Tips for Desert scenario

[Paddy]

Any tips of the Desert map. What should I focus on first, in what order? What plants etc. I'm starving for some tips? Lol

[Martin]

I usually go for Cotton, then the big fat round cactus, then the tea trees, then rock, then build a nice maze wall for defence.. then scavenge, build traps.. and so on, also seek out a source of wood and sticks if you can, as it can be scarce in desert biome and you need to be planting wood early, even if only to make doors and gates.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Martin:

I usually go for Cotton, then the big fat round cactus, then the tea trees, then rock, then build a nice maze wall for defence.. then scavenge, build traps.. and so on, also seek out a source of wood and sticks if you can, as it can be scarce in desert biome and you need to be planting wood early, even if only to make doors and gates.

Why cotton? I have researched tea trees but I feel they would be a mid game item for luxury? Also what do you do about food? Sorry I just would prefer not to go midway through a game and realize I did it all wrong so I'm trying to figure it out early. My focus I thought would be to get food farms up so I'm searching for crops and eventually mine enough stone to build a house?

[Unholy]

Cotton is what's used to make clothes. If your survivors don't have clothes they get hypothermia and if they don't get treated or clothes to increase their bodyheat. They die. As for food there is obviously stuff to hunt, You can also farm Heptagonia which grow on rocks and give out syrup. You can also farm some of the cactus for distasteful flowers and pickle them.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Unholy:

Cotton is what's used to make clothes. If your survivors don't have clothes they get hypothermia and if they don't get treated or clothes to increase their bodyheat. They die. As for food there is obviously stuff to hunt, You can also farm Heptagonia which grow on rocks and give out syrup. You can also farm some of the cactus for distasteful flowers and pickle them.

I'd imagine the animals will become more scarce as I hunt them. Do you recommend more sustainable means? How soon would you recommend I build a house?

[Actual Malice]

Cotton, barrel cacti, heptagonia, all excellent suggestions. Fundamentally, Desertum is not that different from Sobrius. Observe grain and get it in the best soil you can find as early as possible. Same with juiceleaf and chewroot.

Martin is certainly correct about stone. Perhaps the most significant thing you have to wrap your mind around is the absence of wood. Just about everything you make with wood on Sobrius, you have to make with stone or metal on Desertum. Observe an Oasis Tree and get those in the ground early as well, for those things for which you really want wood. After you observe it, chop it down. I was struck by your comment about finding out something you needed to know midway through the game, because I had exactly that experience when the existing Oasis Tree I was letting grow so it would get to 50/50 just dried up and withered away. Be prepared, though: the best soil you can find for trees is only about 50 percent -- and it is never handy. Oddly, it is also never the soil where you find your original oasis tree.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Actual Malice:

Cotton, barrel cacti, heptagonia, all excellent suggestions. Fundamentally, Desertum is not that different from Sobrius. Observe grain and get it in the best soil you can find as early as possible. Same with juiceleaf and chewroot.

Martin is certainly correct about stone. Perhaps the most significant thing you have to wrap your mind around is the absence of wood. Just about everything you make with wood on Sobrius, you have to make with stone or metal on Desertum. Observe an Oasis Tree and get those in the ground early as well, for those things for which you really want wood. After you observe it, chop it down. I was struck by your comment about finding out something you needed to know midway through the game, because I had exactly that experience when the existing Oasis Tree I was letting grow so it would get to 50/50 just dried up and withered away. Be prepared, though: the best soil you can find for trees is only about 50 percent -- and it is never handy. Oddly, it is also never the soil where you find your original oasis tree.

The only food crop on my map was those mushrooms. I'm relying on hunting but i'm struggling to keep up with demand. I also feel like farming is far too slow. My settlers are eating 10 meat at a time meanwhile i only get like 40 from an animal

[Flin Fredstone]

These 2 food sources should be available for you on your map atleast.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2967901057

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2967901097

[Handbanana]

Originally posted by Paddy:

Originally posted by Actual Malice:

Cotton, barrel cacti, heptagonia, all excellent suggestions. Fundamentally, Desertum is not that different from Sobrius. Observe grain and get it in the best soil you can find as early as possible. Same with juiceleaf and chewroot.

Martin is certainly correct about stone. Perhaps the most significant thing you have to wrap your mind around is the absence of wood. Just about everything you make with wood on Sobrius, you have to make with stone or metal on Desertum. Observe an Oasis Tree and get those in the ground early as well, for those things for which you really want wood. After you observe it, chop it down. I was struck by your comment about finding out something you needed to know midway through the game, because I had exactly that experience when the existing Oasis Tree I was letting grow so it would get to 50/50 just dried up and withered away. Be prepared, though: the best soil you can find for trees is only about 50 percent -- and it is never handy. Oddly, it is also never the soil where you find your original oasis tree.

The only food crop on my map was those mushrooms. I'm relying on hunting but i'm struggling to keep up with demand. I also feel like farming is far too slow. My settlers are eating 10 meat at a time meanwhile i only get like 40 from an animal

There are definitely juicefruit and grain plants somewhere on your map. You may have to look a little but they are there. If they are too far away don't try to harvest just get an observe and get a farm down. If you are stuck on meat make sure you are cooking it cause you actually get 2 meals at a time out of each craft. Don't be afraid to butcher the bugs that attack either.

[Actual Malice]

Glitter caps the only food? Wow, that would be truly unfortunate. And unusual. Out of curiosity, what is your seed? Mind if I take a look?

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Actual Malice:

Glitter caps the only food? Wow, that would be truly unfortunate. And unusual. Out of curiosity, what is your seed? Mind if I take a look?

WORRY-FEE

Please have a look.

[Paddy]

Originally posted by Handbanana:

Originally posted by Paddy:

The only food crop on my map was those mushrooms. I'm relying on hunting but i'm struggling to keep up with demand. I also feel like farming is far too slow. My settlers are eating 10 meat at a time meanwhile i only get like 40 from an animal

There are definitely juicefruit and grain plants somewhere on your map. You may have to look a little but they are there. If they are too far away don't try to harvest just get an observe and get a farm down. If you are stuck on meat make sure you are cooking it cause you actually get 2 meals at a time out of each craft. Don't be afraid to butcher the bugs that attack either.

Do you have one person constantly dedicated toward killing animals until the crops come in?

[Handbanana]

Originally posted by Paddy:

Originally posted by Handbanana:

There are definitely juicefruit and grain plants somewhere on your map. You may have to look a little but they are there. If they are too far away don't try to harvest just get an observe and get a farm down. If you are stuck on meat make sure you are cooking it cause you actually get 2 meals at a time out of each craft. Don't be afraid to butcher the bugs that attack either.

Do you have one person constantly dedicated toward killing animals until the crops come in?

If that is what you have to do. It depends on how long you have let the map run so far.

That being said i did load your seed. There are grain plants along the lake right next to your spawn. Go get those ASAP. The cactus fruit and juicefruit both exist on the map but they are pretty far away. They both spawn in hard desert area and most of that map appears to be the oasis type.

[Seelander]

The 5 bigs are:

1. grain USE: fuel, food source, antibiotics harvestable day 1-3 in tthe wild life
(tall grass prefered and tall plant, only need one of them. tall grass is yellowish).
harvestable day 1-3 in tthe wild life

2. Clothblossom USE, clothing, bandages, weapons early game, animal fat (for fuel) and flooring.
(think they are called white plant something)
Harvestable day 4-6 in the wildlife

3. Hay USE house building, warm protection early game (giant grass are best). Can be used to build all the center of your housing only using more time costly ressources on the exposed floors. Also levels up physical faster than any other ressource (together with stone).

4. Mushrooms: for low handling light and pain releif recepie and veggie food source.
(they light up during the night (orange)

5. Silicon: used for crafting of electronics not to important first week, but can hold you back not having stocked up on silicon.
Harvestable day 10 or so in the wildlife

On harder levels you usually dont over observe, would say 1-4 are the ones you have within week one of your playthrough. With harvestable i mean you can pick it all up in one go roughly.

[NukeAJS]

Clothing isn't that big of a deal in the desert region. During the first year, temperature is pretty tame both at the highs and the lows. You might get cold while sleeping, but it simply doesn't get cold enough for long enough to actually affect your characters.

When year two comes around, you've got a proper shelter and taking care of the indoor temperature is easy with just a couple of AC units. Again, you can get really cold, but most people aren't going to stay outside long enough because they'll going to come in and sleep at night.

Extreme heatwaves during the height of the dry season is what you need to worry about. In that case you have to go full-on straw hat, summer shoes, summer pants, and t-shirt for max heat tolerance if you want to step outside. Either that or sleep during the day and go out at night. You can also go with synthetic/carbon armors but that's usually year three.

[NukeAJS]

My tip -- pay attention to certain plants and their preferred soil. Some crops do just fine in sand, others do very badly. This is important because a certain place might look not so great for farming, but actually can be.