Dimensional Travel Part 1: In Search of a Luxuries Trader! Vintage Story Guide S2 (1.18) Ep 27

In today's episode, we head out on a big adventure before winter! We are still missing a luxuries trader, and we haven't really explored very far through our nearby translocators, so--let's get to it! Along the way, I'll answer some of your #20kuestions !
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World Seed: 777
Mods:
Better Firepit
Branch Cutter
Campaign Cartographer
CarryOn
Chisel Tools
Clay Mold for Nails and Strips
Crateful
Emote Menu
Farmland Drops Soil
Hacked Locusts
Simple HUD Clock
Joy of Sailing
Noisy Bears
ProspectorInfo
Shelfish
Simple Wind Direction
VertPlanks
Volumetric Shading (Updated)
Workbench Expansion
Release Schedule: Mondays and Fridays, at when-they're-ready-o'clock!
Game acquired by purchase.
Thumbnail logo created using existing Vintage Story assets and my amazing Photoshop skillz.

[@Everything_Heavy]

I found your channel about a month ago or so, ended up buying Vintage Story as a result. I have not been disappointed, but more to the point, shortly after I found the channel (and the game), I caught the flu. First time I'd been sick in a decade, and it was bad. Really bad. Sent me to bed for the better part of a week and a half. Sick as I was, fever, body aches, chills and all, your first Vintage Story Guide series was all I watched. I couldn't eat and could barely even stand, but I could watch your videos; so that's what I did, and it was enough. Now that I'm better, I just thought I'd take a minute and do what I intended to do the whole time I was sick, and that is to say thank you. Your work/play helped me get through a really tough time.

[@Kurazarrh]

Oh wow, that's a rough ride. Influenza is no joke, and I think people forget that sometimes. Glad to hear you pulled through, and I'm happy that the series could be a companion through tough days and your recovery!

[@pnumenwiese]

Glad you feelin' better now. He's awesome, yeah. Have fun playing VS and welcome to the community!

[@henryplumb7459]

Something I noticed that I really appreciate, using Vintage Story Music in the editing so it FEELS like its from the video footage but only noticed now that it's separate! It's really good editing thats making my brain happy, I love these vids!

[@Kurazarrh]

Ahh, you noticed! Thank you! Yeah, I try to keep the music generally themed with what's going on in-game. I play the nighttime music when there are long nighttime clips/tasks, the bold, adventuring music when we're out and about, and the chill, happy stuff when we're bopping around home! ;)

[@lordofchaosd327]

@@Kurazarrh I love the VS OST too! I will sometimes put the playlist on and turn my volume ALL the way up to do my school work. In one of your previous 20 Kuestions segments I think you mentioned that you play the music separately as to not have random chopped up pieces of different songs. I haven't been able to not notice it since then.

[@Kurazarrh]

@@lordofchaosd327 Yeah I started editing the music in afterward. It's more common but I was a n00b back when I started making videos, and got some complaints about the music chopping and jumping, so I made the switch!

[@justjoe5373]

To add to the iron and steel quenching: you wouldn't quench them in water but in oil. Plain sunflower oil works but there are special oils made for quenching, and they can easily get quite pricey. IIRC quenching in straight up water could even damage the piece if it was thin like a sword for example. So unless you have a keg of oil laying around, the same thing that goes for bronze goes for steel, let it cool by itself There's also a technique where you leave the piece in the forge after it's extinguished to cool as slow as possible (there are special ovens for that too), it's a form of heat treating. There are forms of heat treatment for hardening (makes it harder but more brittle, good for a knife or razor) and there are forms for softening (makes it less hard but tougher so it won't shatter like glass, good for axes and hammers)

[@Kurazarrh]

I think it would be best for the developer to pick ONE method/material to handle both quenching and annealing, to keep it simple and manageable enough for the average gamer to understand and enjoy, but thanks for that insight! I would have figured most oils would just ignite when a 1200-degree (F) sword blade is thrust into it, though...

[@justjoe5373]

@@Kurazarrh Oh they ignite alright lol. But it isn't an issue because A) you handle the quenching with long tongs for that reason, and B) the top is open so there's no pressure build up and explosion risk (that would be called molotov on steroids). The only part that actually burns is the surface so if you use proper tools to keep your arms out of the fire's way you're good But yeah, I think it would be best if we don't get any heat treatment, annealing and other stuff just so we don't go too in depth. Kinda like crops, we have N, P and K but no micro nutrients, and crops only consume one nutrient instead of all 3. I think having to bang an ingot to shape is good enough for the average gamer, there can be a mod that adds all kinds of advanced stuff if anybody wants to go deeper

[@Kurazarrh]

@@justjoe5373 Yeah. A lot of folks who want super amounts of realism in a game sometimes don't grasp that the average person doesn't already have the background needed to understand each concept without a 5-hour wiki dive! lol

[@PolRP]

YES YES YES OTHER VINTAGE STORY VIDEO

[@Kurazarrh]

Haha, thank you!

[@fcatulo]

With 3 months of delay… thanks for answering my kuestion! Hahahah finally catching up on this series

[@Kurazarrh]

:D Welcome back! Thanks for asking it!

[@Dark__Thoughts]

21:10 Likewise, I'd like to see a world edit schematic mode for survival where you can import a saved schematic as a ghost image, just like in the Schematica mod for MC. Would really help building something you've already sketched out in creative, especially larger and more complex projects.

[@Kurazarrh]

Yeah that would be pretty handy!

[@Agora2021]

Well, never knew the map was tied to view distance. In hindsight, probably should've been obvious, but still very good to know. Will make exploration a lot easier and faster in the future.

[@Kurazarrh]

Yeah, just be aware you might need to restart your game after you bump the view distance up and then back down. After I reset the view distance, my framerate stayed c h o p p y as all get-out until I restarted the whole client.

[@nemo4evr]

Exploring has always been one of my favorite things to do, not only in VS but in Minecraft, Empirion, or 7DTD, tend to include mods that add more structures and dungeons, to make it more interesting. One of the things I would like from this game is more storage when traveling or at least an Ender pouch for us that hoard everything 😂, I also hope that Tyrion reconsiders the weather system and precipitation specially or at least give us the option to minimize the rain, a Mediterranean type of weather would be ideal, south of Italy, France, Spain. . . oh my . . . like uncle Takei said 😂

[@Kurazarrh]

I enjoy a lot of aspects of games like this. It's a combination of the exploration, the struggle to survive, the bootstrapping into higher tech tiers to make life easier, the building... I can't really say that any one of them is my favorite, because I enjoy them all, and I like to have variety in what I'm doing! The rain does need some work. "Common" rain should be like, 2 days of rain per month, maximum. >.

[@StorytellerWMD]

As a game mechanic it makes a lot of sense that trees don't drop multiple seeds. But it is an awful self-preservation mechanic for a tree to rarely drop seeds, and to only drop them when destroyed. Haha

[@Kurazarrh]

I dunno, I kind of feel like since most everything in Vintage Story is pretty grindy, the trees could at least give us a break by being a bit more realistic that way. Like, most of VS's grind is to reflect the real world. But in the real world, I can walk under an oak tree and pick up literally tens of thousands of viable acorns and enough sticks to light all the fires I'll ever need. We shouldn't have to struggle to find tree seeds, because trees' entire existence can be described as "eat sunlight, spread seeds as far and as wide as possible."

[@TizonaAmanthia]

I think....trees should have a flowering block added. like... a pine tree can periodically spawn a leaf block with obvious brown bits, and if you break that block it will drop 1-5 pinecones! but if a tree with it is chopped down as is, will drop 1 cone. I think that'd be a great way to get seeds from low drop chance trees. you run up to the red maple, find one with,, say some pink speckles on it...and you harvest that leaf! but if you see none...maybe you can visiti t NEXT year and mabye THEN it will have a "fruit ing leaf block"

[@Kurazarrh]

That's a pretty cool option, too. I was thinking it would be nice if you could just find acorns and pinecones on the ground around trees, like if they spawned them every few days. I mean, in real life it's not like trees have any trouble whatsoever propagating themselves! lol

[@PhilBoswell]

@@Kurazarrh it would make sense if the pigs and other wildlife ate them, like IRL, which would not only keep the numbers down and explain why there aren't hundreds just lying around but also provide a bit of verisimilitude for how all those animals survive (love that word ;-)

[@tantemimi7507]

Now have time to follow again these series. Great episode as always! I like the way you explain the mechanics in VS, learned a lot ! Also thank you very much for your research concerning my "constantly raining problem". Now after a lot of new maps I found one that is quite pleasing me in most of the belongings, including rainfall. I always want a nice flat area to build , water nearby, not so much wolves around but also a good view like a big mountain. Not easy to find. And often then the game says: it is raining almost all the time :D !

[@Kurazarrh]

It can definitely be a challenge to find a good place to settle when there are so many elements and threats to consider when picking a place to call home! Glad you're able to follow the series again! :)

[@chanellegranlund7890]

Lupines are beautiful and they got imported to Sweden. I like them! Sadly they are invasive here (like no-compost-only-burn-invasive) So I won’t be able to ethically plant any once I get a house 🥺 I bittersweetly watch them take over fields and roadsides. I enjoy them to the full in VS instead 🥰 Red is my no 1

[@Kurazarrh]

Oh wow. They must like the climate and soil in Sweden more than they do at my house, then!! XD

[@yeoldstickinthemud9570]

The bear you saw at the beginning of the episode, you should bring it over to the pit full of wolves. Then watch them fight it out! FIGHT PIT! or DEATH PIT! or maybe THUNDERPIT! Actually, I don't even know if wolves and bears fight each other.

[@Kurazarrh]

Sadly, they do not fight each other! :( On the other hand, since the bears and wolves don't seem to be despawning, I could probably gather most of them in that pit and have a relatively predator-free life!

[@Lake_Filter]

Nice to see you stretch your legs and hardware capabilities for a change. Almost forgot to say that I love your editing style, especially the montages when you gather or smith a chest full of things. The beats between cuts and the selection of clips shown is just perfect. Also love the sped up 20 kuestions segments that you did here. It's fun and crisp, especially when you're calmly answering kuestions while spotting and running away from a bear in the background.

[@Kurazarrh]

Haha well truth be told, I can't read the answer and play at the same time, so it's just audio overlaid on top of me adventuring! But thank you! Glad you enjoyed the episode! :)

[@paaph8747]

Bear was annoyed to death. 😂

[@Kurazarrh]

Some would say annoying things to death is my specialty! XD

[@tehNashty]

Not me! I would say you avoid things to the annoyance of trolls! I support this! Death is no fun. If I were to create a let's play, I fear my constant dying would be the annoyance...

[@pnumenwiese]

It's 11pm now and my bois and I just came home from a day trip to baltic sea and the russian submarine U461. So I am exhausted and pretty tired but wanna watch your video. Expeditions are cool, right? I know it is worth it! Stay awesome!

[@Kurazarrh]

That's quite a little trip there! :) Glad you had the series to come home to and relax for the evening! :)

[@chitin122]

One of the best quality of life mods I got recently was the one that allows you to zoom in on things. Zooming onto distant animals and cliffs to spot bears/ores is fun. I used to use a spyglass mod but that hasn't been updated in a while.

[@Kurazarrh]

Haha, I JUST also added this mod, a couple episodes from now. It's pretty great!

[@elijones7926]

YAAAAAAY!! XD another solid video from our fearless leader xD. Keep being awesome K

[@Kurazarrh]

:D Thank you!!

[@ThePixelPear]

Beautiful thumbnail!

[@Kurazarrh]

:D Thank you!!

[@loviebeest]

About the questions that ask about your family. Personally, I tend to avoid such questions for 2 reasons. It's none of my business and I try to avoid any kind of obvious parasocial relationship. This is just my 2 cents on those kind of questions. On a different note, I can never hear or see the bears in your videos until you get right up and near them. I have no clue what kind of hunter vision you have that makes you able to spot them lol.

[@Kurazarrh]

Oh, yeah. It wasn't so much that I WANTED those questions asked, but I was curious to see how long it would take for someone to ask them. That being said, I do have my boundaries, but no one's tried to cross them yet, luckily. But turning down a question due to being too personal isn't hard for me to do! ;) As far as the bears are concerned, I wear REALLY good headphones and I have the Noisy Bears mod on, so I hear them more than I see them. Since the game audio is much lower volume than my voice, a lot of those probably don't come across in the video, especially for folks who aren't listening via headphones!

[@tehNashty]

I feel that I try not to ask personal questions of creators and allow them to share what they feel comfortable with on their own. That is just basic politeness IMO. That said, I really like to hear personal facts, it creates a clearer picture of who they are. However, I do have more than a few localish creators that have became real life friends. One couple provided some distressing political views that has, sadly, tempered my enjoyment of their content. It sounds like @@Kurazarrhdoesn't need to worry about being localish to me, though.

[@Kurazarrh]

@@tehNashty *Shows up at your door in 5 minutes* HOWDY, NEIGHBOR! But yeah, it's definitely stressful when you find out that your favorite creator/comedian/actor/whatever has objectionable opinions that spoil your enjoyment of their content. "Never meet your heroes," and all that!

[@LZSD.00]

I'm seriusly thinkin about buyin the game bc of your videos, love the series and how u play it

[@Kurazarrh]

Awesome!! You definitely should, especially if you're looking for a game that's challenging and rewarding! :)

[@pineberry212]

I do wish they had more in-depth woodworking. Ah, btw, I've bought vintage story for my younger cousin, and have sent him a link to your channel so he can learn the game. And since no one is asking #20Kuestions what kinda things do you write, and what hoops do we need to jump to read them?

[@Kurazarrh]

Yesss, get him hooked on the PREMIER block game early!!! ;) And thanks for your question! It's been added to the list!

[@kelvarius]

I know that, at least in my experience, playing the TerraFirmaCraft mod in that other block game can help out with making the switch to VS... Ever play that mod during your times in that game, Kurazarrh?

[@Kurazarrh]

I tried TFC briefly, in its early years. Not sure exactly when, but it was a WHILE ago, and I was still somewhere between novice and intermediate skill in that other block game. I found TFC to be convoluted and not very forgiving and ended up not playing much of it. I watched a couple LPs and decided it wasn't for me. I think because VS is designed from the ground up around the survival element, rather than being a mod on top of an existing game, it helps the experience be and feel more complete.

[@kelvarius]

@@Kurazarrh True, it had to deal with all the ins & outs (& oddities) of Minecraft in addition to adding in the complexities of TFC, so I can see how it can be a bit convoluted or clunky... and I'll agree, having a game that's designed around these aspects rather than trying to morph another game into it is much better, of course... ;)

[@hextorres209]

Love hollyhocks i have my Red yellow orangs and blue in my garden

[@Kurazarrh]

One of my neighbors had like, midnight-black hollyhocks! I got a few seeds from her, but they never sprouted. :(

[@hextorres209]

@Kurazarrh aww ya i have some we though they were red at first but it must have been a stray seed we got they are beautiful dark withba slight tint of red

[@lordblack998]

no, quenching copper and alloys is NOT annealing! Annealing is heating metal and letting it cool down SLOWLY!!

[@Kurazarrh]

While what you say is true for ferrous alloys, annealing cupric metals and alloys does indeed work better with a quench. You CAN air-cool copper and bronze to anneal them, but quenching is faster and more effective.

[@n3bux]

peach would survive in your ares. i have mine in a -17degrees and they fruit

[@Kurazarrh]

Good to know! I think I'll let this one grow some more branches first, though! Also, reading the wiki, it does look like I may have more of them die off than the standard 60% sapling failure rate--each tree has a randomized "die below" value that for peach trees is between -14C and -22C. Still, could be fun to have peaches, which I don't think I've ever even held in Vintage Story before!

[@motherofnerdlings]

Ha! A fellow new englander? Im in the land of lobstah! 😂

[@hengsheng7963]

I once tried the view distance and map thing once, couple months ago, out of curiosity. It was horrible. My pc is, well, not complete garbage, but definitely not the newest (bought in 2019) or most powerful gaming pc. It took really long time to render everything in, like couple of hours almost. It was completely unplayable during that time. I've not done that again since then. Lesson learned.

[@Kurazarrh]

Oh ouch. Yeah if you don't have a ton of vram and system ram, it can end up loading all that data into your hard drive \ SSD which can be extremely slow!!

[@MrTerranaunt]

Bear's meat was left behind, if I understand correctly, because it will spoil before you will return home?

[@Kurazarrh]

It's pretty worthless unless you're starving and\or in the very early game. Bushmeat has about half the nutrition as red meat and can't be used in meals.

[@MrTerranaunt]

Shame. Some bear grill would be nice :D

[@tehNashty]

August?!?! It feels like it just stopped snowing a few episodes back, now you are thinking of preparing for winter again???? Also, what happened to your "Let's get started"TM???

[@Kurazarrh]

Nothing happened to "Let's get started" because it was always, "Let's get to it!" 🤣🤣🤣 I also just try not to overuse it! lol But yeah, this year in-game has FLOWN by like you wouldn't believe.

[@tehNashty]

I believe! I witnessed it! The TMs all kinda blur in this age of over advertising. I wish they would spend less on advertising and just lower prices. I know ad money is a write off and lower prices makes investors nervous and litigious...but as a consumer, it would gain my loyalty!!!

[@RyugaIrving]

#20Kuestions Do you think you can do the Long Dark as either a guide series or a normal let's play?

[@Kurazarrh]

Thanks for your question submission! It's been added to the list!

[@kyleleehufnagel]

#20Kuestions Hey Kura, I remember you mentioning you played the other block game and a let’s play of this game was recommended to you and that’s what got you interested in playing it. However, you never mentioned if you had been playing a modded version of the other block game. I was wondering if you were familiar with or even aware of Terrafirma Craft when you first started playing Vintage Story? As a longtime player of TFC, I cannot imagine approaching Vintage Story without the foundational of knowledge of very specific gameplay loops/mechanics (knapping, pit kilns, prospecting etc.) If you were familiar with TFC what was the most jarring difference between VS and TFC for you (ex: not needing hunt down graphite for fire clay?) And if you were unfamiliar with TFC what VS mechanic seemed the most alien and hard to grasp compared to vanilla other block game?

[@Kurazarrh]

Thanks for your question submission! It's been added to the list! Just FYI, I'll be heavily paraphrasing your question due to how I'll be answering it. ;)

[@kyleleehufnagel]

@@Kurazarrh oh good, I worried about how verbose and circuitous it was because of how many contingencies there were.

[@TizonaAmanthia]

#20questions Do you think gamesoin armor is too OP Do you think leather armor should be at least as powerful then?

[@Kurazarrh]

Thanks for this question submission, too! It's been added to the list!

[@Takarias]

That's pretty funny that you like Daylight the most. that song is actually what made me turn the OST off. I find it clashes horribly with the somber and melancholic beauty of the world, or plays while I'm trying to sneak up on something or am desperately trying to stave of starving to death. Just too cheery. It's not terrible in isolation, but I find it really discordant for the game.

[@Kurazarrh]

I like it because it's catchy, but I also like it in the game as-is. On the one hand, the game world CAN be creepy and somber, but as seraphs, we're supposed to be something like the advance scouts sent back to the world to find out if it's safe for our people to migrate back into it. And if so, to start building the basic infrastructure that the people will need. So I think having hopeful-sounding music that jives with the freedom to explore a restored world actually fits pretty well.

[@tehNashty]

#20Kuestions Do you want to talk about your other hobbies? I know you like D&D.

[@Kurazarrh]

Haha, I kind of answered this already in the video IRT what other questions I was expecting/hoping to hear. I don't mind talking about them; my curiosity is more about what gets YOU guys interested!

[@pavunistao]

#20Kuestions Hi m8, you can call me JP. What do you think of the mod scene for VS? There is any combination of mods you would like to use in a new series? (not considering the quality of life ones)

[@Kurazarrh]

Thanks for your question submission! It's been added to the list!

[@jorrittyberghein7398]

You really should update to the NET7 update. It's SO much faster. I run by default on 1024 render distance now

[@jorrittyberghein7398]

To give you an idea: my FPS doubled when going to NET7. Even AFTER also doubling my render distance (from 512 to 1024)

[@Kurazarrh]

I'll be updating to 1.18.8 here pretty soon. I just haven't had any availability in my schedule to test to make sure that all of my mods still work and prune whichever ones don't! I've heard that the performance increases are mainly felt by players whose games are bottlenecked by CPU, which I don't think applies to me. But we'll see!

[@jorrittyberghein7398]

​@@Kurazarrh As far as I know the performance benefits are for everyone. I have a pretty good laptop (RTX 3080, 32 GB RAM, good cpu) and I got very good performance increases

[@Kurazarrh]

@@jorrittyberghein7398 RTX 3080? Yeah that's "pretty good," I guess... ;P That's great to know, though! I'm looking forward to seeing if I can get MOAR FRAMES out of this game! XD

[@TizonaAmanthia]

huh. why...id that one person get sent to comment jail? cause they asked 3 questions? none of them seemed like...bad questions.

[@Kurazarrh]

You ask three questions, you go to jail. Them's the rules. I don't make 'em, I just enforce 'em!