Select Page
Poker Forum
Over 1,291,000 Posts!
Poker ForumFTR Community

A Don't Starve Thread?!? WTF, MMM?

Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 75 of 267
  1. #1
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO

    Default A Don't Starve Thread?!? WTF, MMM?

    I've been playing the crap out of Don't Starve recently.

    Anyone else addicted to this game? (It's available on Steam for $14.99 ).

    It's a sandbox-style game in which you collect resources, craft clothes, tools, structures, etc., then try to explore the world without getting killed by nasty beasts (or starving to death).

    A 13-minute vid of some bloke named Sips trying it out (Language warning - Sips can be a bit excitable).

    They are constantly releasing new updates to the game (~ every 3 weeks), so just when I think I've got a handle on it, they go and add new stuff.

    Anyhoo, I'm just wondering if anyone else is playing it, and wants to discuss strategies and whatnot... or just brag about how many days they have survived.
  2. #2
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    I tried it at your recommendation and it seems pretty damn awesome. I'm trying to go about it blind which seems to be by far the most fun way to go about a game like this, and it is quite overwhelming. I found myself hoarding the shit out of grass, twigs, and wood, and then trying to establish a home base once I get the science machine. Then my nature of wanting to build everything was my downfall. It really seems like specialization is key, i.e. one source of food, one weapon etc.

    That's my take on it after dying for a couple of hours.
  3. #3
    Looks like a lot of fun, but I've never been a scout, so I'll probably be horrible at it
    The Time To Act Is Now...
  4. #4
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    I'm so glad that people are trying this game.

    I know Renton wants to go about it blind, which I agree is the best way to play this game, so I wont post any tips or tricks yet. Just figuring out what you did wrong on one life is a huge part of the appeal. I've definitely killed off characters in rage-quit with this game. Then I find myself determined to kick this game's ass an hour later.

    Well, I was just going to post where I am in the game. I've been at it for about a month now, mostly playing on weekends until this past week. Unemployment, ya dig?

    So I have WX-78 past day 100, but on a modified world (touchstones -> lots, boons -> lots, frogs -> less). Also, I've used up all my touchstones. I do have a Meat Effigy, though, so I'm covered for the moment. I had to run around and avoid Deerclops all last winter, so I'm going to try to take him on next time. THAT will probably be the death of me. I've been killed by him before, and I put up quite a fight.

    For Renton: Super, super tiny spoiler. Just a tip, for your food concerns. (There are nested spoilers, don't let the size throw you off.)
    Spoiler:
    Don't be picky about your food source in the early game.
    Super tiny spoiler if you're starving.
    Spoiler:
    Make a Crock Pot
    Tiny spoiler: First useful crock pot recipe:
    Spoiler:
    Meatballs: 1 Meat (any kind), 3 fruit or veg. (Don't us a Durian IF you used a Monster Meat! One or the other, or neither.
  5. #5
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    One tip I've self-discovered is that transplanting every berry bush you find is >>>> building farms.
  6. #6
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    You must have figured out fertilizer then.
    ...
    Unfortunately, until you see it happen a couple of different ways, it'll all burn down.

    It's a good idea to leave the Berry Bushes (and Grass and Saplings, for that matter) in the area close to your base camp alone.
    That way you have your back up near by... albeit spread out... but it'll never ALL go up in a single fire.

    Oh yeah...Improved Farms are >>>> Basic Farms... and faster than Berry Bushes... and you can get stuff that fills more hunger than Berries.
  7. #7
    Fuck my life, just as I was getting a nice little settlement going I trapped myself between 4 stone walls I was building by accident and couldn't get out so starved to death
  8. #8
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO



    I guess that'll teach you to build a wall w/o a hammer!

    EDIT: Yeah, building a wall can be a pixel hunt. Repairing a wall even more so.

    I don't even bother anymore. Walls are more trouble than they're worth to me. I just have a panic field near my base. It's a growing zone of traps surrounding a fire pit whose light just barely overlaps my main base fire pit's light. It could be further away, as I've torched my grass farm a couple of times... had to replant on other side of camp. When the hounds come I light the panic fire (if necessary), run back to base and drop the backpack, then run in circles around the panic pit until all the traps are sprung.
    Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 07-06-2013 at 09:24 PM.
  9. #9
    SPOILERS!

    I'm only up to like day 10.
  10. #10
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Pro Tip: Fireflies are so cool!
    Spoiler:

    Get some silk
    Make a Bug Net
    Run around at dusk, looking for fireflies.
    When you see them, go and stand where you saw them, and, with the Bug Net equipped, and press space.
    Now you have fireflies.
    (This is also an opportune time to gather Green Mushrooms.)
    Go back to your base and wait till night.
    Get a nice fire going.
    Run around the edge of the light and drop the fireflies.
    AWESOME!


    !! MAJOR SPOILER !! This is how I farm silk:
    Spoiler:

    1) Have 2 Log Suits, 2 Football Helmets, and a Spear (2 if it's low)
    2) Have 3 empty inventory slots OUTSIDE of my backpack
    3) Bring a snack and materials to build a fire (and a torch, obv.)
    4) Go to a spider nest
    5) A good distance away from the nest, (build a fire if necessary) drop the backpack, put on the armor and helmet.
    6) Go to the spider nest and step on the web and activate the patrol spiders
    7) Slowly edge away from the spiders, leading them about a screen to the left or right away from the nest
    The idea here is that when I attack them, I don't want to attract other spiders into the fight. Yellow jumpy spiders suck, and using this method they will not spawn.
    8) Kill the spiders
    9) Repeat steps 6 - 8 until no spiders come out of the nest when I step on the web.
    10) If there are 1 or 2 egg sacks on the nest, I leave it.
    If there are 3 egg sacks on the nest (like an evil spider snowman), then I kill it for the silk and the egg sack
    If you leave one of these, it will turn into a Spider Queen in a few days... that fight will take twice the equipment and wreck your sanity.
    11) Plant the egg sack about a 1/2 day hike by road from base camp.

    If I did this right, I took almost no damage (it all gets absorbed by the armor and helmet), so healing is not an issue, and I have 8 - 12 silk.


    EDIT: Crap! This whole post is spoilers then.... I don't want to ruin it.... so it'll take a lot of self control to not offer you tips.
    Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 07-06-2013 at 10:07 PM.
  11. #11
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by ImSavy View Post
    SPOILERS!

    I'm only up to like day 10.
    I'm not saying walls are of no use... I'm saying I suck at them, and have found a workaround that suits me.

    While I was trying to get a room built that I could use for defense, it kept failing in different ways, and before I solved the room, I realized that I didn't need it, because I was still alive and the room was junk... so I adapted to running around like a pansy and trying to get other things besides me to fight the Hounds. Eventually, I could build traps and basically control where the fight happened. Oh, and I use up log suits pretty quickly.

    Besides, I got distracted from the room because I decided I want a complete collection of the Dress items... I still need a Feather Hat. That is a tough one, let me tell you in advance. I also need the Walking Stick... and for craps sake, that one's hard.

    So I gave up on the room and now I just don't have one. I will try to get a room worked out on my next character.

    Currently, I'm kind of morbidly hoping that Deerclops shows up and I can see if I can take him out with 2 marble suits, 3 tentacle spikes and 16 healing salves... If yes, then I've beaten the last "boss" in sandbox mode. If no, then I get to start a new character. I have only played WX-78 since the latest update, and it's been excellent. I hear Willow gets to start with a lighter now, so you know I'm in for that.
  12. #12
    This sounds awesome, and if Renton and ImSavy like it I'm in. Will buy it in the next few days
  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Posts
    358
    Location
    getting reemed by fee hikes, ca
    This game is the nuts


    no pressure, no diamonds
  14. #14
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    I have the same issue with this game that I have with Civ. I get to mid game and everything's not 100% perfect and I start over. I haven't taken a game past like day 20 yet.
  15. #15
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Yah, somewhere around day 20 is where I hit my first plateau. I hit another about day 40.

    Then around day 44-ish, the first winter ends. The snow melts, revealing the roads. The grass starts growing again.

    This is when I find myself frantic to go on road trips and start exploring again. Before the start of the 2nd winter, I REALLY want to have found some Gears. I don't think it qualifies as a spoiler to say: the items you craft with Gears are supremely useful.

    ...
    [ Wasted 30 minutes thinking about what might qualify as "mid" game, to no avail ]
  16. #16
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Personal update:
    I have finally gotten my 2nd Tentacle Spots to make a Feather Hat! Umm... Now I can summon birds...? Why would I want to do that? Hmm. I need to figure out how to make use of this.

    Now the only thing left in the Dress items is the Walking Stick, which requires a Walrus Tusk. I did successfully hunt a walrus (Mac Tusk, Scottish block who shoots darts), but I didn't get a tusk. I DID get a spiffy hat called Tam O' Shanter which makes my insanity increase even at night. Amazing.

    That was on the last days of winter, and no Deerclops.

    To the caves!
  17. #17
    I realize I have chosen a life with my lips firmly gripped onto Steve Jobs cock, but is it really THAT difficult to make a platform (probably the wrong word) that can run all these things on Mac well. I realize there are options for work around, but from most of what I've read, they rarely run smoothly/well.
    So you click their picture and then you get their money?
  18. #18
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Here's how my early game tends to go. Through all of my perfectionist restarting, I've gotten pretty used to doing this:

    1) Hoard a couple of stacks of grass/twig/log while exploring the map as efficiently as possible. Hopefully I find the following within 2 days:
    -beefalo for poop
    -16 stone / 1 gold for firepit/science
    -a spot at least 4 or 5 rabbit holes close together OR at least 3 ponds close together for camp. This spot must be reasonably close to the beefalo field and preferably not at an extreme of the map.

    2) set up camp at the chosen spot, plop a chest, get the backpack and shovel

    3) venture back out on an extended excursion prioritizing more stone, burning down a forest for charcoal, and getting digging up berry bushes to transplant. I grab a couple of stacks of saplings and grass tufts along the way also if there is space.

    4) get a couple of crock pots and drying racks going and steadily add saplings, grass tufts, and planted trees to my base camp.


    After this I get kind of bogged down and I just try my best to keep my resource levels balanced.
  19. #19
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Problems I am running into:

    -poop bottleneck. It's just such a pain in the ass to accumulate. I dunno if I should also be somehow passively producing rot for use in fertilization or what. Or is there a way to herd the beefalo so they are nearer to my camp and its easier to routinely grab poop?

    - just keeping my shit sorted. I feel like this should be easier than it is, but I just never no what exactly I have and need, and I don't have the micro to think on the fly at the breakneck pace of the game clock. I feel like I'm wasting so much valuable time just looking at my inventory and shifting shit around.

    - farms seem to be more trouble than they are worth. so far I've been just using berry bushes as my crockpot filler source. It seems like farms are fairly inferior to this and require more micro, albeit less fertilizer.

    - how about some general tips on how not to get bogged down farming 10 different things?
  20. #20
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Posts
    358
    Location
    getting reemed by fee hikes, ca
    Anyone know whats up with Maxwells Door?


    no pressure, no diamonds
  21. #21
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    First tip: Don't stop with a Science Engine. It should be no trouble to find 7 gold, 22 logs, and 22 stone before you choose your base camp location. Build your fire pit. Then, build the Science Engine somewhere out of the way, and immediately refine the Boards and Cut Stone you need for the Alchemy Engine. Place your Alchemy Engine where you want it, and eventually use a hammer to take down the Science Engine, which is now obsolete.

    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    -poop bottleneck. It's just such a pain in the ass to accumulate. I dunno if I should also be somehow passively producing rot for use in fertilization or what.
    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    - farms seem to be more trouble than they are worth. so far I've been just using berry bushes as my crockpot filler source. It seems like farms are fairly inferior to this and require more micro, albeit less fertilizer.
    Build your base camp on the edge of a nice grassland with plenty of Berries. Leave those where they are. As a low-ish priority, gather ~9 - 12 ish Berry Bushes from elsewhere for use near your base camp. That should be plenty.

    I mean, you can live off of rabbits alone for quite some time, certainly through the first winter, with only 4 rabbit holes and the traps right above the hole. Keep a chest full of 9 live rabbits... Live meat doesn't spoil.

    If you have an Alchemy Engine, you can make Improved Farms. Get 12-18 poops (enough for 2 - 3 Improved Farms), then head back to camp while collecting seeds on the way.
    When you get to camp, start building Improved Farms and planting seeds. You should not need to fertilize these farms for ~ the first summer or 2. (You'll know they need fertilization by a faint paling of the soil.. like a white crust developing... it's subtle.) So the initial investment of 6 poop per farm is well worth it.

    Ideally, my goal is to get up to 8+ Improved Farms before the 2nd summer. Any time I gather poop, whatever is left over from building farms, I use to transplant Berry Bushes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    Or is there a way to herd the beefalo so they are nearer to my camp and its easier to routinely grab poop?
    I suppose you could chase a Baby Beefalo into some enclosure and block him in... I'm not sure how efficient it would be, though.
    You could just build your camp closer to them, but that can be bad if it moves you away from other resources.
    You can sometimes get lucky if there's a wormhole near the Beefalo, because you can build your camp on the other side of the wormhole and still have quick access.

    Another way to farm poop is to feed pigs. Feed them any veg and they make poop. You can even build a Pig House close-ish to your camp, which will spawn a Pig.
    Spoiler:
    Destroying some Pig Houses with your Hammer can get you the resources quickly for this one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    - just keeping my shit sorted. I feel like this should be easier than it is, but I just never no what exactly I have and need, and I don't have the micro to think on the fly at the breakneck pace of the game clock. I feel like I'm wasting so much valuable time just looking at my inventory and shifting shit around.
    Press Esc to pause the game. It still shows your science bar and inventory, including backpack (even an open Chester if you work it right). Decide what you want to do while the clock's not ticking.
    ...
    Wait... You have found Chester, right?
    Spoiler:
    Definitely prioritize finding Chester if you haven't by day 11 or so. Almost always you can see the Eye Bone from a road or path.

    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    - how about some general tips on how not to get bogged down farming 10 different things?
    EDIT: deleted a bunch of crap that made it worse, not better.

    Make a specific objective and a plan to achieve it. E.g. pick something you haven't crafted yet and get on it.

    Use gold tools.

    Don't try to overstock resources that you can freely acquire. That said, it's not a waste of time to spend an entire day gathering a single resource sometimes.

    You will always need plenty of grass and logs. Logs are always readily available in quantity, so there's no need to stock pile.

    Grass is a little harder to come by in the winter, but with some basic equipment (heat stone + winter hat and/or a vest), you can easily take minimal equipment with you for a day trip and gather plenty. The same goes for Twigs.

    Rocks, Flint and Gold are items that you only need rarely, so an extra stack of these can be useful to keep around.

    Pig Skins are hugely useful for Football Helmets, so keep a hammer on hand for when you find a Touchstone to hammer down the Pig Heads. Hoard these because they're hard to find.

    Everything else is kind of a rare-use item, so go get it when you need it.

    Really, it just sounds like you're ready to level up with the Alchemy Engine and you'll find new things to specialize on.
    Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 07-09-2013 at 02:23 AM.
  22. #22
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by thelorax View Post
    Anyone know whats up with Maxwells Door?
    If you go into Maxwell's Door, you enter Adventure Mode. You start in a new, more sinister world, with nothing in your inventory except for the Divining Rod. You must "escape" each chapter by finding all the Things and assembling them.

    If you complete Adventure Mode, you will return to the main map as Maxwell (the guy who you see at the start).

    Within Adventure Mode, there is a chance that a puzzle will spawn, whose completion will unlock Wes as a playable character.

    These are the 2 characters that can not be unlocked by acquiring experience.

    If you die in Adventure Mode, you will be returned to Maxwell's Door on the main map with your stats and inventory restored to what they were when you entered the door.

    If you re-enter Maxwell's Door, you start over again at the beginning of Chapter 1 with nothing in your inventory but the Diving Rod.
  23. #23
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    Here's how my early game tends to go. Through all of my perfectionist restarting, I've gotten pretty used to doing this:
    This sounds solid. I try to spend 4 - 5 days exploring before I set up base camp. Time spent dashing along the roads in the early game to locate different biomes is not wasted. The primary constraining factor is that I don't want to be caught by a hound attack without a weapon and armor.

    I've never done a camp that relied on fish and frogs for food. Although... you can make Fish Sticks right away if you do this. This would provide a nice healing source. Really, it would provide one of the best sources of healing in the game right off the bat... I gotta try this... is it much harder than bunnies? What do you do when winter comes and the frogs and fishies are gone?
  24. #24
    Anyone wanna go half and half and maybe both discuss progress in this thread from 0? Would be cool to build up from 0 with someone.

    It's £17.99 on Steam for a 2 pack so that's just under £9 each. If no one is interested within a couple of days I'll just buy a single copy for myself
  25. #25
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO

    Default It was going so well...

    Oh no! On day 200 I died in the mines.

    I came back outside the mine, but with empty inventory, and worst of all, my stats were reset! WX-78 has 100 max on all 3 stats to start... they only increase when he eats gears... I've eaten all the gears on the map that I didn't use for other stuff.

    PLUS it was winter.

    PLUS the Keeper of the Forest attacked as I was chopping wood.

    PLUS a dozen hounds came behind that.

    I survived all of that (barely), but with these stats, I'd rather try a new character out.

    So... no more awesome robot. I'll give Willow a shot.
    Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 07-09-2013 at 11:58 AM.
  26. #26
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    This sounds solid. I try to spend 4 - 5 days exploring before I set up base camp. Time spent dashing along the roads in the early game to locate different biomes is not wasted. The primary constraining factor is that I don't want to be caught by a hound attack without a weapon and armor.

    I've never done a camp that relied on fish and frogs for food. Although... you can make Fish Sticks right away if you do this. This would provide a nice healing source. Really, it would provide one of the best sources of healing in the game right off the bat... I gotta try this... is it much harder than bunnies? What do you do when winter comes and the frogs and fishies are gone?
    Fuck I just realized that the frogs won't be around during winter... I guess its not a fool proof plan. For summer its def better than bunnies. The ponds yield a lot more than bunny holes do, and frog legs are way more useful as they can make all of the morsel recipes in addition to a healing recipe specific to frogs.

    It's probably not the greatest camp for handling the first winter, but the yield is so high that if you get a few drying racks going you can hoard enough jerky to last through the second. Like literally you can plop like 10 traps around 3 ponds and most of them will be full at dusk.


    Unrelated: do you bother with transplanting grass? Or is it better to just do a massive savannah run every now and then? I suppose you need to run for poo anyway.
  27. #27
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    I gotta try that. I had frogs turned to "less" on my last world, because I got tilted when a group of them swarmed me and kept making me drop my combat equipment while I was trying to put it on. In retrospect, that was probably hilarious. Nonetheless, they killed me, and I started a new character straight away with less frogs and more touchstones.

    I do eventually transplant grass, usually in the 2nd summer, once everything else starts booming. I find that longer road trips are appropriate during this time, so it seems like a good time to gather distant resources.

    In other news, I started a new game with Willow. I was going to leave the default world settings, but I'm curious what the "land branching" and "land loop" do. So I turned branching to none and loop to always... The world was a giant donut. It was terrible. All of the biomes were spread so far away from each other that I still didn't have a decent base location after 8 days of touring. Bah.

    I gotta try the other setup now, with branching to always and loop to none.
  28. #28
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Posts
    358
    Location
    getting reemed by fee hikes, ca
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Oh no! On day 200 I died in the mines.

    I came back outside the mine, but with empty inventory, and worst of all, my stats were reset! WX-78 has 100 max on all 3 stats to start... they only increase when he eats gears... I've eaten all the gears on the map that I didn't use for other stuff.

    PLUS it was winter.

    PLUS the Keeper of the Forest attacked as I was chopping wood.

    PLUS a dozen hounds came behind that.

    I survived all of that (barely), but with these stats, I'd rather try a new character out.

    So... no more awesome robot. I'll give Willow a shot.

    Brutal. I die every time i go into the mines ( only like twice).
    I really like the Canadian lumberjack character cause his axe effing wrecks.


    no pressure, no diamonds
  29. #29
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    OK, Update on Willow.

    I modified the world by turning branching to max and looping to min.
    This is a pretty easy to play map. The layout of the biomes is roughly a hub-and-spoke system, with a bit of a long line in the center... like a hallway with rooms packed in around it. Placing base camp in a central location was easy to figure out and so many biomes are just a half-day hike to get to, leaving plenty of time to do stuff once I get there. Also, a road or path runs down the center of each biome, making a return trip to base camp quite speedy.

    I found the Wooden Thing during the first winter. It was right next to a Walrus Hole, and apparently the evil robot dogs and those dudes with photon cannons (lolz) don't get along with Walrus, Inc. I got to run through and collect all the Gears and Purple Gems without any fight... Until Mac Tusk chased me all the damn way back to my camp, killing Chester half-way... just to turn around at the last second. Scared the pants off me, cause I didn't have any ranged weapon to hit him with. I don't know why he chased me so far, just to turn around at the last second.

    I figured out by accident that the left-most inventory slots are linked to the number keys. So now, my armor, helmet, and weapon go in spots 1, 2, 3. Instant battle gear!

    Also, while I'm on the subject. If you put a Chest or Ice Box close to your Crock Pot, you can open both at the same time and use Shift-click to add ingredients one at a time without picking up the entire stack.

    Pro-tip: Preventing the double-death
    Spoiler:
    When you activate a Touchstone, go back and drop some essential survival gear:
    Spoiler:
    a fresh armor, helmet, and spear. I also find an Axe (at least 30%), and 3 grass and 5 logs to be essential... and a Heat Stone is a quite handy thing to have on hand if you die in winter.
  30. #30
    bikes's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    7,423
    Location
    house
    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    I have the same issue with this game that I have with Civ. I get to mid game and everything's not 100% perfect and I start over. I haven't taken a game past like day 20 yet.
    This is the reason why I also can not play Civ
  31. #31
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    I'm getting tired of rabbit murder. I'm considering some alternate self-sufficient camps.

    1) Pigs

    Try to chop down 4 pig houses during early exploration and plop two near the chosen camp. Plop some spider dens nearby also and farm those for meat and silk. Feed spider meat to the pigs to make them werepigs and kill them for meat x2 skin x1. Recapitalize the skin into more pig houses. I worked it out that since it takes 4 days for the pigs to spawn, then that means with 100% recapitalization the farm will grow by 25% every 4 days. So in like 30 days you'll go from two houses to ten, which at that point will provide more than enough meat to subsist. It's certainly more tedious than rabbits but it results in abundant silk and pig skin, easy manure, and if you don't kill all the pigs they can help you whoop ass or cut down your forest.

    2) Frogs/fish

    We discussed this a bit already, but basically it's an approach that requires a very active effort toward hoarding jerky. If you have the fishing rods and frog traps prepared, you can get like 20 fish and 10-15 frogs a day. It's not really passive, but that's like a week's worth of food in a day. Two days and you've got the winter covered. You'll need a lot of drying racks up and running asap though. I haven't fully tried this but I imagine this approach would leave you wanting to set out on road trips during winter, considering gathering food won't be a consideration. On that note I also like the idea of a camp you don't have to constantly stay on top of. Just bust ass for like 3 days and then set out into the world for a few days.
  32. #32
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    3) Bird Cage + Bee boxes

    Feeding the caged bird cooked monster meat or monster jerky (probably regular meat, too, but it seems like a waste) will yield eggs.
    Feeding the caged bird any farm product will yield seeds. You get at least one seed of the food you gave the bird, and it's labeled, e.g. Dragon Fruit Seeds. The labeled seeds stack separately from other seeds.

    Yada yada, 10 Improved farms that yield Dragon Fruit exclusively. I gain about 3 - 5 Dragon Fruit every 2 days, and keep just enough seeds to replant. Note that a single Dragon Fruit can be used to make a Dragon Pie, which fills more than day's worth of hunger (+75), AND, also, in addition to that, as if that's not enough, it also restores health like a champ (+40). It can be a single food solution for hunger and health, and is great for road trips. Same can be said for Bacon and Eggs, which is about 1/2 as effective at restoring hunger and health, but lasts about 50% longer from spoiling, so not a bad tradeoff.

    The final step is to get some Bee Boxes and surround them with 6+ flowers each, sharing a large flower patch. With honey, I can make Taffy, which restores 15 sanity. Honey spoils so slowly that Taffy can be made as needed. Keep some cooked Green Caps on hand for emergency sanity ups.
  33. #33
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Day 62 - 65:

    While chopping down some trees, a cute little baby Treeguard attacked. So I KIT him, poorly, and get back to chopping trees. On the 2nd tree, 2 more Treeguards spawn, this time a medium and large one.

    Well, now my armor and helmet are wrecked and so I flee to the Beefalo. Treeguards apparently move at different speeds, depending on their size. The big one got there first and dispatched 3 Beefalo in short order. About then the other one showed up and I tried to attack the big guy, figuring the Beefalo got off some good hits and maybe I can tank him down. Uh uh. No dice. I'm down to a sliver of health and start running to another herd of Beefalo. Once they engage the big guy, I swing in and land enough hits to finish him off. Then the other Treeguard shows up and I can't get the Beefalo to engage, so I flee. I run down to the first encounter point and gather up the wool and meat, and a free Beefalo Horn. The Treeguard has not followed me, so I figure the Beefalo finally took him down. Fine with me.

    Back to camp. Heal up and replace armor and weapon, start to go on a twig run. when who shows up? Crap. OK, one at a time these guys aren't too bad, and I had health and equipment, so I KIT the bastard and blamo. Then I notice that I never actually gathered any logs in the past 2 days and used up what little supply I had left replacing my Log Suit. So back to camp again to chop trees in my forest. First god damn tree spawns another 2 Treeguards.

    Well, now Willow is a bit freaked out. She starts lighting little fires as I'm leading these jerks away from my camp. There go the twigs. There goes the Berry Farm. There goes... one of the Treeguards?! Nice. Kill it with fire! The living logs were all ash, but I got plenty by now. Sheesh.

    So after I dispatched that 5th freaking Treeguard, I saved and quit.

    After dinner, I played again. I'm a bit wary of my forest now. Seriously. I get an apprehensive feeling when I think of chopping trees. God damn I love this game.
    Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 07-11-2013 at 12:01 AM.
  34. #34
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    I always just lead the treeguards a few screens away from my camp and plant a bunch of pinecones there until they are appeased. You did know you could do that right?
  35. #35
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    [petulant child voice] I knew that! [/petulant child voice]

    I had, rather foolishly, not hoarded a stack of pine cones in Chester. I think it was a fit of short-sighted bravado during an inventory sweep. I wanted an extra slot on a road trip, so I burned them all in a camp fire. Then I got distracted and never replaced them.
  36. #36
    bikes's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    7,423
    Location
    house
    Don't Starve is now on sale for the Steam Summer Sale $8.99
  37. #37
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    OK, the caves are fun, and have some beautiful biomes and new items, but really don't offer a greater challenge than the main map.

    Adventure mode, however... WOW.

    I've tried a few times and died miserably. The rage-quit is back!

    Just when I think I've got a handle on this game, there's something new. I'm still enjoying the crap out of this game.
  38. #38
    Wow, fuck this game. I finally, after like 10 hours of playing, get a camp going that I'm really happy with that's producing a surplus in the first 7 days (right by a lake and several rabbit holes, basically on top of a wormhole that goes RIGHT to beefalo, got some meat goin on the drying rack, so much food goin' on the crockpot i can barely carry it all, dozens of berry bushes surrounding my camp, etc). I'd seen a touchstone but unfortunately it was when I was fucking surrounded by grasslands and I had to sprint out of there before sundown (probably shoulda just lit a torch and activated it, but that had screwed me before and wanted to take no chances), and I couldn't find it again.

    On day 8 with ~full bars on everything, I accidentally hit a beefalo while trying to pick up manure at about 7:30pm. He chases me and I'm like "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK NO WAY AM I GONNA DIE." I figure that if I can just make it to sundown, hopefully I can build a fire in the dark before the nightterrors kill me. Sun goes down, I build a fire, only to have the raging beefalo illuminated (WTF?!), and he chases me around the campfire until I die. Do beefalo ever stop charging, or do you just have to make sure to never ever ever click on the wrong pixel?
  39. #39
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    1. Keep a 100% torch at all times.

    2. They eventually stop chasing if you run in a single direction
  40. #40
    Very similar thing just happened two games in a row. Had a great camp going (except I guess my firepit was too close to the grasslands; I guess beefalo wonder just a little bit beyond that). Night fall comes and there are literally 7+ beefalo sleeping around my firepit so that I can't even see the damn thing. Totally shoulda just let them be and hoped the fire lasted through the night, but instead I wanted to get things down (my alchemy machine was right behind them), and pixel hunted wrong again and got my shit tore up.

    Siiiiiiiiiigh. But maybe this means I'm getting much better at getting a good camp going because these were the best and second best setups I've ever had in the first week.
  41. #41
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Also you could just have killed the beefalo. It takes like 10 hits with the spear. You should always have a spear, log suit, and football helm in your inventory, preferably in slots 1 through 3 so you can just hit 1 2 3 on the keyboard in an emergency. Also in single combat with a mob, often you can bait him into swinging at you (and missing as you run a way), then hit him 1-3 times with your spear. Theoretically you can avoid getting hit at all if you time it right. This works for beefalo, hounds, spiders and many others but not all.
  42. #42
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Inventory space is frustrating me to no end.

    So we have what, 15+8 slots to work with (+ chester), right? Well the essentials that I always have are:

    1-5: Spear, Log suit, Football helm, Torch, Healing Salve
    6-8: Axe and whatever other tools I intend to use today. I keep the non-use tools in a chest, besides Hammer which I always keep in chester.
    12-15: Stacks of grass, flint, twigs and logs
    Backpack slots 1-2 Small Jerky and Meatballs

    That leaves like 10 slots free + chester if im lucky enough to have found him. I always find that like a day in a half into a journey I'm full and I'm having to pass up picking shit up. Especially if im going hard on digging up saplings, bushes, and grass on this particular run. I'm also fond of carrying a bunch of traps as I generally am raiding some spider nests along the way, and in that case I'm always inventory stuck.



    A few other questions:

    Chests or Packs? Seriously. I think chests are a slight bit more convenient interface-wise but its a larger pain in the ass getting 16 logs than a few twigs and grass, and also, packs can't burn.

    How is selective crop farming sustainable? You have to feed a bird a crop, and he gives a seed for that crop, don't you just break even most of the time. I read on the wiki its 1-3 seeds but I usually get 1 or sometimes 2, it seems horribly inefficient at best and a waste of time at worst. Again, I question the usefulness of farms to begin with, but it seems better to just go with random chance crops.



    P.S. I still can't bear to play this game after like day 40. I'm sure shit gets fun in more ways after that point, but it just feels so grindy. I just find myself blowing the entire day trying to stay ahead on one resource only to have to do it again tomorrow. I tend to spend nights cooking, sorting my shit, or occasionally chopping wood. After a couple week break from this game, today I think I'm gonna focus on architecture. I want to get some walls up, maybe build a sick panic room.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-26-2013 at 07:08 PM.
  43. #43
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by surviva316 View Post
    "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK NO WAY AM I GONNA DIE."
    Yeah. Done that.

    You can always empty your hand-slot when they're around. Also, I misclicked on one of them once while wearing the Beefalo Hat and it didn't attack me. I was so freaked out, though, that I didn't try to do it again.
  44. #44
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Inventory is always a pain.

    I've tried using the Piggy Back. You get 4 extra slots than the Backpack, but you walk slower. Tiltingly slower. It is somewhat better with the walking stick, but still a bit slower than a backpack and no walking stick. Still, Chester only moves at one speed, so I'm constantly waiting for him to catch up with the walking stick alone, which negates the speed boost. So the combo is OK. The 4 extra inventory slots come in super handy sometimes.

    I've noticed the order you put on your armor matters. The LAST item you put on (between armor and helmet) takes a lot more damage. So Football Helmets can be conserved by always putting them on first.
  45. #45
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Which of the following Day 1-3 strategies are better?

    1) Organically picking up tons and tons of basic resources right away while lurching slowly into new territory until you have good stockpile, then jettisoning stacks onto a marked location along the road, then following the roads until you find 20 gold, chester, and a good camp location.

    2) Picking up like half a stack of twigs, logs, flint, i.e. the bare essentials for travel, then beelining down roads until you've found gold, chester, and the camp, then going out to properly gather all the basics AFTER the camp is planted.
  46. #46
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    Chests or Packs? Seriously. I think chests are a slight bit more convenient interface-wise but its a larger pain in the ass getting 16 logs than a few twigs and grass, and also, packs can't burn.
    Wait what? You mean... instead of building chests... make a bunch of backpacks? Then just switch backpacks for different things?
    Mind blowing. I never thought of making more than 1 backpack.
    It could be a headache all it's own sorting things.
    Chests are purely cosmetic anyway, as you could just leave everything (except food) lying on the ground like a heathen.

    Logs and grass go on my main inventory bar. I had to run away from too many fights in the winter and froze because I left my fire building resources in my abandoned backpack (spider queens and tentacles, man... *sigh*). Twigs in my backpack for cooking. I keep 2 chests at camp for extra stacks of logs, twigs, grass, stone, flint, gold, reeds. If grass or twigs are roughly in my path at any given time, I gather them and if I don't have room in my inventory, I just drop them right there. Later, when I'm gathering, I get 2 or 3 for 1 in that area.

    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    How is selective crop farming sustainable? You have to feed a bird a crop, and he gives a seed for that crop, don't you just break even most of the time. I read on the wiki its 1-3 seeds but I usually get 1 or sometimes 2, it seems horribly inefficient at best and a waste of time at worst. Again, I question the usefulness of farms to begin with, but it seems better to just go with random chance crops.
    It's slow to get started, but once you get to 3 Dragon Fruit producing farms, the seeds build up quickly. It's not as slow as you might think to get 10 farms on Dragon Fruit. It's slow at first, but the more you have, the more the randomness balances out. I tend to get 10 seeds from 6 - 7 Dragon Fruit, which gives an overhead of 3 - 4 Dragon Fruit per harvest (every 2 days in summer).
    If it wasn't for the awesome power of Dragon Pie, I doubt it would be worth it.
    ...
    If Pumpkin Lanterns were more than a cute prop, farming pumpkins could be worth it.
    If you were determined to play w/o a crock pot, pumpkins and eggplants would be your main food outside of meat.


    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    P.S. I still can't bear to play this game after like day 40. I'm sure shit gets fun in more ways after that point, but it just feels so grindy. I just find myself blowing the entire day trying to stay ahead on one resource only to have to do it again tomorrow. I tend to spend nights cooking, sorting my shit, or occasionally chopping wood. After a couple week break from this game, today I think I'm gonna focus on architecture. I want to get some walls up, maybe build a sick panic room.
    Have you taken on the walrus yet? Have you killed a Spider Queen? Have you seen (let alone fought) Deerclops?

    I took Willow and resolved to make a stack of each blow dart. Then I made a couple of boomerangs and went bird hunting (fun fact: black birds don't spawn in grassy biomes).

    After a while I got attacked by a god damn dragon! OK, not a fire-breathing dragon. I dropped him with the ice staff / tentacle spike combo ('cause Willow don't mess around when it comes to slaying dragons!). Loot was useless, but it was a cool easter egg.

    That's happened twice now. I totally recommend it, for the lolz if nothing else. Make some boomerangs and then run around killing birds as fast as you can.


    For a change of scenery, try some cave exploring. My jaw hit the floor the first time I walked into a mushtree biome. Make a miner's hat and jump in. It's always "night time" in the caves, so be prepared for a short trip your first time. There's loads of new resources to gather. The enemies are unique (well... cave spiders are pretty much spiders).


    Also, given your style of focusing on the early and mid game, I recommend trying adventure mode. You don't want to spend any longer than you must in any chapter where it's always winter, or where it literally rains frogs, or god knows what else. The point is to gather up the "things" as quickly as you can and use them to escape to the next chapter. I bet you could get it done in 40-ish days.
  47. #47
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    Which of the following Day 1-3 strategies are better?

    1) Organically picking up tons and tons of basic resources right away while lurching slowly into new territory until you have good stockpile, then jettisoning stacks onto a marked location along the road, then following the roads until you find 20 gold, chester, and a good camp location.

    2) Picking up like half a stack of twigs, logs, flint, i.e. the bare essentials for travel, then beelining down roads until you've found gold, chester, and the camp, then going out to properly gather all the basics AFTER the camp is planted.
    I prefer #2, but I grab a stack of grass and twigs early on. I wont leave flint or berries un-gathered, but carrots I leave unless I need them right then. Since carrots don't re-spawn (except in a farm, obv.), and can be used later during road-trip emergencies I find them useful to bypass during the first few days.

    I really think that spending the first 5 days beelining down the roads is extremely worth it. I like to know where all the biomes are and what the general layout of the world is before I drop base camp. It's nice to find Chester right off, but I don't start looking for Chester unless I still haven't come across him by day 11 or so. I think it's far more helpful to find touchstones and maybe some nice boons. Finding a Walking Stick by a skeleton is great.
  48. #48
    Haha, okay definitely back in good graces with Don't Starve. 3rd game in a row that I got a really good camp going, and now that I'm not being as frugal with my resources with fighting gear and know about the awesomeness of hammers, I felt pretty invincible. Just had to stockpile food for winter, right?

    Well winter comes, and I realize that I need silk for all clothing (other than earmuffs, but fuck that, I prefer to eat my rabbits). I realize that not checking to see what I need to make basic survival gear is taking "going at it blind" the wrong way. But that's alright, I got a ton of spiders right in my backyard (would have had no idea that's even where silk came from if not for Mojo), so I go out and take down a nest. I'm in no rush because even though the game's trying to tell me that I'm cold, I'm like "I don't see a warmth bar or anything, so I guess this is just a fair warning or something." After several gametime hours' worth of dicking around with my inventory to figure out where to put all this stuff the spiders dropped (I had like 8 silk bu twas just like "surely I want these spider eggs and I know the gland makes salves and shit") without the foggiest of ideas that I'm fucking freezing to death.

    I realize I'm low on health so I keep running away from the spiders, but it keeps going down, wtf?

    Of course, I died, and I had a touchstone but without any clothes, I was doomed to the same fate--either standing by a fire and starving or running around and freezing. I did make it back to camp and got some food which helped my health, but just as I got to my old gear, picked up the grass and logs and clicked build campfire, I froze again.

    Oh well, now that I realize how fuckin invincible you are by spending some simple resources on fighting gear, I can stop all my deaths from a risk falling through and start some good old fashioned learn the hard way deaths.

    BTW, I'm gonna start doing a little more wiki'ing while I play. Learning wtf mushrooms do has been pretty tough to learn through trial and error, for example. I finally broke down and looked it up, and I was pretty wrong about what every single one did, haha.
  49. #49
    The mushroom thing has really been fucking up my early game strategy. Like, I've been hoarding red mushrooms until I take damage, so that I could cook them and restore health. Well, too bad they only restore 1 fucking health when cooked, and I can just eat them raw to stave my hunger in early game (best time to do it because I'm so conservative) when I'm swimming in HPs. I was right about what green caps did. Blue caps just confused the fuck out of me. I kinda thought all mushrooms were like raw = bad, cooked = good, so I really didn't understand why the rarest mushrooms seemed to have no benefit, and all they seemed to do was drain my health, haha.
  50. #50
    Also, I'm assuming paths are indicative of biome. Brick ones are always near pig houses, for example. I definitely need to start relying on wiki so I can stop being so ignorant.
  51. #51
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    I've said it before, but leaving { a helmet, armor, spear, winter hat and/or heat stone, logs or axe, and grass } near every active touchstone is how to prevent the double-death. Also, I have to fight the urge to run back and retrieve those dropped resources. More often than not, the thing that killed me once will kill me again. It's better to spend a day or 2 getting back up to full stats and making some food before going back to get those items that were lost when I died.

    Of all the winter gear, the Heatstone is the easiest to make, and you only need to have it in your main inventory bar (not backpack) for it to work. Which means you can have some heat protection even while fighting.

    Agreed, rabbit earmuffs are dumb. Once you learn how comparatively useless they are, it's easy to resolve to never wear them again and find a workaround.

    I've used the wiki from time to time, and with a few exceptions, I've always felt like it would have been more fun to figure it out on my own. So now, I really try to solve something before I go to the wiki. The wiki just has too much info to make the game easier, but the point of the game is to figure all that stuff out.

    I def. used the wiki on the mushrooms w/ no regrets, though. I used wiki for the Crock Pot recipes, too... there are just too many combos of ingredients to attempt to go through them all.

    Basically, Green Mushrooms are sanity control and the rest are filler. Although, I kind of remember that like 1 raw and 2 cooked blues will give a slight boost on all stats... maybe it's 2 raw and 1 cooked... either way, for the 3 shrooms, there are Crock Pot recipes that will give more if you use blues as filler.

    I don't think the paths indicate biome, although the cobblestone path (I can't remember there ever being more than 1 per world) usually starts/ends near the Pig King and goes through a few biomes. There is only 1 other kind of path, call it a dirt road. Every biome has either a cobblestone path or a dirt road.
  52. #52
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Has anyone ever been struck by lightning as WX-78 while carrying an umbrella? I can't decide if it's worth taking the rain damage for the chance at being "super charged".
    Also, does WX-78 act as a Lightning Rod? (Do you need to build one, or does doing so preventing the lightning from hitting WX-78)?
  53. #53
    Eh, started using the wiki as of my last game, and I really enjoyed it more. Different strokes for different folks. I mostly just used it to figure out what foods do what, which has made me feel much less like I'm mashing buttons and much more like fun strategy. Just made it to day 35 (I'm assuming winter breaks on Day 40?) but got walloped by a tentacle in the swamp biome, which apparently takes away like 50% of your health. There were several reasons why I didn't get to much of the map in the summer, so I didn't get a touchstone. With this death I've learned that if you get that far without a touchstone, it's probably very much worth it to build a meat effigy.
  54. #54
    BTW, I had 4 healing salves and a cooked mandrake when I died -.-
  55. #55
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    I generally avoid swamps during the winter. The snow makes it so you can't see the "swirling" before the tentacle shows up as a little mound. It makes them much harder to avoid.

    Fun tip. Chester can tank a tentacle. If you manage to get Chester to stand right next to a tentacle, the tentacle will attack him. Then you can swoop in and kill the tentacle w/o taking damage. If you try this more than once in a row, Chester will die, forcing you to wait a day for him to re-spawn. If he was empty, though, there's no need to wait, since it's the dropped inventory you'll be waiting to collect. I'm not sure the cool-down period between when you could do this again w/o killing Chester.

    Also, Bee mines will kill a tentacle, no problem. They are a rather expensive way to kill tentacles, though.
  56. #56
    Not exploring swamps in the winter is very good advice indeed.

    I actually didn't even have Chester yet because, again, a collection of problems in the summer kept me from exploring the map (most especially a tricky map that dead-ended me in every direction I had to go with only one wormhole I could find, which teleported me to the most useless part of the map, and then problems with a fleshy plant [haha, had no idea what was going on] and beefalo and such). All of this is why I was antsy to explore the one fucking path that was left to be explored to take me somewhere useful. I thought I came prepared (with all the healing equipment), but yeah, two quick wallops and I was done.

    Long story short, I'm still yet to survive the first winter, haha.
  57. #57
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    A "year" in Don't Starve is 36 days. You start on the first day of summer.

    So the first winter ends on day 36 and the 2nd summer starts on day 37.

    Sounds like you're really close.
  58. #58
    BTW, I'm looking forward to the second summer. The first summer seems the most grindy as you spend the entire time getting your camp ready and then building up your surplus and getting accustomed to the map.

    I have high aspirations for the second summer. I want to get some range weapons, befriend some pigs and just fuck everything up. I definitely want to get a koalefant so I can get some slick winter gear so I don't have to huddle around a fire 12 hours a day anymore. I would like to beat the chess pieces and get the wood thing, but I don't know if that's ambitious for the second summer. I want to steal some tallbird eggs, and I definitely want to do something with the penguins, though I don't know what this entails. I got excited when they set up their colony right next to my camp in my first winter, but I was too preoccupied to do anything about it.
  59. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    A "year" in Don't Starve is 36 days. You start on the first day of summer.

    So the first winter ends on day 36 and the 2nd summer starts on day 37.

    Sounds like you're really close.
    Haha, oh man, I shoulda just waited another day before exploring the swamp. I didn't feel like huddling around a fire for 4 days, so I decided to load up on jerky, mandrakes, healing salves and logs hit the road for much of the rest of the summer. iFail.
  60. #60
    Oh, and add the mines and Maxwell's door to my second summer aspirations. Will probably only get to 2 or 3 of these, but that just leaves all the more to be excited about in year 3.
  61. #61
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    As far as I can tell, each "mine hole" is unique. I went into a 2nd hole, to see if it would start me in a different spot in the cave, but it generated a new cave. I liked the 2nd cave better, so I never went back into the 1st one. I don't know if doing so would put me in the same cave I started to explore or if it would generate a new cave again.

    Caves are definitely easier than Maxwel's Door / Adventure Mode. I have yet to complete a single chapter in adventure mode.
  62. #62
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Goofing around with this game, I just came up with a few pro-tips.

    1) Don't build a fire for the first few days. Use torches only and use the night time to reveal more of the map. In fact, do nothing for the first 3 or 4 days but explore the map and get berries, stone, and gold along the way.

    2) If you can find a tightly packed group of ponds near a reasonable camping spot, this can possibly be better than rabbits. If you stack a ton of traps around a group of 3-4 ponds, they'll fill up really fast. And in the 3-4 days before the winter you can just grind fishing and get like 2 stacks of fish to turn into jerky. The result is you don't even have to bother with food for the entire winter and you can just focus on exploring and survival. Rabbits can also be more of a backup camp. My last game I had my camp between ponds and rabbits, with beefalo in between. So I could just pile up fish and frogs during summer and when winter comes I can just trek to the rabbit spot as necessary and pick up dung along the way.

    3) After setting up my camp, one of the first things I do is gather wood and charcoal. This usually just involves burning down an entire forest and getting a stack of charcoal, which should last years, and then gathering wood until I have 48 pine cones. Then I plant the pine cones 12 at a time on daily intervals so theoretically on any given day there should be a pack of 12 fully grown trees to harvest. I find that with 4 groups of 12 I never need wood again, really.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-29-2013 at 06:38 PM.
  63. #63
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    Surviva, IDK if you are still having issues with spiders but the way to beat them is to stack traps and lure them into the traps. Three or four at a time and it should take less than a minute or two to kill a level 3 nest. The spider eggs can be planted near your camp to make a new level 1 nest. Just don't let the nests get past level 3 or they will turn in to spider queen bosses and fuck your shit up. I think 2 or 3 spider nests planted a couple of screens away from your camp should provide you with all the glands and silk you'll ever need. I read somewhere that you can put pig houses next to the nests and they will auto farm but I haven't tried this yet.
  64. #64
    I wasn't having trouble with spiders. I was having trouble with freezing to death while fighting spiders to get the silk I needed to not freeze to death. Incidentally, though, I did just completely blow a good game I had going against spiders. I had a shittonne of jerky, but my meatballs were close to turning, so I decide to eat the meatballs instead of the jerky and figure I'll eat jerky next time I'm hunger (have like 25% health). Then, I run into some pissed off beefalo who were charging spiders, which made for a jackpot of meat sitting in a spider's nest. What I should have done at the very very least is put on my fighting gear, but I was like, "Nah, I'll just stroll in there and pick it all up and stroll out." What ensued was an embarrassing display of mashing 1, 2, 3 and s all in the worst possible order and I never got the gear on and I never quite got the hell out of there. I had two touchstones and I had left essentials by there but it was the DEAD of winter, and the touchstones are far away from camp, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna die (already lost my first life).
  65. #65
    Basically, what I keep learning over and over and over again is that this is not the sort of game you can afford to make reckless risks in (like most other games where you can try it as many times as you want), but that's just how I play games I guess.
  66. #66
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Another good tip there in your #1 above, Renton. After the first time I went into the cave, where it's always night, I kind of realized how I was unnecessarily chaining myself to my camp at night. A miner's hat is so easy to make, and immensely useful outside of the caves.

    I hadn't thought of just using the torch for the first few days, but I can immediately see the merit in this.

    Hey, that gives me some motivation to go back into adventure mode again. It sucks that you can't take any inventory through Maxwell's Door. The game mechanic that returns you to the main map when you die in Adventure Mode makes it something that you can attempt whenever you find it. I don't know if it advances the time in the main map, though. I know the caves do. I came out of a cave once to a pack of Hounds that had been waiting for me. Be warned.
  67. #67
    Anyone know of any good maps out there with a legend of what every symbol means. I feel like my map's worthless for anything except for the very basics (trails, grass, trees). Anything else, I don't really know what to look for (touchstones, etc).
  68. #68
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    You know you can zoom in on the map, right? It's not necessarily going to help you. Not much really shows up on the map.

    Are you asking about a mod? I haven't considered modding Don't Starve. It's still in development.
  69. #69
    I guess the answer is that it doesn't really show stuff like that.

    Since we've talked about torching at night instead of setting up a fire, I'll mention that I've died so many times with a torch in my hand. Basically running into a monster + needing to build a new torch is a lethal combination. I suppose the answer is that even if you start using a torch at full capacity, you absolutely can't let it get below 25% before making a backup.

    Again, it's another one of those precautions to take that I don't like to take because I like to play games taking as many risks as you can, succeeding on the thinnest margins. Even when I played Pokemon, I would be so stubborn about using Hyper Potions and shit that it would take me like 10 tries to beat the Elite 4 the first time through. But basically, a couple of twigs and some grass isn't any kind of precious and I should be willing to "waste" them as a contingency. Even if the inventory slot becomes precious the next day, I can just ditch a torch with ~20%.

    I've also learned that since the crockpot is so fast, you don't need to do it unless there's a reason you need to do it. At first, I would stockpile like 10 meatballs the second I got the resources to do so, but there's no advantage to stockpiling like this unless you have meat/filler that's about to turn or you need that much to eat before you come back to camp. Since food spoils at a fixed rate, you could even calculate which plan would be most optimal (how many meatballs will I eat before it becomes stale? will I be back at camp again before my veggies/fruit/mushrooms rot? etc). Basically, since meatballs lose effectiveness when they're at 50%, but the things it takes to make the meatballs can be spoiled (just not rotted) when you throw them in, you cut yourself short of so much shelf life by making meatballs the second you can.

    That's probably the first bit of actual content I've provided to this thread instead of just bitching about how bad I suck, hahaha.
  70. #70
    Another thing I've learned for early game exploration is that learning where you can't go is as important as learning where you can go. Sticking to the paths will make you fly through a lot of the map, which has its advantages, but I've found that this makes it so that toward the end of summer/first winter (when I actually have the kind of gear that's conducive to long road trips), I end up poking around in foggy corners and having a pain-in-the-ass process of elimination where I just run into water, have to try a different foggy part, run into more water, etc, and don't have great ideas of where to go.

    It feels pretty unproductive to just walk alongside the borders constantly confirming over and over again that, yes, there isn't much beyond that path that just dead-ended, but 1) it makes for a really full map that gives you a clear picture of where you can go on your longer field trips, 2) you can collect a ton of shit, especially in the grass and forest biomes. The last couple of games I played, I had 30 carrots, 30 berries and like 7 of each mushroom by the time I had a crock pot, and if you get the shovel quickly enough, you can transplant 20-30 berry bushes in no time. The game I'm currently playing, I'm yet to get enough gold for the alchemy machine, but ain't no thang because I'm yet to have a single farm and am still easily gonna have a surplus of crock pot filler going into winter.

    This all depends, of course, how much of a rush you're in to find a certain resource and such. If you still haven't found any gold after the first several days, then it's probably time to start flying down the paths til you find a promising place for gold. It's also pretty shitty to feel around the borders when you have a torch in your hand because you have to run right the fuck alongside the waters, which is a huge waste of time, and you can do much more just running the paths. Besides, that's a terrible time to really score a lot of resources anyway because, again, you can't see shit.

    All this may be me overreacting to one unlucky game I had where none of the paths lead to any beefalo, and then on like my 10/10th guess of nibbling at dead-ending biomes, I finally found the one corner of the map that gave me access to the rest of the world
  71. #71
    Well, um, fuck. Apparently wormholes age your food like all fuck. Definitely have to reconsider my travels using the wormhole. Will probably have to create a chest just to store all the food I'm not gonna bring and only take what is absolutely necessary for that road trip's travels.
  72. #72
    Renton's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    8,863
    Location
    a little town called none of your goddamn business
    I've only been playing my new game a few minutes at a time but boy is it looking promising. I went super hard on exploration because I ran really bad with chester. By like day 10 I think I've probably mapped out 75%+ of the world (dunno for sure because theres one area I haven't scoped out yet (where I found chester). Along the way during a seeming fool's errand that lead me though the Killer Bee hive gauntlet, I found a Walking Cane boon (!!). I found a great rabbit spot that's literally in the dead center of the map with two nearby wormholes that lead to extremities of the map, a huge savanna with like 40+ beefalo nearby, chester, the walking cane, by day 11. Booya. Gonna cruise into first winter with a huge head start on jerky, like 4 stacks of grass and twigs each, and two planted spider nests for silk.

    I'll probably spend the winter piling up stone, wood, poop, and spider eggs so I can go hard on farms and honey come the spring. I'll try to have my panic room up by then also.
  73. #73
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Awesome start! Those walking stick boons are so nice.

    What character are you playing?

    What is your ideal panic room?

    I love the spike traps for killing hounds, but they require hounds teeth to craft. Hounds teeth are only dropped by blue hounds, which only come during winter... So it's a really slow build. I don't think I've ever gotten them in enough numbers to matter before the 3rd summer. It is downright hilarious, though, once it's all the way built and then I can just run to the center of a huge blight of traps and just stand there while the hounds impale themselves.

    I still have yet to incorporate walls into my build.
  74. #74
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    10,322
    Location
    St Louis, MO
    Quote Originally Posted by surviva316 View Post
    Well, um, fuck. Apparently wormholes age your food like all fuck.
    Do they? I'm going to have to check this out. I didn't even notice that they hurt sanity for a while, even despite Wilson's quote and the sound it makes of sanity dropping... lol. Wolfgang makes some comment that going through wormholes makes him feel alive, or something (I haven't played Wolfgang since the character re-design... so 2 updates back now).

    Now that I think of it, I haven't played Wickerbottom yet either. The insomnia kind of scares me, and the books don't look too incredibly useful. Anyone? Anyone?
  75. #75
    Yeah, I think it might be as much as a day of aging, which is really noticeable if you're carrying 30 berries in and then out. Shit went from like >50% left to rotted on a short excursion (2 days of travel + 2 trips in the wormhole). I'm kinda rethinking food management in general, though. I thought winter was gonna be 20 days, but it's 16 days, and the first several and last several are mild. Honestly, I've just been overly focused on food (I think the 10 traps near 3 ponds + fishing of renton's post got me thinking that you need to stockpile like fucking crazy), whereas it looks like probably just having like 5 meatballs + 10 small jerky + 10 jerky + a little bit of rabbit murder with some found food to make some extra sustenance is probably fine. Or am I crazy?

    After that, I think it's mostly warmth, self defense, healing salves, etc that should be the focus. At least for the first winter.

    I'm also kinda completely retooling the way I handle food aging. I think it's worth having two stacks of each for berries and carrots (one at camp, one on hand) so that I can use the older one for crock pot fillers and have the fresher ones for backup. Keeping one stack of each just makes it so that I either have to let a ton of shit rot, or I have to frantically pick to freshen the stack (but make it so I have more to get rid of) and frantically cook, which only displaces the problem to a prematurely aging meatball stack. Again, all of this frantic shit takes time away from harvesting silk and healing salves and shit.

    Also, so long as you burn down a big forest, drying racks are ass cheap, and I could probably make 5+ of them and focus on drying all my rabbit/beefalo meat and only use the crock pot for monster meat.

    Basically, I got too carried away with all the "optimality" of having a lot of food on hand without having it go bad, but shit changes too much to really do that. I especially didn't account for how much monster meat you end up with for crock potting.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •