Thorfinn

Depends on what you mean by a small rate. In the games I play, there aren't all that many. There are probably 4-5 wolf packs for every group of domesticable animals. Even rabbits and coons seem way down. In fact, I'm not sure I've run into any berries dropped by coons, and that used to happen all the time. I wouldn't swear I've seen any chickens at all in the latest version. Nor have I come across many (any?) animals killed, other than by apparent landslides and falls. Come to think of it, in my current single player world (near the end of June at the moment), I think I've only encountered a couple bears, maybe a dozen wolves, 3-4 pigs, a few foxes, probably 200 drifters, and a handful of locusts.
It seems to be much harder to get your protein bar up than in the past.
Don't know if that's just bad luck, or rebalancing spawn rates, or maybe redoing biomes?
I don't think you are doing anything wrong. I wonder if maybe it wasn't a reaction to all those who were complaining about the number of bears and wolves?

Spotting resources is an art. It takes some time to get good at it. I play with a guy who is awesome at it. Puts me to shame.
Elevation helps a lot. Even 10 tiles above the ground is enough to see over all the high grass, 15 is better, 25 is about the limit of what I find useful for spotting copper. It gives you useful eyes on pretty much everything within 25-30 blocks, so some 3k blocks. Anything much further than that you can't really distinguish rock from copper (or at least I can't) unless in basalt. 35-64 or more is great for getting overall lay of the land, as well as spotting every clay and peat deposit, most crops, all berries, more or less all critters, all ruins, all traders, probably 1/3 of the resin that isn't obscured by needles, most of the TP/HFS, etc. Nerdpoles work, ladders work better. To get good at what things look like from that perspective, use Spear and Fang's Zoom Button, but before long you will find you don't need it anymore. In single-player, you can even open the handbook, slide it out of the way, and pause your game while you develop the skill of taking it all in at a glance.

Stability is randomly determined at mapgen. No reason other than RNG.
I've just come to accept that anywhere I'd like to live IRL is probably bad for stability.

There's not really a rollback that I know of. If you saved a copy of your world, you can create a parallel 18.15 install 
and copy your backup over to that install.
If you don't have a pre 19 save, good luck. I've never had luck with that.
[EDIT]
Oh, missed the other part of the question.
Click on the "Client Area" at the top of this page, and look for "(Show all available downloads and mirrors of Vintage Story)"
[/EDIT]

No. When you "Use" the map, it will tell you how far away the archives are. You triangulate from there.

I don't think so? Missile accuracy definitely leaves something to be desired, though, especially if you chose a class that gets a penalty.
Don't worry about wasting arrows. You are going to miss a lot no matter what you do. I finally gave up using bows entirely. I don't know if it's that spears have a little better accuracy, or it just doesn't take as many hits to bring something down, or that they are easier to find after use, or what, but I just have a lot better luck with spears.

I'd have to look but I think that's the message you (used to) get when you are actually inside the ladder. Which it looks like you might be. Usually happens when you place a ladder into an air block you currently occupy. Try backing away from the ladder as far as you can and see if it stops. You might even have to knock out a couple blocks on the side opposite the ladder to get sufficiently clear. IIRC, you can also remove the ladder sections you are on, back away from the ladder, then descend a few blocks and replace the ladder where your character is not.
[EDIT]
To clarify, I think it happens when you are standing too close to the wall the ladder is on and use the feature of ladders automatically adding to the tops/bottoms of existing ladders. Those ladder sections don't seem to get the same kind of collision checks.
[/EDIT]

Despite what your common sense says, rye grain is just for eating, preferably after being cooked, as it has little nutrition as is.
Rye seeds are in a packet, like other seeds you might find. Those are suitable for planting.
Look up "rye" in the handbook, and you will see the distinction.

I've never used it, though a few of the guys at my work swear by BedRespawnner. It does as you would expect -- whenever you sleep, it resets your spawn to that spot. Won't help wrt starving, but at least you don't have to run home to... whatever it is you are running home to.

As I understand it, macros currently support only keyboard commands. So placing a firepit, no, not that I know of. But you could, for example, have a key that set a waypoint to where you are standing and teleport home. A second hotkey could return you to your "town portal" location. You could set up a "panic" that issues
/gm 2
somewhere convenient enough you might be able to hit it in the middle of a lethal fall, or with a bear in your grill.
No, I don't use anything like that, but I could certainly see it a useful thing to do.
But, yes, map markers are a great use of macros, assuming you are using map. When I do, I use Alt-A/S/D to mark peat, clay and fireclay respectively, using 
/waypoint addati gear ~0 ~0 ~0 true red Peat
etc. I just find it easier to remove the pinned attribute than to scan the map until you find the one you want and click on Pinned. Certainly copper deposits get pinned. Quartz, no. Bees, yes. Something, no, Something!!!!, yes. Hostile Wildlife, no. Domestic Wildlife, no. Etc.

Kind of depends on what you want to do. Is this just something for nighttime rift activity or temporal storms. The two have quite different rules. 
 
1. Yes
3. Rift or storm? I think the storms are scripted, in that if you kill them or they run off, they don't respawn until the next wave. Rifts, like @Maelstrom  I think there is some kind of a cap, but it does not appear to be a hard cap. It is more consistent with a reduced percent chance of spawn based on number of drifters currently in range of that rift.
If you are using it for something other than storms, you definitely want to base it in or near caverns that are easy walk-ups to the surface so you can get the "better" drifters. Pathing is not great, so a wide-open cave is better than a windy winding passage.
You can use falling damage to help take out drifters, but you probably don't want to go nuts, either. By the time you are deep enough for a fall to kill a tainted drifter, you will be losing stability fast enough that you need those kills. Back when I did this kind of thing, I'd find a vertical cave and place myself at or near the bottom, maybe 20 or so deep, probably less, I don't remember. You are too deep if they go splat. Most drifters would be just one or two spear stabs from dead, and you get back all that sweet, sweet stability.

Look in Guides subforum. @Streetwindhas an excellent explanation of how to do it.

There's a page on the wiki under Multiplayer. Check out VS Team's server service. On that page is also a link to a little more info on setting up your own if you wish,

That turns it on as well.