Overview
I never expected to be giving lessons Pro Bono, but I’ve seen a ton of comments and reviews on this game about a lack of a tutorial, and folks not knowing how to get started, so here is a free session of the famous Rangers School of Survival. No zombie intercourse techniques will be covered in this session, sorry.
Baby Steps.
So, you’ve made the purchase, done the download, spawned your first character and died to a frothing at the mouth Grizzly Bear within minutes, or seconds even. Welcome to the first experience with “Subsistence” of 50% of it’s community. (The other 50% died to a wolf) I STRONGLY urge you to consider choosing “easy” to start off with, easy mode allows you to reload the last save, and hanging on to your stuff is critical until you learn the ropes.The game does not save current world loot spawns or animal spawns when it saves, so if you see “game saved” on the screen just as a wolf tears a big chunk outta yer ass, no worries, when you reload, he won’t be there.
The best advice I can give any new player to start out is before you even spawn, go into the options menu, and spend a minute finding out which buttons do what. By the time you hear a growl, it’s to late to figure out how to sprint. It seems like this should go without saying, but from reading discussion posts and reviews, it clearly needs to be said. Now, I KNOW that if you’re clever enough to have come to Ranger for advice, you’ve proabably already done this, but just because you’ve hit a double doesnt mean you don’t have to touch first base on the way to second.
OK. so you know how to run, and you know how to reload your shiny new 9mm pistol, and you know how… wait, back up. Yes, RELOAD your pistol. You start wih only 1 round in the magazine. Got 7 now? GREAT! Thats 7 total. 6 in the mag, and 1 in the pipe. Alrighty then, lets move out.
The next thing you need to know is what to look for as you wander around the magnificent landscape. There are several forms of loot available to you. Crates, ore nodes, small plants, and single scrap metal. There’s also of course, live animals and trees, the former usually isn’t happy about being looted, FYI. Something to be aware of right from the beginning is that loot spawns in this game are random, don’t last very long before despawning and are often guarded by fangs and claws. Bears and Wolves consider it their sacred duty to protect loot and small animals from you, and they take it very seriously.
Crates spawn in 4 different varieties, a brown camo, a blue camo, a brown wooden box, and a green wooden box. Keep your eyes open for them, you NEED the stuff inside. They are hard to spot sometimes, often spawn on top of rocks, tucked under tree branches, etc. The Green wooden crates look like a military ammo crate, and are locked. You need lockpicks to open them, and the lockpicks require a fair amount of resources to make. Make them. I’ve never opened one of these rare spawn crates and felt ripped off by the cost of the key. Oh, and there are thousands of fern type plants throughout the world, and each and every one of them bears resemblence to a loot crate from the right angle. Get used to chasing ferns while thinking “yeah baby!” until you get close enough to see it’s a fern. Just tell yourself now that you REALLY love ferns, and you’ll be ok.
Ore nodes, as you’d imagine, spawn on rocks and cliffs. There are 4 different kinds, but until you get close, they all look pretty much the same. A really big chocolate chip cookie sprouting from the side or top of a rock formation. Now, you don’t start with a pickax, but they don’t take alot of resources to make, and you can harvest ore with a regular ax, but you get 1/2 as much, and it takes 2/1 as long. I have two suggestions. Harvest the ones you find with an ax and make a pick ax as soon as you are able. You’re gonna need that ore later on. Especially copper. NEVER pass by copper.
Plants are small, hard to see, and despawn fairly quickly. If you see plants and something else, always pick the plants first, especially if you need them. Get in the habit of stopping to look around, and scan a little ways away. They are much easier to see from a distance for some reason, and knowing approximately where they are ahead of you as you move along helps to find them as you get closer. The medicinal herbs are the easiest to spot as they are bright green. The blueberries are typically a bit bushier and taller than fiber, and so are slightly easier to spot. The fiber plants can be tough, but once you get a feel for it, you’ll be rolling in it. It’s everywhere you go
The single scrap metals often spawn almost completely hidden in grass or nearby rock, they can be tough to find, and are usually impossbile to tell apart from the doppleganger ferns that I’ve already mentioned. Don’t make your eyeballs bleed searching for them, just be aware that it’s there, and grab it when you see it.
Alrighty, ready to do some exploring? Good! As you start moving through the world, you will notice that you often can’t see very far in front of you, because of rocks, changes in altitude, bushes, etc. Get used to using to your ears, and always be ready to smash the living beejeeziz outta the S key. ANY time you hear something that sounds like a grunt or a growl, IMMEDIATELY smash S. Wolves and Bears will always issue an audible warning that they’ve detected you, and a second audible warning that they’ve detected supper. If you back up, even just a couple steps, instantly upon hearing them, it often makes the difference between detected and eaten. You won’t always manage to pull it off, and if you hear that second warning, turn 180 degrees and sprint. You have a good chance of getting away. Remember, the wolf is running for his supper, YOU are running for your life. Sometimes they will chase you til your stamina is gone, but it’s rare. As you explore, especially in the beginning, get in the habit of chopping wood. I don’t usually carry more than 1 stack (50) but I’ll keep chopping and crafting it into sticks or lumber as I go along. There is always a need for wood in one form or another. Most trees give 3 or 4 pine logs, even the ones that look like a maple or oak give pine logs. More doppleganger action I assume. One of the first things you will need is a campfire. Once you have a few logs in your pack, find a nice open spot where you won’t be snuck up on by fangs/claws and get familiar with the crafting menu. Make a campfire, and a fire starter kit if you’ve lost your match. It will take 10 -12 logs to get you through the night, so make sure you keep enough in reserve. It gets dark and cold really fast once the sun sets and those logs are hard to see in the twilight.
Sooooo, you’ve got a campfire made, and have fuel for it, and maybe you’ve gotten lucky and found some tidbits of loot. If you have enough cordage, I’d suggest making a bow as soon as you can. Maybe you’ve found some arrows, or nails to craft a few. Practice with it on a tree. It shoots nice and straight, but the drop takes some getting used to. Get a feel for its range. BTW, this bow is for killing Chickens (which you CAN actually chase and catch, but they ALWAYS run straight towards the nearest wolf or bear for protection) and Rabbits. If you can’t make a bow and or arrows just yet, dont fret, just keep chopping and looking for loot and exploring. With luck, you’ll find stuff in the loot to eat for the second day. You won’t starve to death in the first night unless you’ve spent the entire day sprinting. Don’t do that. You need to save your stamina for saving your life. As it starts to get dark, find the largest rockface or cliff that you can, and build your campfire close to it. This will give you something to put your back against if you do happen to get attacked in the night. If you do get attacked, don’t try to save yourself by running. You’ll just end up lost and freezing to death in the dark. Take it like a man and reload.
Stayin’ Alive!
Well well well! Made it through yer first night did ya? Congratulations Greenhorn! I’ll git yer firestartin’ badge in the mail to ya straight off!
So, the sun’s coming up and you’re bored and your belly is rumbling. I’m gonna assume you’ve eaten the apple already, but do you still have a blueberry? Drag and drop it in inventory onto a bottle of water. Split them both first so you’ve got a single of each, or it may glitch. Mix some berrywater. It give you more hydration and more fruit/veggie than using them seperately. That lil trick alone woulda been worth the cost of this course! IF you had paid. Cheapskate.
OK, I’ve already covered the bow, but actually taking down game with it will require practice. Don’t get frustrated. Take your time, try to get a feel for how close you can get to a rabbit without spooking it. Get used to how far over the chickens head you need to aim. Be patient, wait for them to stop. If you miss, they run away, but don’t chase immediately. Watch where they go, follow them slowly and get close again. Keep an eye and ear out for their large dangerous friends.
If you are feeling frisky, or getting dangerously malnourished, you can easily find a wolf to mess with. I prefer to stay crouched if the terrain allows, for a more level shot. You CAN kill a level 1 wolf with 5 well placed shots from the 9mm, but I don’t recommend worrying to much about saving the last 2. Empty the mag into his face as he gets close to you.
There are ways, dangerous and risky ways to be sure, but ways nonetheless, of taking down wolves and bears with the bow. I’ve done it. I am not going to teach you how. It takes so many arrows that it literally isn’t worth the resources unless you have absolutely no other choice. Use the 9mm to kill wolves for meat, and get yourself a rifle made once you have the resources. Stay as far from Bears as you can until then. The shotgun will actually kill wolves with one shot, if you let them get right in your face before you fire. It’s split second timing though. To soon, and you need a second shot; to late, and he’s lept at you, and you miss ’cause his belly doesn’t have a hitbox, and that’s all you see when they lunge at you.
Once you’ve got some meat, whether it’s wolf steak, chicken thighs, whatever, you’ll want to get it cooked. Hopefully, you filled the fuel meter on your campfire before you went hunting, because relighting it every time is hideously resource consuming. Keep it burning. It’s not usually an issue early on, because you’ll usally need to eat whatever you get as soon as you get it, but the meat spoils quite quickly. You can still cook it til its charred after it spoils, and get some small nourishment from it, but its best to get it in yer belly asap. One other thing: don’t get to hung up on keeping both food meters full. As long as your hunger and ONE of the two, plus hydration, is good, you won’t die from malnourishment. If you find blueberries, apples, protien bars, save them if you can, they don’t spoil. Eat the meat items first.
Water: It’s kinda important. It also can only be acquired by looting, or by building a well head. (more on that later). Do not waste it. Always mix it with blueberries when you can. There are no streams or lakes or rain. Yet.
So, you’ve gotten brave and messed with a wolf, and killed him before he killed you. Nice. It’s quite likely that you no longer have enough ammo to mess with a second one though, so go back and re-read the first section, where I’ve talked about learning to love “S”. It will keep you alive. At least until you meet hunters. Hunters…don’t have fangs, or claws. They have unlimited ammo, and they LOVE to taunt you about it by giving as much as they can to you every time you get within sight of them. Of course, they don’t actually HAND it to you; you have to catch it. Don’t worry, they make it easy to catch. Anyhow, more on hunters later; let’s get back to being out of ammo.
Now, if you need meat, you need to get good with the bow and arrow, or be a chicken chaser. My personal preference is the bow. Sprinting blindly after chickens has a few undesireable side effects. First, it frequently introduces you to wolves and bears unexpectedly, it wears down your stamina, which in turn reduces your chances of avoiding feeding said wolves and bears unexpectedly, and it burns down your nourishment meters faster. Just be patient and practice with the bow. Pay attention to where your arrow hits in relation to where the target is, and adjust your next shot accordingly. By the way, hitting your target automatically breaks the arrow, so don’t waste time searching for it. Also, try not to be taking shots at things that are to close to bears or wolves, as hitting them knocks them back a few feet, and you may end up with one less arrow, and no supper because you can’t get close enough to retrieve one or the other. Rabbits can be hard to spot, and don’t make noise until you’ve spooked them. They also run a really long ways if you miss the shot, or spook them by getting to close, but they are my preferred prey, because they give cloth, and lets face it, you can only have so much fun with feathers when you are stranded in the mountains, alone.
In the second pic, above, there IS a rabbit. Just above and to the left of the broadhead.
Puttin’ down roots.
So, you’ve lived long enough to think about a base. I’m impressed tenderfoot. No, really.
The first thing you need to know about a base is that you probably don’t need one as badly as you think. I highly encourage camping out for a couple days, and spending some time exploring the map. There are some visually remarkable places to be found, and unless you’re the type who doesnt mind starting all over again, just because you found a prettier spot for your cabin, you will inevitably find such a place, and regret the resources youve already spent in some other less appealing location. there are also certain places on the map with higher than average numbers of trees that give 4 logs per harvest. This seems like a small thing, but chopping is the least part of getting wood. Its picking it up and running from tree to tree that takes time. It’s amazing how much faster you can get a stack at 4 per tree vs. 3. Lastly, you can roam around and explore without running into Hunters, UNTIL you place that BCU. (Base Command Unit) Once you pop that sucker onto a wall, Hunters will start moving in. (You can choose to disable Hunters, in settings. If you want to. Wussie.
Now, if you’ve been lucky at loot, and you’ve got the resources handy to build a foundation or two, and a wooden chest, I support that. So long as you’re clever enough to find your way back to it consistantly, using only the sun moving from east to west as a guide for direction. Now you’ll have a place to store things, and you can move your campfire up onto the platform(s). Make sure you place them fairly low, unless you’ve got materials for stairs as well. For someone with all those muscles, who spends all day running through the mountains with a full backpack on, you’re still a white guy, and you can’t jump.
Once you’ve explored a bit, and chosen a perfect spot to build, there’s a couple ways you can go. You can continue getting by with just a chest and campfire while you get all the foundations and walls put up or you can slap the BCU onto the very first wall and start burning through your loot to get things like a well head, and a generator. Your base will store and generate energy and mass on its own up to 500/100. Once you start wanting to build items that require more of one or the other, you will need power and mass storage items, as well as a way to generate it. No matter how much you can store, the base only self generates the first 500/100. Just remember, the BCU initiates Hunters. It also initiates a homing beacon, so you always know what direction home is, and it spawns with a lockpick in it. NICE! My advice is, get yourself a woodburner, a refinery and a well head first, (a bed is also important if you ignored my advice about starting on easy mode) then focus on a generator, power and mass storage and either a mass recycler or fabricator. There are advantages/disadvantages to both. It’s a preference thing. Apart from base building, you are going to want to focus some attention and resources on getting the best clothing as soon as you are able. I never waste materials on the lower tier stuff, just tough it out til youve got the stuff to make heavyweight. It’s REALLY worth having.
You may be tempted to get a plant bed and/or animal storage as soon as possible, and I can’t argue against a plant bed, IF you have seeds already, and IF you’ve been saving up the ash from the fires to use as fertilizer, and IF you’ve been lucky and have plenty of water. The animal housing however, is really only if you feel the need to interact with all facets of the game. All it does is allow you to trade fruits/veggies/water for protein. You will feed every blueberry and apple you can find and every tomatoe you can grow to those chickens for some extra meat and eggs. I can’t tell you it’s anything other than trading one resource for another. It can wait. The workbench and fridge seem like really cool items that you’ll want ASAP… they really are endgame stuff. But hey, you’re on your own now thinskin, the decisions are up to you. Unless you still need help with a specific skill. I open broadcast the game several evenings per week, (USA, Eastern) pop in, say hi, and feel free to ask for any help or assistance you need.
If you found this guide useful or entertaining, a thumbs up at the top of the page is very much appreciated. Thanks and stay safe.
Keepin’ up with the Jones’
Well, it looks like ColdGames has more time on his hands these days than ‘ol Ranger. He’s gotten a fair bit ahead of me with the steady flow of updates. I’ll cover some of the important stuff here. I apolagize if doing it this way is confusing, but some of my other sections were to long, and wouldnt allow me to add in any editing.
So, we have landscape water now, and canteens that can be filled from it. And kelp for eating in early game and crafting later. Don’t waste early resources on crafting extra canteens, you really won’t need them unless you build your base far from water. (WHY would you do that?) The lakes also allow fishing. I strongly urge making a fishing pole as soon as you have the resources AFTER making a bow. Once youve got the pole and some tackle made (get grubs from the really large trees that give 6 logs- they are scattered around the map) put the pole into a toolbelt slot, press the corresponding number to equip it. Right click then left click to cast, and then wait for the bobber to get pulled under. You will also get an audible clue that you have a bite. left click to “strike” or set the hook, then once the fish is hooked press and hold right mouse to reel the slippery bugger in.
Cougars. Mountain Lion. BIG, PREDATORY, CLAWS, FANGS. Scary right? WHY would you wanna go mess with these things? You don’t; at least until you have a rifle or shotgun. They give sinew, which you’ll need for later game crafting, so eventually, yeah, you’ll wanna go mess with them.
In my experience so far, they are few in number so not nearly as much of a threat as wolves and bears, but if you have poor aim or timing, they will tear you up fast. They are fairly easy to hunt, as they make a lot of noise and you can hear them long before they see you, as long as you arent on hard mode. WHY are you on hard mode if you are fresh enough to need a guide? Just don’t do that to yourself. Go get ’em Tiger!
I made the statement in the third section that animal housing was a late game item, and only worth the materials if you really wanted to interact with all facets of the game. Thats no longer true.
You now get a decent amount of fat for rendering down into fuel from butchered animals if you level them out. AND, you get premeium feathers for making badass arrows, AND, you can now make a tomato garden self sustaining as each plant gives two fruit. 1 for chicken feed and 1 for garden seed. Do it.
There’s other late game stuff thats been added, like armor and high end base materials for toughing up your defenses, but I’m not gonna go into that in detail. I havent had enough play time to really mess with much of it, and by the time you’re able to give it a whirl, ya oughtta be able to figure it out fer yerself.
Stay tuned.