Pro Tips ;)

[Gengis Dhen]

These might change with patches but please share :)
spoiler if necessary

[Gengis Dhen]

Only equip weapons and armour when you need them, they'll last longer ;)

[Kadera]

Similarly, for your people who are wearing jackets when you arrive on the planet, as soon as you've built a shelf, take them off because they're really not needed when the weather is nice. (With today's update though, hopefully it won't take as terribly long to craft new ones as needed.)

Another tip: Did you know you can connect your stick-and-hay shelters to create a much larger covered area? Just be sure to position the open end properly and you can make them as large as you like, both lengthwise and by width. (Also, never waste valuable scrap metal on building shelters.)

[Furball]

No need to build stairs to reach high platforms, just build floors from the top, lower it one step down, then lower the next one, until you are 1 step away from the ground.

So instead of appropriating 5~6 ground squares for the stairs, you'll only really need ~3, and you can make them "twist" around.

This is much faster than those magically-conjured ladders that the survivors keep in their pockets.

Also, you can use roofs to create covered stairs using the same technique. Helpful when defending against flyers and your survivors have to make a run for the elevated roofed-platforms.

[Gengis Dhen]

grain is key

[Kadera]

Originally posted by Gengis Dhen:

grain is key

To add to this: No matter how much grain you have, you will need more. Staggered production helps, and will reduce spoilage. Grow many separate smaller fields, starting one every other day, rather than having one huge grain field. Also, there are two different plants that produce grain -- the tall graincob version does 10 per spot every 9 days, but the more rare red grassy-looking 'grain-grass' produces 20 grain per spot every 12 days.

[Gengis Dhen]

Pamper them!
Nice flooring is a must ;)

[morph113]

I know most people already know this, but for the ones who don't, use the shrieker nests to farm carbon. It's too expensive and time consuming producing them on your own. Don't destroy the nest itself, just kill the shriekers and farm those eggs or whatever it is for carbon. You can get hundreds of carbon per nest.

[NukeAJS]

Prioritize work over balancing their needs only when absolutely necessary -- like a coming raid or everyone is going to freeze to death. The reasons are threefold:

Meltdowns will happen and basically eradicate any gains in long-term productivity. This might be worth it so you'll have to judge if it's worth getting that 3rd turret up and risking a meltdown or not doing that and risking more injuries.

Depressed/tired/hungry survivors walk and work slower.

Being in the dark causes survivors to work and walk slower.

Given these three factors -- it's often better to have your characters relax inside before the sun rises and get that relaxation bar up as far as possible than sending them out before dawn. Sending them out before dawn will just be slower, and they'll either run back during their workday to satisfy a need (which is unproductive) or they'll continue working until they meltdown.

[jon.hodges]

Don't place your practice target near your farms, just got half a field of grain wiped out with a pulse rifle

[NukeAJS]

Cloth is very important. Observing clothblossom, then harvesting as many nearby clothblossoms (assuming you have lots) is important in the early game. If you don't have one nearby, you need to send someone on a mission to observe it (probably worth a meltdown). This should be your 2nd or 3rd flora priority behind grain and a vegetable.

Regardless, you're going to want to plant a large field ASAP. One max-sized field is enough throughout the whole game. There are several reasons it's very important. The first is cloth is used to make warm clothes and that's an important priority when mid-summer comes around. The second, maybe equally important reason, is that cloth makes bandages. You should have have 5 bandages per survivor as a minimum. 7-8 is probably better. Set your workbench to n(5) bandages. The third is that 20 insect meat + 2 cloth = 10 fuel. This is the same material value as 4 meat soups and 1 bandage. Normal meat is usually very easy to get -- just make meat soups from that. Anyways, unless you get lucky while salvaging, this is the quickest way to get fuel in the early game. You can use it in a balloon and hopefully get lucky and get another survivor early in the game. Luck is mostly a factor of putting yourself in the position to be lucky.

[Kadera]

Farm those mushrooms! They keep forever under a plain roof at all temperatures. They can be used in vegetable soup and stew, so your vegetarian crew members need never go hungry. You can produce an antiseptic salve with them. Animals don't consider them to be food, so you can grow them outside your walls or fences. And your survivors love the mushroom lamps you can craft from them (camp menu) so much, they can get a decoration appreciation happiness bonus—and those lamps only need to be refueled every ten game days. Seriously, if I'm on a new map and I can't immediately locate mushrooms, I will re-roll it.

Additional tip: Use that click-drag selection box to look for stuff via the displayed list of what you've selected. Far easier to scan that than to try to visually find things that might be hidden under the leaf canopy or is lost in a field of green.

[Daiska]

If your goal is to escape the planet, keep it small and simple. It's much easier to advance when they aren't spread so thin on tasks with a big base.

[Martin]

hmm..

Build a cold room using the air cons and set them to -10 to keep all the food on your shelves frozen. Then you never need freezers.

If you build walls around your base, the same ones you put in your house, they act as walls and have more hp than the fortified fence. And don't cost as much as foundations etc.
Critters don't tend to attack them either, it's like they can't see the other side.

Fight Humming Flies in forests and around trees, it messes with their pathing. Can make it very hard for them to attack you.

Use Control Key + R to control everyone. And again to release.

Use the Shift key to add new commands, for workers to follow.

Put a ground storage inside your house, for sticks, so in cold snaps you have fuel for the fire.

Plant a berries patch outside your base for the animals to eat and they'll rarely attack you.

Put shelves outside your bedrooms or even inside them and mark them for medical only. Then when your people are injured, the medic won't have to travel far to get supplies.

[wcbarney]

Originally posted by morph113:

I know most people already know this, but for the ones who don't, use the shrieker nests to farm carbon. It's too expensive and time consuming producing them on your own. Don't destroy the nest itself, just kill the shriekers and farm those eggs or whatever it is for carbon. You can get hundreds of carbon per nest.

I know that most people already know this also: Before you can mine the carbon at the shrieker nests, you have to "observe" the nests which activates the mining of carbon. Best to observe once all the bugs are dead.

[goras]

If you miss a plant and have Rita or Maki in your team, send them on expedition- they quite always discover new species.