WanderingStoryteller

Pneumatic Tube Transport: This system was a series of tubes that used compressed air or partial vacuum to propel cylindrical containers with mail or other small objects, and I think they could fit with the style of Jonas tech and the planned later technology of steam power. They were once used in hospitals for samples and messages, science and government buildings, and to deliver mail through extended complexes. Examples: Imagine you and your friends have an advanced base like a laboratory, a steam-powered town, or a large fortress. You could have a main hub that has tubes running through the walls or overhead that are connected to small hubs around the site. You place one or two inventory spaces worth of goods into the cannister and send it off. When it arrives, it triggers a small bell to chime, and the cannister stays in its slot until it is removed by a player. Elevators: Elevators have been suggested a few times in both forums but I wanted to make suggestions on how they could function. Elevators could be platform “vehicles” (as in they function similar to the boat code-wise) that can be connected to a series of crafted thick ropes or chains inside a scaffolding and that has spaces where different bulk storage or ground storage can be placed. Perhaps there are two variants: a smaller one the size of a dumbwaiter and a larger lift. Dumbwaiter: The dumbwaiter has room for one small storage container like a basket, small chest, or one ground storage space that passes up and down a one block space. The dumbwaiter does not take as much material or is as intricate mechanically as the larger lift and can be used much earlier in a playthrough. The dumbwaiter would be controlled by pulling on the cord that runs the length of the shaft from any block level that the player can access it. Additionally, small cranks can be attached to this cord at any number of block levels along the shaft for, say, towers that have multiple floors. Maybe the crank also slightly increases the dumbwaiter’s speed. Larger Elevator: The larger lift is similar to what you would see in a mineshaft. They can have crates, vessels, baskets, chests, ground storage spots, and entities set in its spots. These could be used to take up a lot of resources and entities to a destination at once like moving stone up from a deep mine or up to a plateau. This elevator would need to be controlled by a crank on the platform of the car. Additional cranks should be allowed to be installed at any block level on the elevator’s shaft’s scaffolding, including either end so to not have the elevator get stuck when your friend decides to take the quick way down for some reason. Another example of their use is riding your elk up to a keep on top of a mountain or down into the great halls of a dwarven underground kingdom. Additional features that also use counterweights, pulleys, and winches: drawbridges, portcullis gates. Chimes - Additional Blocks for Elevators/Doors/Trapdoors/Gates: A hung or wall-mounted bell that a pull cord can optionally be added to that the player can ring as often as they like. The cord can be shortened or lengthened as desired An example usage is someone using a dumbwaiter to move supplies, a meal, and a written message up to a friend building up at the top of a tower. Once they see that it’s at the level they need or hear the small bell alerting that it has reached the desired level, they can pull the bell’s cord to alert their friend. Can be also used as doorbells. Example: say you have a tower with many floors. The player enters it and on one wall is a series of ropes hanging down with signs behind them. Pulling a particular cord rings that level or room. Maybe using small pulleys allow for the cord to be turned 90°, meaning the cord for a room could have its end two floors down and one room over with two fixed pulleys. Maybe the player can also hold this bell in one hand and ring it freely. A small bell or bit of scrap that a player can place along the dumbwaiter’s shaft to mark where each floor is that jingles when the dumbwaiter reaches that block level. That way if a player cannot see the dumbwaiter as it moves up a closed shaft, the player can count to the floor they need. Can maybe also be attached to doors, trapdoors, and gates and would alert players to others using these. Also maybe could be attached to a bit of twine that a player suspends between two blocks that rings when an entity disturbs the twine as a form of simple trip alarm I'm not exactly sure how the tag system works so I added a few.

I’m suggesting the below because I think adding things like these could be interesting for the base game, especially for adding extreme cold alternatives to poultices, burnable fuels, rope & basket material, and temperate crops. And please do not just say “the arctic is supposed to be tougher” when there are viable survival gameplay options that could still maintain a tough survival gameloop. People have been surviving in severe cold for countless generations and their methods are fascinating. Also keep in mind that in the Homo Sapiens gamemode, you don’t have ruins and vessels to give you those needed materials like grass, cattails, poultices, seeds, etc. It would be much cooler to search for lichen to make a fire, make igloos, and prepare traditional foods of the many arctic peoples. Possible Lichens & Plants for Boreal Forest & Tundra climates: Lichens: Iceland “moss” (cetraria islandica) - important source of food for humans in northern Europe. Cooked as bread, porridge, pudding, or soup. Fed to livestock: reindeer, cattle, pigs, and ponies. Eaten by moose, caribou, arctic hares, and musk oxen. Old Man’s Beard Lichen – Possible alternative for poultice making. When dried, is used as a fire starter. Also used to obtain orange and brown dyes. Poisonous lichens – wolf lichen (letharia vulpine), powdered sunshine (vulpicide pinastri) Lichens can also be used as a burnable fuel where grass is sparse. Perhaps an alternative for grass in fire pits? Plants and Crops: Seagrass (Ivigak) – Durable and water-resistant. Coiled into rope by some arctic peoples and this rope can then be made into woven baskets, hats, and floor mats. Colorful geometric shapes would sometimes be added by the weavers. Suggested for an extreme cold variant for ropes and baskets. Harvested from seagrass meadows which also act as habitat for fish (salmon, herring), crabs, shrimps, etc. Imagine you, the player, finding a seagrass meadow. You collect the seagrass and go spearfishing and then go dry your collected goods on your rack for rope and food. Lady Fern – Dies off in the winter while in spring, the harvestable edible fiddleheads appear. Suggested that they would be replantable like other ferns so players can make “vegetable” gardens of them. Tolerant down to temps between -40°C to -34°C. Idea: Maybe during winters with extreme cold, only a base of roots is hidden underneath the snow from which edible fiddleheads will sprout from during spring. At other times of the year, the fern is leafy with no edible fiddleheads. Rice Lily (Fritillaria camschatensis) – medium-sized flowering herb of sandy woodlands. Their bulbs are an important food source for locals and can be eaten raw, boiled in meals, or roasted over fire or dried and ground into a flour for bread. Suggested that they could be used like a crop or a permaculture for cold climates. Dormant bulbs are hardy to -20°C. Plant is hardy above -15°C. Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) – low-growing plant of bogs and tundra. Bears white fruit similar to salmonberry. Harvestable in summer. Used by locals to make jam, jelly, and alcohol. Some traditional liqueurs include lakkalikööri (Finnish) and chicoutai (Innu-aimun). Suggested that they could be used as a very short, small berry bush. Tolerant to -40°C. Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) – small, short evergreen berry-bearing shrub native to boreal forests and Arctic tundra. Used in jams, pies, alcohol, stews, (and, in real life, also served with meat or blood sausages). Tolerant to temps of -45°C. Kayaks: Base idea: the raft requires mainly wood while the kayak would require mainly pelts, useful for where wood is sparse. Traditional kayaks were made from a frame of worked driftwood lashed together with seal ligaments/whale baleen and covered in scraped seal/caribou hide and used to hunt in and navigate even dangerous conditions on the sea. The kayaks suggested for is an early game alternative for the wood-heavy raft for the far north/south where wood is sparse. The idea is that players would scavenge for driftwood near water, prepare the driftwood with a knife or axe into strips, and combine those strips with pelts, a knife, and game meat (to simulate the materials for lashings). Only a single player could use the kayak at a time with room for one basket within the kayak. A bit more wood or driftwood would be needed for the crude oar or paddle. To balance between the raft and kayak to make them closer in needed materials, the number of pelts should be less than 12 which is the number of logs needed for the raft as pelts inherently require more materials and time to obtain. My suggestion is maybe 4 pelts of medium, 2 of large, or one huge. So, an example recipe is two game meat, a knife, 4 medium pelts, and driftwood strips. Additional Food Preparations for Very Cold Environments & Icefishing: Red meats can be allowed to freeze solid than cut into bite-sized pieces. Must remain frozen to remain edible. Rate of spoilage is slowed while frozen. This is a traditional way to eat these meats for people of the far north in North America Perhaps this can be simulated by the player having a basket or vessel exposed to extreme cold that meat is stored within and allowed to freeze and remain frozen. (In real life, the meat must be thoroughly frozen to kill parasites, and eating frozen, raw poultry is a big no-no.) If fishing is expanded as the devs suggested it would be in the future, then: Have tool rack or similar construction dry char, salmon, cod, halibut, herring. Does not work if exposed to rain/snow. Tool racks are already used to dry bowstaves Icefishing While using a fishing rod in a water source block, that block does not freeze Fishhooks can be made from carved bone or knapped. Knapped is not as durable as bone. Tip-ups for icefishing holes Suggested recipe: sticks or bones, fishhook, and some type of material for both lashing and the line such as rope, game meat (to simulate those made from ligaments/intestines), or imported linen thread. Could be loaded with a live or frozen bait and reset after each catch. Additional Tool Rack Uses (or Add a Drying Rack): When used outside in sub-freezing climate: Drying fish for preserved food When used outside generally Drying seagrass for rope, basket-weaving, mats, hats Maybe drying lichen for burnable material and rice lily bulbs Igloos: With knife or long-bladed weapons in hand, use it on snow or ice blocks (hold right-click) to cut into useable brick blocks which can be picked up/mined/shoveled. Can be stacked to create blocky igloo-like structures. If the temperature stays above freezing, the blocks can become damage or melt away. (Also make snow forts and have snowball fights wherever it’s cold enough!) Function for Snow Goggles: While wearing them, the levels of the tone-values of the screen are adjusted so darks stay the same but brights are dimmer. Would work in both vast expanses of blinding sand or blinding snow. Shout-out to ifoz for suggesting something similar. I also support their idea to add them to Survival Goods traders’ pools. Maybe also make them craftable using a knife and a bone or a small portion of wood.

It's fine, doc. X D Smaller details like that can be easy to miss, especially when you're probably more use to seeing the word salt than halite or NaCl. (I had originally put it as NaCl fifty billion edits ago.)

Honestly, walking into a cool underground build with green torch lighting with be AMAZING. The Resonance Archive itself is a greenish-blue when powered, and that first time you walk into there with it powered is such a cool feeling! I think players could love playing with the chemistry of this.

I’ve added a note of your information about making boric acid and cuprite to the original post so that any important notes from these comments are all collected there. ( ° u °)7 Additional notes about fireworks and fire grenades have also been added for people to review. Thank you for liking and reading my post!

I would like people to please focus more on the utility cases that I talked about and less on the added fluff like colored torches for building that I added in an attempt to boost how interconnected with other features this idea could be. This post is mainly directed at flares and how they could be useful for players. This is not suggesting fire arrows as these do not set things on fire. There are also already many chemicals already in the game that are pyrotechnic colorants, and blasting powder (technically called black powder, a mixture of charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter) is used to make flares in real life and its use in the crafting recipe was already suggested in the post. Having different colored flares is also an addition to add interconnected with other features. Players can decide different flares mean different things, etc. The only two compounds listed that aren't in the game already are cuprite and boric acid. I say flares would be much more useful than fireworks. However, fireworks are a route that is logical to add in addition. It would just be so cool to be having a siege of monsters on your fort with your friends, shoot off one of these arrows, and all of you stare in awe at the undulating sea of creatures before you. I'm going to have to change the title again, aren't I...? I am bad at communicating... Note to future self: organize suggestions so primary suggestion is discussed first (and mentioned first in title) before trying to suggest additional ways to link to more features within the game. Also, to everyone that has already posted, I do appreciate you liking my suggestion.

Use Cases for Flares: Would you like to fire a flare arrow off to light up a distant area farther than you can throw a torch or flare? Would you like to signal where the latest hole you fell in is for your friends coming to rescue you? Strike your handheld flare against the wall next to you and let the smoke rise up. Would you like to wield a flare in your hand to potentially scare off wolves/hyenas? (Rot monsters, bears, etc. are unaffected.) Would you like to mark an entity/player with light and a smoke trail to track them (that marked players can remove by submerging themselves in water)? Imagine yourself seeing a griefer fleeing on a pvp server. Imagine striking a flare arrow on the wall next to you then letting that flare arrow fly towards your target, the trail of smoke starting two seconds later after sparking to not obscure your vision, before arching over and hitting said target. A faint trail of smoke lingers over the treetops, showing where they’re heading. You must start tracking them as the end of the smoke trail will fade soon. Flare Crafting: Suggested Pyrotechnic Composition: Blasting Powder + 5-10% pyrotechnic colorant powder Suggested Casing: rolled thick parchment Easy Pyrotechnic Colorants to Add to the Game*: Gold - Charcoal powder Green-Yellow – Borax powder Green – Boric Acid Blue – Cuprite (Copper (I) Oxide) powder Silver/White – Titanium powder Orange – Iron powder or lime** Yellow – Halite powder Red - Potentially Celestine or Strontianite powder*** *All of the above compounds are already in the game except boric acid and cuprite. Boric acid is an acid of borax. UPDATE: Celestine and Strontianite are also not within the game. **Calcium-based flares may be able to be used underwater. For realism and to save on graphics, flares used underwater do not produce a smoke trail. Mind, though, that I could not confirm that calcium carbonate is the particular calcium compound used to create underwater flares. I tried looking but couldn’t find the info beyond “use of calcium compound”. It at least makes a nice orange color. No Red Pyrotechnic Colorant?: We'll need a strontium or lithium compound. For strontium, we'll probably need strontium nitrate or strontium chloride. Ideas for how to incorporate are welcomed. ***Strontium Minerals for Red Colorant: Okay, for strontium compounds, we have two naturally occurring minerals, celestine (SrSO4) and strontianite (SrCO3) which are also among the strontium compounds for pyrotechnic colorants. And as a bonus, it was reported that stable strontium isotopes “don’t pose a significant health threat”! They’re even really beautiful crystals! I’ll list both so options are available. About Celestine: A very beautiful, pale blue crystal. Also used in jewelry. The mindat.org website says: “Occurs mainly in sedimentary rocks such as bedded deposits of gypsum and halite; also in bedded limestone and dolomite, in cavities.” About Strontianite: Forms as a pale grey or pale green but can be pale red or even brown. From mindat.org: “Forms in low-temperature hydrothermal deposits in limestone and marl or as a gangue mineral in sulfide veins; as geodes or concretionary masses in limestone or clay.” An interesting tidbit is that it fluoresces under UV. Useful notes from traugdor: “Making boric acid is actually easy, just dissolve borax in water and add sulfuric acid. The boric acid will precipitate as a solid.” “Cuprite can be made by adding a copper ingot into a barrel of quicklime and sealing it for a bit.” Long-Distance Signaling using Flare Arrows Sequence: Attach flare to arrow. Coding-wise, this would create a different type of arrow with slightly different despawning mechanics compared to normal arrows. Light flare and fire arrow at distant spot. You may have the options to light the flare arrow either in your hand or while on/in the ground with a torch. If the flare arrow is stuck in the ground, you can use a firestarter. For a quicker method for when time is essential, the player could hit the arrow against something nearby to spark it before shooting it. When the player begins using a bow, a flare arrow will be selected as the projectile if it is lit. The arrow sticks into the surface it hits and its flare lights that distant area as well as generates its smoke signal for a set duration. Afterwards, the arrow despawns as normal. Maybe the arrow can also stick into entities so they can be tracked or marked. This would terrify animals and may enrage rot monsters and bears. Marked players can submerged themselves in water to extinguish/remove arrow. Additional ways to connect this idea to other aspects of the game: Use Cases for Colored Torches and Braziers: Would you like your cool underground temple build to have eerie green-yellow flame torches or braziers? Additional Info about Colored Torches: The recipe would be the standard torch recipe with a pyrotechnic colorant added. Colored torches only produce the normal amount of smoke that torches produce. Use Cases for Cuprite (Copper Mineral): Would you like to turn flame and smoke a pretty blue? Would you like a deep red gem for potential future jewelry making? Would you like deep red glass for potential future glassblowing? The Case for Adding Cuprite: A deep-red mineral found in copper ore deposits oxidized by weathering or oxygen-rich groundwater and found near these places or hydrothermal veins. Cuprite has potential use in various features either already in the game or that are potential future additions based on the dev roadmap. Specimen collecting, buying/selling Color for ceramics, glassmaking Deep red gem for jewelry pyrotechnic colorant I've added a couple pictures to help people see what I'm talking about. Thoughts about including fireworks along with flares: Comparing flares and fireworks again, flares have a simpler construction than fireworks which would also aid in them being useable earlier in a playthrough, a time when they could be of more use because it’s harder to survive. Both have similar components but the innards of a firework are many cardboard sections of black powder, oxidizers, color enhancers, stars, fuses, etc. arranged in particular ways to make them not only propel themselves but then explode at certain timings and styles. If fireworks were added and we’re going for realism, I would put them (at least the type seen in other block game) as having a much more involved crafting process and requiring more material. I would see it something like first you create the core that propels the firework then you add in the sections or layers that produce the different effects. Top it off with a fuse then light it (outside). Also keep in mind that the flares and fireworks would differ in that fireworks EXPLODE and don’t produce continuous light or smoke trail. For how to use them, I can see the firework being stuck in the ground or a holder, lit, and then left to propel into the sky to do their thing. Flares do not propel themselves. Thoughts about fire arrows: I’m still not going to add fire arrows to this suggestion when it comes to setting creatures on fire. They would not be very effective at that job. !!!! Instead of fire arrows, we could add: !!!! Something more like a throwable, lit, thin-walled, small ceramic bottle filled with alcohol or oil from plants and strips of linen would be much more effective at that task. Like a variant of the bee grenade. Now that is something my friends would definitely cause trouble with. Plant oils of note: linseed (made from flax) peanut oil sunflower seed oil (A side note here: Linen and cotton are very flammable fabrics while wool is fire-resistant.)

Metal Pot Features: Hit the pot with a rock or stick as you run to potentially scare off hyenas or wolves, alert your friends to where you are at a distance, or draw the attention of the rust monsters that haunt the lands to you. This form of hitting the pot makes it so that each sounding is timed with your click, allowing the player to make music or communicate via code at a distance How fast this feature registers clicks and makes a noise must have a limit so a player with an autoclicker doesn’t lag the game or break any ears with 700 pot bangs per second Smack things and your friends with it to create a lovely noise This form of hitting the pot makes only one sounding per thing hit Wearable on your head (at least the ones that are not ruined with glue and sulfuric acid) for a little armor when you’re desperate Used to create twice as much as a ceramic pot can of meals, glue, candles, etc. Useful for those bigger servers Fuel and time would be scaled accordingly Fabrication Examples: Hammer out copper pots on an anvil Cast bronze or iron pots using sand molds Potential Use Cases: Luring rust monsters away from or towards something Potentially using copper pot to scare away weaker threats when they're still a threat to the player in the copper age Signaling player position out of range of proximity voice chat Example code: Two bangs to signal people to come to you. One bang to answer that you're alive and to show where you are. Set up a rudimentary form of communication between mountain tops, across a valley, between two distant ships, etc. using morse code Make sweet, sweet music together. (Maybe each type of metal pot makes a different pitch with iron being the lowest?) You wish to wear the latest in survivor fashion Play the song of your people as you ride into battle on your elk Annoy your friends : )

(Thanks for the welcome LadyWYT!) Over the years with the other block game, I have played with many cool mods which have had their coders move on, and such is life. The mod you suggested may give me something like my suggestion now but I’m hoping to see many updates to Vintage Story to come so the same thing may happen to any mods I become attached to now. For at least this suggestion in particular, I think it could be a good fit for the base game, something to carry on into the future of the game’s development. Thank you, though, StCatharines, for telling me about the mod! X D

I saw in the latest devlog that eclipses will now affect light levels. What if a handful of other events were also added? These include: Occasional shooting stars Rare meteor shower Very rare meteor storms The meteor storms could just be ambient or possibly very rarely a small meteorite entity is spawned in the air that reaches the ground. Where it lands, maybe a small number of meteoric iron bits spawn on the surface. Yes, it could be confused for the game’s normal, larger meteor crash site but it would not have the soil impression and impact rocks, and it would be amazing to relive my mom’s actual experience of seeing a meteorite fall onto a lakeshore and being able to pick up that small chunk of metallic meteorite. Even if the latter is not added, falling stars and meteor showers would be really cool to add.