DeanF

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.

Y'know, I had thought of that same thing? Maybe for the Staff Sling- they generally launched much larger rocks than other slings. So the Staff Sling should have better range and more damage. Sling bullets should be recoverable like arrows, but of course they'll be much harder to spot. Oddly, by "uniform" I don't mean round. Evidently round sling bullets can spin unpredictably, like a curveball in baseball. Instead they were shaped like a rugby ball (or American football), which made them tumble predictably. The mold for casting lead bullets might be used with other metals. Gold would work just like lead, but copper and bronze aren't as dense so I think they'd lose the damage bonus.

Instead, let the Malefactor make a Crude Sling early on that can be made from flax fibers or maybe even just dry grass (I once made an excellent sling from jute), and let them make a more powerful Staff Sling later on, which is basically a sling on a stick. This mimics the model of the Hunter with the class-locked Crude Bow and Recurve Bow. Oh, and while we are at it can we add fired clay and cast lead sling bullets? The fired clay ones are just more uniform than randoms stones, so thus would have an accuracy buff. But the cast lead ones were both more uniform and denser, so buffs to both accuracy and damage.

New player, here. If I'm reading the wiki correctly then we have the primitive raft and the sailboat, and nothing in between. Perhaps we could have another small boat in which to use our paddle? Several examples could be justified: The Native American Canoe was traditionally a wooden frame with a bark hull. (I don't think that the game has a bark equivalent?) The Welsh Coracle was a round boat made of hides or leather over a stick frame. The Tibetan Ku Dru, Indian Parisal, and Native American Bull Boat are nigh identical to the coracle. The Inuit Umiak and Kayak were also traditionally hides over a wooden frame, but they definitely had finer lines than a coracle. The Irish Currach is much like a coracle or umiak, though they also tend to have finer lines. The Iraqi Kuphar is much like a coracle, but could also be made of tied reed bundles as well as sticks and hides, so construction might just need reeds and flax twine. The Ethiopian Tankwa is a more narrow reed boat. The Peoples of Lake Titicaca, the so-called Marsh Arabs, Egypt, and many others have traditions of other narrow reed boats. Building these should be more involved than just a recipe (as the raft is built). Instead they should be constructed, more like a sailboat. So first you construct a frame on the ground from sticks and rope or flax twine, then you make the hide hull and add it to the frame, etc. Or for a reed boat make a reed keel, then add reed floats for the sides, with both made from reeds and flax twine. These boats should not be storable in an inventory space in the way that a raft is, but the boats should still be able to be portaged by being carried in the off hand. They should also be able to be placed on land for safe keeping. The hide boats should be constructable out of either pelts or leather, otherwise they become copper age boats rather than stone age ones. (Y'know, we should have a use for un-oiled hides before they rot. Maybe cut them into rawhide strips that can be used in some recipes as a stand-in for rope or flax twine? Native Americans tied their canoes, kayaks, and umiaks together with rawhide strips, and coracles were made in similar fashion. Hides could give different yields of rawhide strips; 1 for small, 2 for medium, 3 for large, 4 for huge, or whatever. Braided leather ropes were a thing, too.) Perhaps three stone age boat variants are called for: a "Reed boat", a "Hide Boat", and a "Hide Roundboat". Hear me out... The advantage of truly round boats like the coracle are that they are very stable and easy to make, but the disadvantages are that they are slow and not very maneuverable since they tend to spin. But some of them were huge. So you could have one that moves glacially slowly but carries a lot of cargo instead- see picture below. For the Hide Roundboat give it 7 "spaces" in a 2-3-2 distribution, with the boatman in the rear-right space and reed chests or storage vessels able to to be placed in the others. But the front-left, front-right, and rear-left spaces can carry other players instead if desired (like the raft). I would argue that it should actually be 5% slower than the raft- it's advantage is the large cargo/passenger capacity. (The raft's big advantage is that it can fit in an inventory space.) But the narrower Reed Boat and Hide Boat should only have 5 total "spaces" in a linear distribution. With one boatman they sit in space #4, with #1, #2, #3, and #5 being for cargo in the form of reed chests or storage vessels. But with another crewman aboard then space #2 holds the second player instead. The reed boat should only be as fast as the raft, since they tend to be heavy and waterlogged, and the hide boat should be 5% faster than the raft. The Reed Boat probably should be the least complex to construct. Hmm. I kind of like that tradeoff in cargo capacity versus speed, for three primitive boats for which it is about equally difficult to source materials. Flax is scarce on the ground to make twine for the reed boat, whereas pelts require a bit of hunting. With two players paddling than the boat (or raft) should go a little faster, maybe another 5% increased speed. (But no bonus for more than two paddlers in the Hide Roundboat due to it's awkwardness.) Those speeds should be for running-effort paddling, incurring massive hunger increases. But we should be able to walk-effort paddle, too, at some lesser speed. (The raft as well.) Maybe 75% of running-effort speed? Those would be stone age boats. For the copper/bronze age there could be a "Plank Boat" too, dimensionally similar to the reed boat and hide boat but 10% faster than the raft, similar to the more modern Irish currahs, the larger American cedar canoes, and innumerable other small boats the world over. With the 5% speed bonus for two paddlers it would max out at 15% over raft speed- almost as fast as a sailboat, at least for as long as the crew's hunger held out. I guess that I could actually come up with a plank boat that is slow but with more cargo, too, for a fifth boat variant. Maybe give it 8 "spaces" in a 1-2-2-2-1 distribution, and make it 5% faster than a raft? Call it a Plank Skiff? Skiffs are often blunt, flat-bottomed, and slow.

I kind of like that idea, actually. Perhaps we could have both wooden shovels and bone shovels. Bonus points if the bone shovel actually looks like a scapula. I'm not sure how functionally different they might be, though. Possibly not at all.

I'm not sure that's completely right. I mean, I get what you are saying about medieval commoners, just not about the game mechanics. Because then why don't all of the other classes have farming debuffs? If they did then I would buy that argument, easily. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out! As for the rest, that is sort of what I meant by "deemed too powerful." But y'know what? We get to choose our difficulty at worldgen, anyway; Standard versus Exploration versus Wilderness Survival, etc. Heck, I turned Hunger down to 75% until I figured out the game mechanics. Nonetheless, any buffs should be very small, since they might have a disproportionate effect in multiplayer. Maybe half of those, so more like: Green Fingers: +5% planted crop drop rate, +10% foraging wild crop seed drop rate. (Because this one would be huge, but some day seeds and crops will be the same for grains, anyway.) Henwise: +5% chance to find an extra egg when looting a Henbox. (One in twenty seems mild.) Seasonal Energy: +10% movement and harvesting speed during Summer, opposite during Winter. (This one can stay at 10%, it balances itself) I don't think that would be game-breaking? And I have no idea how to add a cooking buff, since simply increasing meal yield might be too much, and there really is no time involved to be reduced. All I can come up with is stuff that might be too powerful, like: Gourmand: +5% satiety in prepared meals and pies with three or more ingredients Nutritionist: +5% nutrition for calculating maximum Health in prepared meals and pies with three or more ingredients. And what would other debuffs be? Commoners served in the levies in wartime, so initially I had thought no combat debuffs. But they I recalled that this highly targets cozy gamers, and they might not be terribly interested in combat, anyway. And probably underground stuff, like the hunter. So how about: Nervous: -15% melee damage. (But no debuff for ranged combat, farmers tend to be archers.) Claustrophobic: -15% ore drop rate, -10% mining speed.

Hmm. Does merely turning the cave-in switch on solve the problem? Is dirt less stable that rock, regarding cave-ins? EDIT- No, experimentation shows that somehow dirt is the most stable ground block in the game. Having played around with it a bit, cave-ins seem like how dirt should act, not rock. Rock should be a bit more stable.

Interesting... I cannot say that I am in any way qualified to be a modder, though, even secondhand.

Possible stupidity from a new player: When there are things like the Tailor and especially the Clockmaker, not having a farmer seems like an oversight. Maybe call it a "Yeoman", since obscure class names seem to be looked well upon. Make it a good cook, too, (plus maybe somehow a bonus to domesticate animals?) so that it basically meets the needs of "cozy players". There seem to be a lot of players out there who like cozy games (Stardew Valley is a thing, after all) and I would imagine that multiplayer groups might seek one out to keep them provisioned. Or maybe this has already been considered, and it was deemed too powerful?

The recipe would presumably be a stick and some flax twine.

There are mods for this, though I don't know specifically about wolves, bear, etc. Simple Map Markers is one, for instance, but it mostly adds element-specific ore markers.