Rainbow Fresh

They stack to WHAT?! And here I was thinking about how to long term bank... At this point, quite genuinely, while I understand and appreciate the convenience of stacking infinite* money I would really not mind them being limited to 64 like any other normal block game amount too. Not that you'd ever need more than that at once.

I meandered around spawn for a bit trying to not starve to death for the first couple nights, then found a village ruin in some flat grassy field nearby, next to a big lake, and have been living there ever since. Ultimately though, it depends primarily on how you want to play and what mods you bring. I personally play with horses modded in which are earlier and easier to obtain than vanilla elks for longer travel with inventory capacity, so spreading out into multiple mini-bases might be more vanilla friendly. Otherwise living off of berries has been more than easy enough to fuel several days of just wandering around and then back home, so centering everything around one main base also works outside of winter, which is its very own challenge with either approach.

Having a button that swaps a firestarter source into your active hotbat slot is a deliberate action that involves the whole 0.1s of moving your finger to press the button more than just sourcing any kind of firestarter source from your inventory. On the other hand, still having the clear distinction of "Yes, I want my firestarter and yes, I want to now use it" is a more immersive message than just "just light the fire". Because actions have a purpose, otherwise you would not need to do them in the first place. Therefor I think a swap hotkey would be the most balanced option for both sides. Based on this, here is another suggestion: The option to ignite things having the firestarter in your mouse cursor slot. Like the interaction you can have with the world by clicking on the block you want to interact with when any primary focus UI is open - but you interact with what is on your mouse cursor slot, not what is on your selected hotbar slot. (If that's already possible I am sorry, never really used that mechanic for anything other than grinding stuff in a quern.) That would give you that deliberate "Just take it to do the job" interaction while maintaining the deliverate interaction in the first place. Cut's down on inventory shuffling tedium, doesn't require yet more hotkeys to bind and keeps the core mechanic intact. Aside from this, as mentioned by multiple people before, I am totally in favor of more options for firestarters, as torches will be eventually outclassed by a lantern and are annoying to have "randomly" go out.

No offense, but if equiping a torch to light a fire is too much hassle and you'd rather have mechanics that don't require you to play the game, then you probably chose the wrong game. Thinking about it, 7D2D has about exactly the firepit mechanics that you described. As for the individual suggestions: 1: So what I am reading here is that you'd rather have a magical UI button that lights the fire from thin air, as the only way you don't even need a "tinderbox taking up a precious inventory space" is to not require anything to light a fire at all. That would be both a gross under-development of an exiting gameplay mechanic and the most unrealistic thing possible - ever tried to light a fire with your bare hands and sheer willpower? Vintage Story might canonically have Sci-Fi teleporters but we don't have fire magic. 2: Again, most I can say to that is that removing any and all gameplay elements tied to one of the most core mechanics present throughout all phases of the game is the equivalent to cutting a limb off of your game's methaphorical body just because you don't like scratching when it itches. And also, ever tried putting a big stack of wood into a lit campfire at once in real life? Or tried telling it to stop burning cause you don't need it right now? It's why gas or electrical stoves/ovens were invented - which might be a much more fruitful direction to investigate in to solve your issue of "too much work constantly lighting fires" but simulateanously probably still a solution requiring modding, as the game's intended scope does not seem to go that far into modern technology. 3: That... doesn't even make sense anymore. What classifies as "simply nearby and using it"? Having the firepit UI actively open and stuff inside? I don't think being forced to look at the entire cooking process of virtually anything is a better use of your time than the 5 seconds of lighting the fire yourself. Otherwise this sounds like a copy of 2. EDIT: Now those, on the other hand, could be much easier implemented without lobotomizing the entire mechanic. Although the latter still feels, to me, like too big of a simplification to become base game material.

When you say "affect all the games system evenly" does that mean you don't have to seperately adjust spoilage rate?

So, Locusts. Those swanky little crawly buggers that you come across freeloading in a cave somewhere every now and then. In my earlier days on this Vintage World I found one or another nest of them in a cave. Obviously, when you are running around in tattered starting clothes just trying your poking your head into one or another cave opening, just to see if there might be anything there, when suddenly the bottom of the drop ahead of you starts glowing ominously due to the locusts awakening - you turn the hell around, mark the spot with a red skull icon on the map and decide "That is a future me problem". Pass the months and I got into a fight with just a small hand full of locusts (for context, I play with the Better Ruins mod that has big surface ruins with locust spawners in them) and learned that A: you better target them spawners fast and B: actually, locusts are pushovers. Damage: negligible. Killable: 1-2 flint spear pokes (for context, I also play with Combat Oberhaul balancing). Thus one winter day, with nothing better to do and need for scrap metal to make black dye for black leather for swanky clothing/equipment, I ventured raiding those locust nests I marked before. So here I was, in your typical everyday cave entrace that is actually just a single pitfall straight to hell. To make things worse, there was water pouring down so traversing was a difficult task and seeing as I only had torches I needed to be extra careful to not accidentally extinguish my entire stack in hand (as I did several times before). Getting closer to the nest, the locusts became active - and so did the spawners. I say "spawners" as in plural, unbeknownst to me at that point in time. Carefully hugging single-block ledges at the cave's wall I inch ever closer to where the spawners hang, of course, from the cave's ceiling, while being questionably save from the horrors below. For some reason, the locusts did not seem to remember that they are supposed to be able to climb as they were just sitting there... menacingly... waiting for me at the bottom to make a single misstep and fall. But I didn't, I reached the cave spawner and spent what felt like a good minute punching it until it broke. Good, now - wait, why are there still more locusts spawning? in waves of 2-3, about every 10 seconds without stopping. Abotu where I just destroyed the spawner. Is that a weird quirk where the spawning code finishes it's alloted amount even if the spawner ceases to exist? Another two waves spawn as I get incresingly more concerned. Maybe there is another spawner hidden behind this block. So I dig, finding nothing. What I failed to realize, for atleast another 5 waves of spawning, is that there was another spawner hanging right next to where I just destroyed the first one (granted, it did blend in suspiciously well with the rock wall). Finally, the spawning stops. Not that that mattered, though. The damage was already done. The cave pit leading to hell was no coated with an additional layer of living, murderous locusts. There genuinely must have been around 30-40 of them. The loot from the destroyed spawners down amongst them, despawn timer ticking down. And I only really went here for the floor spikes additionally turning the pit into a minefield, as I was after scrap metal for black dye. So, I had two options. I could be a smart, sane person and admit defeat, turn around, climb my way back out of the cave (which would take a significant amount of effort to begin with) and go home. Durability and time wasted, loot abandoned, no progress made and precious winter satiety lost... Ooooor I could embrace the little loot goblin I am, someone who'd rather throw away all their half-broken flint flint tools just to carry more useless junk home, and go get that stuff. It's just Locusts, right? They aren't scary or dangerous. Apocalyptic Rift Activity evening with dozens of drifters trained me to herd hordes of enemies and the ability to hit multiple target in a single swing/poke help greatly in dispersing the crowd! So I jumped down and fought. And fought. And fought some more. At the end I came out victorious, even if barely. Locusts aren't scary or dangerous, after all. ...the Tier 3 drifter who spawned in the pitch black parts of the cave behind me, though, was. And that was the end of this advenure after all.

The lore being based on an alternate timeline or whatever the Rust pulls from invading our world because some schmuck messed with the space-time-continuum is already messed up enough that I don't think we need another foreign invader. All of this is also so expectedly alien that you can turn it off completely if you just want nature to be your enemy, as this is a "wilderness survival" experience. Making the temporal mechanics we already have more developed should certainly be sufficient instead of slapping another low-level something on top.

Cause it's not a text file. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Modding:VCDBS_format

While I don't disagree that overall balancing concerns in a multiplayer-enabled game like Vintage Story require proper thought outside of the "It's my single player world and I want things like X" and that a clear-cut path of progression helps with that; I do also want to point out that Vintage Story is a sandbox game (with harsh survival rules first and foremost), not a linear experience. We don't get popups of "You need to check these three boxes of tasks off and reach level 20 and smelt 20 tin bronze bars to be able to press this button to increase arbitrary number X and be allowed to use bronze-age crafting recipes". We get mechanics tied to resources that exist in the world, with an intended path through following "Stone Age -> Pottery Age -> Copper Age -> Bronze Age -> Iron Age -> Steel Age". Some of which are more unavoidably required (nothing replaces pottery), some being skippable and ignorable through RNG and niche side-paths of "progession" (like finding a tin bronze pickaxe in a vessel). As such, "What's it to you" has a little more value than you are currently giving it credit for. The game doesn't need to enforce one singular path of progression; the fact that the alternative to bypass things is its own, drawn out challenge that also skips half the fun of the game and makes things more tedious than the intended path is a price people can voluntarily take. E.g. in Minecraft these days you can get the highest tier of equipment and as such "progression" without ever setting a single foot into a cave, where you are meant to obtain those resources. Or, hell, better example would be the speedrun ability to beat the final boss in under 20 minutes by skipping any non-mandatory parts of progression at the challenge of being incredibly frail, RNG dependant and only getting a single try. Doesn't make the game less well designed (if only focussing on this "strict path of progression" side of things, at least) and doesn't stop people who want to enjoy the game in its fullest from doing the normal progression after all. And while in a multiplayer setting imbalance in progression speed can be detrimental - the guy beelining for steel will be better prepared than the guy spending an entire IRL week in the copper age - there are many more factors far outside of the reach and concerns of the game and devs influencing this - like one person being able to play 8h a day, every day and the other person having a job only allowing them log on for like 2, 3h in the evenings.

Isn't that exactly what the pelt clothing is for? Kill deer or similarly big creature, treat into pelt, chop up into gloves/pants/top.

I feel like they mean the gamemode where there is no previous civilization and as such, noone invented anything before us.

Oh, I interpreted your "Not Combat Overhaul" as "Not CO, instead like M&B" and not "Not just CO, more like M&B"

Combat Overhaul is the closest stepping stone you get to a M&B combat style, with different attack directions and replacing hitscan with physical hitbox hit detection, which would be very much necessary for momentum-based damage calculation. That said, different weapon types for variety (even if only visually) would be cool, a combat system as complicated as CO/M&B would imho be a fair bit too much for vanilla VS with its 4 monsters.

Today I learned the mat exists and before I could even get hyped you tell me it's bugged... :c

It truly is. Meanwhile I am still stalking the ModDB daily, waiting for Combat Overhaul and From Golden Combs to update before I can play again...

Pretty sure I saw a (steam) train mod in the working already. Very rough and barebones but working as a proof of concept nonetheless. You do have a great point about the lore implications though. I was already thinking "What even would be the point of a steam engine" but if you have to live underground - you have no wind nor space for windmills. And usually no water for water wheels. You'd need to get creative (pun intended) and industrial and make your own mechanical power by use of what you have - metal and coal. As such, while not necessarily being that impressive to the unimpeded, surface-dwelling player Seraph it would make alot of sense for steam power to exist in that form. Not to mention that between long range teleportation and night vision goggles, a steel steam turbine wouldn't be the most non-medieval gizmo Mr. Jonas developed.

Fascinating - however, as the "realism vs game enjoyment" card has been played rather often around here recently I'm afraid I'd very much prefer a proper 1700s steel steam engine to extend the game's progression past "I made stronger iron tools [steel tools], hooray". Granted that would also require expansions to the entire mechanical network side of things as you do not need a steel steam engine to power a quern, a helve hammer and a pulverizer.

Ok, then let me rephrase the answer based on the assumption that this never was intended as a proper "game should have this, now" suggestion: Of course they should, would be much more immersive and only needs a couple new models! Though I wouldn't complain if we get steam power and minecarts by 1.30+ before it happens

Would it be nice to have? Probably. Is it necessary to have? Not really. It's cool to have different models for fresh fuel, burned fuel an having meat being roasted on a stick (wherever that magically came from) or a cooking pot or crucible neatly nested inside; but adding more models for different fuel types is something I'd happily wait for "whenever the devs got nothing better to do"

But what if instead of chiseling the rock on the fly to have holds (cause any sort of chiseling will inevitably impact performance in the long run), you hammer the chisel into the rock as a stake. Doesn't need "special climbing gear" as you use your everyday hammer and chisel, and the ability to climb anything anywhere is offset by the need to smith tons of chisels to abuse them as stakes. Could also add the ability to retrieve the chisel (with less durability) later which with the now removed item pickup delay could make for some ballsy two chisel plays. But the cracked rock approach sounds the most intuitively balanced option.

The limiting factor is supposed to be that you lose the spear in the process (I think you can pick it back up? But that's assuming you are not being chased down by a bear or other, running for your life). If the target isn't dead after the first throw, you might have a problem. Whereas with melee attacks you can keep poking until the job is done. Aside from that, though, I think what could bridge the gap between the two a little while still being easy enough of a game mechanic to implement and play around is increasing damage by distance traveled. Aka, if you throw a spear at something literally in your face, you are not only giving up your weapon but also doing barely anything. Whereas throwing at a target a fair distance away does the full intended ranged damage. Please don't get into another AI discussion about the physics behind this, I am seeing this as merely a gameplay balancing concept. That way throwing a spear when you could melee is being discouraged while the spear retains it's "risk reward" ranged capabilities with more perceived reward for the risk.

Too many different points to quote so I'm not gonna bother. Seeing as both sides of this discussion don't seem to be getting anywhere in convincing the other side, I'mma just gonna add my opinion one last time. I think that by this point most of us agree here that it would be a non-game-breaking QoL improvement if you could create a firepit using any common fuel source, much like you can create a pit kiln with firewood, peat or coal (I think, only ever used peat). Seeing as adding at least peat to the options already negates the tool requirement for that half of the process though, I'll still vote for sticks should work aswell. Gives more versatility in when and where you can create something as basic as a firepit while not changing anything about the "progression requirements" quite yet. For the "people who create a firepit would want to use it and as such want to use fuel that lasts longer than 0.5s" argument; right now you are already creating a firepit with firewood just to immediately swap it out for other fuel depending on the situation. Sticks are no different with the added side effect that you likely have sticks on you or find them around you before you have firewood, peat or coal. As for the debate about whether you should be able to harvest grass with your bare hands or not and the philosphical discussion about railroading the player's experience or not; The reason as to why we aren't getting anywhere is because both sides have decent, but no more than that arguments and as such I'm inclined to agree with the "if changing doesn't do anything notable, why change" side putting the concept of hand-harvesting grass to a potential mod anyone who wants it that way to install. After all, on the one hand there are arguments for grass punching - I, personally, can attest that there are players (me) with the "Why use durability when can spend more time for free" syndrome who would certainly rather punch grass than ever use a knife for the task, much I'd rather punch dirt for an hour instead of crafting and breaking a shovel. And with the ongoing railroading discussion, I'd very much say that if the game allows me to punch solid ground and not need a tool, not allowing me to do the same for something much simpler is kinda railroading by only offering a chosen selection of options for a task that, in other parts of the game, as multiple options. Then again on the other hand, we are talking about a mechanic here whose sole effect would change about the first 5 minutes of the game, and maybe have a nieche usage in that 1 in 100 situations you come across. So it's certainly not like we're discussing making a stone saw to bypass the need for copper to make planks for a nice looking house (and the dozens of crafting recipes requiring it). Speaking of progression and the tutorial nature of guiding the player to their first tier of progress (knapped tools) via the requirements for a campfire - that's not necessarily true, and wouldn't really change too much even with hand collected grass. A campfire has three uses: Cooking food, giving light and warmth, and smelting pre-iron ores. The latter of which you will only encounter in the pottery age, the middle of which is mostly a cold climate/winter thing (torches are the more versatile light source), leaving only really cooking. Depending on the spawn, you will probably live off of berries. The only thing requiring a campfire to cook but don't yet require you learning to knap to make a weapon are cattail roots. Which, themselves, already teach you "you can punch the plant and get the cattail. Buuuuut, with a knife, you could ALSO get the roots which you can cook and eat". In none of these scenarios does the campfire act as the initial guide to knapping. As such, in none of these scenarios would the path you take or level of guidance you get at the start of the game change even if you could make a campfire by just punching grass and picking up sticks. But alas, as mentioned, tl;dr - at this point we can probably agree that the campfire should be able to be created with multiple starting fuel sources as a QoL change, and punching grass is better kept to modding.

Granted, that is true for most parts. And it's been some 10-odd years since I was new to that game and there was no grass back then so I can't say how the order of experimentation would be for a completely new player; however, at the end of the day I don't know anyone there who would ever use or consider needing a tool to punch grass, something most anyone will do early on to get their first wheat seed(s) for farming. Which, even in vintage story, you do by just punching readily grown wild crops, not needing any tools. I've read that thread aswell and do agree with the author of which in the point that some controls could certainly be streamlined, bar the "everyone is already used to how it is". But streamlining "interacting" and "breaking" consistently would not do any harm in my eyes. You "break" an animal with left click, then harvest the loot with right click. You break a log with left click, but harvest the resin with right click. So why wouldn't you break grass with left click, and harvest it with right click? And harvesting crops is done with always left click no matter the tool either - though that is more because crops don't differentiate between harvesting and breaking; harvesting IS breaking and the loot depends on crop stage. Personally, I have finetuned my burn times on e.g. cooking with leftover sticks/grass to save more potent fuel every now and then. I also needed to go out and cut new grass about as many as I mowed the lawn to clear building areas. If not using grass as campfire fuel, pit kilns will eat up your stockpile. And there is no going around that.

There are two different concepts at play here. Progression and what the title of the thread suggests this is about, being able to make firepit without tools. And personally, I don't think the two got much to do with eachother. First off, do we actually consider making a firepit progression? Depending on starting climate, spawn area and luck scavenging, you don't need one before you have need to make flint tools for other reasons. Live off of berries at the start (or be disappointed how much more work it was to poke a fish to death back in 1.21 with a crafted stone spear, then butcher it with a stone knife, then cook the filet just to have barely more satiety than the berries) and you don't need a campfire until you want to cook something - aka. are in the clay age, past the stone age where you "unlock" the campfire. Have a more dire start and cooking anything that moves or is a cattail root is your only chance of survival. Doesn't feel like much progression and as such, doesn't feel like much change to or bypassing of progression if we could make a campfire with sticks instead of firewood and rip grass right out of the ground. Speaking of which, realism aside I'd argue it would be a much more intutive thought for a fresh newbie player to get grass as one of the first resources before anything else - because it's grass. You can rup it out with bare hands IRL and many peopl come from Minecraft where literally punching grass is one of the first things you do. It requiring a tool may at best act as forced guidance to "Hey, welcome to not Minecraft - you can make a stone knife" but otherwise more like the oposite of game progression. Forcing progression in other parts by arbitraty limitation. That on top of the realism factor of a firepit usually starting with easier to ignite kindling (like leaves or, well, sticks) and only then fueled by longer burning firewood and Tl;dr making a campfire with sticks and grass is a very reasonable thing that I am in favor of adding to the game. And maybe punching grass. No need for wood javelins though. On the one hand, if this deliberate distinction between "wants to remove grass" and "wants to harvest grass" is truly important - harvest it with right click. Both on the knife and the hands. Clear distinction between two mode of operation. On the other hand - even if you remove grass, it's one of the few things in VS that just comes back out of thin air. So if the player just wants to get rid of grass... nature already has other plans. And furthermore, you need tons of grass and can just use it as campfire fuel if you have too much, so the problem of throwing it away to clutter the world and accidentally picking it back up is less of an issue.

So, seeing as there are one or another thread already around discussing the current temporal mechanics (temporal stability, rifts, temporal storms) I have been building this idea after reading through a couple of those, suggesting an approach to how temporal stability and its stronger effects during temporal storms could - in abstract theory - be reworked. I am aware that what I am suggesting would be a huge feat of software engineering but still think it's a cool enough concept to consider discussing. I will also mix parts of how the experience would be for the user with how I would roughly think it could be implemented. This entire idea is built off of the concept mentioned in the wiki about how "Temporal Stability is a game mechanic that measures how close the player is to entering the Rust World." This, to me, implies there is intended to be a whole different "world" (seeing as this is temporal stuff rather another "time") from which the Rust Creatures come, spawned into our world through the space-time-rifts. Mechanically that sounds like having a different dimension much like Minecraft separates world instances of the overworld, nether and end dimensions; I don't know how feasable actually multithreading dimension instances would be for what the gimmicks I will bring up later are but that will ultimately be a design decision for the developers to make. The idea is the following: There is a whole second game world dimension which will be the Rust World. This dimension is a carbon copy of our main game world, as such generated from the same seed under the same conditions. In fact, for more enforced equality across changing world generation (mods/version updates), I'd rather recommend the Rust World main world data to literally just be copied from the main dimension's one upon generating any new chunk. This way the Rust World is exactly the same world as we play in as it, again, should be just "temporally" different; same world, different time. The main difference of this second dimension would be that A : The temporal storm VFXs (minus the warping, maybe) are constantly active B : Temporal stability doesn't naturally increase C : Much like during temporal storms, monsters spawn all the time - more on that in detail later D : Using the new 1.22 procedural dungeon system, big Rust World dungeons spawn frequently all over the place With this framework in place, the Rust World could be integrated with the temporal stability mechanic and the temporal storm mechanic in way more impressive and risk-reward type ways than just spawning monsters on your head during storms and having some wobbly visuals, and the complete lack of any notable mechanics tied to reaching low temporal stability. Instead, one could literally utilize the Rust World and the concept of "getting closer to the Rust World" when temporal stability is low. Imagine the following: When temporal stability gets low, individual chunks of the world get visually overlapped with the chunk data from the Rust World at that location plus according localized VFXs (doable, because for every untouched natural bit of the world, the Rust World looks exactly the same except for Rust World dungeons maybe). This would be a visually impressive and much more notable warning indicator for low temporal stability than glitchy monsters spawning and ultimately just taking neglectable amounts of damage. After all, the player is getting closer to the Rust World, being no longer temporally anchored in this plane of existence, not the other way around. Upon reaching 0% temporal stability, the player is then teleported to the Rust World at their currently location (plus safety to not be inside blocks) proper. This could be visually smoothened (nobody likes "Loading..." screens) by replacing the chunk data at their current location first, then just re-loading chunks around them normally but with Rust World data, gradually "turning" the world around them into the Rust World. Instead of actively being harmful, this would make the temporal instability mechanic passively harmful. It would also greatly expand the scope of this mechanic and turn it from a simple "avoid" nuisance into a more detailed risk-reward mechanic. The point of the proper Rust World is that it is incredibly hostile - I am thinking minimum Tier 4, up to Tier 6? monsters with unique monsters found only there - but also very rewarding with all the dungeon loot found only there. To the unsuspecting, unprepared player it as a "to be avoided" death sentence (and being a different game dimension, on death items would basically be lost forever, so more reason to avoid). To the prepared player (or group of players); or the foolishly brave, it is a challenging opportunity to seek out on purpose. The way to escape the Rust World would then be to get your temporal stability back up to 100% by either killing monsters, finding temporal gears as loot or potential other mechanics one could come up with. With this framework in place, temporal storms could also get the same upgrade. During a temporal storm, random chunk patterns (as in, not just individual chunks but patches of chunks to have connected structures) will be replaced with their Rust World counterpart. This makes them much more impressive and much more dangerous than just annoyingly spawning monsters in your face. Literally. This would also elevate the intended danger coming from high tier monsters spawning in your face in a more predictable and meaningful way - instead of high tier monsters spawning at random anywhere, random patches of the world turn into their Rust World counterpart spawning the high tier monsters from there. The "not being safe anywhere" notion is replaced by "Oops, half your house is now Rust World instead". Of course, since this is a much more disrupting approach, I also suggest the Rift Ward to instead create a safety bubble in which the world cannot be turned into the Rust World, so players can earn protection of their base and as such a semblence of safety during storms. And since this is dealing with chunk data from two different world instances, the normal world is safely revertable at any point. As mentioned at the beginning, I am aware that this would be a huge undertaking to implement - in general, but especially in the "fancy" way I suggested. Most complicated would be the treatment of server vs client in multiplayer settings. After all, temporal storms would affect the world as a whole and such need to be synced between all players. Meanwhile, the warning illusions of low temporal stability would be an effect only affecting the player with low stability. Going to the Rust World on 0% stability, however, needs to be a synchronized act allowing for multiplayer cooperation again. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.