Thorfinn

Someone said in a thread once the official answer was something like 0.6C per block, but I'm finding it's usually about half that, more or less. I think it might vary by location. For a given size stack of ladders, I'm not getting a constant delta T. But I think it's close enough to right that if you climb a ladder around noon and check "C" (or install something like HudClock) you can find out what height you need to be around there to avoid stunted crops. Then just look around for something about that height. Better yet, look at the coldest temperature at around midnight, and make sure you are planting somewhere sufficiently above the minimum temperature. Turnips being a little chilly is better than being too hot. Rye is another one that is just a royal pain for being stunted. No, vanilla. You want to avoid mods if you want high counts. Certainly anything affecting mapgen. Though I love things like Wildcraft Trees, it obscures your sight too much to see crops well. Even things that do not affect mapgen slow things down just enough that I'm sometimes seeing flax suddenly "appear" while I'm looking off into the midrange distance. My best ever was 126 seeds on day 1. I was really hoping to end up with needing 3 stacks for flax seeds, but alas...

Yes, you can start them from flat ground. That's how I usually start them. But I only use them for recon. Spotting flax, bears, and the best route to passable terrain, stuff like that. They are useless for escaping from bears, for example. Oh, and it's a bit weird,. but you are best off placing all your ladder sections at once, or at least above you while you climb. There's a bug of some sort where if you resume building and maybe you are too close, you will start taking damage and won't be able to do anything about it, and your death will be reported as "pancaked". I haven't figured out exactly what conditions are. It's happened a couple times to me, but since I play permadeath, I don't care to investigate too closely.

Ladders are day 1. A stack of a dozen is plenty to give you a day 1 scouting nerdpole. Amazing at how much difference that little of a distance makes in finding flax. I used to get through the first month or two with a short stack of 25 or so, but I've rearranged how I do things of late so I build to a stack of 63 in night 1. It gives me a better shot at seeing which direction would be most fruitful to explore. The increase in upheaval makes it a bit more important to get extended scouting going. I'll give it a shot again. Maybe a stack of bales is a better use of time than a stack of ladders. @Echoweaver was obviously using them to get out of the reach of predators, so I agree hay would be better than ladders if you can spare both the inventory space and the time to gather that much grass.

Yeah, you definitely want to get turnips in early and late, never in the middle. Though check your temperature noon or so of the first day. You may not even be able to plant turnips early enough the first year unless you head north or turn your upheaval back up so you can find a plateau to do some highland planting that first year. With highland gardening, you might even be able to grow through the heat of the summer. I've even seen flax burn in the late summer in the valley, probably not 2500 south of spawn. Usually it does fine if you get it planted in the first half of May or so. Do crops automatically adjust growth times for longer months? Another possibility is that Vinter Nacht did a good job of balancing Fields of Gold for use with Golden Combs, though he said in that thread he did not intend for you to be able to get all frames of a Langstroth placed in the first year. My best was just short of 5 full, but that was by foregoing every use of linen but sacks. I believe I planted 62 flax on day 2, and another 50-some on day 4. Man, isn't that the truth! When I have to play on my laptop (17", I think) I only do about a quarter, maybe a third as well as playing on my home system. This is the first game I've ever played where the screen size made this dramatic of a difference.

I'm guessing @Streetwind is figuring out whether to add something about it, or to change his OP a bit. Doesn't matter to me which way he chooses to do. Or even if he does. But I suppose you could offer him a cookie. Oh, and another cool feature that would be handy is a switch to --addMacros that lets you specify where your macro files are.

Oh, nice. Might have to start doing that. I was just so underwhelmed with the glider that I haven't bothered to do much with it. But I can see that once set up, a network of stations would work well. Why not just use ladders, though? You have ladders running up the side of those towers anyway, right? Or is there some way of climbing them I don't know about?

What an awesome way to boost your "Solution" stats!

? Ladders are even faster.

Yeah, it's really cool because by copying whichever link, then editing the --dataPath switch, you can segregate your games, too. For example, the active games I'm playing with my daughter and son are accessed by clicking on the "<daughterName> 118" and "<sonName> 118" shortcuts on the desktop, e.g., E:\games\vs\vs118\vintagestory.exe --dataPath e:\games\vs\vs118\daughterGames --addModPath E:\dl\vs\118 [EDIT] Oh, and did I mention it would be great if there were an --addMacros switch? [/EDIT]

Oh, hey, another possibility. More of a work-around, I guess. Apache's Accessibility Tweaks lets you adjust the volume of individual sound effects. I'm guessing you can turn the drifter sound effects down (maybe off?) when you are in your house, and turn the sounds back on when you head out and need to hear them. And, yeah, if your base is in an unstable location, bad juju. On Low rift nights, you can pretty easily get clay and peat, as long as you didn't lose the lottery and get a rift right on top of the deposit. I even did pretty well on a medium rift night, though I ran between 4 different reasonably close deposits. BTW, best way I know of to mark your deposits (or even your path) is using a single fence post and put a firepit on top. (The post is just to get it up out of the grass. That and it's cheaper than dirt, literally. A stick and a log gets you 6 posts. Add a single piece of dry grass, and Bob's your uncle.) It has a low glow (3, I think) even when it's not burning so it's really obvious in the full dark. If you leave some firewood nearby, you can light up the area quite well, and you might as well take the opportunity to fire some torches. You are going to need them anyway.

I guess I never really paid attention. Do drifters spawn on Calm nights? I thought they started on Low. Then again, I've never really figured out the timing of the rift activity changes. Just that, "Huh. I could have sworn when I checked earlier this evening it said 'Low'. It's 'Medium' now." Now granted, if you accidentally built on top of caverns, you will hear the buggers all the time. I don't know there's anything you can do about that but move. Or maybe that gizmo that was mentioned above. Don't know. Never built it.

I believe you are right. Not sure, because its possible they spawned on close to a tree or something, but I've seen them far from Forest Floor.

I don't mind even high rift activity nights, depending on what needs done. Sticking, for example, is fine because you don't need to stay in any one spot for very long. If you shut off music, and stay away from rifts, and relocate every time you hear a stone being thrown, or a drifter moan, you can collect several stacks of sticks in one night with very low risk. But even medium is too much to collect clay or peat. Apocalyptic is another matter entirely. That's a good time to hole up and knap a gazillion axe heads to split all the firewood to make the charcoal that you will need for steel. There is a really easy way to deal with the spawning issue if it bothers you, though. Rifts form on the surface...

That's really easy to do with command line switches. @Streetwind has a thread on it in the Guides section. For example, I just download all my mods into the same folder, at the moment, it's E:\dl\vs\118 Then for playing with all mods, just add the switch to the end of the "Target" field. --addModPath E:\dl\vs\118 So I have two links for each version I have installed, Vanilla and Modded. The "Target" field in "Vanilla 1.18" is E:\games\vs\vs118\vintagestory.exe --dataPath e:\games\vs\vs118\mygames and for "Modded 1.18" is E:\games\vs\vs118\vintagestory.exe --dataPath e:\games\vs\vs118\mygames --addModPath E:\dl\vs\118 But I do agree it would be nice to be able to save a modlist. My daughter likes a more relaxed game, so we play with Wildcraft, so food is never an issue, and with all those decoration animal mods, while my son prefers more hardcore, so we skip the mods that add food and add the dangerous animals. OK, technically dangerous animals are food mods, but they are berry bushes that hunt you down and kill you. It would also be nice if it automatically unclicked all the older versions of mods by default. Oh, and it would be really sweet if there an --addMacro switch so I don't have to manually copy my macros from install to install, and make sure when I update one I update the rest.

Sure. But remember you have to balance risk and reward or there's no point in even going near the ocean. Looking at how low-key ruins are, as in if you loot enough ore vessels, you MIGHT be able to find enough tin to more or less skip the copper age, but very unlikely. The loot it would take to make me tangle with Leviathan -- don't know that it exists. Maybe a device that let you choose which translocator you want to be sent to? Might be worth it, but in practice, it would mean you need to bring at least temporal gears with you in order to get back home. Though I don't find translocators worth the hassle in the first place. Love the idea. Just not sure it's a good fit for the game.

Wish you luck, then, @dakko. I've only started a 4 games in 1.18.6-rc1 and I'm not seeing much difference. However, I did change stuff around this last start (a couple hours ago) and went heavy on sticks so I could get a full stack of ladders on day 1 so I could see the same perspective as @brndd . Yeah, there are quite a few areas that look kind of like what was posted. I just never noticed, as I either avoided it entirely or ran through the valleys looking for a region more traversable. It occurs to me map is not your friend. I wanted to go check out a ruin that I probably would never have seen, and the only way there was through that mess of a terrain. When I shut off minimap, it was not much problem because I went where the terrain dictated, not trying to get anywhere in particular. @1Joachim1 if I can make a suggestion? I had forgotten how much easier this game is with StepUp installed. Highly recommended for anyone but the most die-hard vanilla player. When I did a clean install of 1.17, (or maybe it was 1.16), I forgot to add it to the mods folder.

@Rufkut as I look at the sails whist standing next to the rotor, they are cambered, aren't they? Or is that my old eyes playing tricks on me? @Cosmic Hermit interesting! That's probably why the angle of attack changes as it reaches the end of the blade in a modern wind turbine? It must change, or the wind speed is not sufficient to provide lift at the tips? Also, if it's a function of area, why not make the blades a bit wider? Obviously it is not optimal, but why? (If this is too OT, someone say so. I just find it fascinating.) @PhotriusPyrelus isn't the wind direction always the same? I use cloud motion to orient myself and that appears to be constant worldwide, independent of seed, even. Or are you talking in a future release where both wind speed and wind direction vary?

The Rust World breaking through is supposed to be the point, and drifters avoid the light (no big secret there) so darkness spawning drifters makes sense, particularly with the kind of darkness that is VS. It's darker than a moonless night. In the real world, if you are out in the middle of nowhere, if you have a cloudless, moonless night, you can see the shadow cast from the light of the Milky Way. VS is darker than that. I've never investigated the spawning mechanics themselves -- having that knowledge seems cheaty to me, at least until I want to change the game experience, which kind of has to wait until the game is in it's more or less final state. Instead of static (or even semi-static) spawn blocks, including the cavern mechanism described above, my preference would be for the game to pick some arbitrary air block outside some range of any PC. If there is currently game within an arbitrary range of that block, then the spawn is likely predator. If there are berries in range, likely a trash panda. If a certain density of tall grass, and no livestock, likely them. Etc.Obviously, your homestead as we currently build them would favor spawning bunnies, coons and predators who are seeking your crops, berries and livestock, respectively. If you want the area around your homestead to be predator-free, easy enough. Grow no crops or berries, keep no stock, and remove all the grass or keep it closely cropped. If you so much as let the grass regrow, you will spawn rabbits who will draw predators. But that's why there is very little wildlife in cities. Keep your garden and livestock out at your country estate.

Warming shelters. If you have enough of those spread around, you don't need winter clothes. If you remember to put ladders on the third block up, they are also very convenient for getting on top of, out of the reach of bears. And though it doesn't really apply if you play with map, packed earth makes great breadcrumbs. [EDIT] Though I do have to admit my playstyle does not generate thousands of dirt blocks. I'm always having to grab a shovel to get a few to work with. [/EDIT]

Fair enough. When the fruit trees first came out, I thought I would give them a fair chance, so every one I saw I would trim all the branches and plant them in the general vicinity, figuring there would be all these Johnny Appleseed mini-groves throughout the world. I envisioned it that they would be the fall and early winter equivalent of berry bushes. Turns out that's not the case. Either they do not fruit at all the first year, or I just never happened across one in fruiting season. They do "take", though IME, probably not 40% of them. Offhand, it seems closer to 1/4 or less. My mini-groves are most often 1 or 2 live trees amongst 3 or 4 dead sticks. But it's not that they die off that bothers me so much as knowing that I'll be off in a new world long before they bear fruit, so to me, they are a complete waste of time and durability. One of my first night priorities is a stack of ladders to use as a nerdpole because when you are done, just take out the bottom ladder and you get them all back. From about 20 in the air, fruit trees stick out like a sore thumb. Not that I'm using them to find the trees anymore, but you can't not notice them. But that's the best way I've found of spotting copper and especially flax in the first few days. And affixing a block or three of packed earth to the top of the ladder leaves a nice trail of very obvious breadcrumbs. Useful for those of us not using maps.

The method is too cumbersome for me to bother with. The success rate doesn't sound too bad if you just went with artificial selection, something you could realistically do at any tech level. On a typical 200 plot garden, 0.01% would mean you'd have about a 2% chance of an improved crop with each and every planting. Giving a full 1% would be about 86% chance per planting of getting at least one mutant. 0.1% would be about an 18% chance, which still seems high. I think you would want to tone down the bonus a bit if you made mutations that common. Particularly if you allowed plants within a few tiles of the improved seed to at least potentially cross-pollinate and become hybrids. Just spit-balling here, but how about the same model that water uses -- tiles adjacent to the mutant have 75% chance of becoming hybrid, tiles 1 space away have 50%, tiles 2 spaces away, 25%?

I ran into one of these the other day playing Wilderness. Just the one so far. But then again, unless I spawn in the middle of that, I would never know the extent. I would just look at it and head in some other direction. Now there have been several worlds that may well look like that, but all I do is run through the valleys looking for resources and suitable terrain. Starting from either of the entry points on the bottom of the screen, I think you can probably go past that lake then head NE through that valley. Not familiar with the perspective because I don't nerdpole that high, and climbing a mountain that high would be pointless, but it looks to me as if you can weave your way through there. But I certainly appreciate @1Joachim1s point that it is decidedly n00b unfriendly.

Or are useful at least part of the time, under certain boundary conditions. A fellow traveler! We had that range in May. Wiped out the apple and crabapple blossoms, but the cherries were late enough that they look to be OK. Nice idea. Seems like it would be a nightmare, though. After a couple game months go by, how many fruit trees are in the 10-20k block radius that you've generated? Tens of thousands at a guess. Each of which now needs to have weather generated to see whether or not it is stunted, and to what degree. A garden with a few hundred crops is not a big deal. It mostly has the same weather. I think I would prefer a more "realistic" form of doing cuttings, using the leatherworking mechanic and loosely based on how nurseries actually do that. (Though it does not work with all fruiting trees.) Place some arbitrary number of soil blocks into a barrel full of water to leech out the fertilizer, the better quality soil, the better the fertilizer, reflected in an improved chance of cutting survival. Transfer the liquid to a bucket. Place cuttings in the bucket to let them root. Transplant into planters to let them develop a root ball. Transplant into the wild.

Used to happen with, I don't remember, Culinary Artillery, maybe? Looks like you have flowerpots, vials, bottles, etc., so that's plausible. I don't recall what fixed it. Clearing the config, I think. One of the extra molds mods did it, too, but I'm not sure that's been updated in a long time, so that's probably not it.

I could see this for seeds, but unless you crank hunger and spoilage way down, what's the point of collecting something that's just going to rot before you get around to eating it? Yes, the variety is interesting and all but is there some other purpose you have in mind? Particularly in the early game, I'm always sprinting so that I'm always eating so that I'm always increasing my HP. The only time I can think of where a botanical bag might be useful to me is after my vegetable bar is full and I want to start long-term storage. At which point I've got storage vessels in whatever I'm calling home then anyway. Though it may seem sub-optimal, I think probably the most efficient use of early food is munching on the short stacks (usually vegetables and grains) until you max out those bars, and if need be, let the berries rot. Rot stacks, which you are not going to get from veggies or grain anytime soon. And if you need the space, cache the rot in a firepit or just toss it. You need barrels before it's useful anyway. Which you might even find on a trader's wagon...