Kulze

I'm argumenting with you and not with Anego though. That's the core difference. Also deflection is not a viable argumentation method. On top your try of locking in your argumentation partner on finalized terms like 'must' don't help along your point. Trying to harden the stance of your argumentation opposition is also not a viable argumentation method. We're not having a debate, we're having an argument. This is especially the case since you don't seem to understand the point I want to make, which can be through bad explanations from my side (very likely) or simply taking in the information in a way which diverges from what is supposed to be said (also very likely). Whichever it is, reset your stance for a moment. I'll write the specific thing I'm talking about out again in shortform. The one things I say is an issue is 'When I log in I don't have food available right that moment to continue exactly where I left off, without diversion'. Nothing more, nothing less. Reasonings are unimportant here for the moment, that's the sole premise to uphold. Why? Because this causes mental fatigue when it happens, wanting to jump in and having done everything 'right' formerly to then have 'nothing' and needing to re-do those steps of process is exhausting simply and to be avoided. Also nothing more and nothing less. Hence a readily available food-source has to exist in the moment of login, with no extra work. No fishing, no butchering, no nothing. Pre-prepared omnom to shove down the throat and... for example finish the chisel-work planned to do ever since logging off the last time without being interrupted before exactly that is done. The time needed to gather the resources for fences, then to make the fences, then to actually manage to fence in the animal. Then to expand the fencing and hope the animal is walking in the right direction sooner or later so you can repeat the process. If your planned pen area is 100 blocks away from the capture point then you got to move the animal 100 blocks, which is a substantial time investment. It can take hours in some cases. Especially so if individual animals for a breeding pair run off and distance themselves far from each other. Which is why it needs a lot of active playing time. And this is something that's regularly happening unless you got a very experienced player which knows how to abuse the AI properly, which is not the goal but a mechanical limitation. Yes, for spawn there is. If your wolves kill all sheep and the system only chooses racoons and rabbits to spawn in which then stay in the world because the - for example - run into corners outside of predator range then you won't get any more sheep unless you cull the population. This is a rather common point that was mentioned and it affects livestock wrangling substantially based on when you do it. If you start very early it's no issue, but if you stay for a longer while in a area it becomes significantly harder as none are available and the area around you is populated with bears and wolves instead. I don't know where you got that argument from but it's a factually wrong statement. Nowhere have I mentioned that the satiety itself needs to be so miniscule it would inflate storages sizes to this hyperbolic size argument. I specifically stated that the process is to be either caloric, or time intensive. And to specificy, a heavy leaning towards caloric so it is not a viable expansion of food stocks but a diversion to a less profitable type of food. And also to allow it happening early on to divert better options to this weaker option for the respective functionality. It is specifically stated with 'only MP' in mind and not a viable product to make in every world, much like someone focusing on farming and livestock never doing alcohol in VS. Or someone only focusing on farming neither. A system which only becomes a thing to do when a need arises, like alcohol... where the need to preserve vast amounts of fruit from a orchard build does necessitate the process. With a single tree you won't make alcohol either after all because it makes no sense. As long as the 'sense' is there it causes no issues. And a mild rework of vintage beef to reduce the healing to a smaller amount (0,5 for example) while also decreasing the satiety (100 instead of 200) would suffice entirely to uphold a proper gameplay premise if an actual function is wanted. In such a case the beef makes a emergency ration but also would function as a method to speed up health regeneration during travel times, hence having a reason to be achieved even in SP if the 'only MP' aspect is the problem here. I've solely stated that the active hunting for it would incur a caloric deficit likely (since bushmeat is prone to either need you to run a lot or be hurt in the process depending on source). If that's not sufficient then depending on the steps taken to achieve the result it can happen at any place along the production line. Be it desalinating water and scraping off salt being highly caloric intense for some reason... or the smoking with wood shavings needing manually blowing into it as it's a crappy system which leads to caloric loss. Simply something counteracting the result. Doesn't counteract the 'return and catch-up' phase. Which I specifically state is the issue. The demand to uphold is 'If I return after 'x' time (which is open) and hence my resources spoiled I don't need to re-invest immediate time to catch-up but can instead continue where I left off the last time before having to divert after a while to food-acquisition'. It doesn't matter if it's 5 minutes or 1 hour of gameplay, it's the aspect that this is mentally exhausting to even exist for people coming in the situation. This reduces re-engagement. It's that simple, hence I'm talking about this very very narrow and specific point and not any other bits and pieces left and right of it. Not a single comment yet from your side followed this premise, which I made specifically and repeatedly clear. So obviously I'll repeatedly say 'no' to those. The closest was livestock, but as said, a method to achieve a emergency ration without timelimit would be a more sensible solution simply. But that one at least upholds the premise. Yes, this is a reasonable point. And as said, variety and improvements to systems are all nearly always fine and dandy. On board with that. But this and that are two different topics still. Apples and oranges. And yes, forever food has a visceral reaction. But for some it actually makes sense. Rice... grain... those don't go bad. They only do when respective moisture is introduced, which even in actual medieval times meant a livetime of 5+ years quite often. VS is still a game though, and games are there to allow tackling things at your own pace and willingness without anything forcing you to. This is the primary downfall of all systems which need permanent upkeep of some sorts based on real-time, no matter how short or long. It's called 'player agency' and is a big big thing for a reason. Anything reducing player agency is to be avoided like the plague, and concessions are made to ensure player agency upholds. Because player agency is absolute king, always was, always will be. Work-simulators only function as enjoyment because they are done at your own pace and wants, not because it is demanded, then they loose their function. Same here simply.

First of all, they do. Just not for the specific problem mentioned as it's no solution for it, plain and simple. Overall always all for expansion of systems unless it's made needlessly complex without functionality behind it. And a thousand people can proclaim the same thing, doesn't make it right. This is a well known fallacy called 'appeal to popularity' or 'argentum ad populum' in the original latin terminology. Popularity does not equal truth. I didn't, I'm saying it is too extensive in time-investment of active playtime (instead of as a side-thing) to be a viable solution. It can become viable, but for that we need to get the ability to in some way reliably move animals, which is the missing part there. Then it would be a viable alternative and solve it right away. Wrangling the animals so they don't run away is the major issue, which is because it's not a finished mechanic clearly. Much like the ability to move small livestock like chickens we don't yet have the option to move large livestock. Given there is a entity limit on how many animals are around at any time in the simulated space the chance for the need to move them rather sizeable distances (and not allowing them to flee) is a big point that's regularly been mentioned. And yes, there exists a myriad of solutions as mods. And no, I'm not talking about mod-solutions here, I'm specifically talking about core functionality upholding it, hence vanilla, which we know is vastly unfinished after all. I'm simply stating 'this is a open point which needs to be addressed' and my solution was 'unperishable food' as it's already pre-existing and doesn't need a large amount of work to make functional... while the code for wrangling medium-sized animals is non-existent currently and there wasn't a sensible way without issues found to solve this right away. Which means I'll obviously voice an alternative as that's a known quantity already which is something that as much as I know is intended for the future anyway, just not known in which way exactly. (I mean the livestock wrangling in some way, not the non-perishable food existing.)

Yes, they were usually made in different variants depending on what was available. Like pemmican, the 'plain' version which was the longest lasting one or the one with the addition of dried fruits or nuts, hence lasting less long as oils caused it to become rancid more easily. Those were obviously consumed first, but the second still existed as a backup... and that one tastes like crap even when you try to make a stew out of it, no matter how well you like to 'garnish' it with extra materials. It's god a very bad taste but keeps you alive. Rations in nigh every army were also not really 'nice' in any regard. They kept people alive and going, but besides the stress of being on frontlines even backline troops were prone to getting health issues. They make you survive, not thrive. Ah yes... because so many people complain also about the existence of soup despite nobody using it, or porridge scrambled eggs, which I've seen being cooked once only. Yes... it will surely introduce severe issues that are entirely immersion- and game-breaking so the masses will flock to the forums to complain about it. Come on now... there's only 'so far' one can take a stance before it becomes senseless, you've gone over the scale with that, I recommend re-reading and especially re-thinking what exactly you proclaimed would happen in detail again. It makes zero sense. That's not a sensible way to base an argument on top of. Last time I saw it's the exact same genre with the exact same methodology of gameplay but simply a different weight put on survival versus creativity. Minecraft is the casual VS. Or VS is the hardcore Minecraft. That's it mechanically. They are grounded on the exact same methdological basis of gameplay. So no... they absolutely aren't. What works for one works for the other primarily, with the exceptions when we go into details. The basis that 'forever servers' are existing in larger scales there because the mechanics support that without detriment is simply a factual statement. The question is solely if VS wants to partake in this portion of clearly existing players which would use this when available or if it foregoes it in favor for investing into other aspects... primarily those which would clash directly with the inclusion of that group as otherwise it's still a sensible thing to point out, solely a metric of priority and not of a 'yes/no' argumentation line. Also a workaround, not a solution. This doesn't keep the the food you create save, is also non-intuitive and is depending on game-stage very limited in scale. It is actually. Look up what seasalt has in terms of risk-factors. It is very well known that one of the biggest causes of death were dysentery in the middle-ages because of a lack of knowledge for hygiene. Seasalt has a significantly hightened amount of bacterial activity of e. coli, salmonella and vibrio. As for the dysentery specifically that then comes from intenstinal inflammation which causes severe dehydration following death. With the technology of the middle ages the chances for contamination were relatively high, primarily coming from it not being highly purified salt but instead having bits of decomposing organic matter in it as well, which even led to issues like dinoflagellates causing neurotixical poisoning. Those algae are microscopically small, hence people didn't even know they existed. Just that some people had 'sudden symptoms' which usually were treated with basically hopes and prayers as back then medicine was very... special. Closing gaps in functionality is inherently not something 'most players want'. It's what a few have issues with. This is a known shortcoming of many development cycles by the way leading to significantly less engagement then otherwise possible. If the focus is only on large-scale mechanics without taking care of fringe issues which only affect 'a few' people in total then you acrue over time a line of multiple 'a few' instances which culmulate into a significant reduction of interaction with the product. That's why you never solely focus on huge systems alone but also ensure that existing systems get solidified, and if it only affects 10 people out of 10000 it is already a win. With the same argumentation line companies often avoid fixing more rare bugs which then over time leads to a overall perception of 'this game is very buggy' as hundreds of those exist... getting the specific one is rare, but getting 'one of them' on the other hand is not suddenly anymore. Yes, because with the way I described it it would be available early on already, namely copper-age. It is a method which can be done at night for desalination of water as example, allowing more options to pass this timeframe then currently available (which is a good thing) while the acquisition of bushmeat is something that happens anyway, hence the option to make those into long-lasting food for those longer absences would be a reasonable outcome. In comparison the often multi-hour long stage of trying to wrangle animals which for the love of it don't want to get their arse shoved into a pen instead of doing whatever else while also needing a complete growing cycle of grain or access to fruit/berries (which are year 2 things only currently) as well as multiple barrels and a fruitpress with enough material to even use it to function is absolutely a major difference. What I'm talking about has to be accessible very early and in reasonable amounts to counteract the offline times but without interfering in the normal food storage systems. This makes livestock management often a less reliable option. That real-life time is not supposed to interfere during offline times with your in-game situation as much as possible. Hence being punished for not being online for reason 'whatever'. The reason behind it is of no significance and a dozen+ exist why this could happen. I think you don't quite understand what you write there. It is not a singular situation after all, this is not a debatable thing. What you mean is 'it's not sufficiently prevalent in your eyes' though, which is fine. But that's perception bias. It is specifically about MP, hence counting SP is nonsensical by default. Fixed groups also have this issue, namely if someone has for some reason no option (or is not in the mood simply) to appear on this usually regular timeframe. Yes, others will be online, but then you still run into the issue that those people need to be in range at the moment as well as have stocks to give out simply, or alternatively making a community-based safety storage for food for those situations. That's a extra step others have to take for you, which is not improving the situation, it's a bona-fide workaround for a shortcoming. The argument that 'in this specific situation it works' is also senseless. Issues arise when it's not said specific situation. We got a thousand ways of playing, it is a sandbox game. It is fine to have a framework to work inside... but it's not to say 'you have to play the way I want!' which it basically boils down to in this case. Likely, as the TOPS is also aligning well with activity in online-activity after all. Private servers don't align as well. The question is how many 'dark numbers' exist there rather. I think they're higher then expected as most people don't complain, they just don't engage anymore.

To a degree, yes, but not only. We introduce microplastics definitely as well as chemicals, and that's not removable either in any sensible way for some parts. But without that the ocean still has a much higher concentration of biological activity and toxins which are in the water as a baseline. Some of them are very hard to remove without modern technology. Also it's full of impurities compared to fresh-water salt extraction or best-case rock-salt which is very pure but not freely available if we go from a survival standpoint. Simple water evaporization after filtering is the best way to acquire small amounts of salt in amounts which suffice for personal usage. That counteracts it to a degree. But it is a reduction of the issue, not a solution to it. Also the argument of 'this is a single case' is not upholding. Everyone besides a single player stops playing for a while. You log in when nobody is online at that moment and hence you would need to steal resources from others, which is a major 'nono' overall in behaviour. Many people don't do livestock at all but only farming, which is more then sufficient after all, hence having no livestock stocks in the first place as that takes vastly more effort and investment initially then the convoluted process even I mentioned. Global spoil-rate reduction is also not sensible as general food stocks during active playtime are already abundant, it's solely about offline-time. Generally 'reducing' the game in functionality is not a solution, it's a reduction of investment to solve something which can be counteracted with proper design. Proper design is always superior to excemption.

Yeah, and that's the only reason anyway. Other use-case would be as mentioned the permanent travel rations for excessive effort. But that's it. It doesn't need to exist for 'more'. First off, vanity is a thing, otherwise we wouldn't have a need for shingles, or planters, or decorative elements at all. Same with food variety, reductionistic we can remove a lot without issue... but vanity is always a thing. And in this case it's vanity plus a specific function. Emergency rations rarely are 'nutritious' though? They 'get you through' those times, they neither taste well (hardtack is a prime example) nor are they rich in micronutrients of any form. They just provide energy to exist for a while longer until that dry spell is handled. But if you mean 'nutritious' in the form of 'energy dense' then yeah, sure, that's true... but jerky is also not 'energy dense'. It's more of a snack in reality. It's not a 'fun' meal when you got only that and hardtack for example, but it manages to make you survive and not starve. That's all it's supposed to be. It just has to exist to avoid the starvation issue and the culling issue for MP. Otherwise there is no reasonable argumentation for indefinitely lasting food... but that aspect has to be taken into consideration and not simply ignored either. That's what the middle-ground of 'we don't invalidate existing systems' together with 'we solve a fringe-issue' comes together as after all. The form of it? Doesn't matter, but those are the things it has to uphold. Any extra is a bonus anyway and nice. But the functionality has first to be presented before we can think about any flavor-based stuff. As for 'players would complain'... that's always nonsensical as a argument. Never upholds. Players complain about everything, all the time. They do about quenching/tempering, they do about clay-shaping, they do about enemies, they do complain about everything and anything at all times. There's only a point to find which arguments are viable and upholding inside the expected framework... and to ignore all others. Like my food-buff system... to be ignored a while ago since a vastly simpler and more functional idea was presented, but the premise of pushing for variety itself was reasonable. We gotta differentiate accordingly. Yes, because they can't without significant detriments. That's the point And the question then is: Why would it be wanted to keep that being the case instead of allowing a workaround? Does it provide anything positive to enforce a time-critical aspect to long-term servers? Or is it solely a detriment without upside? I would say it's the second, I haven't yet heard a argument which points against that premise after all. Well, lemme reframe it then: Imagine I open a permanent server today. For all my friends. I tell my friends 'let's make a nice world, join in whenever you want'. With everyone having their own space and interacting together simply on the side. I intent to have this server running for at least 5 years... maybe 10 or more. Just a permanent hangout place hence. Now, some might become 'daily regularls', which is fine, but that never works out long-term, this pace is just not sustainable permanently. Another option might be to have the 'weekly regulars'. You know, like olden times at a pub when people came together on Saturday/Sunday to chat and play cards for a few hours, but always the same, always the same action, with the action being just the foundation to provide a reason and allow participation for socializing even without a distinct topic to talk about being available. Poker groups, Pen and Paper, you name it... it's the classic system. But only opening up once a week and instead closing it enforces to be available 'at that exact moment' and deprives the option to use it otherwise. A simple switch in job-times and you cannot enjoy it anymore, no meeting up, no playing at all. And someone wanting to play more then that one day is also out of luck. Permanent servers allow circumventing that for a reason to increase the range of options simply. Now we got a issue though... imagine having 5 people total for that server which come together, a nice small group. 2 play every day. 1 plays at least twice, the other 2 are sporadically existent, they come maybe once a week, sometimes less depending on how much time they got. And for those.... it sucks, absolutely so. This is not the case in Minecraft for example. If you leave Minecraft and come back after 3 weeks of real-time then everything is still absolutely the same. You continue where you left off. In Vintage Story the story (hah) is a bit different though. If you come back then every stock of food you got is gone. That forces the player to always work on food production first after coming back. There is no lazy 'Oh, I got an hour left today, nobody is here but I can just enjoy the game itself alone for a bit' situation hence. They are either mandated to ask for supplies from the more regular players... or they have to focus on acquisition of food during that hour leaving them no option to do anything majorly different. No 'I want to do a hour of chisel-work' or 'let's explore this ruin I found last time' situations... there are no supplies to do that, they would starve. That is a significant detriment. This is why those types of servers generally don't exist in VS. It's plain and simple because it doesn't support it. Other games like 'Ark: Survival Evolved' or 'Wurm Unlimited' also struggle with that. With Ark being a prime example of necessary near-daily grinds to uphold things or you loose motivation as you loose a lot of 'progress' simply. And with Wurm being a lot more lenient since the time passing is 'only' 4 times of real-time, hence you don't run into those same issues as much since it's based on very long-term gameplay timeframes. VS is not designed in that regard. The design solely allows goal-driven community action or general single-player gameplay. It does not support permanent casual gameplay functionality in the form of MP, only supports very very regular investment. Hence no 'I don't want to play for a while since I'll be making a tour with friends for the next 2 months' possible without being punished for it extensively... or a 'I've gotten sick and won't know when I'll return' situation either. Or a simple 'I got this game I wanna focus on and play through' before returning without being punished. Currently VS enforces you to play it as a main-game... and only a main-game. No side-game, no casual playtimes... not nothing possible because of it. And that's the point which is senseless to uphold, there is only downsides and no upsides in that regard which causes the engagement for long-term playing in this direction to simply not exist. Not because people aren't interested but because the system isn't built to allow doing it in the first place. I mean... it's absolutely not optimal, that's true. But is it 'better'? Yes. Why do I think so? Because before leaving there is a option to bypass it at least. Which is already better then having no agency over it at all. If the responsibility is resting in the player's hands then it's already better then when there is no counter-play existing at all. So yes, still not a optimal solution... but nonetheless a better one. I'm sure someone can optimize it further along the thought process to actually gradually manage a proper implementation instead of just ignoring it since perfectionism has to be achieved the moment it's touched. It suffices with a half-assed solution first before a proper one exists. Half-assed is better ne no-assed

It's not about the only option being that, that argument makes no sense. Busy or not, it solely solves the issue about 'I come back after a break and all my stuff's rot'. That's all. Nothing else changes after all, so why would it introduce some odd different problem? The solution for removing spoilage of inventory food during offline-times is viable, but that's a very band-aid and kinda shoddy workaround. It's neither intuitive (how would you know without testing it directly? Would you get a handbook information for this aspect existing?) nor is it a in-game mechanic which avoids the pitfall of the current systems in that regard. A method to create a permanently lasting food option - of whatever kind, doesn't matter at all - is a more elegant solution. And to hinder the usage as a normal food item the creation got to be either tedious and not worth it... or the sustenance very small when it's easy to create, hence being a detriment for normal gameplay instead of as a emergency ration only. And yes, more food preservation options are always nice. But not having a single (and that's all that's needed) option which is awful but endless available still leads to the exact same issue I described. If someone's away a month it's 8-9 years in-game... what about 2 months? 6? Coming back after a year? 90 year lasting food? That's really unrealistic after all. So the gamification in that regard is the only available solution with in-game methods. Or alternatively the implementation of a freezer-system of some kind which halts decay entirely. But that's scalable and hence abusable. Which is specifically the reason I took it for this actually. Bushmeat is not available outside of actively killing wildlife. It is a non-scalable method, hence you need a decent amount of work to get the respective amount and you'll always have a low amount at any time available to work with. Also bushmeat is already gamified, it is meant as a low-quality source of nutrition since defending against wildlife shouldn't reward the player with large amounts of resources. That's why it's such awful nutrition. Bear-meat counts as a delicacy by the way, so there it already doesn't make sense. Wolf meat though is actually what you describe, absolutely so! And yes, you're right about it being a higher risk of parasites and toxins. For parasites the same issue we have with wolves and bears also go for many other animals, specifically pigs... which are red meat producers in high amounts. The nutrition value is also senseless to argue about as bears are not 'gamey, stringy and chewy' but instead count as a delicacy, the absolute opposite hence. It is plain and simply gamified for the reason that something attacking the player isn't supposed to provide it with rewards for survival. The 'meal coming to your door' situation. This actually frees up this specific resource for the dual-purpose, which is the reason I used it as the example. Since in my suggestion it's tied to a tedious long-term multi-step process to make the jerky ultimately the reasoning for 'food doesn't come to your doorstep' isn't upholding. You'll likely use up more calories trying to go through the process of hunting, returning, salt-rubbing, gathering materials for the smoking and then hanging the result to cure it then you'll get returned. This upholds that it doesn't provide you with significant sustenance but allows a functionality simply to be added which currently is not in the system. Also as a secondary outcome this is a sub-par travel ration option as it doesn't go bad. Crocks work for most situations, extra long expeditions can need more then a crock though and are currently reliant on either outposting (which nearly nobody does as it's a excessive amount of effort without any actual reward) or lucky tanslocator connections. Specifically with slowly but surely expanding issue of story locations being very far away at default setting (which is good) this becomes a detriment as time passes and the distances accordingly expand and allows a potential counterplay for it before it becomes a problem, without the need for a travel-system being more fleshed out being a necessity as soon.

First off, it's a misconception that medieval times had awful food storage. Some of it was significantly better then what we have nowadays, the fridge is not a universally great tool. Larders and pantries have fallen out of favor but offer qualitative long-term storage often better then a fridge does. Secondly, we already got a non-perishable product in VS, the 'Vintage Beef'. All we need to solve the MP issue for long-term offline times is a way to produce that, even if it's annoying, tedious and not rewarding at all. The reward here is the ability to bypass the Real-Life timeframe and avoiding the need to be forced to log on repeatedly even when not in the mood of gaming... just to ensure your character won't just starve or has to cull tons of livestock when coming back from a extended break. So I'll stay with the need to introduce a producable non-perishable form of food in a reliable and endless manner. First off... cooking salt water to gather salt would be a choice. Yes, not realistic because it contains in reality toxins without significant extra work (and often does after still, known issue with seasalt which can be bought) but we can simply ignore that. So my suggestion here would be to make that out of specifically bushmeat to provide a use-case beyond the early-game for it and keep it tedious. Bushmeat which is salted. Then smoked. Then hung in a small room from the ceiling on metal hooks. Single strips, long hanging time after the smoking process, so quite tedious. Storable in 16 stacks, cannot be used for meals, stays indefinitely. If we wanna be fancy then besides a vanilla smoking options we could have specifically oak cause shavings to be produced when handled, and only those shavings are viable burning material for smoking. This is solely a suggestion for how to achieve it. But the 'should it be done?' is plainly spoken without question unless long-term running servers like Minecraft has quite a surprising number isn't something that's wanted... because nothing kills engagement more then coming back and being immedietely stressed to not starve rather then being able to at least mostly pick up where you left off.

It absolutely is. There's 3 aspects to make food last indefinitely: - Moisture - Oxygen - Microorganisms Moisture causes mocriorganisms to thrive. No moisture means no life, simple as that already, but it can be easily reintroduced, hence it's the hardest to manage. Oxygen causes oxidation, and the fastest acting microorganisms work on a oxygen basis on top of that. Some work without but those are vastly slower acting. Microorganisms is what it all ultimately turns around because you can never get rid of those without managing the other 2 aspects. The more active something is the faster it goes bad. So, actual indefinitely lasting foods: - Honey - Rice - Salt - Vinegar Those never go bad when properly stored. The same goes for the vast majority of grains and legumes. They can be kept for 50+ years without issue with proper storage. The easiest method is double-floor pots with iron powder + salt at the bottom for binding oxygen and moisture, extending shelf-life 10 times compared to normal ones for applicable things that actually don't rely on having leftover moisture content (grains, bread, those things, keeping at least nutritional value of some sort, like bread for adding to stews and rehydrating this way. Not tasty but sustenance simply). This only upholds because people currently work at the '1 base' option primarily. Which is something that needs to be handled anyway along the way. Outposts need to become a thing that exists and which are viable to make. Infinite shelflife is viable when travel distances become vast. If you need multiple days to travel to destinations without any option for storage then your expedition range is inherently limited by that. And currently we don't have anything to find outside of such a distance yet. With the expansion of the story sites and the sheer distance they're often away it becomes more of a reason. Especially so when those story sites in the future offer unique mechanics - which would be highly enjoyed from my side if they're far apart and offer different things only available there - so either a translocator network which is conveniently functioning to reach is one option... or... what is the more reliable option: Roadwork. And for roadwork not only the ability to make roads a tiny bit easier and with optimally more variety (concrete roads would be fun, or generally anything beyond the basic paths we make now simply, giving higher boosts) as well as travel options. The elk is a good start... vehicles with storage will become a necessity over time definitely. In MP we already see this being a thing, with groups spreading out over long distances and sometimes starting to make road networks because of the large distances. Mostly because food is limited at the start in the same area and it makes survival highly difficult to manage. Not enough animals, not enough natural resources, not enough farming happening yet. This is simply a place which needs more optimization to allow the variety of playstyles to function well with added content along the way. Especially the 24/7 servers and not being able to go online for a while is a major issue. If I need to go work for a month outside the country and come back... nothing ruins the motivation more then logging in and all your food being gone, completely. Every week is 2 years. Which means after 8-9 years basically everything is gone. How to get food then? Who knows! That alone is a major reason as to why indefinitely lasting food is a important thing to have, solely for that situation it should exist. It can be tedious and convoluted to make without a worthwhile return... but it existing to simply come back and not starve is plainly spoken a mandatory aspect. The decade is not enough for MP purposes of long-term playing. It functions for the vast majority, but not for multi-year vanilla servers with a irregularly returning playerbase for example.

1) The extra materials + immersion is a purpose. 2) Yes, porridge without water annoys me. Flatbread or Damper doesn't, which is basically what we make, we make hard-baked bread. Not tasty but nutritious anyway. And fermentation is obviously abbreviated for gamification, so what's the issue there? You're starting to conflate topics together. You take reality as well as possible and then abbreviate it accordingly downwards to allow comfortable implementation into a game. Which part exactly would a butcher-method with different parts as a result and a increase in recipes to use those cuts in specifically fail at here? Since we inherently a higher rate of immersion through variety while also the option to increase total results compared to field-butcher I don't see the failure point in your argumentation line. 3) With that line of logic we wouldn't need anything besides a single type of goat, a chicken and a pig. Albeit the pig itself is also not needed since red meat is also provided by goats, the function is fulfilled. It doesn't uphold the argumentation line itself. Do the different types of goat, sheep, chicken, bears not provide anything to the game? 4) Same fallacy. By that logic further along we only need 1 veggy option, 1 meat option, 1 milk option, 1 fruit option and 1 grain option overall. It is the same fallacy which reduces mechanical complexity. A RPG for example only needs a resource for health and a resource for using skills (if not cooldown based). There is no need for Attributes, attributes are a further expression of adjusting the concept of taking and dealing damage in combat. This complexity provides the exact same outcomes as only having the core 2 stats of health and mana available, hence by your argumentation line no game should've attributes since there is nothing added.

1) If you read further it's answered. 2) that's what you do for balance. The harder to achieve the bigger the reward. That's a basic in video games to uphold the effort/reward basis accordingly to other mechanics. More effort is more reward. 3) Blood: Sauce thickener, coagulation agent similar to eggs, sausages, pies, black pudding, dinuguan, czernina, blood curd. Not gonna start with organs since you can write multiple cookbooks with the possibilities to use the respective ones in different variety. 4) It is, depending on how you butcher you get either a mess or ruin a lot, which is roughly what the current situation is with 'wild butchering' we do. Or you can do it in the same form as any other mechanics is piece by piece expected to go, with a minigame basically to dismantle the carcass, hence taking up time and effort but providing you with a more rewarding outcome. Same as cooking in general. Or are you never using a pot but instead just put the meat into the campfire? That's the exact same concept of complicating a mechanic to provide a higher amount of rewards. 5) Sure, make a sausage with only lean meat and tell me how that goes. Or try to grill a brisket and tell me how that works out. Or try a knuckle cut to smoke. Every single cooking type is affected by meat type. As is every other ingredient in the world. Though it's no surprise to think otherwise since basically nobody can cook anymore nowadays. I'm a layman in terms of cooking but despite only dabbling in the actual techniques people which know me always ask if I'll make anything specific again. That's literally all it takes nowadays. The topic is far more in-depth then you are imagining. And the gamification options which feel rewarding are as well. The argumentation line of 'why would more complexity even provide any meaning?' is moot in itself since you can directly compare VS to Minecraft and get your answer from that. Is building in Minecraft as rewarding as in VS? No, because it's simple. The effort needed and the complexity of it with chiseling, item type combinations and framing with beams gives the system a significant depth. So a single house which is well designed in VS gives players a similar feeling of achievement then a small town built in Minecraft. This is a psychological basis for our brain where the amount of needed effort to achieve something increases our feeling of fulfillment unless it goes too far, then it falls off and works the other way around.

Yes, more variety is definitely good, always for it as it increases the immersion level. That'll just take time though, plainly spoken... expanding on the core systems rather then variety is more important for VS anyway, the more systems there are the more options to implement interacting functionality happens automatically. Can be counteracted by the basic butchering being the simple 'meat' you get currently. Any expanded methods should include proper butchery processes, hence the variety comes from there, the upside to counter the complexity being more meat provided from a single animal ultimately. A proper butchering process would allow a lot. Blood, organs, fat,meat cuts, bones. All of that can be used for a variety of things. Proper recipes remade from real-life, sausage-making, more rendered fat production, the proper bones for broth-making, grilling, smoking, the options are huge simply. That in itself provides already upsides. If it's combined with the 'basic' processing then it doesn't cause inventory issues as it's a complexity increase above that for more rewards and immersion.

Actually... it can. Think about it like the following: A barbed projectile on a chain. The mob fires it, it impacts you and then tightens as the mob yanks it back out. For the player it's damage, suddenly stopping for a moment and then a involuntary jump towards the enemy, changing positioning and potentially forcing you into advancing enemies or away from one you want to engage. So yes, absolutely something which would be rage-inducing, but not overpowered by itself. Near cliffs likely a significant risk, or near any shaft leading into the depths.

The scaryness of enemies currently isn't existing because the amount of different types is low. We got 4 major enemy types after all... well... 5 if we count locusts, but they share a type with normal drifters besides the climbing ability. Currently we got melee enemies (Drifters), speedy guerilla style enemies (Shivers) and a ranged enemy (Bowthorns). Generators (Bells) Increasing danger in a game such as Vintage Story it's rarely reliant on changing building mechanics or implementing things which cause a form of siege-behaviour to happen. Those things can nigh always be countered in ways which make the building aspect less sightly and ultimately lead to no significant changes in gameplay behaviour. What does change how scary enemies become is to introduce more variety. And there's a lot of options available. - A bigger lumbering enemy which is defensive and only turns slowly while also doing extremely high damage, optimally in an area. Frontal attacks of any kind are blocked from a shield for example, with very little surface area to actually do damage, but the sides and behind are able to be damaged. High health enemy even when damaging it. The function of such a enemy is to enforce repositioning when it appears together with other types. They are to be avoided primarily. - A leaping enemy. Swift, very low damage, middle-sized for decent combat experience, small-sized for being atrocious and everyone hating them. This type of enemy has to have a higher enemy count but does individually low damage. They harass and wittle the player down. Timing of attacks is important there. - Overworld spawners. Significantly weaker in effect then bells obviously. Mobile locust spawner type enemy for example. Also harassment primarily. Slow-paced spawning and hence nothing more then a nuisance alone, but a real danger if left alone in a fight during an active timeframe. - 'Bombers/Retaliators'. That enemy type is also a staple in games. Hit it and it returns damage in some way. In Vintage Story this makes sense through the use-case of spikes, just not ranged like bowthorns but retaliatory when hit or killed. - 'Miners'. Another staple. A enemy which leaves environmental dangers behind while passing, trying to stay at a bit of distance. Those only have one task... to reduce the action range of a player. Removal of those environmental traps have to happen via attacking them once and/or over time. So yes, with the current spread there's not a significant scaryness available yet, outside of deeper areas in the game as things hit like a truck and are often outside of the view-range or not easily accessible to retaliate against them. But we've gotten not all too long ago the inclusion of shivers and bowthorns. Those significantly improved the variety of eldritch enemies and hence the dangers existing. If you're harassed by a shiver, 2 drifters trying to hit you and throwing their stones from time to time and 2 bowthorns being in the distance... the game suddenly becomes rather scary combat-wise. Even overworld variants can cause quite a lot of damage in such a situation. That only needs to be expanded upon a bit further to make combat an actual choice of fleeing or engaging in more situations then we currently have.

Meat drying through nothing but the air is a common thing. It's a form of dry-aging simply. Thin stripes cause the moisture to get out and makes them dry in ~48 hours unless too thick, then it takes 3-5 days instead. Very tasty as well, and extremely easy to make. As for wasps... yeah... in reality a issue, keep them behind a insect-net of some sort but still with airation. The bigger issue are flies which can lay eggs and cause maggots, then you know you haven't properly sealed the space. It 'stays edible for ~1-2 months when properly done at room temp. Smoked jerky if properly kept has a similar lifetime actually. But for drying meat... I would especially love to see proper medieval original middle-european drying methods. Those lasted the longest out of any known ones. In my country - Austria - for example bacon was preserved with salt and smoked afterwards in autumn, nothing more done to it. That meat wasn't touched until easter, hence after the winter. So one might say 'but why wouldn't they eat that meat during winter?'. Because it hasn't gotten the right flavor yet... you ate the meat from last year instead. 16+ months old bacon was a common thing to eat and perfectly safe as well. My grandfather still made it in this original way once a year, impossible to get a better and stronger flavor profile of bacon plainly spoken. If something's dry it doesn't go bad, that's all it is. And that's also why modern 'smoked' products do go bad, they're not traditionally made with a rub but instead injected with brine. Same taste, vastly cheaper to make on a industrial scale and fitting for the quick turnover in grocery stores as it needs no long-term storage spaces to create. Taste profile is absolutely atrocious in comparison though if someone ever had the original, and it's also why nice big strips of bacon fried in the pan become little poor wrinkly crispy bits, that's all moisture which goes out of it.

The clustering depends on the type of mushrooms. Some do it, some absolutely avoid it, it depends on the growth type. Same with nutrients, mushrooms are... weird... really weird. They have a ridiculous growth speed and life-cycle overall. 'Bloom' quick, spore quick and then usually re-absorb the fruiting body depending on type as well (ink-caps do that, that's why they're called that. They digest themselves in a ink-like black oily substance to re-introduce the nutrients used into the mycel and repeat the process quicker). What most see when they think about 'clumping' mushrooms are the more 'flat' ones on trees, chicken of the woods for example. Or the classic one... oyster mushrooms. Portobello also do clump a little bit, but far less then those. In comparison when you find 'parasol' mushrooms those have a distance to each other, sometimes they still overlap a bit but they tend to grow far enough apart to get fully ripe and allow the spores to spread, usually a hand-width of distance minimum, and a primary fruiting body overtaking the others and growing massively larger. Which also leads to nutrients. Those things are HUGE. Their average cap diameter is 8 inches (around 20 cm), and while the internet states they grow 'up to' 40cm (15 inches) they absolutely can get quite a bit bigger. The biggest one I found was over 50 cm, that thing alone was a full meal, it weighted 700 gramms. There's generally 3 types of growth: - Cespitose - those are the clustering ones. Oyster, enoki, honey mushrooms and the likes. - Gregarious/Troops - those make groups of mushrooms but separate, like parasol or many of the 'russula' genome. - Solitary - as the name says, single ones. Boletes grow this way, they tend to not touch each other under most circumstances.

If we actually go with realism then the arguments are generally in a bit of a odd direction. Mushrooms are the fruiting from mycelium underneath the ground. Harvesting them properly doesn't damage the mycel below, they will regrow. Harvesting with hands is the common way to do it by twisting the mushroom carefully out, hence not ripping and damaging the mycel underneath apart. Also not trampling the area and trying to keep weight off the ground around where it is, the mycel spreads for a very large area fighting against other mushrooms and the microbiome constantly to be the winner of that area, so avoiding to damage it is good. Cutting is a very very bad decision actually. The only mushrooms to be cut are those which have a rather hard fruiting body. Those growing on trees tend to be tougher, there it makes sense. Otherwise leaving the cut-off part of a mushroom in the ground invites rot and can substantially damage regrowth. This approach is only viable in controlled environments, where this myth of doing it this way in nature stems from. In a controlled environment the mushrooms are helped along so they absolutely thrive with little competitors, this allows cutting to not invite rot as easily, and 'clumping' ones like oyster mushrooms are cleaner to extract this way from growth bags, allowing to re-harvest them before long. And if we wanna go realistic properly I would say that using an axe is the most nonsensical approach one can do, that should definitely be removed, or made slower then a knife at least since you can use it, but it's just clunky.

Ah, I meant 'realistic sense' there. So yeah, seems to hard if taken as a universal argument, that's true. I generally try to either gamify something when realism makes no sense at all or can't be properly combined with realism and still cause the enjoyment. But usually I try to lean towards realism where possible as it makes immersion better. With the caveat that any mechanic has to feel fair since life itself is not fair and the task of games is to provide us with a method to feel success with guarantee if the effort is given. I also like the simplifcation. Though I would say that the total growth-time should have a bit of a modifier. Nutrients alone are not sufficient there, you're right. A fixed timeframe where things can be planted - depending on the seasonal situation of the area - would be nice. This is the part of 'lightwave-growth phases' in nature. The sun provides a specific wavelength depending on distance and angle to the atmosphere which shifts during the year naturally, and plants have adjusted to those wavelengths. This is why in reality growth-lights come in different light spectrums for budding, for the growth stage and for the fruiting stage of plants. A tool to identify it easier would be something interesting there, found in ruins to enable easier farming... but entirely doable if a bit of intuition and testing is done personally. So basically each plant having as you stated @MKMoose: - A seed time, but based on day/month where it provides the best outcome - A growth time, individual for each plant. - A harvest time, with individual timeframes where they stay viable - Dormant or 'withered' depending on plant-type, when the timeframe to harvest is over. This can lead to expansion to nearby plowed fields (if unharvested) or simply staying in the ground (if harvested) over winter. This would allow different kinds of plant behaviour, like a carrot becoming biennual or annual depending on actions. Or things like chives being perennial which form clumps which raise the amount of produce over the years and can expand to other squares when left alone and allowed to flower. Would definitely make the farming situation more immersive overall, and not demand constant player interaction or the world becomes 'barren' without our intervention. And mechanically it can be confined within player interacted blocks, hence plowing areas and letting plants naturally expand over time, as well as allowing this system to interact with flowers and mushrooms accordingly as well. I would be especially happy for the lack of issue for planting at the exact right time, instead just reducing yield a bit unless excessively handled wrong. And the nutrients can be a multiplier for growth-time and for yield simply then. Too extreme off and no yield or barely any... perfectly handled means a week+ less growth and also substantially more yield then baseline, making actual management of the soil more realistic while also not needing to constantly keeping an eye out for it. So yeah, I like it as it can confine all plant-life into one smooth system, including trees, bushes, flowers, shrooms... whatever basically. Just plant at the right time with the right soil conditions and be happy. And either yearly (for multi-year crops of any kind) fix the soil composition or simply handle it before planting. Also it allows secondary effects, like beans acting as a natural nitrogen fixer, hence proper crop rotations being a thing... but not a forced necessity.

Yes exactly, the issue with MP and also with expeditions and simply the time passing for harvest is the major reason why I'm saying 'rather keep it simple'. It's the same with making the farming itself more complex. Optimally I (and I personally I mean, it's not what should be listened to at all ) would love to have every detail of farming related work included because I'm just that type of person. Give me soil composition, airation, water retention, lightwave-based growth-time, proper microbiomes, plant cloning, 'chitting' (what you to pre-sprouting with potatoes) and so on and so forth. 90% of that would be absolutely awful overall for the game though So the simple re-plant option for the greens to create a pure flowering and hence seeding result is what I would recommend if the system is expanded. It allows to keep the mature crop inside the ground for as long as you want, which when we introduce a extra stage after maturity would mean we gotta make the actually harvested carrots worse there since they're overripe. And re-planting the crop itself makes no sense at all since that thing doesn't cause plant growth, it's solely a nutrient storage and anchor, specifically to be biennial rather then a annual crop then. It does just regrow green and flower, but that doesn't happen with a harvested and then re-planted carrot as the root network is destroyed and it uses up the nutrients stored to recover those, making overwintering usually not easily possible. Gameplay-wise one alternative to cutting off greens is to allow 'rooting' crops like carrots or beets to live out their biennial nature though. Meaning instead of dieing off when it gets frosty they transform into their secondary form, which is the flowering option producing seeds the next year and no edible crops. This is also a good option since it doesn't inflate the storable item count (splitting greens and roots of a carrot would mean 4 items instead of 2.Uncut plant, greens, root and seeds) but instead just causes the method for farming them to change. You then don't need to keep track of them and plants forgotten to be harvested sprout the next year with immunity against cold for the first stages after re-sprouting, simply to be harvested along the way for seeds fully. I'll provide a simple flowchart for the current and the 2 options I thought up which I think make sense gameplay-wise: Normal: Plant crop --> wait for crop to grow --> harvest crop 'Cutting' option: Plant crop --> wait for crop to grow --> harvest crop --> cut off greens --> replant greens immediately --> 1-2 stages for greens to flower and seed --> harvest seeds 'Biennual' option: Plant crop --> wait for crop to grow --> Harvest only necessary amount, leave others --> winter arrives and plants 'transform', becoming inert until next spring --> at temp reaching a minimum threshold plants start growing with strong cold resistance or immunity to not simply die off by sudden changes --> normal growth time for a second time --> harvest only seeds at end. That's what I think would be the most likely options. Knowledge-wise the cutting option is easier but needs a very mild amount of extra work. It also creates new items to manage. The biennual option is less work intensive minimally but you gotta know beforehand that it's an option. It doesn't create new items to manage though.

Overall for it as I'm a big farming nerd anyway, but it's a complex topic with how to gather different types of seeds, handle the harvesting times and more. Specifically... if you let crops too long in a field they become bad obviously. Which isn't something currently happening. But for - as was mentioned - carrots as example you need to do that to actually get the seeds. A alternative would be to split those types of plants into 'normal' ones and 'seed plants'. After harvesting a carrot you cut the greens and replant them to then cause them to flower and produce seeds. Would be a fun addition for those types of crops, which are most plants where we eat the roots, like carrots, beets and the likes.

Realistically: Yes. For gameplay: I would argue 'no'. The game is complex to get into, and the timeframe needed to handle moisture content of clay - as well as how to even get it there since we need clay containers to transports fluids - would cause early-game food to become more of an issue as it takes up more time and dedication, having to check to find the proper timeframe to do the respective tasks unless it's simplified. So while a fun idea - and definitely good for a realism mod - I don't think it's a positive for the core gameplay. Best-case a option like cave-ins. And while a fun idea I would say things like the crafting-grid reduction would be a better choice for a long long time to go forward, with example firewood being choped on a hard surface manually and similar things being more of a priority if the plan to implement those is existing.

Yeah, seems like an oversight simply given rendered fat is a rather new addition. I agree, maskes a lot more sense to shift it from raw fat to rendered.

First off, with your antagonizing and annoyed behaviour it's likely better to just stop playing, my recommendation. You clearly have not the patience to learn a game which doesn't handhold you entirely from start to finish. But for the solution: You crouch. Then you right-click. Hold the right-click until the animation finished and the loot window opens. You loot what you want. The corpse turns into a pile of bones. You can then smash the bones up to gather them as well. If you open the Handbook ('H' as the basic command) then you get a game guide. All game mechanics are explained in there, besides in-depth technical aspects there is no reason to open google for answers, the game provides them in full. The only exception might be at best the building of the few multi-block structures currently available.

First off I wanna say: Yes, this is how proper AI usage looks like. The limitations of Perlin noise (and similar ones) based generators are well known and a trouble for games which try to provide a realistic looking environment. This is a reasonable solution and isn't infringing on copyrights, which is the 'ethical and moral issues' (which don't exist to be very clear, it's solely a ignored issue since 30+ years of KNOWING those things would come in the future and never adjusting copyright and patents according to a known factor which would influence it before it happened and screwed everyone over... welcome to today hence!) mentioned often. This is a bona fide technical implementation of using real-world satellite picturing and topographic data - which is freely available - to generate the terrain in a naturally existing way. Introduction of rivers is also no problem there, it can be tied to elevation and tectonic shifts by tieing the weather pattern system to it, which is a major amount of work though. As for the issue of performance... that type of generation is very performative, the majority of performance issue comes with the actual generation-side of the game rather then the decision-basis. It also stays seed-consistent, which is important for repeating the same playthroughs. Those models are not without reason becoming widespread despite the aversion of AI-usage. They just make such a fantastic job compared to former methods that it's not even a comparison. The performance issues stem usually from badly designed pre-generation, the Minecraft diffusion terrain generators can handle around 1700 chunks per second, which while being more GPU intensive for generation does mean the minimum specs we would see an increase how many resources are taken up, hence using it as an alternative for world-generation would be an option ensure existing players aren't screwed over with substantially increasing demands. It'll take up around 2 GB VRAM to keep it going properly, which tends to be absolutely in the reasonable range of consumer systems. So the option to choose the trinity of weightec octave, Perlin and normalized simplex noise which VS uses as the 'default' option with a choice for diffusion-based generation if wanted would make a massive difference in world-generation quality. But that's something for the future mostly. It would make more sense as potentially the first 'official mod' to avoid the perception issues about AI while providing the ability use the functionality nonetheless, to be merged into the core gameplay in the future. Overall it's a good option for anyone who wants to create a mod personally to introduce it though, I don't know how far the engine allows integration, but if possible it would make a ridiculously big difference in gameplay quality if half-way decently implemented.

I would already be happy by having access to water shutters, hence the ability to redirect waterflow in self-made aqueducts for example. But yeah, fully on your side there, the more mechanical and 'complex' things exist in the game the better plainly spoken, it expands the options significantly after all and opens up the creativity which leads to more interesting - while functional - builds to be seen.

VS offers a ton of things one can adjust in the world options, but there's a reason why not everything is there. All the homesteading options for example are not existing in it, like crop growth speed. There is a command for that in-game (which would be fine with fruit tree adjustments as well) but none in the world options. This does actually do a decent job in upholding the core loop of gameplay in that regard, hence 'baseline' (command-less) you need to handle crops the same with easy setting as with hard ones, same as livestock and fishing. Which gives it a basic difficulty the game is going for and - as much as is visible, could be wrong there - doesn't want to divert from. So I'm ultimately for a command being possible to adjust it but not a world-option upon creation.