Bz131

Thank you again for all the help! I think with all these tips I am well equipped to cross over to bronze age and I think I will stick to Malefactor for now although knowing I have the option to swap classes with some commands is awesome. Just to comment on the 2 pieces quoted above: Good to know on caving, although since I'm quite bad at combat I think I'll just stay away for the most part until I am a little better equipped. For tin, that is good to know it isn't super rare when mining/prospecting correctly. It seemed like such a low percentage ore even at "high"/"ultra high" readings that I didn't think mining downwards would be very effective which is why I was so set on cave-diving but I'll give the recommended mining method a try and maybe report back on my successes/failures for posterity for any other newbies stuck in a similar situation. I'll also consider some trading since I do have a commodities trader relatively nearby. That honestly might be the easiest choice since all my head-banging against the caves has left me with a few gears laying around to spend since I had found a few stashes when wandering around and checking out cave entrances.

Fair point! I think step-by-step guides can be a bit too much information whereas a forum post would get some tailored advice for where I am in the playthrough without getting too far ahead or too far behind of where I am. For 1. I did mangage to survive my first winter and don't foresee any issues in the future as I now have a big greenhouse that I am slowly filling with crops. My cellars are pretty full and I have some animals I am slowly breeding for animal husbandry 2. Definitely hit the flax bottleneck a little while ago haha but now I have it growing in (relative) abundance in the greenhouse 3. This is where I am stuck, couldn't cross from copper age to bronze age since I was apparently mining incorrectly. Got some helpful tips above that should help me make push through to true bronze age I appreciate the tips though, very helpful!

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated. Not 100% how to format this better but to go down the list of clarifications/further questions: 1. Can I swap classes (make a new character, presumably) and play on the same world? I can't help but be a bit attached as I have some boars, chickens, and bighorn sheep in pens and was working on animal husbandry. The lower health is definitely a struggle though so perhaps I will swap and start a new world. The only thing I don't love is making arrows but I suppose I can just make them out of copper to avoid having to do too much arrow knapping. 2. I think this is the key that I am missing. If caves are prohibitively dangerous until better equipped I will simply avoid them until later. I had somewhat suspected this was the issue but am a bit sad to hear I was correct. Not to get too into the weeds but I do think this is a bit of an odd design choice but I can respect the vision of the developers, I suppose. Thank you for the tips on mining, I'll give it a try and see if my high readings lead me to some successful tin gathering. 3. This makes sense and I had anecdotally noticed more spawns on high rift activity days. Good to know I wasn't hallucinating. 4. On this, if I had opted instead of making a full set of tin bronze chainmail (I am wearing head, chest, and legs) to make a bronze anvil in that case could I have "skipped" up to iron without spending much time on tin/bronze age? Just curious, the ship has sailed as I don't think I have enough tin left from that lucky early node to make an anvil now but I definitely had the option early on, considered it and opted for the armor assuming it would pay dividends to be equipped well enough to mine my own tin. In hindsight, perhaps not the optimal choice as if VS is anything like the real world the difficulty with iron should (broadly speaking) be forging it rather than finding it.

Joining the forums as one of many new players looking for some tips on progression without getting too spoilery hopefully. Also can't help but complain a bit, as is tradition. I like to mostly discover things myself so haven't really looked at any guides (other than the in-game one) or anything beyond some mild wiki use just to understand a few mechanics a bit better. Survival has been...maybe not a breeze but very doable with my playstyle, since I always like farming in videogames I had (almost) enough food to make it through my first winter and was able to scrounge and feed my chickens enough to survive pretty well even though the tail end was a bit lean. I'm playing on whatever the default settings are and am the Malefactor since having easy access to ranged weaponry was attractive to me. Particularly the current "step up" I am on in technolgy has me scratching my head a bit to move from copper to the bronze age. What I, as a new player, am going through is waves of frustration dealing with the combat. It is punishing, it is opaque, it seems downright discouraged without digging holes and trapping enemies where they can't fight back. Wolves and bears annoyed me a ton in the early game (and still do tbh) do but I've learned the lesson that you can't fight them early game basically at all without a plan (and a convenient pit nearby, ideally). I'm wearing tin bronze chainmail (found some extremely lucky tin early on) and have a nearby cave system after lengthy prospecting that should have lots of tin in it (ultra high or high quantity in the area). Here is my issue: I feel like I can't push forward into these caves without facing tier 3 and 4 shivers, drifters, and bowtorn who kill me in 2-5 hits. This seems crazy to me, am I supposed to just strip mine without going into caves? Am I supposed to be fighting creatures that can kill me that quickly? That seems...ill-advised after my experience with wolves and bears. How am I supposed to get tin then since it is such a low quantity ore in general? Should I not bother with mining and just buy tin from a trader? I tend to shy away from "trading" strategies in most games since I find it more rewarding to mine it up myself but these caves feels like an insurmountable wall to me after feeling like I did a decent (albeit lengthy) learning process in the copper age. What am I missing here that will let me cross into the bronze age in earnest rather than being stuck in the copper age where I it feels like I can't truly fight anything other than goats? Should I have skipped bronze entirely and just made an anvil and try to mine/prospect for iron instead? Have I stumbled on an area/cave I shouldn't be in at all if tier 4 creatures are spawning? Any tips would be welcome even if they are as simple as "Yes, trade" or "Yes, don't go in that cave if tier 4 enemies are spawing" to help me progress further and maybe try a taste of the story content.