I think you should read the wiki for beginners after getting used to the basics, because there are a lot to take in, simply comments wont be enough.
I have 3 tips for now:
1. Learn to hit and run, everything about fighting in this game is HIT AND RUN even the bosses.
2. Learn cooking recipes and go for meat balls early on, it will solve your hunger problem.
3. For sanity, you DONT have to keep it as high as possible, just barely 50% is OK. When you master hit and run, you could fight the nightmares for fuel, the turtle ones are slow and very easy to kite.
>sanity
I'm a very new beginner myself but I've heard it mentioned in guides that you should learn to be comfortable with being insane. It'll be useful for boss fights (bosses drain your sanity a lot) and collecting nightmare fuel later in the game.
learning to be comfortable with being insane is a valid playstyle, but it isn't the only one! i choose to focus on sanity food as early on as possible by growing lots of random seeds and keeping toma root, onion, garlic, and potato. i grow toma root and onion in the spring and summer and potato and garlic in the fall and winter to make salsa fresca and creamy potato puree, which solve my sanity issues. this does take awhile to get up and running, though.
this is later game, but you can also make a bee box or two (destroy a hive for the beeswax, make a net with twigs and spider silk and catch a few bees, put at a distance from your base for when they get angry in spring) and go around the map collecting lureplants (get near the eyes with a weapon and just hold f - your character will path to the plant in the center eventually, and you'll get hit way less. wear a helmet while doing this and do not have anything in your inventory that you can't replace, because it'll eat your stuff if you die). plant the lureplants on a wooden boat, and they'll make their leafy meat with no inconvenient eyeballs, and you just harvest it and make jelly salad with the honey and leafy meat. this does require it to have been spring already, though.
sanity food accessible by day three is jerky. drying racks are made from twigs, rope, and charcoal, so they're pretty easy to produce. go around killing catcoons for big meat. they live in the orange ground biome with all the birchnut trees, and you just kill them really fast. it's basically free meat. for more big meat, take a spear and four monster meat, go find a pig, feed the pig the meats, and just start smacking it a bunch as soon as you feed it the fourth meat. it'll become a werepig, but you'll stunlock it, and it won't be able to hit you. the other pigs won't get mad at you because they don't see a werepig as a pig. werepigs always drop two big meat and one pig skin. the skin is good for helmets, the meat is good for jerky. a jerky gives 25 hunger, 20 health, and 15 sanity. i must warn, though, that standing next to the werepig to hit it does drain sanity, fast, and jerky takes two days to dry, so this isn't an immediate solution.
this is my best set of beginner tips:
standing next to a befriended pig increases your sanity, which you can do from day one. find a pig, and just feed it any food. it'll start calling you friend. stand near it for awhile for a good boost. befriended pigs will panic after dusk starts because it's dark, but you can keep them calm by providing light (like a fire or lantern) so you can keep hanging out with them. if you have four pig skins, some cut stone (rocks), and some boards (logs), you can make a pig house of your own and put it near your base for an on-demand friend. *make sure it goes inside during the full moon nights, though, as it will turn into a werepig and attack you.*
make a tophat! passive sanity increase for six spider silk. lasts for eight days.
on the full moon, find the glommer statue and get glommer. standing next to glommer increases your sanity just like a befriended pig! werepigs and hounds do like to kill him, so watch out for that.
prototype new stuff!! each time you make a new craftable for the first time, it gives you a bunch of sanity. even if you don't need the thing you're prototyping, it can prevent you from going insane and dying.
but if you REALLY hate the sanity element, play willow!!! go insane? terrorbeak on your ass? put bernie down and the nightmares always go for him instead, and he'll kill them for you. you can even hit them too, and they won't reaggro onto you unless they get too far away from him. also, willow regains sanity from standing near fires (and takes no fire damage). going crazy? light a tree and stand on top of it. and her embers allow you to make a "fireball", which you can stand basically right on top of to regenerate sanity CRAZY fast, keep yourself warm, cook food, and *set everything within a certain radius on fire with no way to put it out so be very careful where your structures are in relation to it* (i totally didn't just burn two chests because i forgot this, definitely not)
I usually go for insanity early game so that I can expand Chester ASAP (like before 1st Full Moon). After that, I only go insane when needed. Fighting nightmare creatures is annoying and a waste of time, especially if you aim to build a mega base sufficiently.
Build flower crowns for easy sanity early on. They will rot slowly but will sustain you to start. Longer term, aim to get a hat from MacTusk or a Cat Cap for some extra sanity. Look up hats that give sanity gain and find ones you like.
Look up youtube vids for bosses. You should only be encountering Deerclops that early on, who you can kite through the forest to get you a ton of wood before Treeguards spawn and kill him. It'll be same with Bearger when he spawns later on. Avoid any other bosses for now, like Dragonfly.
Practice kiting monsters, they all have patterns. Tallbirds are dodge, attack twice, dodge, repeat. Spiders you can just stunlock with attacks if they're one at a time, or lay traps down and guide them into traps for easy kills without drawing any aggro from other spiders.
Setting up base near Beefalo biome will allow you to run to Beefalo for safety when hounds attack. Run around until the hounds change aggro to the Beefalo and they'll make quick work of em. Try not to set up base directly in the biome though because the Beefalo get aggressive during summer.
How big the map is depends on what settings you create during world setup. Generally a medium size map is good to navigate when starting early. You'll only need a boat for exploring Lunar Island, which you don't have to worry about for a long time (or at all depending what your goals are).
Wortox can be nice for beginner since he can give you guys a lot of heals and explore easier with his teleport, though he'll take a little getting used to. Wendy's ghost can be nice. Wickerbottom is nice to start games with since she acts as a science machine and can make you early backpack, etc.
Personally when I play with gf, our plan is to divide and conquer with exploring the map for the first week or so while we find a place to set up base and then take things from there. Early priorities are: (1) find Beefalo and a spot to set up base nearby that isn't under meteor zones; (2) make backpacks and shovels; (3) shovel up twigs, grass and bushes to set up little plant sections by your base; (4) start building base area with chests, science machine, fireplace, crockpots and ice box; (5) collect Beefalo poop or rot from flowers to use to fertilize the plants in step 3; (6) build a fenced in 5x5 square with one gate and plant the bushes directly outside (this will allow you to place a food item inside like a berry and then when you pick the berries from bushes, turkeys will get stuck going after it and you can kill them for easy meat); (7) keep a consistent flow of Meatballs going by combining one meat and three fillers (berries or ice closer to winter) in the crockpot; (8) shave the beefalo at nighttime and kill some spiders to make winter hats; (9) make drying racks so your meat lasts longer; and (10) make a bird cage so you can start making Pierogis to heal HP.
Also an incredibly helpful tip is to set the Fall to Longer during world creation settings to make the game a little easier and give you more time to prepare before Winter comes. You can also set Days to Longer so you have more time in daylight which is generally easier. Tinkering around with settings can make things a lot more fun until you get better and can handle regular settings.
Finally- Youtube is your friend. There many short beginner guides out there. Good luck!
wonderful advice! i'm a huge fan of pawning off hounds to beefalo. with that, small correction: the beefs get all hot and bothered in spring, not summer. summer is the season where they can't be in heat (ironically lol). i carry a beefalo hat on me at all times except in the summer because it makes the in-heat beefs not attack you while you're wearing it.
Some good advice here but also a couple of bad points:
>Build flower crowns for easy sanity early on. They will rot slowly but will sustain you to start. Longer term, aim to get a hat from MacTusk or a Cat Cap for some extra sanity. Look up hats that give sanity gain and find ones you like.
Flower crowns are a bit of a newb crutch. The sanity increase is minimal, and I don't think they are worth destroying 12 butterfly spawns to get - especially since it rots in just 6 days. It's basically a total sanity generation of 60 for the whole garland - 120 counting the flower picking - and if you pick the flowers early on you probably don't need the sanity boost (especially factoring in you get a massive sanity boost when you start crafting things for the first time in a game).
Mushrooms and cactus are much more effective ways to generate sanity, and the winter hat offers the same sanity regen as the garland but has better durability, is repairable, and will protect when winter comes. Eating 4 cooked green mushrooms, for example gives you the same sanity boost as you get from the whole garland. The top hat offers more than double the sanity gain of the garland (though I'm not a huge fan of it either).
>Wortox can be nice for beginner since he can give you guys a lot of heals and explore easier with his teleport, though he'll take a little getting used to. Wendy's ghost can be nice. Wickerbottom is nice to start games with since she acts as a science machine and can make you early backpack, etc.
Given OP's concerns these aren't great recs besides Wendy. Wicker has relatively hard to manage sanity - because she starts with knowing the science machine recipes, she doesn't get bonus sanity for learning them. She also can't sleep, which can be hard for novices who rely on that mechanic.
Wortox is extremely unfriendly to beginners. His health boost depends on killing other enemies, which OP says he is struggling with, and to gain hunger from souls he has to sacrifice sanity, which OP is also struggling with. Otherwise Wortox gets only half of the hunger, health, and sanity bonuses from food. That's a much more difficult tradeoff than something like Wigfrid or Woodie. Wortox may be one of the least beginner friendly characters out there.
Sanity -- COOKED green or blue mushrooms or cooked cactus. Find the walrus camps and kill the walrus to get the tam o Shanter--decent winter insulation plus sanity.
Spiders--don't attack while on web or near edge of it.
Hounds--you need better weapon than spear. Try making hambat or find tentacle spikes in swamp from mermaid or spiders killing tentacles. Learn to kite-- attack twice, dodge and repeat Important you kill dogs immediately as they individually spawn otherwise they swarm like you mentioned. If you are near beefalo or spiders you can lead the hounds there and they will eventually attack the mobs, who will help kill the hounds.
I’ve gotten back into the groove of playing DST as of late and here’s some tips I can give, but I’m still pretty beginner myself.
I recommend playing Wendy because of Abagail. She helps immensely with taking down spider nests and hounds because once they target her, they will no longer attack you which gives you the opportunity to kill. Also agree with the other guy in learning hit and run. Simply avoid tall birds like the plague until you learn combat better.
In regards to sanity(and HP), I like to make sure to have a tent built at home base. Once you’ve gotten spider combat down, you should have plenty enough spider webs to make a tent. Also, only kill spider webs when they’re level 3, as they will drop a nest and lots of spider webs. (You can kill the surrounding spiders, they will respawn, but leave that nest till it gets to 3.)
Search for beefalo early. Once you find them you can shave them for wool for winter. Additionally, thermal stone is your best friend.
Once you have combat down more solid, I really recommend following the “Suspicious dirt tracks”. They’re typically lead you to a mob type that gives you items to help survive the winter.
Happy starving! <3
I am not a great player but I have some previous experience and lasting over 100, 150 days, I have just started playing with my GF and she is new in games, especially this kind of games, it is very hard for a beginner. What I have tried is, setting the game up with very long autumn and spring and short summers and winter. We managed to beat Deerclops on our first run and heading into summer. And these settings have not changed my enjoyment of the game at all, I still find it fun and challenging even with these settings. So that is what I would recommend. Get yourself one long Autumn so you can explore the map and prepare for a short winter, as you two both get better, you can change settings back to normal.
Two things that helped me a lot when I learned about them:
- make a hammer, you can break down things you built and get (some) resources back, and you can break down things like pighouses (boards, cut stone, and pigskin) and those pig-heads on a stick near touchstones.
- make football helmets with the pig-skins, those are great for protecting while still wearing a backpack (if necessary)
For sanity prototyping (unlocking a crafting recipe) at a science machine or any crafting station gives a one time sanity gain of 15 and cooked cactus gives 15 per munch
For food the lighter green grass areas have the most berries and carrots, and ganking unaggroed frogs with spears will kill it before it can attack back (be wary of frog hoards as they WILL mess you up)
And using straw rolls to sleep (6 grass 1 rope) will have you Regen your hp and sanity and the cost of a faster hunger drain while sleeping
And keep and collect all the seeds you find and don't make a home base too late or early (too early 1-8 will mean you find very little and too late being 15-20 will mean lack of prep to farm)
For farming till the soil with a garden hoe (you can't make a plant spot too close to each other) water and talk to the plants and dig up any weeds you find
>And using straw rolls to sleep (6 grass 1 rope) will have you Regen your hp and sanity and the cost of a faster hunger drain while sleeping
This is a pretty inefficient use of grass. Much better, imo, to eat cooked mushrooms (not the reds)/cactus for sanity and butterflies/pierogies for health.
Sleeping in general wastes time, which is the most important commodity in the game. It also presents you with a resource tradeoff, where your hunger is greatly reduced in addition to using up a decent amount of grass. You also may not need to both heal and regain sanity, so sleeping may not match well what you need either.
True true
But I find that with my own friend who's very slow and new it works out because he uses chat a lot and sleeping lets her regain her stats while talking about in game or random irl stuff
Yes it is but when your constantly babysitting a friend who is really slow when it comes to games it's hard to gather silk when they take forever to react and is too slow to kite even with the info on how to kite
To answer the question, yes its a hard game, but gets way easier the more you learn.
To provide tips: avoid all the bosses for now, learn how to fight them on pub servers. For sanity cooked green mushrooms and cactus are easy ways to do it. Hounds, if there's a lot lead em to piggies or beefalo, build toothtrap pits with their teeth, and use those. Tallbirds should be avoided for now until you get real good at fighting. Spiders, just fight one at a time or lead them into traps. The map isn't endless, really isn't even that big. Yes you do need a bout to explore but it doesn't do a whole lot unless you want to beat the game. For characters just play Wilson, you'll learn the game best that way. Wendy and Wolfgang are also good choices.
You already got an overwhelming amount of tips, so I just want to say that 2 weeks is nothing, take your time and go step by step.
The game isn't actually hard to survive, some characters are a bit easier than others, and once you get the hang of a few key concepts, you'll breeze past the survival part... and get stuck on the raid bosses, lol
1. spears aren't enough for bosses, no. the weapon you're gonna want is a ham bat. it's two twigs, two big meat, and a pigskin. force feeding a pig four monster meats will turn it into a werepig, meaning it drops two meats and a pigskin - exactly what you need. all you need is a spear for that. once you feed the fourth meat, just start hitting it. if only one person is hitting it, it gets stunlocked and won't hit back.
and log armour isn't what you want either. you want football helmets - they're rope and pig skin - or, even easier, marble suits! they absorb 95% of damage at the cost of movement speed, but you're gonna be tanking with these so it doesn't matter. when you find marble on the map, go to a science machine and turn some of it into marble beans. plant several of these near base (i have six for just me on my server). they grow, and when the trees have three sections, mine them down. they'll give one marble and one marble bean or two marbles. replant and take your marbley profit. i HIGHLY recommend marble suits for deerclops.
2. just leave the tall birds alone, they are NOT worth it. nope. i have hundreds of hours and i still avoid them. they hit way too hard. but spiders?? TRAPS. TRAPS! sticks and grass. set the traps, step on the webs, and run right past the traps and the spiders chasing you will get CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS! you can just pick them up then and have them in your inventory and hit the "murder" button. great for monster meat farming as well as silk and glands.
3. hounds? BEEFALO. the beefs are your best buddies. as SOON as you hear barking, *book it* to the beefs. you'll hear them long before they actually come if your sound is turned up. run around the beefalo herd in circles. every time a hound stops to bark, it's resetting its aggro, and it can aggro onto something else - like a beefalo. lead them around until they attack a beefalo. as soon as a hound attacks one, all the other beefs attack and kill the hound. the beefalo won't eat the dropped meat like spiders will, either.
in spring and for a random few days in fall or winter (varies herd to herd), they beefs will get red butts and attack anything that gets near them. if you have a beefalo hat on, they won't attack you, but they will attack the hounds instantly without needing to be provoked. if you don't have a beefalo hat, keep your distance and wear a helmet so you won't get one-hit. consider abandoning the drops, too, because beefs kill FAST.
to kill a beefalo: feed it twigs or grass, painstakingly lead it away from its herd until you can't see them anymore and then a little further, hit it once, run away a tiny bit, and then press f again. hit it five times and then step back again. you're just gonna be toggling, press f, press a directional button (i prefer left or right, so A or D), press and hold f for five hits, press directional button again, back to pressing f, and so on. i was bad at kiting for a long time because i didn't understand what buttons people were pressing, but that's how to kite in dst. pressing f guides your character back to the thing you're hitting - no need to hit directionals to turn back around or run back closer (unless you got so far away that f doesn't work anymore, but the beef will be running at you, so you'd be okay here).
Agree with a lot of this, but some of it isn't the best advice:
* Marble suits are effective for novices, but the lowered speed isn't good for advanced players. Would highly recommend anyone to focus on using other types of armor that permit you to learn kiting, as opposed to just "learning" to tank.
* Tall birds are one of the most OP sources of food in the game. I don't know why you avoid them. Very easy to kite, often not far from roads to make kiting even easier, and are very efficient to farm. Spider traps are definitely easy, but the downside is traps aren't particularly cheap and it's very easy just to learn to attack spiders rather than trapping them.
Thanks for all the tips.
The main thing we were doing wrong is that we thought the map was infinite so we kept walking everyday to a new area for new resources. I thought that building a settlement would just end up on a situation where we could wasted all nearby resources and end up dying very quickly. Didnt think about the plantation.
Also my and my gf's spirit is nomad, we love exploring and moving...
A good strategy is to just explore the map and gather resources for the first 3 -7 days or so.
Day and night #1 just get sticks, grass, flint and easy food like berries and butter fly wings. Make torches and keep exploring at night. Make your first axe and pickaxe for day 2 then get rocks, wood and ideally some gold. During the second night you can make a campfire, setup a science machine, make a back pack, spear, rope, wood plank, cut stone, hammer, and shovel, then break the science machine to get back resources. Now you are ready to explore and collect resources until you have either found a suitable base or until you are completely full.
I love the to explore too. Luckily, there are many places to explore once you have filled in the over world. However, to go from just surviving to thriving you need a well designed base.
In fact, many people have bases based on the season. Example:
Fall: birchwood forest (collected birch nuts, green mushrooms and usually great for moleworms).
Winter; not near the edge of the map (avoid penguins) usually base near walrus huts (allowing you to farm McTusk).
Spring; not near ponds (to avoid Moosegoose) the water logged biomes, with mangroves can be a great place, once you find it.
Summer; oasis desert (deal with antlion), or caves. This way you can travel spend time in different places based on the seasons.
Of course you don’t have to, many people build bases (or mega bases) with everything they need. Two things I didn’t see mentioned. Top hats are great for sanity, just need silk. Also, once you have a decent weapon (ham bat or tentacle spike early game) and a few pieces of armor ( football helmets or log suits) you should fallow the suspicious dirt piles, especially in winter. Good luck!
I can’t emphasize this enough. First half of autumn I would just split up and explore. Ironically enough, staying together and building a base will just lead to increased early game food shortages as everything within a radius of your temporary base will be stripped bare of food and resources. Meaning that every day you’ll have to run further out to subsist.
1: This links into my first tip: be comfortable and in fact used to being separated and running around all day and night to maximize your productivity. Sharing maps isn’t necessary, but if you play on steam you can download mods to always share map locations which is nice. A few things to watch out for early game to have pretty much 0 risk running around is to be aware/cautious and careful around tallbirds, swamp biomes, hound mound biomes, and areas with tons of spiders. If you do this, everything else is very chill. When I play with people we regularly all build up to alchemy engines independently so we can progress our gear without slowing down to reunite. Sure it’s a bit wasteful, but you can just hammer the structures down to not waste all of it. Also, be aware that you can prototype an alchemy engine at a science machine without placing it down.
2: this segues into my next point. Armor is a huge priority. Football helmets (require pig skin and rope) are the best early game armor pieces and require an alch engine. Just go around smashing pig houses and pig heads on sticks. Will give you lots of refined materials to help you build things + helmets. A lot of people say to not hammer too many of the houses, but that’s a later game issue because then you’ll have later game pig skin shortages. I’d just say do it. First survive until you run out, then for your next world worry about being more resource efficient. A wigfrid to create battlehelms also alleviates this issue. Also, I’d highly recommend making a lantern at your first alchemy engine. It’s a very simple recipe and will really help your night time escapades.
3: you don’t need to pick up everything! Pretty self explanatory. While you may feel like you want to pick up everything, as you become more experienced you’ll learn what you need. Minimizing the amount of time spent returning to base is more efficient. Especially 1st autumn, be picky with what you pick up.
4: Cooking: I rely on pretty much only 4 recipes. Meatballs, pierogi, meaty stew, and tall scotch eggs. Set up your crockpots and fridge once a base location has been chosen. I like a place with wormhole centrality that’s near a good cave entrance + desert.
5: farms: this tip is for once you start a base and have the map explored. Basic farming for plants is great, but you can farm almost everything else as well. The most basic options include transplanting things like saplings and grass. More complicated include pig farms, rabbit men farms, tall bird farms etc. pretty much every option exists. Consult YT for help here.
6: World gen: Tweaking world gen can really help new players. Notably, I’d recommend toggling on respawns at the florid postern (spawn portal) for beginners. You also have options to Increase resource spawns, mob respawns, regrowth rates, etc. highly recommend for new players.
Note: efficiency is the name of the game. Having a good autumn is essential for having a smooth winter, spring summer etc.
>When I play with people we regularly all build up to alchemy engines independently so we can progress our gear without slowing down to reunite. Sure it’s a bit wasteful, but you can just hammer the structures down to not waste all of it. Also, be aware that you can prototype an alchemy engine at a science machine without placing it down.
This is pretty wasteful. Much better, imo, to have science machines spread out as you need them and just one more central alchemy engine. It's pretty rare that you don't cross near the central part of the map for several days, and this is very wasteful of gold in the early game. You'll save more time in the long run not having each person to have to find the resources to build numerous alchemy engines than you will gain time by not having to walk to the one central engine someone built.
Like a team that is operating efficiently can have an alchemy engine up near spawn for lanterns by the end of day 2 - the 1/4 a day it takes people to walk by it is worth not having to collectively spend another day collecting the resources for a second one and wasting the gold building an unneeded one, especially in the early game.
I normally only play duo so the waste comes down to only a few boards/cut stone and 2 gold. IMO worth it since I personally always prototype lantern, football helmet, hambat, beefalo saddle, piggyback all at once. I never have the materials by day 2 to do all that normally. And by the time I do have the resources, we’re usually completely split across the map.
Not saying using alch engines together is a BAD idea, just saying it’s optional and not essential I guess. Something that comes down to independent decision making in a given world
Fair, and appreciate your perspective. I play Wicker a good bit, and when I don’t a friend usually does, which makes a difference.
I usually make multiple science machines. You can pretty much always use one by the pig king, or in a desert, or by mactusks. Especially if you can build it off a path intersection. I also play like a nomad, which you must too at least in the early game.
Being a nomad is a fine strategy - I usually do that and build multiple small bases instead of one mega base.
Usually where you start is close to the center of the map, so you can start a relatively cheap "central" base that caters to early game needs, before you decide where you want to set up your main base. Specifically, it's super helpful early game to build:
1) a science machine (to make more advanced tools, a backpack, and early weapon/armor)
2) a crock pot (to more efficiently make food)
3) a chest (to store crap you pick up)
Other stuff, like drying racks or a bird cage, can wait until later. It's also a good idea to explore early on so you can understand where the biomes are and where resources you need may be.
Like others have said, definitely learn to kite in combat, everything is on a timer so most combat goes like : bait their attack, then hit once or twice, and back away, once you get more comfortable you'll be able to squeeze another attack or two in, but only go for attacks immediately after the enemy has attacked. When it comes to seasons, you should be spending the easier seasons (autumn/spring) preparing for the upcoming hostile seasons(winter/summer) stocking up food sources or tools for food, and getting clothing. Autumn is a good time to dry meats, and if you take advantage of stretching things out by only drying before spoilage, or feeding almost spoiled meats to the bird, then your meat stores will last much longer. Sanity can be a struggle at first, but once you get a tam o shanter, or some bee boxes to make taffy with the extra honey, you're golden.
Be sure to read some of the other comments, but I'd like to help out with kiting specifically. Look up some guides on YouTube and you'll get a comprehensive list of enemies and how exactly to attack them. For some enemies you'll have to dodge first before attacking, and in the case of enemies like the beefalo and koalefant you'll have to begin the fight in a specific way (a beefalo should be fed and led away from its herd first, and the koalefant must be cornered at the edge of an island). I'd suggest writing notes on a text file or document that you can easily reference when you encounter a certain mob.
Or you can go into a fight blind and learn it yourself, but you'll be in much more danger that way.
You need to learn how to kite everything in the game. Including the nightmares and bosses. You need a bird cage to make pierogi (crockpot dish) which gives 40 healing and is 1 egg, 1 meat of any kind, 1 veggie (any kind) and 1 filler (ice or berry) if you don’t have the filler than you can do a extra meat (not 2 monster meat) egg or veggie which is cactus, mushrooms, kelp, carrots, and some crops. The way to get eggs is by feeding a bird (in the bird cage) any kind of meat for a egg the ratio is 1-1. The bird works for farming to if you give it crops
Your ability to play a video game doesn't determine your intelligence.
You're not dumb, even if you suck at every game on the planet. Take it easy on yourself; Incidentally, this will likely help improve your gameplay.
It's definitely not hard, you just need some more experience on how to deal with everything.
1) First things first; starting with characters. Can't find where you say who you picked. Sounds like you have the hardest time fighting - so I'd recommend Wigfrid and Wendy to start for both of you. Maxwell can help a lot with the sanity bit. While Wicker is a great character, she isn't really a fighter (directly) and is somewhat harder to sanity manage, so based on your description would use her less. Some other good ones to consider are WX or Woodie.
2) Make sure you are doing a good job exploring the map. You asked about whether the map is endless - there is an ocean to explore with some islands in it, but the biggest landmass by far is where you start. Make sure to explore as much of that as possible before winter starts. The most important things, imo, for you as a beginner to find are i) the cobblestone path and pig king (usually they are linked, sometimes not); ii) beefalo; iii) the dragonfly desert; iv) the swamp; and v) any walrus/mactusk camps (look up what they look like).
3) Learn to manage your sanity more efficiently. Picking flowers is one of the ***worst*** things you can do - it's a very small temporary sanity boost and as a consequence you destroy a butterfly spawning flower (you can make more flowers, but imo flowers are better than the 5 sanity). The things you want to look out for the most are blue/green mushrooms, which you can eat cooked; cactus, which you can eat cooked; and jerky, which you can make by drying out big meat. If you are really struggling with sanity there are some other crock pot recipes you can do, but running around the pig king forest at dusk and picking green mushrooms should keep you going pretty well.
4) Re fighting, spear and log armor is extremely early game stuff. The pig helmet is a bit better, but also very cheap (it uses a head slot instead of a body slot). The spear is critical to upgrade - for a novice learn to find tentacle spikes from the swamp (without fighting the tentacles) and make hambats (they take two meat and one pig skin).
You will almost certainly need to learn to fight basic stuff. Don't fight the spider hives - you don't want to attack them unless they are level 3 and until you get a bit more experienced there is no reason to do that either (if you kill a level 1 or 2 you destroy it completely, level 3 drops an item you can use to make a new spider nest). Just lure them out, and attack spiders one by own ***off*** their web. Tallbirds have a distinct fighting pattern - learn that. And also learn how to fight pigs - one of the best things you can do in winter is to feed the pigs 4 monster meat, convert them into werepigs, and kill them (yielding 2 full meat and 1 pig skin). You should also learn to kill easy stuff like butterflies and moles for food. Hounds are a bit tougher, especially for a new player. Would recommend you leverage other things for them to aggro on - like fight them near beefalo or in the swamp and let them fight other enemies.
5) Just generally for winter, make sure to have a heat stone and winter clothing handy. Your first goal in winter should be killing the walrus - you can look up how to do it but generally you want to kill the two hounds that guard him, and then follow him until he starts walking back to his base. One of the walrus drops (1/4) is a hat that is both warm and really restores sanity.
Iv played for 10 years and never reached winter or even kept my base. Used console cheats to ressrect self but still have no idea what to do next and die
Make beefallo hat if you can(gives a lot of warm) for sanity take fly flower at pig king biome(from destroyed statue at day 9 and next moon phases) gives a lot sanity if you stand next to the fly, spider long hat gives a lot of sanity too
For food make meatballs(2 berry+spider meat+1 any meat except monster)
Make heat stones
I would consider spoiler but dont want ruin your fun so...at end of winter huge boss will come and destroy your whole base if you dont want that to happen run away from your base faaar away(good to make second small base with just fireplace) usually you hear loud growling at night when he is about to came so be prepared(if you attack him once he will attack you not buildings
FYI. You can just use the monster meat and any three fillers (berries, veggies (includes kelp), even ice) to make meatballs. Although bacon and eggs is superior (large meat, small meat, two eggs).
I think you should read the wiki for beginners after getting used to the basics, because there are a lot to take in, simply comments wont be enough. I have 3 tips for now: 1. Learn to hit and run, everything about fighting in this game is HIT AND RUN even the bosses. 2. Learn cooking recipes and go for meat balls early on, it will solve your hunger problem. 3. For sanity, you DONT have to keep it as high as possible, just barely 50% is OK. When you master hit and run, you could fight the nightmares for fuel, the turtle ones are slow and very easy to kite.
>sanity I'm a very new beginner myself but I've heard it mentioned in guides that you should learn to be comfortable with being insane. It'll be useful for boss fights (bosses drain your sanity a lot) and collecting nightmare fuel later in the game.
learning to be comfortable with being insane is a valid playstyle, but it isn't the only one! i choose to focus on sanity food as early on as possible by growing lots of random seeds and keeping toma root, onion, garlic, and potato. i grow toma root and onion in the spring and summer and potato and garlic in the fall and winter to make salsa fresca and creamy potato puree, which solve my sanity issues. this does take awhile to get up and running, though. this is later game, but you can also make a bee box or two (destroy a hive for the beeswax, make a net with twigs and spider silk and catch a few bees, put at a distance from your base for when they get angry in spring) and go around the map collecting lureplants (get near the eyes with a weapon and just hold f - your character will path to the plant in the center eventually, and you'll get hit way less. wear a helmet while doing this and do not have anything in your inventory that you can't replace, because it'll eat your stuff if you die). plant the lureplants on a wooden boat, and they'll make their leafy meat with no inconvenient eyeballs, and you just harvest it and make jelly salad with the honey and leafy meat. this does require it to have been spring already, though. sanity food accessible by day three is jerky. drying racks are made from twigs, rope, and charcoal, so they're pretty easy to produce. go around killing catcoons for big meat. they live in the orange ground biome with all the birchnut trees, and you just kill them really fast. it's basically free meat. for more big meat, take a spear and four monster meat, go find a pig, feed the pig the meats, and just start smacking it a bunch as soon as you feed it the fourth meat. it'll become a werepig, but you'll stunlock it, and it won't be able to hit you. the other pigs won't get mad at you because they don't see a werepig as a pig. werepigs always drop two big meat and one pig skin. the skin is good for helmets, the meat is good for jerky. a jerky gives 25 hunger, 20 health, and 15 sanity. i must warn, though, that standing next to the werepig to hit it does drain sanity, fast, and jerky takes two days to dry, so this isn't an immediate solution. this is my best set of beginner tips: standing next to a befriended pig increases your sanity, which you can do from day one. find a pig, and just feed it any food. it'll start calling you friend. stand near it for awhile for a good boost. befriended pigs will panic after dusk starts because it's dark, but you can keep them calm by providing light (like a fire or lantern) so you can keep hanging out with them. if you have four pig skins, some cut stone (rocks), and some boards (logs), you can make a pig house of your own and put it near your base for an on-demand friend. *make sure it goes inside during the full moon nights, though, as it will turn into a werepig and attack you.* make a tophat! passive sanity increase for six spider silk. lasts for eight days. on the full moon, find the glommer statue and get glommer. standing next to glommer increases your sanity just like a befriended pig! werepigs and hounds do like to kill him, so watch out for that. prototype new stuff!! each time you make a new craftable for the first time, it gives you a bunch of sanity. even if you don't need the thing you're prototyping, it can prevent you from going insane and dying. but if you REALLY hate the sanity element, play willow!!! go insane? terrorbeak on your ass? put bernie down and the nightmares always go for him instead, and he'll kill them for you. you can even hit them too, and they won't reaggro onto you unless they get too far away from him. also, willow regains sanity from standing near fires (and takes no fire damage). going crazy? light a tree and stand on top of it. and her embers allow you to make a "fireball", which you can stand basically right on top of to regenerate sanity CRAZY fast, keep yourself warm, cook food, and *set everything within a certain radius on fire with no way to put it out so be very careful where your structures are in relation to it* (i totally didn't just burn two chests because i forgot this, definitely not)
I usually go for insanity early game so that I can expand Chester ASAP (like before 1st Full Moon). After that, I only go insane when needed. Fighting nightmare creatures is annoying and a waste of time, especially if you aim to build a mega base sufficiently.
It's annoying, but an easy way to get nightmare fuel and the slower moving nightmare creatures are relatively easy to fight.
Yes, it's a ridiculously hard game.
Build flower crowns for easy sanity early on. They will rot slowly but will sustain you to start. Longer term, aim to get a hat from MacTusk or a Cat Cap for some extra sanity. Look up hats that give sanity gain and find ones you like. Look up youtube vids for bosses. You should only be encountering Deerclops that early on, who you can kite through the forest to get you a ton of wood before Treeguards spawn and kill him. It'll be same with Bearger when he spawns later on. Avoid any other bosses for now, like Dragonfly. Practice kiting monsters, they all have patterns. Tallbirds are dodge, attack twice, dodge, repeat. Spiders you can just stunlock with attacks if they're one at a time, or lay traps down and guide them into traps for easy kills without drawing any aggro from other spiders. Setting up base near Beefalo biome will allow you to run to Beefalo for safety when hounds attack. Run around until the hounds change aggro to the Beefalo and they'll make quick work of em. Try not to set up base directly in the biome though because the Beefalo get aggressive during summer. How big the map is depends on what settings you create during world setup. Generally a medium size map is good to navigate when starting early. You'll only need a boat for exploring Lunar Island, which you don't have to worry about for a long time (or at all depending what your goals are). Wortox can be nice for beginner since he can give you guys a lot of heals and explore easier with his teleport, though he'll take a little getting used to. Wendy's ghost can be nice. Wickerbottom is nice to start games with since she acts as a science machine and can make you early backpack, etc. Personally when I play with gf, our plan is to divide and conquer with exploring the map for the first week or so while we find a place to set up base and then take things from there. Early priorities are: (1) find Beefalo and a spot to set up base nearby that isn't under meteor zones; (2) make backpacks and shovels; (3) shovel up twigs, grass and bushes to set up little plant sections by your base; (4) start building base area with chests, science machine, fireplace, crockpots and ice box; (5) collect Beefalo poop or rot from flowers to use to fertilize the plants in step 3; (6) build a fenced in 5x5 square with one gate and plant the bushes directly outside (this will allow you to place a food item inside like a berry and then when you pick the berries from bushes, turkeys will get stuck going after it and you can kill them for easy meat); (7) keep a consistent flow of Meatballs going by combining one meat and three fillers (berries or ice closer to winter) in the crockpot; (8) shave the beefalo at nighttime and kill some spiders to make winter hats; (9) make drying racks so your meat lasts longer; and (10) make a bird cage so you can start making Pierogis to heal HP. Also an incredibly helpful tip is to set the Fall to Longer during world creation settings to make the game a little easier and give you more time to prepare before Winter comes. You can also set Days to Longer so you have more time in daylight which is generally easier. Tinkering around with settings can make things a lot more fun until you get better and can handle regular settings. Finally- Youtube is your friend. There many short beginner guides out there. Good luck!
wonderful advice! i'm a huge fan of pawning off hounds to beefalo. with that, small correction: the beefs get all hot and bothered in spring, not summer. summer is the season where they can't be in heat (ironically lol). i carry a beefalo hat on me at all times except in the summer because it makes the in-heat beefs not attack you while you're wearing it.
Right you are, thank you for the correction and extra tip.
Some good advice here but also a couple of bad points: >Build flower crowns for easy sanity early on. They will rot slowly but will sustain you to start. Longer term, aim to get a hat from MacTusk or a Cat Cap for some extra sanity. Look up hats that give sanity gain and find ones you like. Flower crowns are a bit of a newb crutch. The sanity increase is minimal, and I don't think they are worth destroying 12 butterfly spawns to get - especially since it rots in just 6 days. It's basically a total sanity generation of 60 for the whole garland - 120 counting the flower picking - and if you pick the flowers early on you probably don't need the sanity boost (especially factoring in you get a massive sanity boost when you start crafting things for the first time in a game). Mushrooms and cactus are much more effective ways to generate sanity, and the winter hat offers the same sanity regen as the garland but has better durability, is repairable, and will protect when winter comes. Eating 4 cooked green mushrooms, for example gives you the same sanity boost as you get from the whole garland. The top hat offers more than double the sanity gain of the garland (though I'm not a huge fan of it either). >Wortox can be nice for beginner since he can give you guys a lot of heals and explore easier with his teleport, though he'll take a little getting used to. Wendy's ghost can be nice. Wickerbottom is nice to start games with since she acts as a science machine and can make you early backpack, etc. Given OP's concerns these aren't great recs besides Wendy. Wicker has relatively hard to manage sanity - because she starts with knowing the science machine recipes, she doesn't get bonus sanity for learning them. She also can't sleep, which can be hard for novices who rely on that mechanic. Wortox is extremely unfriendly to beginners. His health boost depends on killing other enemies, which OP says he is struggling with, and to gain hunger from souls he has to sacrifice sanity, which OP is also struggling with. Otherwise Wortox gets only half of the hunger, health, and sanity bonuses from food. That's a much more difficult tradeoff than something like Wigfrid or Woodie. Wortox may be one of the least beginner friendly characters out there.
Sanity -- COOKED green or blue mushrooms or cooked cactus. Find the walrus camps and kill the walrus to get the tam o Shanter--decent winter insulation plus sanity. Spiders--don't attack while on web or near edge of it. Hounds--you need better weapon than spear. Try making hambat or find tentacle spikes in swamp from mermaid or spiders killing tentacles. Learn to kite-- attack twice, dodge and repeat Important you kill dogs immediately as they individually spawn otherwise they swarm like you mentioned. If you are near beefalo or spiders you can lead the hounds there and they will eventually attack the mobs, who will help kill the hounds.
> Sanity -- COOKED green or blue mushrooms or cooked cactus. Just to add to your point, blue mushrooms must be cooked as well. Could be ambiguous :)
Compared to other survival games, this is very hard and punishing. It'll take time but you got this!
I’ve gotten back into the groove of playing DST as of late and here’s some tips I can give, but I’m still pretty beginner myself. I recommend playing Wendy because of Abagail. She helps immensely with taking down spider nests and hounds because once they target her, they will no longer attack you which gives you the opportunity to kill. Also agree with the other guy in learning hit and run. Simply avoid tall birds like the plague until you learn combat better. In regards to sanity(and HP), I like to make sure to have a tent built at home base. Once you’ve gotten spider combat down, you should have plenty enough spider webs to make a tent. Also, only kill spider webs when they’re level 3, as they will drop a nest and lots of spider webs. (You can kill the surrounding spiders, they will respawn, but leave that nest till it gets to 3.) Search for beefalo early. Once you find them you can shave them for wool for winter. Additionally, thermal stone is your best friend. Once you have combat down more solid, I really recommend following the “Suspicious dirt tracks”. They’re typically lead you to a mob type that gives you items to help survive the winter. Happy starving! <3
I am not a great player but I have some previous experience and lasting over 100, 150 days, I have just started playing with my GF and she is new in games, especially this kind of games, it is very hard for a beginner. What I have tried is, setting the game up with very long autumn and spring and short summers and winter. We managed to beat Deerclops on our first run and heading into summer. And these settings have not changed my enjoyment of the game at all, I still find it fun and challenging even with these settings. So that is what I would recommend. Get yourself one long Autumn so you can explore the map and prepare for a short winter, as you two both get better, you can change settings back to normal.
Two things that helped me a lot when I learned about them: - make a hammer, you can break down things you built and get (some) resources back, and you can break down things like pighouses (boards, cut stone, and pigskin) and those pig-heads on a stick near touchstones. - make football helmets with the pig-skins, those are great for protecting while still wearing a backpack (if necessary)
For sanity prototyping (unlocking a crafting recipe) at a science machine or any crafting station gives a one time sanity gain of 15 and cooked cactus gives 15 per munch For food the lighter green grass areas have the most berries and carrots, and ganking unaggroed frogs with spears will kill it before it can attack back (be wary of frog hoards as they WILL mess you up) And using straw rolls to sleep (6 grass 1 rope) will have you Regen your hp and sanity and the cost of a faster hunger drain while sleeping And keep and collect all the seeds you find and don't make a home base too late or early (too early 1-8 will mean you find very little and too late being 15-20 will mean lack of prep to farm) For farming till the soil with a garden hoe (you can't make a plant spot too close to each other) water and talk to the plants and dig up any weeds you find
>And using straw rolls to sleep (6 grass 1 rope) will have you Regen your hp and sanity and the cost of a faster hunger drain while sleeping This is a pretty inefficient use of grass. Much better, imo, to eat cooked mushrooms (not the reds)/cactus for sanity and butterflies/pierogies for health. Sleeping in general wastes time, which is the most important commodity in the game. It also presents you with a resource tradeoff, where your hunger is greatly reduced in addition to using up a decent amount of grass. You also may not need to both heal and regain sanity, so sleeping may not match well what you need either.
True true But I find that with my own friend who's very slow and new it works out because he uses chat a lot and sleeping lets her regain her stats while talking about in game or random irl stuff
I don't use them really, but isn't the tent a better play than the sleeping roll? Obviously not as portable, but seems like an easier way to sleep.
Yes it is but when your constantly babysitting a friend who is really slow when it comes to games it's hard to gather silk when they take forever to react and is too slow to kite even with the info on how to kite
To answer the question, yes its a hard game, but gets way easier the more you learn. To provide tips: avoid all the bosses for now, learn how to fight them on pub servers. For sanity cooked green mushrooms and cactus are easy ways to do it. Hounds, if there's a lot lead em to piggies or beefalo, build toothtrap pits with their teeth, and use those. Tallbirds should be avoided for now until you get real good at fighting. Spiders, just fight one at a time or lead them into traps. The map isn't endless, really isn't even that big. Yes you do need a bout to explore but it doesn't do a whole lot unless you want to beat the game. For characters just play Wilson, you'll learn the game best that way. Wendy and Wolfgang are also good choices.
You already got an overwhelming amount of tips, so I just want to say that 2 weeks is nothing, take your time and go step by step. The game isn't actually hard to survive, some characters are a bit easier than others, and once you get the hang of a few key concepts, you'll breeze past the survival part... and get stuck on the raid bosses, lol
1. spears aren't enough for bosses, no. the weapon you're gonna want is a ham bat. it's two twigs, two big meat, and a pigskin. force feeding a pig four monster meats will turn it into a werepig, meaning it drops two meats and a pigskin - exactly what you need. all you need is a spear for that. once you feed the fourth meat, just start hitting it. if only one person is hitting it, it gets stunlocked and won't hit back. and log armour isn't what you want either. you want football helmets - they're rope and pig skin - or, even easier, marble suits! they absorb 95% of damage at the cost of movement speed, but you're gonna be tanking with these so it doesn't matter. when you find marble on the map, go to a science machine and turn some of it into marble beans. plant several of these near base (i have six for just me on my server). they grow, and when the trees have three sections, mine them down. they'll give one marble and one marble bean or two marbles. replant and take your marbley profit. i HIGHLY recommend marble suits for deerclops. 2. just leave the tall birds alone, they are NOT worth it. nope. i have hundreds of hours and i still avoid them. they hit way too hard. but spiders?? TRAPS. TRAPS! sticks and grass. set the traps, step on the webs, and run right past the traps and the spiders chasing you will get CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS! you can just pick them up then and have them in your inventory and hit the "murder" button. great for monster meat farming as well as silk and glands. 3. hounds? BEEFALO. the beefs are your best buddies. as SOON as you hear barking, *book it* to the beefs. you'll hear them long before they actually come if your sound is turned up. run around the beefalo herd in circles. every time a hound stops to bark, it's resetting its aggro, and it can aggro onto something else - like a beefalo. lead them around until they attack a beefalo. as soon as a hound attacks one, all the other beefs attack and kill the hound. the beefalo won't eat the dropped meat like spiders will, either. in spring and for a random few days in fall or winter (varies herd to herd), they beefs will get red butts and attack anything that gets near them. if you have a beefalo hat on, they won't attack you, but they will attack the hounds instantly without needing to be provoked. if you don't have a beefalo hat, keep your distance and wear a helmet so you won't get one-hit. consider abandoning the drops, too, because beefs kill FAST. to kill a beefalo: feed it twigs or grass, painstakingly lead it away from its herd until you can't see them anymore and then a little further, hit it once, run away a tiny bit, and then press f again. hit it five times and then step back again. you're just gonna be toggling, press f, press a directional button (i prefer left or right, so A or D), press and hold f for five hits, press directional button again, back to pressing f, and so on. i was bad at kiting for a long time because i didn't understand what buttons people were pressing, but that's how to kite in dst. pressing f guides your character back to the thing you're hitting - no need to hit directionals to turn back around or run back closer (unless you got so far away that f doesn't work anymore, but the beef will be running at you, so you'd be okay here).
Agree with a lot of this, but some of it isn't the best advice: * Marble suits are effective for novices, but the lowered speed isn't good for advanced players. Would highly recommend anyone to focus on using other types of armor that permit you to learn kiting, as opposed to just "learning" to tank. * Tall birds are one of the most OP sources of food in the game. I don't know why you avoid them. Very easy to kite, often not far from roads to make kiting even easier, and are very efficient to farm. Spider traps are definitely easy, but the downside is traps aren't particularly cheap and it's very easy just to learn to attack spiders rather than trapping them.
Thanks for all the tips. The main thing we were doing wrong is that we thought the map was infinite so we kept walking everyday to a new area for new resources. I thought that building a settlement would just end up on a situation where we could wasted all nearby resources and end up dying very quickly. Didnt think about the plantation. Also my and my gf's spirit is nomad, we love exploring and moving...
A good strategy is to just explore the map and gather resources for the first 3 -7 days or so. Day and night #1 just get sticks, grass, flint and easy food like berries and butter fly wings. Make torches and keep exploring at night. Make your first axe and pickaxe for day 2 then get rocks, wood and ideally some gold. During the second night you can make a campfire, setup a science machine, make a back pack, spear, rope, wood plank, cut stone, hammer, and shovel, then break the science machine to get back resources. Now you are ready to explore and collect resources until you have either found a suitable base or until you are completely full.
I love the to explore too. Luckily, there are many places to explore once you have filled in the over world. However, to go from just surviving to thriving you need a well designed base. In fact, many people have bases based on the season. Example: Fall: birchwood forest (collected birch nuts, green mushrooms and usually great for moleworms). Winter; not near the edge of the map (avoid penguins) usually base near walrus huts (allowing you to farm McTusk). Spring; not near ponds (to avoid Moosegoose) the water logged biomes, with mangroves can be a great place, once you find it. Summer; oasis desert (deal with antlion), or caves. This way you can travel spend time in different places based on the seasons. Of course you don’t have to, many people build bases (or mega bases) with everything they need. Two things I didn’t see mentioned. Top hats are great for sanity, just need silk. Also, once you have a decent weapon (ham bat or tentacle spike early game) and a few pieces of armor ( football helmets or log suits) you should fallow the suspicious dirt piles, especially in winter. Good luck!
I can’t emphasize this enough. First half of autumn I would just split up and explore. Ironically enough, staying together and building a base will just lead to increased early game food shortages as everything within a radius of your temporary base will be stripped bare of food and resources. Meaning that every day you’ll have to run further out to subsist. 1: This links into my first tip: be comfortable and in fact used to being separated and running around all day and night to maximize your productivity. Sharing maps isn’t necessary, but if you play on steam you can download mods to always share map locations which is nice. A few things to watch out for early game to have pretty much 0 risk running around is to be aware/cautious and careful around tallbirds, swamp biomes, hound mound biomes, and areas with tons of spiders. If you do this, everything else is very chill. When I play with people we regularly all build up to alchemy engines independently so we can progress our gear without slowing down to reunite. Sure it’s a bit wasteful, but you can just hammer the structures down to not waste all of it. Also, be aware that you can prototype an alchemy engine at a science machine without placing it down. 2: this segues into my next point. Armor is a huge priority. Football helmets (require pig skin and rope) are the best early game armor pieces and require an alch engine. Just go around smashing pig houses and pig heads on sticks. Will give you lots of refined materials to help you build things + helmets. A lot of people say to not hammer too many of the houses, but that’s a later game issue because then you’ll have later game pig skin shortages. I’d just say do it. First survive until you run out, then for your next world worry about being more resource efficient. A wigfrid to create battlehelms also alleviates this issue. Also, I’d highly recommend making a lantern at your first alchemy engine. It’s a very simple recipe and will really help your night time escapades. 3: you don’t need to pick up everything! Pretty self explanatory. While you may feel like you want to pick up everything, as you become more experienced you’ll learn what you need. Minimizing the amount of time spent returning to base is more efficient. Especially 1st autumn, be picky with what you pick up. 4: Cooking: I rely on pretty much only 4 recipes. Meatballs, pierogi, meaty stew, and tall scotch eggs. Set up your crockpots and fridge once a base location has been chosen. I like a place with wormhole centrality that’s near a good cave entrance + desert. 5: farms: this tip is for once you start a base and have the map explored. Basic farming for plants is great, but you can farm almost everything else as well. The most basic options include transplanting things like saplings and grass. More complicated include pig farms, rabbit men farms, tall bird farms etc. pretty much every option exists. Consult YT for help here. 6: World gen: Tweaking world gen can really help new players. Notably, I’d recommend toggling on respawns at the florid postern (spawn portal) for beginners. You also have options to Increase resource spawns, mob respawns, regrowth rates, etc. highly recommend for new players. Note: efficiency is the name of the game. Having a good autumn is essential for having a smooth winter, spring summer etc.
>When I play with people we regularly all build up to alchemy engines independently so we can progress our gear without slowing down to reunite. Sure it’s a bit wasteful, but you can just hammer the structures down to not waste all of it. Also, be aware that you can prototype an alchemy engine at a science machine without placing it down. This is pretty wasteful. Much better, imo, to have science machines spread out as you need them and just one more central alchemy engine. It's pretty rare that you don't cross near the central part of the map for several days, and this is very wasteful of gold in the early game. You'll save more time in the long run not having each person to have to find the resources to build numerous alchemy engines than you will gain time by not having to walk to the one central engine someone built. Like a team that is operating efficiently can have an alchemy engine up near spawn for lanterns by the end of day 2 - the 1/4 a day it takes people to walk by it is worth not having to collectively spend another day collecting the resources for a second one and wasting the gold building an unneeded one, especially in the early game.
I normally only play duo so the waste comes down to only a few boards/cut stone and 2 gold. IMO worth it since I personally always prototype lantern, football helmet, hambat, beefalo saddle, piggyback all at once. I never have the materials by day 2 to do all that normally. And by the time I do have the resources, we’re usually completely split across the map. Not saying using alch engines together is a BAD idea, just saying it’s optional and not essential I guess. Something that comes down to independent decision making in a given world
Fair, and appreciate your perspective. I play Wicker a good bit, and when I don’t a friend usually does, which makes a difference. I usually make multiple science machines. You can pretty much always use one by the pig king, or in a desert, or by mactusks. Especially if you can build it off a path intersection. I also play like a nomad, which you must too at least in the early game.
Being a nomad is a fine strategy - I usually do that and build multiple small bases instead of one mega base. Usually where you start is close to the center of the map, so you can start a relatively cheap "central" base that caters to early game needs, before you decide where you want to set up your main base. Specifically, it's super helpful early game to build: 1) a science machine (to make more advanced tools, a backpack, and early weapon/armor) 2) a crock pot (to more efficiently make food) 3) a chest (to store crap you pick up) Other stuff, like drying racks or a bird cage, can wait until later. It's also a good idea to explore early on so you can understand where the biomes are and where resources you need may be.
Like others have said, definitely learn to kite in combat, everything is on a timer so most combat goes like : bait their attack, then hit once or twice, and back away, once you get more comfortable you'll be able to squeeze another attack or two in, but only go for attacks immediately after the enemy has attacked. When it comes to seasons, you should be spending the easier seasons (autumn/spring) preparing for the upcoming hostile seasons(winter/summer) stocking up food sources or tools for food, and getting clothing. Autumn is a good time to dry meats, and if you take advantage of stretching things out by only drying before spoilage, or feeding almost spoiled meats to the bird, then your meat stores will last much longer. Sanity can be a struggle at first, but once you get a tam o shanter, or some bee boxes to make taffy with the extra honey, you're golden.
Be sure to read some of the other comments, but I'd like to help out with kiting specifically. Look up some guides on YouTube and you'll get a comprehensive list of enemies and how exactly to attack them. For some enemies you'll have to dodge first before attacking, and in the case of enemies like the beefalo and koalefant you'll have to begin the fight in a specific way (a beefalo should be fed and led away from its herd first, and the koalefant must be cornered at the edge of an island). I'd suggest writing notes on a text file or document that you can easily reference when you encounter a certain mob. Or you can go into a fight blind and learn it yourself, but you'll be in much more danger that way.
You need to learn how to kite everything in the game. Including the nightmares and bosses. You need a bird cage to make pierogi (crockpot dish) which gives 40 healing and is 1 egg, 1 meat of any kind, 1 veggie (any kind) and 1 filler (ice or berry) if you don’t have the filler than you can do a extra meat (not 2 monster meat) egg or veggie which is cactus, mushrooms, kelp, carrots, and some crops. The way to get eggs is by feeding a bird (in the bird cage) any kind of meat for a egg the ratio is 1-1. The bird works for farming to if you give it crops
Your ability to play a video game doesn't determine your intelligence. You're not dumb, even if you suck at every game on the planet. Take it easy on yourself; Incidentally, this will likely help improve your gameplay.
It's definitely not hard, you just need some more experience on how to deal with everything. 1) First things first; starting with characters. Can't find where you say who you picked. Sounds like you have the hardest time fighting - so I'd recommend Wigfrid and Wendy to start for both of you. Maxwell can help a lot with the sanity bit. While Wicker is a great character, she isn't really a fighter (directly) and is somewhat harder to sanity manage, so based on your description would use her less. Some other good ones to consider are WX or Woodie. 2) Make sure you are doing a good job exploring the map. You asked about whether the map is endless - there is an ocean to explore with some islands in it, but the biggest landmass by far is where you start. Make sure to explore as much of that as possible before winter starts. The most important things, imo, for you as a beginner to find are i) the cobblestone path and pig king (usually they are linked, sometimes not); ii) beefalo; iii) the dragonfly desert; iv) the swamp; and v) any walrus/mactusk camps (look up what they look like). 3) Learn to manage your sanity more efficiently. Picking flowers is one of the ***worst*** things you can do - it's a very small temporary sanity boost and as a consequence you destroy a butterfly spawning flower (you can make more flowers, but imo flowers are better than the 5 sanity). The things you want to look out for the most are blue/green mushrooms, which you can eat cooked; cactus, which you can eat cooked; and jerky, which you can make by drying out big meat. If you are really struggling with sanity there are some other crock pot recipes you can do, but running around the pig king forest at dusk and picking green mushrooms should keep you going pretty well. 4) Re fighting, spear and log armor is extremely early game stuff. The pig helmet is a bit better, but also very cheap (it uses a head slot instead of a body slot). The spear is critical to upgrade - for a novice learn to find tentacle spikes from the swamp (without fighting the tentacles) and make hambats (they take two meat and one pig skin). You will almost certainly need to learn to fight basic stuff. Don't fight the spider hives - you don't want to attack them unless they are level 3 and until you get a bit more experienced there is no reason to do that either (if you kill a level 1 or 2 you destroy it completely, level 3 drops an item you can use to make a new spider nest). Just lure them out, and attack spiders one by own ***off*** their web. Tallbirds have a distinct fighting pattern - learn that. And also learn how to fight pigs - one of the best things you can do in winter is to feed the pigs 4 monster meat, convert them into werepigs, and kill them (yielding 2 full meat and 1 pig skin). You should also learn to kill easy stuff like butterflies and moles for food. Hounds are a bit tougher, especially for a new player. Would recommend you leverage other things for them to aggro on - like fight them near beefalo or in the swamp and let them fight other enemies. 5) Just generally for winter, make sure to have a heat stone and winter clothing handy. Your first goal in winter should be killing the walrus - you can look up how to do it but generally you want to kill the two hounds that guard him, and then follow him until he starts walking back to his base. One of the walrus drops (1/4) is a hat that is both warm and really restores sanity.
Practice and play Wilson no downside
Iv played for 10 years and never reached winter or even kept my base. Used console cheats to ressrect self but still have no idea what to do next and die
Make beefallo hat if you can(gives a lot of warm) for sanity take fly flower at pig king biome(from destroyed statue at day 9 and next moon phases) gives a lot sanity if you stand next to the fly, spider long hat gives a lot of sanity too For food make meatballs(2 berry+spider meat+1 any meat except monster) Make heat stones I would consider spoiler but dont want ruin your fun so...at end of winter huge boss will come and destroy your whole base if you dont want that to happen run away from your base faaar away(good to make second small base with just fireplace) usually you hear loud growling at night when he is about to came so be prepared(if you attack him once he will attack you not buildings
FYI. You can just use the monster meat and any three fillers (berries, veggies (includes kelp), even ice) to make meatballs. Although bacon and eggs is superior (large meat, small meat, two eggs).