Overview
In this guide I show you how to go in a few days from nothing to a base to an easy winter and hopefully beyond.
Day 1 the lay of the land
On the first day all you need to do is pick up basic materials. You need to collect things like Flint, twigs and grass, once you have at least flint and twigs you can create some basic tools necessary to survive. First you should create an ax this will be necessary to gather trees for at least a basic fire initially once you have the materials regardless of time of day you should create a basic fire. One helpful hint is that if you create a fire and right click while the silhouette is on the ground you can store the fire in the creation inventory. You can tell the fire has been stored because the silhouette behind the items icon will have turned blue (this also works for any other placeable building). Once you have a fire begin wandering about and collect food and materials as you go, DO NOT COLLECT CARROTS AT THIS POINT! Carrots are extremely important in winter since they do not rot while left in the ground and are one of the more prolific foods. As you wander take note of important areas such as pig villages, graveyards, entrances to the underground and herds of Beefalo, each of these areas have their benefits and drawbacks but for now all you need to know is where some of them are. For the first day when the sun goes down place your fire somewhere near rocks or trees so you can do some work during the night. (The best time to place your fire is about halfway through the dusk period. This is when the day indicators arrow is halfway through the red section.) Then just use logs or preferably pinecones to keep the fire going through the night. Congratulations you just survived your first day!
Days 2-3 preperations and permanance
Over the next couple of days you will need to start to focus your collection efforts. Two of the most important things you’re going to have to find are gold and rocks. These two items are the most basic things you’ll need to create complex buildings. Your first priority should be at least 16 rocks and at least one piece of gold. This will allow you to set up a permanent base. The best areas to set up your base are near pig villages or beefalo herds as either of these will allow you to be protected from hostile mobs. Most of the time. However, each of these places does have its drawbacks. Pig villages become dangerous on a full moon, and beefalo become dangerous during mating season. So it’s best not to set up directly within the area either of these is in instead set yourself up about one screen length away. This will allow you to be close enough to go to these places when attacked, but be far enough away so that when they become dangerous themselves, you won’t be attacked . Another option is to find a corner of the landmass with abundant basic resouces and wall it off partaily. if you can reach areas with manure and rabbits within a day. Once you’ve found the perfect area create a fire pit and a science machine. From there, you should create planks and a chest . This will allow you to store some of your extra items off of your person. Try and create some basic tools as well, such as a hammer and a shovel. These are invaluable in the coming days. During this time you should also plant a small group of trees near your base, at least six. Also as you explore after creating your base, make sure that as the halfway point of day hits you go back so that you’re never caught off guard, or on the other hand, always keep torches or fire handy. At this point, nothing should come after you, unless you provoke it yourself. Should you run across pigs fighting something like spiders make sure to grab things like monster meat or spider glands or silk. However, DO NOT EAT THE MONSTER MEAT, it damages your stats. Save it for enlisting help as when fed to pigs they’ll follow you around for about a day, will increase your sanity and can help in tasks like chopping down trees. (However, do not feed them four pieces of monster meat in a row. This will turn them evil, similar to a full moon and they will attack you immediately). Should the pigs die in combat. They will also provide pigskin, which is an invaluable resource and very hard to get outside of killing a pig yourself, which at this point is very difficult. After you’ve made a shovel . It’s possible to pick up certain plants such as berry bushes or grass tufts berry bushes can be replanted, fertilized and provide a steady source of food, whereas grass tufts can be replanted to be in easy reach, or can be thrown on a fire to send it from completely dead to roaring. Both of these have to be fertilized with a piece of manure, which can easily be found around beefalo herds or by feeding grassy items to pigs. Manure is also necessary to create farms, which can create much more nourishing food than anything else. However, that’s something to be covered in the next chapter.
Days 3-10 offense and defence
Once you have at least a fire pit and science machine, you’ll be ready to move on to making Yourself powerful and your base tough. To begin with your going to need to collect plenty of twigs and grass. Once you have enough go see your science machine and click on the survival tab to create a backpack. This will allow you to create plenty of refined materials as you be able to collect a lot more basic materials such as wood grass and stone. If you’ve already planted several bushes or grass tufts previously, make sure there are good ways away from your fire and make sure to place a lightning rod as soon as possible this will prevent any of your plants from catching fire but you need to have at least one every large cluster so try to put it in the center of the plants. You’ll also want to make farms at this juncture, along with an alchemy engine. Together these will allow you to create plenty of food and ways of preserving it. If you recall from the previous chapter one of the things I told you to do was to plant a small cluster of at least six trees far from the base. You’ll now want to create a torch and set the trees ablaze. Once they’re finished burning chop them down and collect the charcoal this should give you all you need to create a crockpot, with this you can create much more complex foods all of which will fill your stomach more than unprocessed foods, as well as removes side effects from things like mushrooms. A tip on farms, once you place a seed it will take about 5 to 6 days to grow (however you can use 4 manure to go from a seedling to a full-grown plant). Most of the food that will grow from the farms will decrease your hunger by far more than berries or carrots. One piece of advice, corn is a fairly common crop from the farms do not cook it at least over a fire as the resulting popcorn will feed you far less than just plain corn. Try to create a chest solely for food and check on it regularly to make sure that doesn’t go bad prematurely. (A tip: if you leave food cooked in the crockpot it will decay at a slower rate). Once you have food under control, and plenty of materials it time to begin work on defending yourself. If you have been collecting things you should have enough materials to make a log suit and spear these allow you to take on things like hounds and spiders,especially with a pig or two on your side. If you can get these materials and a few pigs you can even take on things like tentacles in swamps allowing you to gain things such as tentacles spikes which are even better weapons than Spears. Since food also restores your health it is even more important that you have advanced food on hand. You should also keep an eye out for rare marble stones since these will allow you to create one of the strongest sets of armor possible with food and weapons hopefully now easy commodities you’re ready to start your preparations for the winter.
Days 10-21 prepare for winter
At this point you’re going to want to start preparing for the winter season. If you’re playing a character that can grow a beard (Wilson or Woody) stop shaving if you been doing so as a full-grown beard adds a lot to the retention of heat during winter. You’ll also need to create a thermal stone, this doesn’t require a lot of major materials and should be done as early as possible in your preparations.(To heat the stone simply drop it right next to a fire and feed the fire until it is at its largest, when the stone glows orange or red you can use it to its fullest effects.) As for the first piece of winter clothing this should be rabbit earmuffs. To catch rabbits you’ll need a basic trap, a shovel and optionally, carrots (depending on the amount of food you have) to catch a rabbit first find a burrow then place the trap directly above the rabbit burrow then go directly below it and dig up the borough after scaring a rabbit into it, if this is done correctly the rabbit should run straight into the trap or you can place carrots in the trap to bait it and simply wait for a rabbit to go into the trap. Either way you’ll have a caught rabbit shortly, do this twice then go to your science machine and create a pair of rabbit earmuffs. Another option is to make a razor and shave beefalo to make a winter hat. If your character has a beard this along with the thermal stone will be enough for the winter. However if your character does not grow a beard you’ll need to create a vest.This can be done by hunting a koalaphent. To find the koalaphent, simply look for small piles of dirt on the ground, when examined the footprint will appear pointing in a particular direction follow the direction it points to the next until eventually your character will mention that the track looks fresh, when this occurs than the track followed next will have you find the koalaphent itself. When killed in summer it will drop its trunk which can be crafted into the breezy vest. When killed in winter it will drop the trunk that can be crafted into a puffy jacket which is far better for the cold. However just the breezy vest and earmuffs along with a thermal stone can see a character through the winter. Make sure to have plenty of fuel for your fire on hand since nights will gradually become longer. At this point you may also see shadow hands, these will appear during the night the two signals that will tell you they are coming are that the hands will begin to reach out toward a fire source along with a creepy music box playing. You can make them stop hurting the fire if you walk on top of the hands. If you want to get rid of them altogether take a torch walk on a hand and follow it back in the darkness it will be destroyed once you make it snap back into darkness. From here you should be able to easily survive the surface. Caves however are another matter that I may cover later.