Getting Started Guide, with General Tips, Tricks, and Suggestions

Overview

This is a guide for players, old and new, who would like to get a few tips, tricks, or suggestions on how to play the game. These are from my personal experience, what worked for me to survive and keep myself sane while playing Stranded Deep. Please note, this guide has become quite out of date as the game went through further development, so not all information continues to be accurate. In particular, crafting has recieved an overhaul, and I will be updating the guide when time become available to do so. Keep checking back!

Controls:

The rest of the guide assumes that the reader has a basic grasp of the controls. For those who have only recently begun playing, or for more experience players that have not made use of certain functions, here are the basic controls and how to use them.

• W,A,S,D: Standard movement keys, W for forwards, A for left, D for right, and S for back. Please note that moving backwards is significantly slower than forwards, and is generally only useful when maintaining eye contact with a shark to prevent an attack.
• Mouse: Move the mouse to look around.
• LMB (Left Mouse Button): The LMB is used to swing a tool, use certain items in the world, or to consume/use food, water, and medicine. It is also used to pull up a crafting menu when looking at a group of items highlighted in orange, or blue with a hammer in hand.
• RMB (Right Mouse Button): The RMB is used primarily to drag things around in the world. Looking at an item, holding the RMB, and moving your mouse will cause you to drag the item around. Pressing LMB in conjunction with this technique will cause you to throw the item. (Thanks Overwatch720!)
• F: Holding the F key will show your watch. The watch tells you the time, weather, and days survived. Pressing LMB will change the display to show hunger, thirst, and health. While looking at your watch, you can also check the condition of your arm. Your arm displays most status effects, such as bleeding and poisoning.

• TAB: Pressing TAB will open the inventory screen, where you can click on an item to put it in your hand, or just check what you have on hand, tool durability, or the number of each item that you have. hovering the mouse over an item will bring up its durability/remaining servings, if applicable, category (food, medicine, tool, etc) and some flavor text.
• Numbers 1-8: These keys select an item in your inventory without opening the backpack, useful to select tools that are kept in the first few slots.
• Q: Pressing Q causes you to drop the item in your hand.

• ESC: Pressing the escape key will bring up the menu, pausing the game, and allowing the player to save or exit to the main menu. The load button only works from the main menu, so to reload a previous save, exit the game and select load from the menu. Please note that there is currently only ONE save file, but by removing/moving the save folder from the local files you can start a new game or have multiple files. You wil have to manually switch out save files however.

Getting Started:

• Pick up the Paddle, then paddle to the nearest island.
• Explore any ship wrecks on or near the shore.
• If you find an axe or machete, skip the next 2 steps.
• Gather up at least one stick, one rock, and one lashing (Obtained by cutting Yucca Plants).
• Place them in a pile (press Q when the items are in your hand), then left click the materials and select ‘Crude Axe’.
• Using the Axe (or machete) chop down 3 or 4 tall trees.
• Gather up the coconuts, and decide where you would like to set up camp. (Tip: A large, flat, unobstructed area is preferable).
• Drag (RMB) the trees to this area, and deposit your coconuts and any other materials you may have gathered.
• Chop up the Palm Trees until they become sticks (Tip: Saving, exiting, and reloading causes the trunk segments to NOT require the extra swings to detatch logs from each other, instead causing the segments to turn into sticks after the first set of swings).
• Using the sticks, create a camp fire.
• Do NOT light the campfire immediately, burn it through the night to provide light to work by.
• Making your campfire into a firepit (Adding 6 rocks) and then a firespit (Adding 3 sticks and a lashing) will improve your campfire and allow for semi-autonomous cooking. However, if your island contains few rocks, this is not advised until you travel to a new island and gather additional rocks.
• The rest of the day should be spent gathering crabs (hit them with a tool to kill them, making it possible to pick them up), coconuts, and trees at your campsite.

• When it gets dark, light the campfire by left clicking it with the lighter.
• To add more fuel to the fire, with sticks or palm fronds in hand, left click your fire/firepit/firespit. 4 sticks or equivilant in palm fronds completely refils fire/firepit/firespit.
• If you have a firespit, cook crabs throughout the night by clicking the firespit with the crab in hand, then clicking it again when a “Ding” is heard. (Tip: Having two piles of crabs near the firespit, one of cooked, one of raw, will allow you to more quickly place food on the spit, conserving fuel and time. Take the crab off the spit, drop it in the ‘cooked’ pile, then pick up a raw one and put it on the fire. Make sure you do not have ANY other crabs in your inventory, as cooked and raw crabs stack, potentially causing confusion.)
• Crabs can also be cooked by holding them over a campfire, although this is inefficient and should only be done in an emergency. Crabs can be left on top of a campfire to cook, but balancing them can be tricky and not very reliable.
• Spend the night chopping the gathered trees into sticks. (Tip: If you have to gather materials or more trees during the night, hold down the LMB with the lighter in hand to produce a small light. This aids in finding sticks, rocks, plants, and even trees.)
• Check your hunger and thirst by pressing the ‘F’ key every once in a while, and if you are thirsty, chop ‘Green’ coconuts until they are shelled, then once more to make it ‘Drinkable’. Breaking the coconut further will yield coconut halves. (Tip: You can drink a coconut and THEN smash it and replenish both hunger and thirst.) (Tip: By holding RMB down, dragging a coconut into the air, then looking down quickly and clicking the LMB, you can smash coconuts against the ground, preserving tool durability. This only works on shelled or drinkable coconuts.)
• Crabs or potatos can also replenish hunger. However, Never, EVER eat a raw foodstuff, this will cause you to become sick, actually making you hungrier. Exceptions to this rule include sardines, which can be hunted with a spear (2 sticks, one lashing, and a rock shard (obtained by smashing a rock, either with a tool or by draging it into the air and throwing it at the ground)).
• Even if you can make a bed, you should not use it, as the night time is an excellent time to craft or chop, while the day is better for exploring.

• Day two, and perhaps the next few days afterwards, should be used to explore nearby islands.
• Leaving everything behind, take your paddle, choose an island to go to, and start paddling. (Tip: Be sure to save before you leave in case bugs occur that strand you in the middle of the ocean.) (Tip/Bug: While paddling, it is possible to have multiple paddling animations occuring at once, leading to faster travel. To cause this, start paddling, hit the escape key without releasing the LMB, release the LMB, hit escape again, then press and hold the LMB. This, if timed correctly, will cause multiple paddling animations, sounds, and movements to occur simultaneously. This can be done multiple times, but exercise caution, as moving too fast can fling you out of your raft, sometimes extremely far.)
• Make sure to not take your gaze off the island, unless you have a compass, as it is VERY easy to get lost.
• When you reach the island, take whatever you are lacking on your home island, such as 4 or 8 rocks, perhaps 4-8 sticks, or 4-8 lashings. Also explore shipwrecks in the vicinity of the island.
• Paddle back to your island before it gets dark, and deposit your supplies at your camp.
• Once a compass is obtained, it can be used to explore more easily without getting lost. Simply pick a bearing, then on the reverse trip, add 180 to the bearing and go in that direction. It will take you to your previous location.
• At this point, you should have a good understanding of the game and how to play. The next steps are for you to choose, but choose wisely and save often!

Tips, Tricks, and Suggestions

• Upside down rafts can be used for coconut storage.
• Palm Fronds, when dropped at the same time, will nest on top of each other, resulting in a stack.
• Stick Pyramids can be made by dropping sticks at a moderately slow pace while looking at the same location. The sticks will fall to either side, creating a neat pile.
• Creating a small circle with rocks next to your firespit will help you keep track of where your lighter went.
  

• A finished storage area:
  More tips and tricks to come, and suggestions are appreciated! Leave your tips in the comments, and if I find them useful, they will be added to the guide. Thank you for reading, I hope you have a better, saner experience playing the game after reading this guide. Keep gaming!

Healing, Hunting, and More!

• Bandages can be used to stop bleeding caused by shark attacks. They can also be crafted with one cloth and one duct tape, both found in shipwrecks.
• Morphine can be used to heal broken bones, broken by falling out of trees or occasionally from shark attacks.
• Health can be recovered over time by being well fed and well hydrated.
• Sleeping advances time to dawn, but makes your hunger and thirst level go up.
• Antibiotics are used to cure poisoning from lionfish and sea urchins.
• Vitamins are used to cure colds, contracted by diving too deep in the ocean or otherwise becoming too cold.
• Beans will apparently restore health when eaten. (Not personally confirmed)

• Fish, such as sardines, can be caught by using a crude spear. Simply hit the LMB while looking at a fish, and it will be speared. Please be aware that some fish are only edible when cooked, and some are not edible regardless of their status.
• Lionfish and sea urchins should be avoided at all cost. They inflict a poisoned debuff that drains your hunger, thirst, and health at an alarming rate.

• Sharks are the main adversaries in the game. They can inflict bleeding or simply hurt you.
• There are 3 (sort of 4) classes of sharks, Tiger Sharks, Great Whites, and Reef Sharks (and sort of marlin).
• Reef Sharks are harmless, but are very fast. They drop a ragdoll when killed, which can be dragged up onto a beach, then chopped into shark meat, arguably the best food in the game. The fillets refill approximately 8 hunger bars.
• Tiger Sharks are likely the first sharks that you encounter in the game. They are quite dangerous to the unprepared, and should only be attacked with caution. They take, depending on the tool, approximately 8-15 hits from a tool to kill.

Tools!

• Crude Axe: 1 Stick, 1 Rock, 1 Lashing. 2-4 required to fully clear one island of trees and reduce all logs to sticks.
• Crude Hammer: 1 Stick, 2 Rocks, 1 Lashing. You will probably only ever need one, as the durability is good, and metal hammers are fairly common.
• Crude Spear: 2 Sticks, 1 Rock Shard, 1 Lashing. One should be sufficient, unless sardines are a large part of your diet.
• Crude Knife: 1 Rock Shard, 1 Stick, 1 Lashing (a rock shard can be used by itself, but cuts slower than a Knife or machete). Any tool except for hammers can cut, so making knives is not advised. Pocket knives are also plentiful in the world, and should be used instead of crude knives.

All Metal tools are found in shipwrecks and cannot be crafted. Tools are listed in the same order as their crude counterparts.

• Axe
• Hammer
• Spear Gun
• Pocket Knife
• Machete

• Air tank: refill one breath when used, allowing you to stay underwater longer!
• Lighter: Used to start fires, or provide a small light on land.
• Flare/Flare Gun: Flares scare sharks away, albeit unreliably, and flare guns have two flares loaded that can be fired farther. Note: Flare guns cannot be reloaded.
• Flashlight/Torch: Both provide a spotlight beam, but a torch provides a larger, brighter beam than the flashlight. Press and hold LMB to use.
• Lantern: Turns on automatically at night. Provides a large sphere of light around it. Great to keep in your shelter.
• Goggles/Flippers: Requires more testing due to recent updates. (Flippers are said to allow you to move more quickly through water, but I have note personally verified this.)
  Hard Hat Zone! Guide under construction!