Overview
Hi there! Here are a few tips & tricks that I’ve found after playing Don’t Starve for a while. Ranging from the easiest way to catch animals, to how to get honey fast!
A New Guide has Appeared!
Hey guys! Just wanted to let you know that I’m in the process of making another UPDATED guide for Don’t Starve, since most of the stuff here is outdated. You can view and support it here!
[link]Tip #1: Easy Meat
The first tip I’ve found is catching / killing things easily.
Rabbits
Lay down either a carrot or a berry, step a few steps away from it, ready your weapon, and wait for the rabbit to sniff the carrot. it will be obvious as he changes animations. Once he begins sniffing, attack! He will pay no attention to you, and will die in 1 hit from most weapons.
Gobblers (Turkeys)
Similar to the Rabbit technique, except you lay down some berries, and once the gobbler starts running towards them, now is your time to strike! If he gets too close to the berries, he will eat them and run away. Rabbit technique doesn’t work, if you let him sniff the berries he will eat them. Just once as he goes toward the berries, attack for easy meat.
Frogs/Spiders
Need to get rid of a few annoying frogs? just set down a few rabbit traps (yes, rabbit traps) and lead them into them. they may glitch out a bit, so don’t stand directly behind the trap. Once you pick it up, the frog will die immediatly and you will be left with it’s goodies. Also works with spiders.
Tip #2: Easy Resources
Need to gather some resources fast? Go kill a few spiders, and take all the monster meat to a pig village. Feed each of the pigs 1 monster meat, and then go and say… chop down a tree. All of the other pigs will start chopping with you, also works for attacking things, and gathering things! Careful though, if you feed each pig 4 monster meat they will turn into werepigs. Recommended to use normal meat if you have any extra 🙂
Tip #3: Easy Honey
Now, I know my first priority in Don’t Starve is to get some Bee Boxes. Although it may take a while, if you play it safe. Here is a way to play it safe but get it early!
First, grab as many worker bees that are outside of the hive with a bug net. Once you’ve got most of them, Attack the hive once. when all of the killer bees come out, you can either:
Lead them into other enemies and then take the spoils of war when they are all dead (recommended), OR
Take them really far away from the hive, go around them, and then destroy the hive while they are gone. Best to use roads.
Do this with as many hives as you want, and make as many bee boxes as you want. Now, if you have some extra silk from pillaging the spiders with traps, make a few bug nets and go catch a ton of butterflies. (if you have a ton of silk and want to know the exact number to catch, around 10 will do for each bee box.) Go a few feet from the bee boxes on either side and plant a huge field of flowers with the butterflies. (if you didn’t know, when you catch a butterfly you can then use it to plant a flower, similar to a pine cone.) Now the bees will harvest really quick, and even quicker with the more flowers you get. Butterfly = Flower, Flower = Butterflies! keep doing this as much as you want. 🙂
Tip #4: Where to put and how to build your base
I’ve seen alot of people asking how to make the perfect base, and here it is. This base isn’t perfect, but it provides a ton of food :). the perfect base is what YOU want it to be!
What You’ll need: (optional things will be normal, good things will be underlined, and must haves will be bold.)
a Fire Pit
Science Machine + Alchemy Engine
Advanced Farm Plots (best to start with 2 and expand more later)
a Crock Pot
a Bird Trap + Birdcage
a Few Drying Racks
a Lightning Rod
a Rainometer
a Winterometer
a Few Bee Boxes (best to start with 1 and build more over time, Use Tip #3 :))
and That’s about it.
Where should it be?
Near a source of meat. (Frog Ponds, Rabbit Holes, Spider Dens, etc.)
1-2 Biomes away from Beefalo (could serve as protection, better with pigs though.)
Close to a Pig Village, with a Pig King (good form of protection)
a Few Biomes away from a Swamp
I know some of you aren’t very lucky to have all of these, but you must be near beefalo. can Substitute for Meat + Protection, fur can be used for clothes, and poop can be used for farms, which are a steady food source.
The way you build your base is up to you, but I recommend having everything near your fire so you can use it at night.
Tip #5: Good Crock Pot Food
Whenever I play don’t starve, I’m constantly running out of food. With this tip, you will have alot more food!
Meatballs –
Meatballs are a great crockpot food if you’re just starting out. They can be made with just 1 meat and 3 fillers, but sticks cannot be used.
the Meat
If you want easy meat, kill Spiders, Frogs, Rabbits, Birds, or go fishing. You can also get meat from tentacles, Merms, Pigs, Hounds, Beefalo, etc. I recommend setting up your base near a few spider nests for a good source of meat (not to mention the silk and glands :P),
the “Fillers”
Fillers are basically any other item that can be placed into a crock pot without creating a different recipie. Example: You could not have 2 monster meat in the recipie, as it would make Monster Lasagna instead.
Some good fillers are Vegtables, Mushrooms, and twigs.
Eggs and Bacon –
This item is for the more advanced player, surviving 10+ days and already having a base camp set up with a birdcage or two. It can be made with either 2 eggs and 2 meat items, or 1 tallbird egg, 2 meat, and 1 filler.
the Eggs
Eggs can be obtained from feeding a bird in a birdcage meat. You can only do this once a day with each bird, so be careful! 😛
Tallbird eggs are the other solution. You can just keep stealing their eggs over and over again if you want, but it takes them a few days to hatch a new one. and they will NEVER leave you alone.
the Meat
Meat is pretty easy, just have a farm set up… either frog ponds or spider nest work best, since both are renewable and fairly easy to kill 🙂
Once you’ve made the item, you’ve got a nice breakfast that restores 75 hunger, 20 health, and 5 sanity! all you ever want from just meat and eggs.
Honey Ham
This is a pretty good healing item and it doesn’t cost much either, just put 2 meat and 2 honey in a crock pot (keep in mind it CAN’T be 2 monster meat or it will make monster lasagna)
I recommend making this instead of eggs & bacon, but only if you haven’t set up birdcages yet. If you get to your bee boxes first, this is a great item 🙂
Tip #6: Kiting (By Far most useful)
Basically, Kiting is killing anything in the game while taking little or no damage. It can be EXTREMELY useful and is recommended whenever you go into a fight, even if you have armor. It saves health, armor % and sanity, so why shouldn’t you? You don’t have to kite your enemies, but you don’t have to eat food either. Think about it.
So anyways, how do you kite something? What you’re going to have to do first is aggro it. This means that it is following you and trying to attack, Usually this just means hitting the enemy once and running away.
Now, you’re going to want to ‘bait it’s attack animation’. This is exactly how it sounds, you run up to them so where they can hit you, and then just dodge it. The enemy is almost always stunned while attacking and their attack also has a cooldown, leaving you valuable time to strike.
All enemies have different cooldowns, attack animations, and range. I believe tentacles have the longest range (not positive though, not counting the bishop.) but it can be easily avoided by attacking from a corner. Normally, the cooldown time will be measured by the amount of hits you can get on the enemy before they can attack you back, including the time it takes to run close enough to hit + run far enough to dodge. For example, a Beefalo’s cooldown is 4 hits, meaning you could bait it’s attack animation, run in, hit it 4 times, and run back out to bait it’s attack again without getting hit once. A list will be made below if you want to know any other cooldowns, and please leave more that you know in the comments. Beefalo, Spiders, even Treegaurds can be taken down by taking no damage, once you get good at kiting. The only thing I wouldn’t suggest doing is trying to kite tentacles and / or spiders because they require alot of skill to kite. I’ve been killed trying to kite a tentacle countless times.
Here is the list. the lower number will be what I suggest to do if you want to be really safe, only do the higher number if you have armor of some sort on because it is risky.
Spiders – 1-2 hits
beefalo / elephants – 4-5 hits
tentacles – 1 hit
treeguards – 3-4 hits
tallbirds – 1-2 hits
hounds – 2-3 hits
If I’ve gotten anything wrong, or if you’d like to add anything, please let me know in the comments. I am looking for new suggestions alot.
Tip #7: Mods
I know, you’re thinking ‘but that’s cheating!’ not really, they add fun and new twists to the game, sometimes making it easier, sometimes harder. Here are a few mods that I suggest, if you want to make the game more fun and easier, but not too overpowered.
BackpackAmuletMod by tehMugWump – Adds 2 new slots: a Backpack slot and an Amulet slot. They’re also availiable by themselves, if you think both of them together is too overpowered.
DisplayFoodValues by alks – when you scroll over any food, it shows you how much health, sanity, and hunger it restores. also if you hold Alt while scrolling over it, it will show you how long it has left until it spoils. Very helpful mod.
Health regeneration by ADH198 – Gives you health regeneration based on your hunger. Not sure of the exact values, but I know at full hunger you get 1 health every 5 seconds.
InfiniteClothes by tehMugWump – Makes clothes have infinite durability, which helps to relieve ton of stress during winter. there is also InfiniteTools, InfiniteArmor, and InfiniteFood if you want to try those out, but I think they are too overpowered 😛
Madman’s Fighting Pack by Madman666 – Doesn’t really make the game easier, but adds some new armor and weapons to the game. Example: Mace made from hounds teeth and armor made from gold.
Summons by Heavenfall – Adds a bunch of new craftable items that summon various creatures, including Skeletons, Hounds, and Merms. Haven’t tried this mod out yet, but it seems really cool.
Unique Starting Equipment by macetaru – Adds some unique starting items for each character, fitting their personalities while not being overpowered. For example, Wilson gets a bunch of blueprints since he’s a scientist, Willow gets Charcoal + Gunpowder because she’s a pyromaniac, and WX gets some gears and a robot friend (toy from grave yard) because he’s a robot.
Wulfe by shortcircuiting / Jak by Memoski – Two fun characters that help you throughout your quest, while not being too overpowered they’re not too hard to survive with either. I really like Wulfe, but I haven’t tried out Jak yet.
That’s all for now, you can use them all at once for an awesome experience. There are a few mods that are really overpowered / useless, so I’m not going to be taking suggestions unless you feel your mod is balanced. If something happens with the mods you’re using, please don’t come to me, go to the person who made the mod 🙂
Tip (Bug) #8: How to change Characters
For this tip, you will need to have a modded character downloaded. Just start a new world, survive for as long as you want, save the game, and leave your world. Do not delete it though! Now, exit Don’t Starve, open it again, and click on the mods folder. Disable your character mod and hit ok. Now, when you go into your saved slots, it will appear to have disappeared. Now, just click on that slot and pick the character of your choice, and you will appear in the same part where you left off as that character. Careful though, as this cannot be reversed. This IS a bug, but you can use it if you want to 🙂
Thanks for reading!
This is my first guide, so I don’t really know how to format things… but hey, I tried 🙂 Thank you for reading, this took me a few hours to type up. If you have any suggestions for tips, post them in the comments.
These tips all work for the Nightmares update. May be fixed in future updates though.