Time

This page was last verified for Vintage Story version 1.19.8.

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Temporal gear
Stackable	1
Items

Time is complex in Vintage Story.

By default, clients in a singleplayer world have admin privileges, and can run server commands. Using /time commands can have significant effects on the world; always make a backup before messing around with time!

Calendar

The player starts a new world on the first day of May. As the months progress, so will the seasons; it's important to prepare for winter unless you're living near an equator. You can check the current date with C to open the Character panel.

If you travel far enough from a chunk, it stops loading. If you return later, that chunk will 'catch up' with various processes, as though it had been loaded all along.

Daylight

As seasons progress, days seem to become shorter: sunset comes sooner, and sunrise comes later.

Most entities have a minimum light level to permit spawning. Surface drifters rely on wavy reddish portals called Rifts. If the light level (daylight or artificial) near a rift is strong enough, the rift will not produce drifters.

Not all functions continue while you sleep.

Solstices

In the absence of data on the relative position of the sun, here's some information on temperature patterns:

• The hottest day of the year in the northern hemisphere is not consistent from year to year or in all locations of a temperate climate; it falls around 2/3 of the way through July.
• The coldest day of the year in the northern hemisphere falls around 2/3 of the way through January.

Agriculture

Packets of seeds mention the coldest and hottest they can tolerate before suffering ill effects. A crop could become stunted though the current temperature is above its advertised minimum; the temperature must have dropped too low overnight. The coldest time of day is shortly before dawn. It's hardcoded to 0400. The hottest time of day is hardcoded to 1600.

Crops don't grow below 0°C. The date that your home will reach 0°C depends on your latitude and elevation; there's no set date for "winter" to begin or end. If you kept the default temperate starting climate and didn't travel far from the world spawn point, you can expect Nov-Mar to be too cold for farming.

Settings

When you create a new world, you can select the number of days in a month. Selecting more than the default number of days can have significant consequences and is not recommend for new players. If you increase the number of days per month in an existing world, the calendar will adjust as if the new value had always been the value. This can result in seeming to go back in time, according to the date in the Character panel. It's not feasible to travel back and forth in time. If you like to undo mistakes, get in the habit of making a backup of your worldsave. See Time#Commands section below for quick ways to jump forward in time.

Players spawn in the northern hemisphere. The coldest month is hardcoded to January. If you travel south of the nearest equator, the coldest month would be July. There are multiple equators in a world with default size and polar-equator distance. Each time you cross an equator or pole, expect the perceived seasons to reverse.

Commands

List_of_server_commands#/time lists several commands you can use in singleplayer worlds or as admin in multiplayer worlds. But create backups.

• /time set day always jumps to 1200 of the next day.
• /time setmonth may always jumps to May 1st of the following year.
• /time calendarspeedmul 0.5 is the default calendar speed. For quick timelapse tests and such, experiment with /time calendarspeedmul 150 etc.
• /worldconfig daysPerMonth 9 is the default month length. WorldConfig commands require a server restart to take effect: relog. While longer months can be very useful for multiplayer servers online 24/7, it's inadvisable for a new player in a temperate climate region to increase the month length; winters are likely to be especially unpleasant, as the consequences of mistakes are more prominent in a long winter.

Lore

Through interacting with items, ruins, and NPCs, you'll discover lore that hints at why the world is the way it is. "Temporal" is defined as "of or relating to time as opposed to eternity, and as distinguished from space, and potentially relating to the sequence of time or to a particular time. What, then, is a "temporal gear" and where did they come from?

History

The calendar used to list year 1 as year 1386.

Notes

• The moon's brightness and size are greater during its full moon phase.