Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Getting Started

• Building a shelter near spawn can be helpful, at least until you get a Temporal Gear to set your spawn point someplace you like better.

Tools

• Tools and weapons cannot be repaired.

Weapons

• Tools and weapons cannot be repaired.

Classes

• Commoner, Hunter, and Malefactor are recommended for new players.

Armor

• A full set of chainmail armor requires smithing 40 ingots on an anvil.
• A full set of plate armor requires a total of 72 ingots.
• Armor does not drop when the character dies.
• Armor can be repaired.

Trading

• Traders' stock rotates; the shop interface indicates how soon the next change will be.

Food preservation

• A cellar isn't better deep underground than on the surface.
• All stone-type blocks, all soil-type blocks, and all ceramic-type blocks are equally good as cellar building materials. Glass and other materials reduce a cellar's effectiveness but don't completely break it.
• Salt is infamously hard to find; look for a trader who sells halite.

Temporal stability

• While lots of light can prevent monster spawns most days, it doesn't work during temporal storms.
• If you built a base someplace where your temporal gear is slowly draining, you don't necessarily need to move everything; locate a stable place nearby and spend time there as needed.

Mechanical power

• It doesn't matter (as of 1.20.9) which direction a windmill's sails face.
• A rotor at elevation Y 170 gets the maximum speed boost.
• If your windmill stops turning as soon as you connect a machine, you're demanding more torque than is available. If you have a Large Gear in the power train, try removing it until you have several more sets of sails.

Crafting

Knapping

• Hitting the knapping surface with a bare hand will not form tools, and eventually breaks the material. Any stone in the active hand works.

Grid crafting

• The Handbook cycles through valid alternatives for recipes. Cattails can usually be used in place of vines or papyrus.
• Raw Hide and Pelt look quite similar; check whether a recipe needs the hide to be cured.
• If you have all the right components in the positions the Handbook indicates, but the recipe isn't yielding anything, try again with tools that haven't lost much durability.
• Dismantling a copper anvil requires a brand-new copper chisel, or a higher-tier chisel.

Casting

• While sprinkling water on hot metal can cool it faster, there's a high risk of breaking the mold and losing some metal in the process; protect it from rain.
• It's OK to add molten metal to a mold partially-filled with hardened metal.

Smithing

• Many items can only be produced on an anvil. If you have the option of using a mold, it's recommended.

Cooking

• A single portion of jam uses the following in the cooking pot's 4 slots: 1 fruit + 1 fruit + 0.2L honey + 0.2L honey; a full batch uses 6 fruit + 6 fruit + 1.2L honey + 1.2L honey.

Leather working

• Only oak and acacia are valid for making tannin.
• If the barrel's Seal button won't work, it's because there's a problem with the type of ingredients or the ratio of ingredients.

Foraging

• Loose stones, ore nuggets, and most other resources never respawn.
• Mushrooms regrow in approximately the same location, over and over.

Beekeeping

• To find bees, you need to be able to hear them:
  • turn down the volume of weather, effects, and entities, but keep ambient volume high
  • use headphones, ideally with directional output
  • be especially attentive near areas with lots of trees (any species)

Mining

• You need a pickaxe (not prospecting pick) AND a hammer (not helve hammer) to exit the Stone Age.
• To find ores beyond the surface nuggets, make a prospecting pick and seek a variety of tutorials; it takes awhile to make sense.
• Surface deposits of copper are small, and shallow. Big deposits of most ores are much deeper; expect to dig vertical shafts deeper than elevation Y 72 before you'll find the copper that Density mode of the prospecting pick forecasts.

Multiplayer

• To prevent other players from taking stuff from your house, use Vintage Story's built-in land claims system. You can decide that a area of a specific height and a specific depth is only editable/usable by yourself or your group. Other players won't be able to break blocks or pick things up off the ground or in chests. (See Land claiming for more information)}}
• If nobody is on the server, the calendar pauses unless the server admin changed that setting.

Is there a way for me to keep my items on death?

• When creating a new world you can click Customize, find the option Death punishment and select Keep inventory contents
• On existing worlds, you can keep your inventory using /worldconfig deathPunishment keep in your chat box. If you want to revert this change, use the command /worldconfig deathPunishment drop (See World Configuration for more information)

Where's the screenshot folder?

Screenshots (F12 key by default) are saved into your "My Pictures" folder which, on Windows, is usually found at %userprofile%\Pictures\Vintagestory.

Is it okay to use a service like Shadow Tech to play Vintage Story?

Yes, as long as you officially bought the game from here

A trader is buying/selling wolf pups! Can I tame wolfs?

Taming wolfs is not yet possible in the game. Traders sell and buy pups, however the player cannot pick up wolf pups in the wild, and as soon as a bought one is set down in the world, it will turn wild and cannot be picked up again - instead it will grow into a normal, aggressive wolf.