Rowboat poofed, no warning.

[Delerium]

I was taking a trip to a lime mine with my rowboat, and loaded it up with 2 chests and 2 boxes full of lime. On my way back to my homestead, suddenly it vanished in the deep part of a river, taking with it the entire contents of my trip, leaving me swimming with nothing but the current contents of my inventory. I realize the boat was probably damaged and decayed, but for it to vanish on the spot with no warning is a little unforgivable. I had no notice that anything was wrong leading up to the destruction. So I lost a rowboat, two chests, and two boxes, all full of lime. I can recover it, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I had no warning. If I had known I would have at least gone to shallow water and unloaded the boat. It was literally 2 squares away from me.

More directly to the root of the problem, this game does a horrible job of reporting information... You don't know how damaged a boat is until you repair it, which may be too late. There could be warnings that the boat is about to be destroyed... The contents of the boat could be placed on the nearest shoreline as well. Likewise, there's no way of inspecting objects for relevant information. You can't find out how much charcoal a brazier has in it... You can't inspect charcoal clamps, timber piles, or iron smelters to see how much time they have left. This game doesn't disclose any useful information that we would probably have in real life by simply looking at the object (you would know when your boat is about to sink).

[Dallane]

should pay closer attention to the color of the boat because it does change

[Droj]

Was your boat glowing red with the signs of decay? Like the colour that is usually a warning to say wake repair me!

#cryevtime

[Hans_Lemurson]

Hmm...it looks like your boat suffered from Critical Existence Failure.

I do agree that it would be good if important information like this were displayed more clearly. Rowboats damage slowly enough that you may have gotten used to it's new slightly redder color. You generally won't notice additional redness when compared against a background utterly devoid of blue.

Lack of accessible information bothers me too.

[Delerium]

should pay closer attention to the color of the boat because it does change

Well for one, the boat is a reddish brown to begin with, so seeing a color change to red to constitute damage is not much of a notice. Also, the boat starts being damaged right when you use it, thus it turns red. Are you saying that the shade of red changes as it becomes more damaged, because if it does, it's so subtle that I didn't even see... It still looked the same shade of red when it poofed.

Regardless, the boat completely vanishing with all of it's contents, even the containers, in a puff of smoke with no warning is completely stupid and I really don't see the point other than to grief the player. The fact that the only indication of damage is a slight color change is equally illogical, especially on things like rowboats which happen to be a very similar color as the damage indicator.

[staxjax]

I really don't see the point other than to grief the player.

Welcome to Seatribe.

[maggie]

same thing happened to me it had 4 beavers in it i'm so mad there needs to be better waning than just the boat looks a little red

[Yourgrandmother]

I have an extreme fear of boats decaying while I'm out in deep water. Everyone makes fun of me because of it.

[Wumpe]

i hope you have learned your lesson lol cause i sure did just like you i was omw to lime and then boom boat gone 4chests gone now i do my repairs each trip lol

[Mereni]

Everything in Salem, including boats, goes through four stages of redness before decay.

Boats don't turn red the moment you start using them, they stay brown until 25% damage, and get a little reddish tint. The red gets deeper at 50%, and becomes a very noticeable cherrywood red at 75%. Even then, you still have 25% leeway to repair it.

The obvious solution is to try to apply a piece of coal every time you are about to go on a trip over water.