Tags:

Overhaul Hardcore Gameplay

Author:

examanon

Side:

Both

Created:

Sep 17th at 8:23 AM

Last modified:

4 days ago

Downloads:

76

Recommended download (for Vintage Story 1.22.7):
betterthanboats_3.4.15.zip  1-click install

What is Better Than Boats?

Better Than Boats is a progression mod. While in vanilla Vintage Story you can progress up to copper in a day and a half and never again struggle, BTB aims to gate meaningful progression milestones behind actually challenging the player. If you know about Better Than Wolves, well, this is the same deal. Nothing arbitrary is added that the base game doesn't have, no thirst bar or diseases, no [have this in your inventory or you die] mechanics, it's only made harder while not being tedious - for instance new mob behaviors, balanced combat, reworked mining, etc.

At any given time you have a set of needs to be met, first an actual obstacle, but what later ages will trivialize and present you with new challenges. These can be, but are not limtied to: scarcity of resources, environmental hazards, a test of your time management skills, combat, boss fights, etc. Progression is divided into Eras, and Eras are divided into Ages. Each have their own unique goals and a gate to progress to the next age.

Do NOT add this mod to existing worlds! It tweaks a lot of stuff and you WILL lose some items!

This mod is intended to be played competitively - playing with other mods installed is generally not in the competitive spirit.

Ages of progression

The best experience is to go into the mod blindly, so you can develop your own strategies based on what works - and doesn't work - for you. Here is a mostly spoiler free list of objectives to help you get started:

Era of Scarcity

Age of Survival

At the start, your biggest challenge is resource management. You must create and maintain your set of important tools, as well as shield yourself from the elements, darkness, starvation, and monsters. Your ultimate goal in this age to progress up to copper tools - believe me, it will be much harder than in the base game.

For comparison, during my longest test run where I knew exactly what I was doing, I...

• ...filled my first crock at around 4 hours
• ...made my first pickaxe at around 4.5 hours
• ...hunted my first bear at around 6 hours
• ...got my first piece of bismuth at 9 hours
• ...managed a decent sized inventory at 10 hours
• ...made a set of bronze tools at 18 hours
• ...made my first lantern at 25 hours
• ...set up a helve hammer at 36 hours
• ...made a tempered iron spear at 42 hours (and then died with it)

Age of Copper

With your newly acquired copper and with your firewood/charcoal get some pit kilns going, get more food, improve your base.
Once you have your pickaxe (and optimally a hammer), you are now ready for top strata caving for more copper. Your biggest hazard is the darkness, so learn to combat it. Mobs too, though.
At this point you can also hunt animals, and eventually make leather armor and better weapons. Since you can now make a proper cellar, food should no longer be a big problem. This is the end of the Era of Scarcity!

Era of the Deep

You will probably spend the most time in this Era, and you'll probably also die the most in this Era. Your goal is to progress through all three rock stratas - each with new challenges - until you can get up to iron. Resources aren't as scarce now, but you still must maintain your base and living to supply your cave runs. Plural.

Age of Bronze

On around day 7 to 10 if you have a decent supply of food and torches, or optionally have panned for a candle / made a lantern, you can now go middle strata caving - shivers spawn at this depth.
Get enough zinc and bismuth for the anvil and some better tools, and ready yourself for bottom strata caving for iron, and more importantly to find mineshafts - bowtorns and locusts spawn at this depth.
Besides getting iron, in mineshafts you will find locust nests, your only source of twine, and thus allowing you to go into automation.

Age of Automation

With the twine from the locust nests, you can now start up automation. In this age you will pretty much finish setting up your base, to trivialize mosts manual tasks so you can focus on what's ahead: combat.
The final gate of this age/era before you can go into iron and steel is this: The Bellows now needs mechanical power, and a drop from the Bell (now a miniboss). Put together the Temporal Bell Pieces that the locust nests dropped, and summon the Bell. This is a tough fight, so be prepared.
Be warned, that upon defeating the Bell your world is going into Hard mode. For now, this means that mobs can now spawn with different status effects / buffs, such as increased damage, draining sanity on hit, applying gloom on hit, etc.

Era of Discovery

The endgame.

Age of Exploration

Get enough iron, meteoric iron, and optionally steel and do the endgame dungeons, and travel to the frontier outside the 5000 block radius to find traders and farmable crops.

You get the Resonance Archives Map from the Bell miniboss, and must use it to make Targeted Temporal Powder to find the actual dungeon. The same is true for all other locations.

After beating the Eidolon you can set out to the frontier to cure Rusted Traders, and stack up on gear for the longer journeys ahead.

Age of Solace

You just won the game! Congratulations, the world is your oyster now!

Features

If you don't mind spoilers or need a better understanding of game mechanics, read ahead:

Worldgen

• Sea level is higher, so there are more caves (temporal stability and global temperature/precipitation compensated for it)
• Minecraft beta 1.8 inspired cave generation, including ravines and mineshafts (with surface markers)
• Meteoric iron no longer found on the surface, instead spawns at the bottom of strata 3 as ore chunks (generally at Minecraft beta 1.7.3 diamond density, and always found in caves - no need to strip mine)
• BTW-style rock stratas, each correspond to a new challenge
• Block instability enforced - vertical yes, sideways no
• No traders, no crops, no loot vessels near spawn
• Traders spawn as Rusted Traders, hostile - must be cured using Fine Temporal Powder
• 5000 block respawn radius is enforced, new Compass item points to world spawn

Combat

• Less floaty, non-laggy combat
• Removed shields, Falx can now block
• Adjusted hitboxes for all mobs
• Better pathfinding for all mobs, and they pursue more ruthlessly
• Player has the ability to critically hit enemies while jumping and sprinting
• Mob health, damage, and knockback adjusted (lowered) to balance new AI tasks
• Nearby drifters and shivers assign themselves into hunting packs, adopting role-based AI tasks
  • Drifters now vary meele, ranged, and hit-and-run tasks
  • Drifters now try to encircle the player and cut off escape routes
  • Shivers now vary meele and heckler tasks
  • Shivers now try to flank the player
• Blatantly kiting a hunting pack for a prolonged time enrages it
• Crawling drifters lunge at the player
• Drifters can now spawn holding weapons/tools and armor, you may get their held items if you can kill them - based on the held item the drifter enjoys increased range, damage, and damage reduction
• Drifters dig through soil blocks while pathing to the player
• Shivers dig through soil AND wooden blocks while pathing to the player
• Bowtorns try to flee to range, have a limited number of shots, then rush meele
• Getting meele hit by a Tainted mob applies food poisoning
• Getting meele hit by a Corrupt mob applues poisoning
• Getting meele hit by a Nightmare mob spawns spiderwebs around the player (once per mob)
• Locusts hang from the ceiling to ambush the player
• Locusts try to break torches when not attacking the player
• Sawblades try to break torches, lanterns, and ladders when not attacking the player
• No natural Bell spawns
• Locust nests drop Bell summon item pieces, 3 needed for summon (can only be done on the surface)
  
  • Bell tries to flee to range and climb height when not alarming
  • Bell regenerates life unless continuously attacked
  • Bell can destroy blocks throughout the fight
  • Staying too close to the Bell causes Gloom
• Bells drop Large Gear, a new item required for the Bellows
• Rusty Gears only drop from Tainted and harder mobs
• World entesr hardmode on defeating the Bell - mobs may now spawn with buffs (dmg, speed, guard, sanity drain on hit, gloom on hit)
  • Pre-hardmode mob tiers only up to Tainted can spawn
  • In hardmode mob tiers up to Nightmare can spawn
• Mobs drop a new item: Temporal Powder, used in metalcasting and endgame content - dropped from mobs, or from putting Temporal Gears / Temporal Bell Pieces into a quern

General gameplay, environmental hazards

• Several non-gravity blocks have been removed or moved later in progression
• Hunger/health loss impairs damage and movement
• Raw meat edible, 30% chance to apply food poisoning
• Torches cannot be reset, they fade out over time and don't last as long
• BTW-style Gloom in caves, during new moons, and especially rainy nights - environmental hazards are now as dangerous as mobs
• No flax from mobs
• No map or coords, and no calendar - pending to be added back as Jonas items
• No placing blocks while airborne
• No walking while crafting
• Buckets no longer transport source blocks
• Copper+ tools have secondary uses to trivialize earlier tasks, eg.: copper axe allows firewood into stick
• Flint tools now require binding, made from cattail through the crude barrel soaking process
• Simplified fishing to supplement early food scarcity, with two pole variants (bone or copper)
• Storage vessels now for food items only
• Fish trap for "automated" food gathering (post-twine, pre-iron)
• More in-depth firepit mechanics to incentivize settling down vs an immediate pilgrimage to 5k blocks out
• Fire spread is more dangerous
• Quench rework
  • When quenching fails, instead of getting destoryed the item becomes "Bent" that may be fixed (resetting the item but with a durability penalty) with a hammer and chisel
  • Quenching / tempering never changes durability of the item
  • Quenching raises damage sharply: 12% -> 25% -> 40% -> 60%
  • Quenching shatter chances raised accordingly
• Temporal storms now generally happen after gloom nights, with lowered intensity
• Endgame dungeons / locations can now be found using Targeted Temporal Powder
• The Glider is easier to use, to traverse terrain
• Rain is scary
• Lava is scary
• Various minor tweaks to make the game harder, but not a chore
• Playing in Hardcore indicated with a health bar decoration overlay

Footnotes

AI disclaimer

Was AI used during development of this mod? Yes and no. I have been working as a full stack dev for close to a decade now, including projects such as a power plant management system, so I know how to use a computer. That said, C# is definitely not my favorite language or one I'm overly familar with, so I used Anthropic models through Claude Code CLI to implement a lot of stuff I wouldn't know where to even begin; with addition of rtk, serena, caveman, and ponytail, besides my own configuration. Performance and security had continuously been maintained and rigorously tested. If something looks bad or works bad, that's due to my bad judgment and not to "vibe coding".

Stable Beta

At its third published release, the mod is in its balanced stable beta phase. There are still some leftover placeholders and pending balance changes, however for these I'll need feedback. In over 40+ hours spent in a testing run I hadn't encountered any issues, crashes or the likes, so the mod should be stable and not harm your computer. Do let me know your thoughts, though!

Planned features

• Revamp the Eidolon fight
• Datetime and geolocation mechanics to be re-added as Jonas gadgets

Staged changes (unpublished, coming in the next update)

• Achievments to guide the player through the ages of progression (hotkey: "K")
  • Main questline for critical milestones
  • Sidequests for QoL items
  • Feats to really challenge the player
• New iron age item: Cauldron
  • Allows large-scale batch food processing and need little fuel
  • Adds the ability to brew potions: horsetail + water -> healing potion; temporal powder + water -> sanity potio
  • Potions can be enhanced by brewing them an additional time with Meteoric Iron Powder (that you can make now via quern) to get healing+regen and sanity+strength
• Re-enabled some recipes but only for later in progression
  • Mudbrick and variants now need an iron shovel or better to craft, but are immune to drifter block breaking
  • Packed/arid/rammed dirt now need an iron shovel or better to craft
  • Path blocks now need an iron shovel or better to craft
  • All roof variants now require an iron saw or better to craft
• Chiseling rework
  • Resin + water + chisel now makes a new item: Resin Balm
  • Resin Balm now must be used to make blocks chiselable
• Leatherworking rework
  • Strong Tannin now requires Compost
  • Wolves, Bears, and Hyenas periodically defecate after feeding on a carcass, producing Dung piles
  • Dung blocks broken with a shovel give Compost
  • Weak Tannin now produces Leather
  • Strong Tannin now produces Tanned Leather
  • Tanned Leather required in higher tier armor recipes
  • Tanned Leather required to make backpacks
• Geolocation rework
  • A book + knife can be crafted into parchment
  • Parchment + charcoal can be crafted into a new item: Crude Map; shows rudimentary, symbolic representation for up to a 1024x1024 area when in the inventory
  • Jonas Sundial and Jonas Pocketwatch now craftable for timekeeping
• Agressive animals adjustments
  • Wolves, Bears, and Hyenas now hunt more mobs, and more agressively
  • Wolves and Hyenas combat now less jank
  • Damaged Wolves and Hyenas may disengage to seek out mates to help in combat
• Defeating the Eidolon boss further increases the difficulty, putting the world into Nightmare mode (needs testing)
  • Nightmare mode allows all mob tiers to spawn 
  • Nightmare mode Deep Drifters have a low chance to spawn invisible, emitting a white glow (needs testing)
  • Nightmare mode Shivers have a low chance to spawn as being perpetually on fire and inflict burn on the player (needs testing)
  • Nightmare mode Bowtorns shoot in volleysof three (needs testing)
• Meteoric Iron rework (needs testing)
  • Meteoric Iron ores can be processed in the quern to get Meteoric Iron Powder
  • Meteoric Iron ingots can be processed in the quern to get Meteoric Iron Powder at a high rate
  • Meteoric Iron tools had been removed from the game
  • Meteoric Iron Falx head, Spear head, Plates, Scales, and Chains must be re-crafted with the equivalent Iron item before they are useable (but give increased yields)
    • Tools crafted with a hammer and chisel now give back their toolheads at the exact same durability (iron tool heads cannot be quenced again)
    • Meteoric Iron items have +30% durability compared to vanilla
• Misc
  • Iron pickaxe or better always give crystallized ore chunks
  • Papyrus allowed as a cattails alternative in mod recipes
  • Added new item: "Targeted Temporal Powder (Myself)" as an alternative to the Compass, that leads to last known death position
  • Ores are now harder to break
  • Fixed Gloom nights actually going dark
  • Better Firepit fire-hazard box (needs testing)
  • More seamless Copper Pickaxe ore breaking (needs testing)
  • Starting in hardmode drifters with Bronze items/armor are more likely to spawn, and Tainted and higher tiers have a low chance to spawn wearing Iron Chainmail - which they can drop (needs testing)
  • TBD