DeanF

So what I'm hearing is that antler sheds need to be in the game?

Using vines to make coils of rope is a bit... contrived? We can certainly come up with better ways. So, just limiting myself to sources used in great quantity: How about hemp? Yes, there will be jokes, but it's a great fiber for making rope and cloth. And you can press oil from the seeds, so now that we have linseed and olive oil this could be added. (This is not the same as hash oil, which is made from the flowers.) Add abaca for warmer regions. This is actually a species of banana plant, which is broken for it's fibers. It is often called Manila hemp. It can also be used to make lustrous textiles. Finally jute, also for warm regions. This is a plant from South Asia- principally Bangladesh- that needs a lot of water, and makes great rope. Clothing has been made from it, but was always considered very crude. As an option for early stone-age gameplay, nettle has long been used for it's fibers, and makes excellent cordage. I don't think that it was ever mass manufactured, though.

I see in the release notes that flax/linseed oil and olive oil have been added to the game. Excellent! Presumably, you put these precursors into some sort of press. So how about sun flower oil? Sunflowers are also in the game, and were used to produce oil. Any time that oil is pressed it should also leave cakes, which can be used as animal fodder. Other potential sources to consider adding are sesame oil or canola oil. Canola (also unfortunately called rapeseed) is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. And, ok I'm going to say it- hemp. Yes, there will be jokes, but it's a very useful plant for stone age cultures. Firstly, it is good for making oils. Secondly, it is a great fiber for making rope, and frankly makes a lot more sense than using vines. Hmm... I should start a rope discussion.

I endorse this. I seem to regularly have drifters spawn literally on the block right next to me during temporal storms. Annoying.

Personally I would be fine with four ingredients if the first two didn't have to be the exact same... and in the same amount. You should just be able to plop in four ingredients, and whichever is the largest number becomes the primary one driving what the recipe is called. So if I have 4 fish, 6 turnips, 4 cranberries, and two chanterelles, that's Turnip Stew with Fish and Cranberries, and chanterelle garnish. Etc.

I really like the wood pan idea, though. It is an easy lead-in to a new player learning the game. Because let's face it, Vintage Story is going to attract Minecraft players, and one of the first things they will want is a shovel. So they open the handbook and see the recipe for a shovel- a wooden pan and a stick. Ok, so they follow the link to find out how to make a wooden pan and see that- holy cow, we can pan for minerals? There, they just learned something obscure about the game that would have taken them much longer to stumble upon otherwise.

Kind of an off-the-wall idea: Picks did exist in the stone age, but they were usually made of antler, and were used more like a crowbar than like a swung pick. We could certainly have these. Antler isn't exactly easy to find, so it would not be overpowered. I would propose that they work excruciatingly slowly, and perhaps only on the soft sedimentary rocks. Shale, sandstone, chalk, claystone. Maybe conglomerate or limestone. The goal definitely would not be to make them actually practical- it's more just for the sake of completeness. And at some point someone will find a fringe use for one sometime, and they will think that it is awesome that these were included. This is all sort of a follow-on to my discussion about wooden shovels:

That sounds perfect. Just a couple of days ago I was complaining that turning on Dirt Instability made dirt act too much like sand and gravel, and that it should be stabilized by plants somewhat. I guess that I don't understand how this differs from what is already in the vanilla game? That sounds like something that I would love. Yes, this seems like it should be an available switch. The U.S. is such a huge market. I have heard that the devs want to eventually do away with the crafting grid in favor of more physical interactions, sort of like how we make pit kilns, etc. So this might actually come. Yeah, I thought that Tule was under-utilized. And grass makes a poor roof, though it has of course been done, historically. Perhaps we could keep the grass roofs, but have them degrade? Yes! This is exactly what I was asking for. Smoking hives dates back to at least the Egyptian 5th Dynasty, 2400 BCE.

Aha! You can already stack stones in the vanilla game! Use ctrl-shift-rightclick, just like you are placing a tool against a wall, and they stack. I guess that I can uninstall Cairns, now. One less mod to potentially conflict some day.

Thanks for replying! Well, I was really asking for things that seem like they should be core mechanics, I guess, not aesthetics. I love all of the Stone Age Fauna stuff, but I wouldn't want it in the vanilla game. Indeed, that is why I said that it should be switchable. But I have an ultrawide monitor, so I barely notice it- I literally forget to check it. No screen real estate issues with it at all. (In fact a lot of the windows for containers pop up inconveniently near the right edge of my screen, and I have to drag them back to the center.) But it's nice to just glance over instead of pressing C. So why not have this as a selectable option? I could see players intentionally dying to farm containers, there... Unless I misunderstand what you're saying. Where do I find this lore? I'm trying real hard not to spoiler myself, though. But, anyway, I don't think that reincarnation is inconsistent with leaving remains. Not everything needs to have a Judeo-Christian flavor. There are many belief systems that involve being reborn in a new body. I would say that I agree. I put it sort of in the same category as Catch Ledge- I wouldn't want it all implemented. But clearly we need better apiculture, and I couldn't find a more suitable mod to propose. I understand where the devs' heads are at with skeps, but there are ancient Egyptian depictions that show hives being smoked as far back as 2400 BCE- no distracting dummies involved. And historically some skeps were made with a sort of a smaller skep on top, accessible through a hole too small for the queen to pass, so that it acted just like a modern super, and the hive didn't need to be destroyed to harvest at least some of the comb. Well, then so be it, I say. Rework it. The game isn't released yet. It seems nuts that I can't hop a 5-foot ledge. At least two blocks, if you can't stand the idea of three. Oh, I didn't know that it changed lore. But it looks awesome! That's what I mean. The great visuals are what attracted me to this game. Well, that and I love survival games. I had thought that BetterRuins was procedural, and it caught my eye. I have played a few learning games of Vintage Story thus far while fiddling with settings to find out what I like, because at this point I'm waiting for the 1.22 release before committing a huge chunk of time to it, and I have yet to reach the bronze age. So I feel like this is a game that might take a year for most casual players to finish. (My gaming friends and I just got a server, though.) So having some epic procedural content along the way seems like it would be received well. This game is supposed to have eight chapters, but only two are done, right? I think something could probably be worked out with the BetterRuins devs, to be sure that it follows lore, and then insert those beautiful visuals into the game as optional side-quests, or something. More content is better.

I don't like them in Minecraft, but they sort of add to the spookiness for Vintage Story. They also look much better than in Minecraft, and that helps.

There is a mod for that, if it were true. But it isn't.

I'm sure that this has been done before. Give your thoughts on what mods really should be in the vanilla game. I'm a new player, so my experience is limited. Try to provide a short justification. Mine: Step Up This resets the step height from 0.6 to 1.2 blocks, so that you don't have to get carpal tunnel from jumping with the spacebar all the time just to move around. I have found this to be game-changing. This should be switchable, though, since I know that some players hate it. Carry On Lets you carry some containers in your hands while they are still full, to make it easier to move them around without having to transfer everything into your inventory. The function to carry them on your back is not crucial, but you should be able to pick up a full reed chest or pottery storage container in your hands and move it. Simple HUD Clock Displays some data in the corner of the screen: date, time, weather. I don't think that the rift activity needs to be included, though? It seems like that might give things away, and take away some of the mystery. This should be switchable, too. More Piles Originally I was going to list Cairns, but this is a better solution- just let us make piles of other things like stones in the same way that we can make piles of firewood or sticks. We can just leave piles of stones as cairns. Blood Trail Leaves a trail of blood drops on the ground as a wounded animal moves. It should be a lot more subtle than the mod, though. Perhaps the size of the drops could scale with both the size of the animal and how badly injured it is? Player Corpse Just leaving piles of gear behind when you die isn't very immersive. Leaving a skeletal corpse that you have to loot is better, as well as more in keeping the with eldrich horror theme. Stone Quarry A better way to get stone blocks. I don't think that everything in Stone Quarry needs to be implemented, but getting stone blocks should be easier- chopping out the six blocks just to get one block of stone is onerous. And this is a nice, immersive way to do it. From Golden Combs I haven't tried apiculture yet, but from what I have read in this game it seems to be implemented in a very rudimentary manner. So much so that I suspect that more is planned. Needing a dummy target to "distract" bees? Really? Why can't we smoke hives to harvest them in a non-destructive manner? Catch Ledge I actually don't think that all of this should be implemented- this game does not need a full parkour mechanic. But I do think that we should be able to mantle up two or three blocks with a jump. Mantling two blocks up should be pretty quick, but mantling up three blocks should take longer. BetterRuins This just looks awesome.

I'd argue that's sort of why the sling does fit the Malefactor. They're easy to improvise, and use easily scavenged ammunition. I just argue that the sling shouldn't be completely class-locked. It's such a cool weapon. My problem with the Malefactor is that their signature weapon is ranged... but they have a ranged weapon debuff!

The single pickaxe icon on the map is thin and hard to see, particularly to differentiate some of the colors. Changing it to crossed pickaxes- or a crossed pick and shovel- might help.

The Animal Unit Month (AUM) is used in North America to represent the carrying capacity of grazing livestock on pastureland. It is roughly equivalent to what is needed to support one 1000-pound (454kg) cow and her calf for one month. A larger animal might rate 1.2 AUs, and smaller ones a fraction of an AU. For instance a nanny goat is rated at about 0.16 AU, so they only need 1.92 AUMs for a whole year. A similar system could be used in the game. Give each animal a rating on how much pasturage it needs, and give each type of ground-cover block a pasturage rating. This need not reflect reality. For instance, say an animal has a pasturage need of 100 blocks of tall grass. Well, that's only 10x10 blocks. Make medium-high grass only count as 0.75 blocks, short grass as 0.5 blocks, and grassy block as 0.25 blocks. Or somesuch. Then have the game recognize pasturage when it is enclosed in a fence, much like how it recognizes "rooms". Animals with inadequate pasture wouldn't be as well-fed (which the game tracks, apparently, since fat drops depend upon how well fed an animal is). Then if you don't have enough pasture, you need to give supplemental feed with a trough.

Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Goats, and Raccoons. I rest my case. That being said, the Bighorn could be changed to a Mouflon if the Old World theme were desirable, and the Argali could replace the Mountain Goat. It would be hard to think of a critter to replace the raccoon, though. If the game ever gets workable rivers then Beavers would be awesomeness. We need more sheep, while we are on the subject. There are only seven species of Ovis, surely a couple more would be appropriate? The Mouflon, of course, as I mentioned. The Siberian Snow Sheep, for cold biomes? I don't know if Urial is different enough from the Mouflon to be included, but the Argali might arguably be. (The Dall Sheep probably isn't different enough from the Bighorn, either.) Since we have Spelt as one primitive form of wheat, why not have Emmer for warmer biomes too? I also maintain that another legume other than Soybean would be nice. A Pea or a Lentil, for instance. Various Yams are native to Africa, Asia, and China, and Taro is native to India and Southeast Asia, though most other potato-like things would be New World. These should be only in warmer biomes, I would suspect.

I had thought of the same thing. But then no more floating mountains.

Historically there were "ice houses" where ice would be cut from lakes in the winter, then packed in straw, and enough would last until summer to be economically sold.

Huh. I could almost see that working like flint knapping... Great idea.

Worn-out linen clothes should be able to be cut into Linen Rags using a knife or shears. Then Linen Rags should be able to be used to make linen fiber pulp for paper making, the same way that bandages can be used for that. This was what a rag-picker's job was, historically. (Also, Parchment and Paper should be different things.)

As a new player, I endorse this. I just had to train my eyes to pick up on it, then suddenly I started seeing red clay everywhere.

As a new player, I endorse this. I just had to train my eyes to pick up on it, then suddenly I started seeing red clay everywhere.

Because they shouldn't. Although when we get rivers some species can grow in brackish water, as in an estuary. But usually cattails are a good fresh-water indicator. Is there any way to identify salt water in the game?

As fate would have it, I just found the many mods that add new classes or modify the stock ones. A lot of them are...well... over the top, with huge bonuses, more like a mainstream game's class system. I sort of prefer Vintage Story's independent-dev labor-of-love to something like Overwatch. I still disagree with the argument about the Commoner, though. As I said earlier, if they were meant to be farming specialists then every other class would have farming debuffs. Instead, Commoners seem meant to be generalists, without any buffs or debuffs. That doesn't sound like a specialist farmer. I suspect that others are getting wound up about medieval terminology too much. And we don't even know if the fallen civilization was medieval- they certainly had high technology. "Commoner" might mean "the guy working at McDonalds" rather than "farmer". But as I said, I acknowledge that farming is an especially prominent part of the game, so buffs need to be small. On the other hand, some of the other classes get some quite large buffs. Malefactor gets +20% wild crop drop rate. Blackguard gets +30% melee damage. Hunter gets +30% accuracy. So I really doubt that mild 5%-ish agricultural buffs would break the game. So I think that with careful planning a reasonable and non-overpowered Farmer of some sort could be devised. But I will stop arguing on the issue now. Obviously this has been argued before, and I'm new. Really, we could probably think of a class to specialize in every major activity in the game. Forester? With increased wood block and stick drop rates, walking speed buffs on Forest Floor blocks, and the ability to climb trees as if they had ladders? Miner? Miner probably has the same problem as the Farmer- it would need careful designing to not be overpowered. Call it a "Kobold". Etc.