How to Win at Don’t Starve (Base game)

Overview

Hey guys, today I’m going to teach you how to NOT starve, as well as all of the other things, like (but not limited to): staying sane, staying alive, building a base, and dealing with enemies with ease. Hope this helps! [NOTE: All information applies only to base game, although it might help in RoG]

First off, some vocabulary!

Aggro – Getting an enemy to follow you in order to attack you.
Baiting – Getting an enemy to attack.
Kiting – The process of attacking and killing an enemy without taking damage from it.
Filler – An item in a crock pot recipe that is not specifically required for that recipe.
Tanking – The process of killing an enemy without moving.
Dragging – Aggro-ing an enemy and then having it follow you to a desired location.

Now that that’s over with, let’s get to the interesting stuff – How to say sane.

How to Stay Sane

One of the hardest things to deal with in this game is sanity. Some people can change from sanity to insanity with ease, but for most of us, it’s hard enough staying sane at all. Here are a few items that will help you stay sane.

Green Mushrooms – These things are amazing. When cooked, they restore sanity at the cost of health. I know, the sound of losing health isn’t very appealing, but don’t fret. You get a whopping 15 sanity and lose just one health per mushroom! The inverse of these are cooked red mushrooms, which should never be eaten alone. Ever. Seriously, just eat a flower or something!

Jerky – If you’re having second thoughts about making drying racks since you probably won’t use them, let this change your mind. Only one small jerky restores 10 sanity in addition to both health and hunger. Normal jerky is even more. Not to mention they last forever, too.

Crock Pot Food – Depending on the food, using a crock pot is usually enough to keep you sane without even using any funky recipes. The most obvious food is Taffee, but there’s another food that I feel is much better that is often overlooked – Meatballs. They restore quite a bit of sanity from only 4 lower pieces of food, so if you don’t think you’re ready to switch to the bigger stuff, don’t rush yourself. These things are great.

The Power of Invention – Did you know that when you create prototypes you gain a small sanity boost? For this reason, whenever I’m thinking about making something like a pitchfork or a boomerang, I wait until I’m low on sanity. Another thing: Don’t just invent things that are useless to you. Golden tools, weapons, armor, and even clothes will give just as much sanity as that potted plant or wooden flooring.

Hats – Whenever I create a new world, I’m gathering 12 flowers immediately for that sweet, sweet, garland. Any hats that have durability will give you sanity regen when worn. Most people know this about the garland, but not any other hats. After you’ve made a base, I recommend always having a hat on you to wear after night to regain the sanity you lose, but don’t wear it at dusk or night – this wastes durability, as the sanity degen during those times is enough to counter your hat. Also, don’t just use garlands – while they are easy to make, they use a lot of flowers and don’t last as long, because they still lose nutrition during dusk and night. A winter hat is your best bet, just be sure to keep your beefalo shaved to keep up with it.

The most common reason that people go insane is because they’re hovering right above the mark constantly. Don’t wait until you’re insane to use these items – learn what your max sanity is, and try to keep it as close to max as possible. This way, you won’t lose your marbles whenever hounds attack, or a treeguard spawns.

How to Avoid Starvation

This is probably the easiest of the three to keep up with – at first, anyway. As long as you don’t run out of food, you’ll be ok… right? Here’s a few ways to help you do that.

Crock Pot Food – A Crock Pot should be rushed almost immediately in virtually any world, as it is extremely useful. If you don’t know how to use a crock pot, there are some mods that can help you, as well as a wiki if you’re desperate. You COULD experiment with it, but I don’t recommend it as it’s a waste of food and most good recipes are very specific. Some foods that I recommend are:
-Meatballs (1 Monster Meat + 3 Fillers) – Restores around 1/3 of hunger as well as some health and sanity.
-Honey Ham (1 Meat, 1 Morsel, 1 Monster Meat,1 Honey) – Restores a good chunk of hunger as well as 40 health.
-Meaty Stew (1 Meat, 2 Morsels, 1 Monster Meat) – Restores entire hunger bar for all characters except Wolfgang and an upgraded WX-78.
Bacon and Eggs (1 Morsel, 1 Monster Meat, 2 Eggs or 1 Tallbird Egg, 2 Monster Meat, 1 Twig) – Restores around 1/2 of hunger bar.
Dragonpie (1 Dragonfruit, 3 fillers – includes sticks) – This is definitely the cheapest out of all crock pot foods as it only requires 1 food – The Dragonfruit. The other three can just be sticks. It restores hunger as well as some sanity.

Seeing a trend here? Most of the better crock pot foods all require meat (as well as some other ingredients), so you’re going to want to set up your base near a good source of meat – spiders, rabbits, koalefants, and the occasional beefalo or pig should be enough for all three, but if you want to only live off of one I recommend rabbits as they can be stored in chests until needed, and respawn every day. Also, I got rather specific with the types of meats to use, because they are the best ways to conserve food – Using monster meat whenever you can and meats and morsels whenever they are required. If you don’t have monster meat, they go 1:1 with morsels, and both of those go 2:1 with meat.

Another thing, the Fillers – I tried to stay clear of them in every recipe except Meatballs (<3) because they are also very specific, and you can ruin an entire recipe with just one incorrect filler. Some of the best fillers to use are Berries, food from Farms, Mushrooms, and – wait for it – Butterflies! That’s right, you can combine a Spider and three Butterflies to make some meatballs. They can be a little tricky to kill at first, but I don’t recommend using a net because that wastes silk. Basically, whenever they are flying in place in a figure 8 or are still on the ground, they are vulnerable. They take one hit from any weapon (incuding your fists) but are pretty hard to hit with your mouse. To counter this, Hold Ctrl and press F to auto attack them. They drop their wings as well as an occasional Butter, which are both great healing items in bulk and take a very long time to spoil. Careful though, Krampus LOVES butterflies! He’ll show up after you kill around 30 of them at once, so even though they may be great, 30 of them will probably spoil anyway – Don’t bother!

A few more tips:
– Never make the breezy vest, or the puffy vest if you can help it. The trunk is a great item to eat as it restores hefty amounts of health, hunger, and sanity.
– Save carrots until winter. Yes, they ARE really good, but they can only be picked once, unlike berries. Save them for winter or when you really need them!
– Keep farms on cooldown – Whenever you see anything grow back, just go right ahead and pick it again. It might seem pretty obvious, but when you delay picking it, you delay even more food coming from it too. This goes for farms, drying racks, berries, mushrooms, etc.
– Pick up seeds and berries even if you don’t need them. Seeds are decent enough to keep your hunger topped off if you’re not using farms, and berries take a lot longer to spoil then you might think.
– Staying ontop of spoilage – There are several ways to keep food from spoiling. Putting some spoiled food into a stack of fresh food will balance out the spoilage for all of them, making them a little more than stale. Also, both cooking them and using them in the crock pot will restore spoilage, and you can do both (cooked food can be used in crock pots). Not positive but I think drying it restores some as well, and an ice box will reduce the spoilage rate dramatically. If you have some spoiled meat or eggs, feeding them to a bird will turn them into a fresh egg, but both monster meat and eggs must be cooked before you can do this. This is an amazing way to keep large amounts of meat from spoiling: remember those 3 Koalefants you killed before you got a fridge? Have fun with your 24 fresh eggs!
Moving on!

How to Maintain Your Health

I’ve seen a lot of people asking for this, probably because it’s the one thing that keeps you alive – you only die when you run out of health. There are a bunch of obvious as well as hidden ways to keep your health up, and while they all may seem really small, they do a lot when you use a lot of them.

Crock Pot Food – Along with sanity, there are some foods that give health when cooked in a crockpot. Some of the better ones are Dragonpie (40 hp), Honey Ham (30 hp), Butter Muffins (20 hp), and Meaty Stew (12 hp). Jerky and Cooked food are also good too.
Healing Items – In addition to crock pot foods, there are also some pretty great healing items you can get. These include Spider Glands, Healing Salves, Deerclops Eyeballs, and Koalefant Trunks, as well as Gears if you’re WX-78. It never hurts to keep a spare gear with you for emergencies, as they restore a ton of health.

And that’s pretty much it. Honestly, there aren’t very many ways to heal yourself in your game, so there is one other solution: Don’t take damage. I know you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t, but honestly, that’s the best way to stay alive. Avoid fighting anything that can fight you back before you’re ready for it, which usually consists of just having a way to get your health back up after the fight (as well as not dying in the middle of the fight). Remember, in this game, it’s usually not one thing that kills you: it’s a combination of things. Always prepare for everything to go absolutely horrible, and you’ll never be suprised when it does. Plan ahead, avoid damage, and reheal when you do take damage, and staying alive will become a lot easier.

How to Kill Enemies With Ease

This section could be written in one word: Kiting. That’s the secret to killing anything and everything you feel like. Don’t like the way those Merms are looking at you? Introduce them to kiting, and I assure it will never happen again.

How to Kite:

The entire process is this: Aggro the enemy, bait their attack, attack them for x amount of hits, dodge their attack again, and continue on with steps 2 and 3. Don’t know what any of this stuff means? Here ya go.
First, you must aggro them. Usually this can be done by walking near them if they are hostile, or hitting them once if they are not. Be careful though, as the very second you hit them, they will start their attack cycle: And you’re in range. When aggroing a non-hostile mob, you should use a ranged attack if possible, and if not, run in, hit them, and run back out.
Second, you must bait their attack animation. With non-hostile mobs, this has already been done. After you dodge their attack, go straight in for the hits, and then dodge the second one. However, for hostile mobs, you must bait them by running into and out of their range without being hit. THEN you can go in for your hits, dodge their second hit, and keep going until you kill them.
After baiting, you can hit them with your weapon. Apparently, the amount of hits you can get in depends on the character, but I find it’s too insignificant to matter most of the time. However, if you’re not sure about the number because you’re using a modded character or something, start off with 1 less. The amount of hits varies with every enemy, but after learning how long it takes them to attack and their attack interval it’s pretty easy to find out this number. Each of your hit takes around 1 second, so after you bait, start counting and stop on their next attack. This is about how many hits you can get in.

That’s pretty much it, but with most things, it gets easier with practice, and it’s very hard to explain. Start off with the weaker enemies and continue moving up, and eventually you will get it. ALWAYS wear armor though, no matter how confident you are in your abilities. You never know when your game might lag, and it seems to do this a lot during combat – I’ve died multiple times because I got too cocky.
Another thing: Kiting is amazing, but only if you have the patience for it. It sometimes takes a very long time, and even significantly longer than just tanking it, but usually it’s worth doing in the long run. What if you’re at low health from tanking a treeguard, and then all of a sudden, some hounds come and kill you? You probably would’ove lived if you would’ove kited it, but instead you decided to go the easy route. And now you’re dead. Hah.

Farewell, for now!

This guide is a work in progress, mainly because I’m too lazy to write it all at once, but also because what’s the point of writing it if it’s never read? I will continue with haste if this gets enough support, and will add how to stay alive, how to stay well fed, and how to kill monsters with ease, as well as some other ideas that I have. So, if you’ve managed to read this far without falling asleep, tell me about it! Rate my guide based on how well you liked it, give me some tips in the comments below, and even add it to your favorites if you want to keep up with the new additions. But remember, this guide will only be for the base game of Don’t Starve, not Reign of Giants – Keep that in mind when you’re giving me tips! I plan to write this entire thing based on personal experience plus any contributions from the DS community, because my internet is really slow ingame so I can’t check the wiki. Lazyness ftw!

I really can’t say the above any more because of the 2.5k views I’ve gotten in only 3 weeks, so at this point I will be working on the guide whenever I can and making new additions as I come up with them. After the basic tips and tricks I really am starting to run out of material, so if you’ve got any valuable information that you feel should be added to the guide, feel free to share it in the comments. I read all of them and will likely use them when writing more. Thanks!