Thalius

I personally like the way global temporal storms currently look and work, I just think they lack purpose, new challenges and incentive. Those were the things I aimed to address with my suggestion. I hope storms remain close to what we see in the game right now, just with a greater place in the game's overall story. I have to imagine that Tyron and the gang have something greater in mind to build onto them. They are a pretty intense part of the game play right now, and I have a hard time seeing the global storms go away, and don't want to see them change much in the way they function, just with new elements added to them. [ As a side note: We did turn storms off on our server, but not because we did not enjoy them. (Many on our server don't enjoy them, to be fair, but there is a decent group of us who do! The Wilderlands server is meant to be hard, so we tend to attract players that enjoy the challenges the game affords, one of which is the storms. ). We had to turn them off though, because we had a few players that learned to afk mass farm drifters during storms via pit traps with spikes and glitch-spears and such. One of our players once afk killed nearly 200 nightmare drifters during a heavy storm with such a pit trap. That is a lot of free loot at absolutely zero risk. I can't fault players for taking advantage of the current mechanics, but it was unbalancing our server economy. I could not find a way to mod drifter behavior around the problem, and so storms, therefore, had to go for the time being. One solution would be better drifter ai. Silly things need to quit stepping off of cliffs and into holes and such if the drop is too far, and they should be able to climb a bit to get out of shallower pits that might have damage inducing blocks on the floor. This would mean recognizing the edge of a block even if it is a chiselled block or open trap door, and having ai that steers them off of blocks that are hurting them and allowing them to climb out of holes that their ai allows them to drop into. All of this is not an issue related to storm mechanics though- this is all an entity ai problem. ]

Sounds a lot like you've also played a game called Wurm, or this is just a wildly uncanny coincidence of a suggestion. In another post I suggested that temporally unstable areas occasionally have a sort of mini storm that are localized, and that have an objective at their epicenter that players can endeavor to deal with to close the storm out and perhaps stabilize the region for a time. Your suggestion of a "rift" type event would pair nicely with that. These could also happen very rarely in areas that are normally stable, just to spice things up. Not sure how the idea works for a "global" sort of temporal storm though, unless you are suggesting that temporal storms are no longer global events.

I feel that for storms to be truly enjoyable and engaging, they need to have a few things going for them: New and exciting challenges, Mystery/exploratory elements, A payoff for those that participate in (and not simply survive), a storm, Visible impact/purpose in the game world. I have mentioned in other forum threads how I like the idea of the Rust World as a shadowy, twisted, alternate-dimensional version of our own world that I hope we will eventually have the ability to cross over into it completely. There we would find a rusted, decayed version of our world, taken over by whatever entity or forces that constitute and/or cause the "Rust" that is seeking to invade and corrupt our own via the mysterious temporal instability we encounter in various places. In that world we would find other entities exclusive to the rust dimension, along with drifters that show up in our world; different materials; unique, corrupted structures of various kinds; rusted, corrupted biome type areas, etc- a whole other world that has some similarities to our own, but full of new mysteries and dangers. (Perhaps ruins in our world have some special significance in the Rust world?) Currently, during temporal storms, we see this other world edging it's way into ours but with no new features- just a rusty, dark world with insanely high spawn rates for drifters, twisting the fabric or space and time and edging it's way into our reality. Creepy and difficult, but that is about it. I say this to set up the backdrop for some suggestions on how I'd like to see storms work. Some of these suggestions bleed over into thoughts on temporal instability in general and the greater struggle in the world. I don't think that the issue with storms can be fixed without addressing the whole subject of temporal instability, the rust world, it's creeping into ours at times, and our whole role to play in this conflict. First, I want to suggest encountering new entities. Fighting drifters is fine, but in that other world we should encounter new threats. During the chaos of storms those new threats find their way into our world. The Rust World contains different resources- corrupted block types perhaps, terrain, structures, etc. During storms we should be able to see these things, and maybe have the chance to acquire some of them and keep them under the right conditions. Temporally stable zones. Some players simply don't want to participate in storms, but would like to stay online and doing things. I'd like to see a way for a player to be able to make their home "temporally stable", even during storms. Do this by requiring the acquiring of some item or resource from the Rust world that can be used along with temporal gears to craft a stability device one can place that renders a radius around the device stable at all times. This device could be upgraded and might need to be maintained. Enough devices in an area could theoretically render a town or city safe from temporal storms. As an added bonus, these devices could also be placed in areas of regular temporal instability to stabilize the area around them. Perhaps resources acquired from the Rust world during temporal storms can only be kept if transported back to a temporally safe zone during the temporal storm. If not carried to and kept in a stable zone till the storm is over, the items disappear from inventory when the storm fades. Sort of a big suggestion here: Allow for crossing into the Rust world. During a storm we would see new entities from the Rust world appearing in our own. These entities would have a chance to drop a new item- corrupted gears. These would basically be corrupted temporal gears. When a player acquires one they can right click use it as when using a temporal gear to set a respawn point. When the corrupted gear breaks, a server wide message appears saying "[player name] has crossed over...", and the player disappears from the world and crosses over to the rust world. At that point, all the wonkiness fades from the screen and the player is in the Rust world. No damage is taken since they are no longer between worlds- they have crossed over. Breaking the corrupted gear set a spawn location in this new world for that player. Acquiring and breaking a new corrupted gear while in the Rust world sets a new re-spawn point in the Rust world. Players can move about and explore this new world at will, but it would be a dangerous place. Resources in the world would include all the normal-world resources as well as the new Rust-world content, and appropriate new recipes for new items craft-able with the new content. All drifters would still spawn in the Rust world and drop normal temporal gears. To leave the Rust world, acquire and break a normal temporal gear. When this is done, you leave the Rust world and re-spawn in the normal world at your normal world's set spawn point. All items acquired in the Rust world that are in your inventory transfer to the new world with you. Some items from the Rust world, such as Rust-world building blocks and other Rust-world items/resources, would carry with them some residual corruption and instability. Placing and/or building with too many of these corrupted items leads to temporal instability over a wide area in the normal world. Having stability devices in place would mitigate some of that, but placing too many corrupted blocks or items would eventually bleed into the world in spite of the devices. One can return to the Rust world only by breaking a corrupted gear during a temporal storm, or by breaking a corrupted gear when the player is crossing over into the Rust world due to high instability. If you already have a spawn point set in the Rust world, breaking a corrupted gear during a storm or times of low personal stability places you in the Rust world at your previously set Rust world spawn point. I'm glad to see this topic raised. I'm personally of the opinion that the next major update needed for the game should be a combat update, of which I think addressing this issue should be a major part. Humbly but enthusiastically submitted for consideration... ~TH~

You have seen them "come through"? Through what, walls or doors? Or did they possible spawn there? If light levels are too low in any corner or shaded tiles, they will spawn even inside a building on those tiles. Getting the lighting right can be tricky, depending on the interior you are trying to light up.

I figured that was the way it worked, and explained so to some of our server members who also had questions and concerns about overpowered snare mechanics on the server. My thought and question would be, is there a way to add a "chance" attribute to snares activating/dropping when an entity touches them? I know that soil instability has to have something like this attached to sideways instability. Not all soil blocks slide sideways and collapse when digging, which means that in some way there is a chance attached to them that they will not slide when a block is broken next to them. If a similar chance attribute could be attached to snares, then they could be configured to drop at a set rate, which could solve the issue for those that would like a less effective snare chance. For example: If a snare had a 20% chance of dropping/activating when touched, this would mean only one in five rabbits that came to the snare would be caught. The rest would get a free meal and get away, and the player would come back to an snare that has been un-tripped and robbed of bait. Make this configurable, and the chance of catching a rabbit is determined by the snare chance config setting set by the player, and the rabbit population where the snares are set.

Lol, one way to look at it, I guess. Thinking about this with regard to lore though, there has to be some reason why a seraph respawns where it does after death. What if tech in the world could be used to manipulate those temporal forces to respawn them at a certain point on a regional scale based on the location of said devices?

Greetings! I've used the mod in single player world and loved it! Functionality is great, and fits into the VS world beautifully. Thoroughly enjoyed it! On my Wilderlands server I have a pretty solid policy of not adding any mods that add new blocks to the game unless it is to fill a significant void in game mechanics. This is one of the few mods I would consider adding to the server, but for one thing: In my experience, it is very overpowered. I could catch rabbits like mad, and fish were guaranteed almost every time, at least on trot-lines. Fish traps felt more balanced, as I recall. Trot-lines needed balancing, as I've read others remarks to the same effect, as do snares in my opinion. It has been nearly 5 or 6 months since I last used the mod, and wanted to ask if such things had been addressed perhaps? And if not, will they be in the coming versions of the mod? I want to float the idea to my community of adding the mod to our world, but either it needs to be balanced or there needs to be a config file that allows for tweaking the success rate of traps and trot-lines and such. Don't take any of this as a criticism. It is fabulous work, it just makes things too easy for what we are looking for on our server. Rabbit snares should not be the best option for staying supplied with meat and leather, fishing tackle should degrade and sometimes break off, and fish should sometimes be harder to catch and easier to lose if not picked up quickly after being caught. Maybe tie catch rate to the phase of the moon or to weather or something. That would be fun, having to pay attention to the game world and discern best times to put out a line. Humbly submitted... ~TH~ [Edit]: Just saw the notice that in a coming release, all that will be customizable. Well, the fishing at least. Good to hear!

I saw this morning that in the latest pre release there is a new feature added that limits the number of times you can use a custom spawn point in wilderness survival mode before it needs to be reset. Default is 2, but it is customizable. I like the addition, but it will be a controversial addition to the game on our server. Some folks just like the set-it-and-forget-it way that the mechanic works now, and they have good personal reasons. Some players like to travel far from spawn and settle in remote areas, and prefer to avoid drifters as much as possible. The idea that they will now lose their customized respawn point after they die a few times and then have to walk 30 real life minutes or more back home is going to irritate them a bit (maybe more than a bit), unless they deal with drifters (which they also don't want to do any more than they need to), to acquire gears or trade with others who can provide them. As I said, I like the idea and think it will bring a needed element to the survival aspect of the game, but I can understand why some won't want it. It is a daunting thing for a player to walk 20k blocks off into the wilderness to set up a base knowing that they may lose their respawn point if they don't get lucky enough with gears to maintain it. If 20k away is so daunting a thing, what about 100k? Heck, some players in our server think that a 2k block walk from spawn is a big deal. Our world is 1mill x 1mill, and now we will lose custom respawn points if we don't or can't maintain them, and spawn back to the one single server wide respawn point. Again, and don't get me wrong, I like the challenge- but when put in perspective it feels a bit odd. That got me thinking... Add a feature: A machine, device, spawn block- something that a player can obtain and set up in the world. Make them VERY rare, and require parts/materials to be scavenged and purchased to complete them. When a player dies without an active custom respawn point, they respawn at the spawn device/block closest to where they died. This would allow for player built, regional respawn points to be set up, and make setting up towns and cities and personal bases far from server spawn much more viable in a vast game world. Humbly submitted... ~TH~

There are still quite a few blocks that can't be chiselled with that setting turned on. Dirt, cob, stone path blocks, glass, and others. That setting, even though it says "all" only allows you to chisel most blocks, not all blocks. It is a bit misleading.

Personally hoping we have something other than horses to ride. I mean, I get that horses have been used that way forever and they are a staple item in almost any game of similar world simulation scope as Vintage Story is, but I'm hoping for something more interesting than horses and saddles and such. Let me throw a saddle blanket and bridle on a ram and ride one of those, or some other large creature unique to Vintage Story. Or better yet, give us water buffalo or karabao and let us ride those, along with using them to work fields and pull carts and such.

max/mingeneration, max/mingenerations, max/mintamingGeneration, max/mintamingGenerations... Even tried plain "tamingGeneration" and "tamingGenerations" followed by specific generation number I was trying to test it on.. I've used every variation I can think of with same results, and in multiple different places where I could conceive it might be expected in the entity .json file. Either I'm thinking about it entirely wrong, or it is not working yet. Consensus in the Discord mod help channel was uncertainty on how to implement it, and wait for further info. Of course if someone has figured out how it should look, please share.

Used that as well with same result. Not working yet, or I'm using it in the wrong place. Spoke with a few other modders about the issue in Discord and no one is quite sure yet how to get it working. Waiting for further documentation to be made available.

Greetings... I posted a week ago or so making a modding suggestion for a new emotion state that could be set to make sheep and other entities flee but be quickly bred out of them, but with the recent 1.15 pre-3 release, we have the option to configure by generation how quickly fleeentity, idle, and melee ai task responses are bred out of an entity. I can acquire the behavior I am looking for now in the ethology mod I've been working on! ...but I'm not sure how to get it to work. Asking in discord modding help has not found a solution yet, so I'm posting here to try my luck as I work to understand how to implant this into an entity's .json file. Using sheep as an example, I added a new fleeentity ai task with no "ondamage" requirement, but added the "maxtamingGenerations: 1" line to the code. It is not working. Neither did "maxtamingGeneration", "maxGenerations", "maxGeneration". Here is a copy of the "fleeentity" ai task as inserted into the .json file: { code: "fleeentity", entityCodes: ["player"], priority: 1.5, movespeed: 0.052, seekingRange: 12, animation: "Run", animationSpeed: 3.5, sound: "creature/sheep/hurt2", maxGeneration: 1 }, If I understand it right, this should result in all gen 2 and higher sheep ignoring this ai task. It is not working though. All my sheep still run like mad when I am within seeking range. I also tried adding the "maxGeneration" line under client and server behaviors, thinking maybe it would simply disable all "fleeentity" ai tasks at gen 2 and above, but that did not work either. Has anyone else played around with this new customizable option and figured out how to make it work right? I'm stuck.

I would like to suggest the addition of a couple of small, simple functions aimed at adding some anti-griefing tools to a multiplayer server. -The First suggestion is a small tool that would would simply be used to add a player's name to any "item" such as tools, furniture, chests, etc, similar to the way a player's name used to be added to reinforced blocks. (That feature seems to have been removed at some point, as I no longer see my name on reinforced blocks on my single player test world where I'm trying out the most recent pre-release). I'd recommend a tool that can be used in the same way as the plumb and square- right click an item with the tool and it adds your name to it, click again to remove your name- but only the "owner" can remove their name. No durability loss, and no additional resources needed. Player's name could be added by right clicking placed items, items in containers, or by alt-freeing up the mouse and right clicking an item in a player's inventory. When any player hovers over the item, the owner's name would be seen in the block info overlay, and same when hovering over an item in a chest or in inventory. If a small text gui would pop up and allow us to add a custom name to an item as well, that would be fun. -The second anti-griefing tool would be a server utility that would record every player's action in the server world when breaking and placing blocks and items. At the very least, a utility that would record the breaking of reinforced blocks and the picking up/placing of items. I hear that there is a Minecraft server plugin that does this, among other things, called coreprotect, I think. Wondering how hard it might be to add something similar that would record all server player/block interactions or that would, as I said, at least record interactions with items and reinforced blocks. The purpose of these tools would be for multiplayer server anti-griefing purposes. It would give the server admin all info needed to settle disputes when unfortunate things like stealing occur. ~TH~

Now that we are starting to get more tree varieties and wood finishes... Anyone know if there are plans on the table to eventually give chests, tables, doors and all other wood items the finish of the wood type they are made from? If not, may I enthusiastically suggest such a thing be considered soon? Loving the new woods, and looking forward to more. I want to show them off in all my wood items. ~TH~

But in the op, the problem is that temporal gears are hard to get in the first place which is why they are asking for easier spawn set mechanics. This suggestion does not really make it easier, it just makes it a different way to use temporal gears for respawning, but still requires temporal gears. Might even require more of them.

Not sure how I feel about that at first glance, but it could be a fun compromise. Set spawn to group leader on the expedition, and make it a priority to keep them protected and alive. If they die, trip resets. Some risk there, I suppose. Of course, in a three player group, player A sets spawn to B, B to C and C to A, and there is always a way to get back to where you were in the journey as long as not all of the group dies. That would feel awkward though, but up to the players to do it that way if they like, I suppose. Might be a good option for a mod to work in though. I think it would feel odd as a base game feature.

The nomadic lifestyle is indeed a challenge in Vintage Story, and I love it. The longest single trip I've made in survival mode (and as a side-note, only using stone age tools the entire time), covered a span of around 80k blocks. It ranged from 37k-ish south to 40k north to the huge arctic range in my server world. I survived eating cooked red and bush-meat, and scavenging for berries along the way. I slept in quickly made cob huts on grass mats, and spent the early morning time killing drifters through murder holes in the side of my cob dwelling as I waited for the beginning of sunrise. I set waypoints for interesting features, and occasionally made reed storage baskets to place things in that I found along the way and wanted to perhaps come back later to gather. A goal I have is to make the run again, establishing markers and campsites along the way, so a full day's run lands me at another camp along the route and an occasional base in interesting areas that I'll want to spend more time in. I say all that to explain that, in my opinion, the nomadic lifestyle is entirely possible and rewarding- the more so because of the risk of dying along the way and having to restart the journey. Take that risk away and you don't really have any challenge at all. What does it really matter if I die? I can keep my things and respawn at or very near to where I was killed and resume the trip. The challenge and proposed problem at the root of the OP is that the nomadic group game style is much more difficult. If you want to stay together as a group along that whole route, then anyone dying becomes a major hindrance to progress. The trek I made took several hours a night over a period of about one real life week. If I had been part of a group and any one of us had died along the way, we either would have had to continue without them or wait for longer and longer periods of time for up to several real life days in order for them to catch back up to us the longer the trip went on. Even with this though- the game still provides the solution. Before setting out, the group needs to stock up on temporal gears, have good leather armor and weapons, poulitces, etc. This means some significant prep time is needed before setting out, hunting drifters for temporal gears in particular. Higher tier drifters have higher temporal gear drop rates, so if you want to gather the needed gears in a more reasonable time period, you'll need to head under ground. Grinding out a few temporal storms while at your respawn point is a great way to get them. So the take away from all that- In my experience, the nomadic lifestyle, even for a group, is entirely doable under current game mechanics. What the op is asking for is that it be much easier to do, which I can't vote for. There are always mods to make things less or more challenging as you desire. Or, in place of all that, you can always switch over to creative mode and swipe the needed gears to set a respawn point for the group without the hassle of having to grind for gears. Just my two rusty gears' worth of opinion on the subject. ~TH~

Add a telescoping spy glass that can only be purchased from a trader, and give it this function rather than a hotkey.

As I continue to think on this a bit... There have been suggestions and requests that there be some way for areas of temporal instability to be made stable. I can envision a challenging way that might be implemented along with this suggestion. Consider what it would be like if, during the times that a temporal shadow falls over an unstable area, there appears at the heart of the shadow/area an objective for the player to confront- Something to be killed, something to be destroyed, something to be mended, a ceremony to perform... something. This objective could only be achieved during a shadow-storm, meaning of course that a player or players would have to intentionally venture into the heart of one of these storms to purify an unstable region. I'd also suggest that whatever the "something" is that needs to be accomplished, there is a game setting that renders the remedy permanent or temporary and in need of maintaining (for those of us that want ongoing and re-occurring challenges)- A "neglect the patch you achieved on the region's instability and you have to do it over again" sort of thing. ~TH~

Greetings Vintarians! Another Wilderlands update.. Currently waiting on the stable release for version 1.15. Once it is here and free of major bugs, we will be updating the server. Very much looking forward to the new content! In the mean time, we have been taking a hard look at temporal storms, drifter mechanics, and loot drops. One of the key mods on the server is the Wilderlands' version of Mr1k3's Better Drifters mod. The Wilderlands version aims to make drifters a bit more dynamic and challenging, with rewarding but not too overpowered loot drops on harvest. We ran into a snag though with temporal storms providing an opportunity for drifters to be afk farmed via traps, with the player being able to avoid any chance of harm while away from the pc, then coming back when the storms concluded in order to harvest their already dead catch- sometimes as many as several hundred drifters. So, unable to find a way to rectify the issue under current game mechanics, we opted to remove temporal storms altogether but make drifters much more interesting over-all. For full details, see the Better_Drifters_Wilderlands_Version_1.2.0 release post here: While we hated to see temporal storms go, because they are quite fun and creepy, we'll have to wait till we have better drifter ai that prevents cheesing the system before we can enjoy them properly. Until then- The Wilderlands drifters have a few new tricks in their bag, and they will keep you on your toes. ~TH~

Better_Drifters_Wilderlands_Version_1.2.0 is here! On our server we found that temporal storms, as fun and creepy as they are, are too easy to grind with traps at no risk to the player if you do it right. This led to an imbalance in the server economy that either required nerfing loot drops hard or finding some way to make drifters un-farmable during storms. I've tried various options to make them more difficult to farm via traps, but at this time and until we get a combat update with improved drifter ai this is simply not something that can be prevented. We also tried nerfing the loot drops hard, but the result was that no one wanted to farm them anymore because it was not worth it, but it was also not worth the risk of hunting them down... so it was a lose-lose adjustment. And so, the Wilderlands server has removed temporal storms for the reasons stated above, and opted to make drifter encounters more interesting over-all. Enter Better Drifters Wilderlands Version 1.2. Better Drifters Wilderlands Version 1.3 release Changes: Adjustments to drifter spawn conditions, ai, and combat mechanics -Corrupt drifters will spawn much less frequently and will be more of a surface minor-boss entity. Nightmare drifters will spawn MUCH less frequently and will be more of an underworld minor-boss entity, and will spawn anywhere underground, from mantle to close to sea level. Tainted drifters will spawn above and below ground. Tainted, Corrupt, and Nightmare drifters have had their light level requirements for spawning set at or very near to zero. Corrupt and Nightmare drifters have had their health points increased. Deep drifters will be the underground counterparts to surface drifters, and will spawn regularly and all the way down to mantle. All drifters have had some edits to their attack timing. This will take some getting used to. They are harder to dodge. All drifters will have a new "rage mode". When triggered, attack speeds, leaping attack chances, and damage ramp up a bit. All drifters have had their spawn rates reduced, due to the increased threat they pose. As always, feel free to message me with questions or comments. ~TH~ Version 1.3.1 released. Fixed: A speed issue with Corrupt and Nightmare drifters has been addressed, where an error was made that basically gave them super speed when a certain seeking ai triggered. Tweaks: Adjustments to health points of certain drifters. Adjustments to animations of some seeking and melee ai tasks. Better_Drifters_Wilderlands_Version_1.2.0.zip Better_Drifters_WV_1.3.0.zip Beter_Drifters_WV_1.3.1.zip

Or perhaps rather than a meandering shadow, the whole unstable area occasionally falls under a temporal shadow, which could be weak or heavy, with heaviest shadow intensity at the heart of the instability. This could happen any time with no warning, so traveling through an unstable area becomes more precarious. The way unstable areas work at the moment, they are not really a huge deal- you just can't settle there or work in the area for a long period of time without using a temporal gear or killing drifters- neither of which is all that hard to do.

Got this idea from a glitch on our server, actually- An odd void of sunlight in an otherwise open and sunny location. It could be interesting if, in areas of surface instability, there were randomly occurring "temporal shadows" that could fall over an area, and maybe even very slowly move/drift. Temporal shadows could be small in size or large, and could be relatively brief lasting half a game hour or last for game-days at a time as they drift along and meander around in the unstable area. Walking into these shadows would be much like being in a temporal storm, and severity would be random as well. The temporal shadow could be weak for a period of time and only increase spawn rate of surface drifters, but could intensify without warning to cause spawning of other types as well. Since they would occur only in temporaly unstable surface areas, players would not have to worry about their base being overrun by a temporal shadow unless they choose to settle in or very near to a zone where such temporal shadows can occur. Humbly submitted for consideration... ~TH~

Running version 1.14.10.