Do you turn on rifts?

[Scarlette Sadie]

Hey all, so I've been playing VS for a little over a month now and absolutely loving it. So at the start of my current run I allowed rifts and now I'm rethinking that option. I like that rifts make travelling at night scarier but I don't like that I can't even go out on my front porch on a high rift night without getting swarmed. I'm not a big combat person. I like building and exploring. I'm just wondering how many of you turn off rifts? 

[Maelstrom]

I don't.  Early game there's enough things to do that keep me inside while the moaning choir serenades me.  Lighting up the homestead with lanterns prevents rifts spawning and allows nighttime navigation between buildings without drifter harassment, even on nights of apocalyptic level rift activity.

[Streetwind]

Turning off rifts just makes drifters spawn everywhere at night instead of just around rifts.

(In other words, it reverts the spawning behavior to Minecraft style, like it used to be before rifts got introduced.)

[Owktree]

In my current SP run I turned them off.  I find the surface drifters as mainly an annoyance and I was also doing a lot of building construction at night and simply did not want to have to deal with the constant interruptions.  They are still in/near the caves and appear during temporal storms which is where I feel it proper for them to be dealt with.

[Scarlette Sadie]

15 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Turning off rifts just makes drifters spawn everywhere at night instead of just around rifts.

(In other words, it reverts the spawning behavior to Minecraft style, like it used to be before rifts got introduced.)

Oh really? I turned them off for my last session and played one or two nights but didn't see any. Maybe I got lucky? It's winter now so I'm trying to stay inside more at night plus I did add a couple of outside lights to my base. I'm better with having them spawn Minecraft style though. I swear every night that was medium rift activity or higher I had a swarm of 3 - 6 waiting for me at both of my entrances practically breaking down my doors. It was a real pain when my house was much smaller and I had to keep non-perishables outside (oh, I need to cook tonight... nope I stacked the firewood outside and there's an army at the door. Guess I'm eating raw berries again)

[Branislav Kostic]

On 8/30/2023 at 8:59 PM, Streetwind said:

Turning off rifts just makes drifters spawn everywhere at night instead of just around rifts.

(In other words, it reverts the spawning behavior to Minecraft style, like it used to be before rifts got introduced.)

Rifts are the ONLY way for drifters to spawn on surface unless there is a temporal storm or your stability is really low.

Turning the off disables drifters from spawning on surface, they still might get out of the caves if there are some in your vicinity.

Turning them invisible works the same way as turning them visible - just without the annoying noise and stability drop.

[Bumber]

1 hour ago, Branislav Kostic said:

Rifts are the ONLY way for drifters to spawn on surface unless there is a temporal storm or your stability is really low.

There's absolutely no reason why this would be the case. They spawn in light* level 7 and lower, from 85% of the way from mantle to sea level, up to the top of the map. Maybe a full moon is bright enough to prevent spawning while it lasts.

If there's too many (i.e., 14) surface drifters in your caves, then they won't spawn on the surface until the old ones despawn. The despawn condition is farther than 32 blocks for 30 seconds, so that's unlikely to be an issue for long, especially if you or the drifters are moving around.

*Uses MaxTimeOfDayLight, which is the higher value of the current sunlight/moonlight or artificial light.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Bumber

[Branislav Kostic]

18 hours ago, Bumber said:

There's absolutely no reason why this would be the case. They spawn in light* level 7 and lower, from 85% of the way from mantle to sea level, up to the top of the map. Maybe a full moon is bright enough to prevent spawning while it lasts.

If there's too many (i.e., 14) surface drifters in your caves, then they won't spawn on the surface until the old ones despawn. The despawn condition is farther than 32 blocks for 30 seconds, so that's unlikely to be an issue for long, especially if you or the drifters are moving around.

*Uses MaxTimeOfDayLight, which is the higher value of the current sunlight/moonlight or artificial light.

You are absolutely correct about everything you said, but rifts are literaly gateways which spawn drifters on the surface every night (since some of the 1.16 updates, can't remember which one, it's in the patch notes).

If you turn rifts off you won't get a single drifter at night even if rift stability is apocalyptic. They don't have anything to do with drifters that spawn in caves or during temporal storms

[Bumber]

On 9/15/2023 at 9:31 AM, Branislav Kostic said:

If you turn rifts off you won't get a single drifter at night even if rift stability is apocalyptic. They don't have anything to do with drifters that spawn in caves or during temporal storms

I went ahead and tested this and it seems to be correct. I constructed a large artificial platform over ocean so that there wouldn't be any nearby surface caves to spawn in. I checked "/entity count" multiple times throughout the night and there were no surface or deep drifters ever. (Tainted drifters and lower were confirmed to spawn in caves under the ocean.)

Results were the same after enabling rifts and restarting. No active rifts on my platform meant no drifters.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Bumber

[Thorfinn]

I wouldn't say I turn them on, but from time to time, I do catch them ogling my washboard abs...