Winter Survival Guide

Overview

Since the new winter update came I decided to countine my string of guides and help people understand and survive Winter.

1: What is this Winter you talk about?

Winter is a new feature added in the Winter’s Tale Update. In winter, some animals may not appear and you will freeze to death after a while. Also you will be attacked by The Deerclops, Walruses and Ice Hounds.

2: When is winter?

Winter usually comes after 20 days, you can use a winterometer to determine the amount of time. You can adjust the length of time in Custom Sandbox, winter is also lengthened in adventure mode.

3: SCIENCE!

As I said you can build a winterometer to determine when winter comes but how do you read it? Well first of all you can craft it using 2 boards and 2 gold nuggets. Reading the meter is very simple as the lower the temperature, the nearer winter is. It also shows when winter will end when the temperature rises. Be warned however as the temperature goes up when near fire or sunlight so placing it near a fire is not recommended.

4: Preparations

You can prepare for winter easily by stocking up on food. I recommend getting monster meat, meat and morsels and making meaty stew when hungry. Plants, bee boxes and farm plots don’t grow in the winter so the only source of food are meats. You should also stock up on 3 stacks of wood and a stack of pinecones. However you can grow and collect wood in the winter. You should also collect silk to make a breezy vest and eventually a puffy vest. Beefalo wool is also helpful as you can make a beefalo hat. A good place to set up is to be near tallbirds, or pigs or beefalo. I also suggest killing birds and rabbits with a boomerang.

5: Freezing

During winter, your character will eventually freeze to death. You can lengthen the time by wearing warm clothing and “reset” the freeze timer by being near a fire (Torches don’t work)

Your character without extra clothes will start to freeze in 30 seconds. Wearing a Breezy Vest or Dapper Vest or Rabbit Earmuffs increases the time by 60 seconds. Wearing a Winter Hat or Tam o’ Shanter increases time by 120 seconds. Wearing a Beefalo hat or Puffy Vest increases time by 240 seconds. Also Wilson’s beard will provide warmth depending on size. Giving an added 0, 15 ,45 and 135. Wearing multiple articles of warm clothing will add on to the other ones. For example wearing a Breezy Vest and Beefalo hat will increase warmth time by 330 seconds (30 seconds from base warmth is also a factor) A heat stone acts as a portable heating source but warm it up near a fire first.

There are 2 stages of freezing. In the first stage the edges of the screen will turn icy and the character will exclaim their lack of warmth. In the second stage, your character will start to shiver and take damage.

6: Walrus Hunting Party

As in the update news, walruses come and try to kill you. Luckily you can kill them but you need to be prepared. First of all, locate the camp, it should be just a muddy pit. That’s where they spawn at.

Now onto the party itself. it’s pretty simple really, there’s Mactusk himself, Weetusk and 2 blue hounds.
They have 100 health and do 30 damage per bite. They will attack you first so just attack them one by one. They drop 2 hounds tooth, 1 monster meat and sometimes drop a blue gem.

Next we have Weetusk, Mactusk’s son.
He has 100 health but runs slower and only deals 22 damage. He also doesn’t attack you but will punch you if you get close. He drops 1 meat on death.

Finally we have the leader of this group which is MacTusk himself.
He’s bulkier than the other members having 150 health. He attacks you at range with his blowdart dealing 33 damage. He will also try to run. When killed, he drops his blowdart, and sometimes his hat and a walrus tusk.

Now that we covered the enemies how do we kill them? Well the easiest way is to attack him with pigs and armour. It is also recommended to bring some poultices and ranged weapons.

7: The Deerclops

Oh man, this is it, the moment everyone was waiting for. THE DEERCLOPS. They spawn every 3-6 days in winter and despawn in summer but these guys will kill everything. They do 150 damage and you lose a HUGE amount of sanity when near him. However he is actually easier to kill then a big treeguard. If you can take on a treeguard without damage, this guy will be the same. Just go near him so he attacks and step away. Follow up with 2-3 hits and back off. Repeat this 15 times with a tentacle spike and you’ll kill it. Wear a logsuit because he can kill an unamoured player in 1 hit. When killed he drops 8 meat and a deerclops eyeball. I suggest using pigs to kill the deerclops but watch out because they will eat the meat. Using beefalos is not a good idea because the deerclops can wipe out a whole herd with ease.

8: Conclusion

As usual, I hope you enjoyed this guide and that you won’t freeze to death. All feedback is welcomed in the comments and please point out any mistakes I may have made. As always happy surviving in the Don’t Starve world. By the way Winter lasts for 20 days however if it glitches and last forever, then it was nice knowing you. As usual all the images are gotten and owned by Don’t Starve wiki.

9: Oh ma gawd it’s winter and i dont have the hats

If you are in winter and have no warm clothing then do the following. Collect logs and have a campfire near trees and chop them down. Make a trap and trap 2 rabbits to make earmuffs. Then craft a heat stone and lay it near the fire. You should survive for 90 seconds in the cold and the heatstone will lengthen that. Spend this winter near pigs to defend against Walruses and the Deerclops. After make a firepit near the pigs put not in the village and stay for winter. For food use a boomerang to kill birds and trap rabbits for meat. If you find beefalos then shave them at night to make either a winter hat if there aren’t many beefalos and then the beefalo hat. As usual make sure to have grass and twigs and wood in your inventory at all times.