you produce starting mid-game for long-term storage. Perhaps these could come with a trade off of low-saturation/satiation in exchange for longevity and mass-production potential? Regarding fruits and nuts for travel foods, I think it'd be interesting if fruit-leathers were also added since pulp/mash is already a byproduct of fruit-pressing and a key ingredient to making fruit-leathers...

Feels more fit for a mod given the setting of the game, I suppose electricity could work within the game though it'd need to be restricted to 1700s technologies (early-steam age) to remain cohesive with early steam-based machinery (though, with Jonas devices, early electrical devices would also feel a bit out of place?). Closest devices in this case would be lightning rods, Leyden jars, etc... devices like motors and other similar electric devices wouldn't really fit the setting imo

Like the idea, but I think it could be somewhat messy to implement especially if dependencies have to be considered too... Far as compatibility goes, usually major versions 1.22.x, 1.21.x are not compatible with each other, service-updates and smaller updates (e.g. 1.22.1, 1.22.3, etc...) are cross-compatible unless there's some major fix that happened or a mod relies on a specific exploit or feature (that is pretty rare, however and have yet to see any mods play into game-bugs). Echoing others too, I think the issue too is reports would be either very detailed or lacking detail, plus with Github already being used for some mods (and its subsequent features being as they are), it's one extra place to keep track of bug-reports and compatibility notes, might be difficult to keep tabs on for mod-makers. As for abandoned mods, that's its own issue, I'd not be against project-management allowing you to list a mod as abandoned/no-longer receiving updates, but that'd be one extra thing for mod-makers to include so not sure if it's worthwhile (though, I've never developed plugins or mods so can't speak for that experience, user experience filtering by major versions already gives a fair indication of compatibility in my opinion)

Will say for me it's been fleshing out my infrastructure (decorate roads, change my dirt-paths to stone-paths, expand main-roads, etc...) and adding more details to my builds (chiseling is addictive), though I know some people prefer grand-builds for late-game

Good to see native Apple Silicon support now on the table, seems to slightly improve stability on my system but still encountering issues with code-signing on the app itself. To other Mac users, if you get the "damaged app" warning, you'll need to recursively codesign/notarize via terminal, details on that are in the MacOS section of troubleshooting https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Installing_the_game_on_MacOS. Wondering though if the app-related issues mostly stem from macOS Tahoe or just limitations on how MacOS handles app packages....