Mods / The tar mod

Tags:
Cosmetics Crafting
Author:
ewoudje
Side:
Both
Created:
Jan 23rd 2025 at 2:08 AM
Last modified:
May 6th at 12:29 PM
Downloads:
3032
Latest release (for Vintage Story 1.22.0 - 1.22.2, potentially outdated):
tarmod_1.1.4.zip  1-click install

Ever wanted to build a medieval house and you didn't find a nice dark wood that would fit the theme?
Fret no more! You can now coat your wood!

Some versions on 1.20.* might not be working. Everything should be fixed in the mod version 1.1.3.



You first need to make tar, this is done by coating the bottom of a charcoal pit with clay.
After making a tar gathering pit it will collect all the tar made by the firewood above it. Using that tar you can start coating your planks.


A small note, in 1.20 tar was added to the base game. But it seems there is no way to get or use it. This mod adds that.

This is the way the tar coated blocks look:

A guide on how to use it, I know not my best work 馃槄. If somebody wants free yt views make a vid il put it here.

Mod Version Mod IdentifierFor Game version Downloads Released Changelog Download 1-click mod install*
1.1.4 tarmod
1.22.0 - 1.22.2
206 May 6th at 12:29 PM Empty tarmod_1.1.4.zip 1-click install
1.1.3 tarmod 438 Aug 31st 2025 at 8:15 PM tarmod_1.1.3.zip 1-click install

Fixed tar not generating, added even more error logging if something is wrong.
Fixed missing recipes.
By being released on 1.21.0 the fruitpress recipe was also fixed.

Known issues: still complains about a recipe.

1.1.2 tarmod
1.20.11 - 1.20.12
203 Jul 25th 2025 at 1:04 PM tarmod_1.1.2.zip 1-click install

Russian translations
Hopefully a fix for missing tar fluids

1.1.1 tarmod
1.20.11 - 1.20.12
48 Jul 25th 2025 at 5:29 AM tarmod_1.1.1.zip 1-click install

Added A Culinary Artillery recipes
Added Age of Confession tar recipes
Small recipe patch fixes

1.1.0 tarmod
1.20.1 - 1.20.3
489 Mar 20th 2025 at 10:57 AM tarmod_1.1.0.zip 1-click install

Added coated stripped logs
Fixed harmony not working on linux
Removed the debugging annotation that i forgot to remove

1.0.5 tarmod
1.20.0 - 1.20.3
588 Feb 5th 2025 at 5:10 PM tarmod_1.0.5.zip 1-click install

Fixed the full coalblock bug

1.0.4 tarmod
1.20.0 - 1.20.3
118 Feb 4th 2025 at 4:35 PM tarmod_1.0.4.zip 1-click install

Fixed some clipping with the tarpit
Made the patch more robust by catching errors before reaching the original code. (Should help with errors causing empty charcoal pits)
Added a max distance of tar traversal

1.0.3 tarmod
1.20.0 - 1.20.3
353 Jan 30th 2025 at 9:03 PM tarmod_1.0.3.zip 1-click install

Fixes throwing errors when having 2 layers of wood

1.0.2 tarmod 220 Jan 26th 2025 at 6:08 PM tarmod_1.0.2.zip 1-click install

(Works with all 1.20 versions)

Fixed some wierd liquid behevoir.

1.0.1 tarmod 191 Jan 24th 2025 at 1:09 PM tarmod_1.0.1.zip 1-click install

Fixed recipes

1.0.0 tarmod 178 Jan 23rd 2025 at 2:37 AM tarmod_1.0.0.zip 1-click install

Initial release!


73 Comments (oldest first | newest first) (threaded | flat)

Darmin404, May 6th at 4:25 PM

Hi! The mod works wonderfully, but It has a broken name and texture for the debarked tar log. Also It doesnt seems to recognize biodiversity trees log.


ewoudje , May 6th at 12:35 PM

Otterbutter No here is the update, but im pretty sure 1.1.3 wouldve worked on latest

Otterbutter, Apr 24th at 5:12 PM

So is this mod abandoned? I haven't found any other mods that add as good-looking black wood.

The_Amish, Dec 13th 2025 at 12:31 PM

Beams work out well! I really like this mod! My only issue is its a little annoying that after tar collection the clay on the ground doesnt harden. Since you use a shovel to mine charcoal its very easy to break the clay. Thats my only gripe!

The_Amish, Nov 30th 2025 at 1:26 AM

are beams supported?

Otterbutter, Oct 11th 2025 at 3:46 AM

 

Seems that the patch for the Confession doorways is broken, as well as the quad logs and (partially) the debarked log.

Vherkin, Sep 29th 2025 at 9:24 PM

The Vivid Insanity God been helping me on the Vintage story discord and noticed this in my log:

And some minor things that you can likely just ignore:

  • The tar mod: seems to have appended a variant to vanilla planks (tarred) and all mods adding recipes with planks are screaming about this lol, also they seem to have not changed their recipes to respect all the new clay types from 1.21

    It is true, i have a bunch of recipe that scream about the tar plank but otherwise the mod work. Just wanted to report it, just in case.
animatiV, Sep 8th 2025 at 3:29 PM (modified Sep 8th 2025 at 3:32 PM)

Translation into Polish:

pl.json
{ "block-claycovered*": "Gleba z warstw膮 gliny", "item-claylayer-*": "Gliniana warstwa", "tarmod:item-handbooktext-tarmod:claylayer-*": "Mo偶na wy艂o偶y膰 ni膮 sp贸d mielerza, by 艂膮cz膮c kana艂y ze sob膮, doprowadzi膰 smo艂臋 do do艂u.", "item-tarpit-*": "D贸艂 do gromadzenia smo艂y", "tarmod:item-handbooktext-tarmod:tarpit-*": "D贸艂 w kt贸rym gromadzi si臋 smo艂a, u偶yj <a href=\"handbook://item-tarmod:claylayer-blue\">gliniane warstwy</a> by po艂膮czy膰 kana艂y z do艂em.", "block-tarpit-*": "D贸艂 do gromadzenia smo艂y", "game:item-handbooktext-tarportion": "Czarna, kleista substancja, mo偶e by膰 stosowana do prymitywnych pow艂ok na drewnie.", "game:material-tarred": "Pokryte smo艂膮", "game:block-glasspane-leaded-tarred-*": "Leaded glass plane (Pokryta smo艂膮)", "game:block-woodenfence-tarred-*": "Drewniany p艂ot (Pokryty smo艂膮)", "game:block-woodenfencegate-tarred-*": "Drewniana furtka (Pokryta smo艂膮)", "game:block-scrollrack-tarred": "Pokryta smo艂膮 p贸艂ka na zwoje", "game:block-planks-tarred-*": "Deski pokryte smo艂膮", "game:block-plankslab-tarred-*": "P艂yta pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-plankstairs-tarred-*": "Schody pokryte smo艂膮", "game:block-trapdoor-solid-tarred-*": "Klapa pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-trapdoor-window-tarred-*": "Kratowana klapa pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-beam-plane-tarred-*": "Belka dachowa pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-beam-ridge-tarred-*": "Belka kalenicowa pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofing-tarred-*": "Pochy艂y dach pokryty smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofingtop-tarred-*": "G贸ra dachu pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofingtip-tarred-*": "Wierzcho艂ek dachu pokryty smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofingbottom-tarred-*": "D贸艂 dachu pokryty smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofinghalfleft-tarred-*": "Po艂owa dachu pokryta smo艂膮 (lewa)", "game:block-slantedroofinghalfright-tarred-*": "Po艂owa dachu pokryta smo艂膮 (prawa)", "game:block-slantedroofingcornerinner-tarred-*": "Naro偶nik dachu pokrytego smo艂膮 (wewn臋trzny)", "game:block-slantedroofingcornerouter-tarred-*": "Naro偶nik dachu pokrytego smo艂膮 (zewn臋trzny)", "game:block-slantedroofingridge-tarred-*": "Kalenica dachu pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofingridgeend-tarred-*": "Ko艅c贸wka kalenicy dachu pokryta smo艂膮", "game:block-slantedroofingridgehalfleft-tarred-*": "Po艂owa kalenicy dachu pokryta smo艂膮 (lewa)", "game:block-slantedroofingridgehalfright-tarred-*": "Po艂owa kalenicy dachu pokryta smo艂膮 (prawa)", "game:block-supportbeam-tarred": "Belka no艣na (Pokryta smo艂膮)", "game:item-plank-tarred": "Deska (Pokryta smo艂膮)", "game:item-boatseat-tarred": "Siedzisko do 艂odzi pokryte smo艂膮"}
 
 

 

 

Ditsydoo, Sep 2nd 2025 at 5:36 PM

ewoudje Yeah I kinda try to be frugal so that maybe is why I havent burned too much charcoal as of late. I can change things inside to match what i wanted but overall thanks for making this wonderful mod.

ewoudje , Sep 2nd 2025 at 3:37 PM

Ditsydoo no currently thats not the case, but usually you need quite a bit of coal for metal stuff no? I kinda assumed that as a byproduct you get quite a bit of it after a while. I did wanted to log type specific tar production, like pine producing by far the most but sadly firewood is typeless.

Ditsydoo, Sep 1st 2025 at 11:34 PM

Other than contiouns coal making is there any other way to make tar? Its a byproduct but man I love how I can take so many diffrent woods and turn them into similar stacks.

jayu, Sep 1st 2025 at 1:55 AM

ewoudje ah that's fair, the brush would be cool though I get not wanting to add too much stuff outside the narrow scope of the mod. One possible interaction would be interacting with buckets with placed planks, which should be possible with code, but idk just magically clicking on a plank pile and them being coated doesn't feel realistic either XD.

ewoudje , Sep 1st 2025 at 1:30 AM

jayu I didn't because coating isn't very eqv to putting it in a barrel for a day :p.
There is some dead code in the mod that adds a brush that you would have to use instead but haven't come around to it yet, since i also want it to be able to coat placed blocks and the ship.
I was thinking for realism that you have to coat the ship, but that would be more intrusive then i would like the mod to be.

jayu, Aug 31st 2025 at 9:45 PM (modified Aug 31st 2025 at 9:45 PM)

Looks good, surprised I never saw this mod before. Could also make it a barrel recipe instead of a simple grid recipe for more difficulty or immersion.

ewoudje , Aug 31st 2025 at 8:17 PM

Last update should have fixed most of the issues

Dae_Blackheart, Aug 22nd 2025 at 6:49 PM

i dont know if im just unlucky but multiple charcoal pits have resaulted in no tar

Dae_Blackheart, Aug 22nd 2025 at 3:40 PM

just doesnt work ive tried on several hosted games

MarkusAureus, Aug 17th 2025 at 2:39 AM

ewoudje Windows. I do have several other mods installed, but none that change anything to do with the charcoal pit, I think.

ewoudje , Aug 16th 2025 at 12:02 PM

MarkusAureus All it should need is just having logs turn into charcoal above the clay channels (there is no incremental flow).
Il look into the bug, are you using linux or windows?

MarkusAureus, Aug 6th 2025 at 3:46 PM (modified Aug 6th 2025 at 4:17 PM)

Is there something I am missing? The tar doesn't seem to be collecting at the bottom of the charcoal pit. I assume it needs to fulfill the requirements of a vanilla charcoal pit, other than the clay floor? Do I need to not fill the charcoal pit entirely as demonstrated in the video or is that irrelevant? I like the look of the tarred wood, but the charcoal pit is not producing tar, despite having the collection chamber and tar channels as demonstrated in the video. 

I'd like to use this mod, any information will be appreciated

Edit; I attempted it in a 3x3x3 pit with cobblestone walls, kiln door, iron trapdoor, and a dirt floor for the clay channels, as well as a 3x1x3 pit entirely of dirt just to be sure it wasn't functioning. neither gave me any tar. I am seeing nothing in my logs about this.

Vari_Ares, Jul 25th 2025 at 11:29 AM

I don't really like the process to it but GOD the textures of this "DARK" wood you made look SO GOOD, I need it in Vanilla omg !!! <3

ChimMAG, Jul 25th 2025 at 6:00 AM
ewoudje , Jul 25th 2025 at 5:15 AM

Brady_The Foxtrot88 Louse The issue of the fruitpress is a vintage story bug itself. It has been fixed in the 1.21 release canidates, can't do myself much to fix it on 1.20.

Foxtrot88 A Culinary Artillery recipes now are able to use tar.

Otterbutter, Jun 19th 2025 at 5:48 AM

I'm gonna keep an eye on this mod for when it's updated and much less broken. I just really want a dark wood type without having to hunt for aged logs in old ruins.

Foxtrot88, Apr 13th 2025 at 9:02 PM

Not only does it completely screw up the recipe for the fruit press, this also doesn't even work as intended...I followed the exact instructions on the video, layout of the clay floors and all (using red clay) and I got NOTHING...

Brady_The, Apr 13th 2025 at 12:16 PM

The fruitpress problem is quite bizarre, so I had a look in-game and what I found was even more bizarre.

You can craft the fruitpress, but it requires a special combination of boards and rods. The rest of the ingredients doesn't matter. The combinations go as follows:

acacia + meteoriciron
aged + copper
bald cypress + copper
birch + tinbronze
ebony + blackbronze
kapok + steel
larch + tinbronze
maple + blackbronze
oak + bismuthbronze
pine + iron
purpleheart + meteoriciron
redwood + bismuthbronze
tarred + steel
walnut + iron

Louse, Apr 9th 2025 at 10:02 AM

This makes the fruitpress uncraftable on my end, removed the mod and its craftable again

Foxtrot88, Apr 4th 2025 at 10:02 AM

ewoudje There seems to be an incompatiblity with A Culinary Artillery's furnitures.

 

Dae_Blackheart, Mar 30th 2025 at 6:39 AM

cannot seem to get this to work on a multiplayer server have a 3x1x3 pit and followed the video and have yet to get any tar 4-5 tries

NukeACitrus, Mar 29th 2025 at 4:26 PM

Tried making tar with a non-square charcoal kiln. Didn't seem to work, no tar was generated at the bottom. Do you need to have perfectly square bottom for the clay, perhaps? 

Hannya, Mar 20th 2025 at 2:42 PM

Gotta say, there are a lot of mods on here where I see them and go "ooh, that's cool/useful!"

This one was a first for "oh my god, my house is gonna smell amazing! (pine tar my beloved)" 馃ぃ

ewoudje , Mar 20th 2025 at 11:00 AM

sevie Adelion I should have fixed the linux patching issue, i assume that was the cause of earlier issues

LaDestitute Yep i mustve forgoten to remove that while debugging

Hatrune_Cubic I added a coated log variant

LaDestitute, Mar 9th 2025 at 11:57 PM

Your mod is creating Harmony debug logs on the enduser's PC, btw; you might wanna fix that

Hatrune_Cubic, Feb 24th 2025 at 1:11 PM

Would be awesome thanks :)

ewoudje , Feb 24th 2025 at 12:19 AM

Hatrune_Cubic Well i personally think it doesn't make much sense to coat bark. Altough i could add a stripped tarred log variant.

Hatrune_Cubic, Feb 22nd 2025 at 11:24 AM

Btw question, could u add maybe tarred logs? would be awesome to get tarred support beams etc

ewoudje , Feb 13th 2025 at 1:44 PM

Sevie pattern shouldn't matter, can you check the logs for errors? And also just to confirm you are using the latest version right?

sevie, Feb 12th 2025 at 12:10 AM

still not filling with tar, this time attempted on a 5x5 pit
(all of the lines are connected properly, although it didn't use the same pattern as the 3x3 one. not sure if it matters.)

Hatrune_Cubic, Feb 6th 2025 at 10:17 AM

Thanks for the fix! Everything works all fine for now 馃榾

ewoudje , Feb 5th 2025 at 5:12 PM

Alright 1.0.5 should fix the full coalblock issue.
I hope this can be a final stable version :P

Hatrune_Cubic, Feb 5th 2025 at 4:12 PM

It should be making firewood into full charcoal blocks instead of how vanilla works?

Ardail, Feb 5th 2025 at 12:05 AM

@ewoudje I might have, I'll do some testing with the latest version
love this idea for a mod though, hope you can work out all the teething issues

Nebux, Feb 4th 2025 at 8:59 PM

maybe you should make the requirement that all the block should be filled with wood. how i'm min maxing this mod is for charcoal because of said bug, and making tar with the least amount of wood.

ewoudje , Feb 4th 2025 at 4:39 PM

Im not fully sure what could be causing the coalpiles to be full instead, the patch that modifies default behevoir only reads values of the original method wich shouldn't cause this.

I released 1.0.4 wich should in general help with bugs that would make your charcoal pit empty. Altough errors still could influence the tar amount being generated. (Wich you would see in the logs)

Spyke1021, Feb 3rd 2025 at 7:18 PM

@Nebux I don't know if it's because of the mod or not. While I was testing a couple bugs, I made a 2x2 pit, with no tar collector and it happened on there, too.

Arisilde, Feb 2nd 2025 at 11:30 PM

We tried this mod with an 11x11x11 pit and all it does is burn away the wood. nothing gets turned into charcoal, no tar gets collected. The pit is created correctly, I've done it many times. The mod just doesn't seem to be working properly with this size. Is there a limit?

Nebux, Feb 1st 2025 at 12:27 AM

mod is great, the only thing is that it makes the normal charcoal pits filled with charcoal to the brim. you see it in your video that even the fire pit get's filled with charcoal.

ewoudje , Jan 30th 2025 at 9:02 PM

Spyke1021 Good catch, fixed in 1.0.3.

Spyke1021, Jan 28th 2025 at 11:37 PM

Confirmed that 4x1x4 charcoal pits work just fine. As soon as you add another layer, it breaks and does not complete making charcoal.

ewoudje , Jan 28th 2025 at 2:01 PM

Ardail Are you using the 1.0.0 version? it had these bugs.

Ardail, Jan 28th 2025 at 1:29 AM

I don't see any of the the pieces in my clayforming panel, is this mod not capatiable with culinary artillery taking the slots in the clayforming menu?
Edit: oh it seems it only works with blue or fireclay but not redclay, also can't make the clay layer as shown in the tutorial video using a 1x3 row of clay no matter the type

might help if the guidebook showed what you needed to do to make these pieces, none of your items when brought up in the guide book show a recipe

Spyke1021, Jan 28th 2025 at 12:28 AM

Just tried a 3x1x3 and it worked just fine. I'll try other sizes and get back to you.

ewoudje , Jan 27th 2025 at 10:56 PM

Spyke1021 That should work, as long as channels are connected to a tar pit and wood is being burned on top of the channel it will work irrelevant of height. And the burning length shouldn't be modified either, maybe something is happening in the logs?
Sevie are you using the latest version 1.0.2? The previous one had a issue where that could happen, also try to reload it to see if its a desync issue.

sevie, Jan 27th 2025 at 10:40 PM


after finishing a charcoal pit, i ended up with nothing?

Spyke1021, Jan 27th 2025 at 9:49 PM

Does it specifically have to be in a 3x3 area, and if it does, how tall can it be? In your video, you only have a single layer of firewood, and I wanna be sure I'm doing this correctly. I had over two hundred hours on a 4x4 charcoal pit and it never finished.

ewoudje , Jan 26th 2025 at 8:20 PM

Im still unable to replicate the error, could you try if the mod works without the other mods?
And if so could you try to locate wich mod the cause is?

Edit: My best bet is that its linux related, im gonna look into it but not really sure how it breaks it.

Adelion, Jan 26th 2025 at 7:25 PM

Maybe it helps 馃槆. tar mod on newest version ***

2page

 

1page

Adelion, Jan 26th 2025 at 7:23 PM
Adelion, Jan 26th 2025 at 7:23 PM
ewoudje , Jan 26th 2025 at 7:10 PM

Adelion thats the same error as Mnemesia, that error should only happen when there is a mod incompatibility. Can you give the modlist?

JunidO, Jan 26th 2025 at 7:05 PM

ewoudje  ---  Take a at Adelion麓s message, we are at the same server. Maybe it help you.

Adelion, Jan 26th 2025 at 6:55 PM

i have followed error in console maybe that helps i'm on Version 1.20.3

:

26.1.2025 19:53:58 [Server Error] [tarmod] An exception was thrown when trying to start the mod:
26.1.2025 19:53:58 [Server Error] [tarmod] Exception: Patching exception in method System.Void Vintagestory.GameContent.BlockEntityCharcoalPit::ConvertPit()

ewoudje , Jan 26th 2025 at 5:27 PM

JunidO Huhh thats wierd, are you using other mods if so can you send a list? I assume there is nothing relevant happening in the logs?
Edit: I just added a new version that fixes a liquid bug, not the one you are describing but maybe it helps

JunidO, Jan 26th 2025 at 4:24 PM

Watched your video. Build it step by step, with red clay, blue clay and fire clay. Used the exaxt pattern like you with the fire wood. And...... ------- no tar. :(

ewoudje , Jan 26th 2025 at 3:23 PM

Yskar I added a video i hope its more clear now!

And this is just in general i didn't calibrate the tar properly so if you feel like it should be more/less etc do comment.

Yskar, Jan 25th 2025 at 2:30 AM

A small video would be nice, i didn't really get it how to use it.

Spyke1021, Jan 24th 2025 at 10:16 PM

@ewoudje No worries, we're all human! It may be worth documenting the instructions for how to use the mod items(tar collector/clay layer only works when used on dirt blocks, right click to add channels to the clay layers), too. Had to experiment a bit to figure it out myself. Other than that, for something so simple, I'm excited to play around and make some decorated areas!

ewoudje , Jan 24th 2025 at 1:01 PM

Spyke1021 You are right, it seems i forgot to add red clay while porting to 1.20 and i just in general forgot the crafting recipe for the layers 馃槄.
Uploading a fixed version right now

Spyke1021, Jan 24th 2025 at 12:21 AM

How do you create clay layers for channels? I see it's an item, but I can't make them by putting clay down. Also, red clay doesn't have a tar collector.

Mnemesia, Jan 23rd 2025 at 7:20 PM

I'm actually using the 1.20.1 version on a Linux environment with the 7.0.20 build of C# framework, I don't know if it can be related

ewoudje , Jan 23rd 2025 at 4:34 PM

Mnemesia im unable to replicate the error using the modlist provided in the pastebin.
Are you using the correct vintage story version?

Mnemesia, Jan 23rd 2025 at 3:23 PM

Hello, I've tried your mod on my server but it seams to fail its loading, here is the error that occured and the mods used on the server: https://pastebin.com/sT8N0Bgf