How do you handle health regeneration?

[Saxon]

Me and my brother started playing this game again for the first time in years. We love a lot of the new enemies that have been added. But it sucks how hard it is to get your health back up once you've been hit.

It seems that food and sleep don't give any health regen anymore. And cooked food gives so little that it's not keeping up unless I adopt a much more pacifist playstyle which i don't like. The only thing that kept us in the fight are medicine which is a very finite resource early game.

We tried setting up a medicine farm (health mix) by gathering some Aloe Vera and Yarrow seeds. But the planters all got bugged and the plants just... despawned :(

Are there mods or game settings to get the game back to the more realistic and believable world in which sleep and food actually heal a wounded human being? Or are there better ways to keep your health up that don't have me picking plants in my precious gaming time?

[jswarpaint]

There is a 3 plant combo that is the same as pills -

https://sonsoftheforest.fandom.com/wiki/Special:Search?scope=internal&navigationSearch=true&query=healing

https://sonsoftheforest.fandom.com/wiki/Health_Mix%2B

The problem is some of these plants are available during only certain parts of the year.

There is a lot of Aloe near the Entertainment Bunker which is shown on the map when you enter the Rebreather Cave and click on the Computer at the first part of this cave...

There is also a lot of aloe near a tiny cave this tiny cave is marked with a gps marker its kind of near the tents where the Modern Axe is .. but on the OHTER side of the river down a ways towards the beach but only towards the beach there are 4 graves near this cave in an open field. Again, this cave is marked with a GPS marker ..

The Pink Fireweed is at entrance to the zip line cave this is the cave near the helo crash if it crashes in the woods. ... not at the beach or in the snow .. .

The Horsetail is near the Modern Axe also more of it as you go up to to the cliff where the flashlight is. . Also more of it kind of near the modern axe a patch of it ..

Armor can help save health ...

[Spaceman Spiff]

One word: bone armor. OK, so that's two words. But bone armor is the best armor that you can make early game. You can pick up bones or burn cannibal bodies to get bones, and combine with rope and tape to make bone armor. It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'! Then health isn't so much the issue.

You can also craft heath+ mix using aloe vera, fireweed, and horsetail (kids, don't try this at home!). It'll work just like a med. I carry around that stuff for emergencies.

[wildguy]

you have to armor up, by day 3-4 i'll be wearing 10 bone armor and have another 5-10 in my inventory. my hitpoints rarely go down as the armor takes all the damage. not long into the game i'll have so many pill bottles in storage that i stop collecting them. the pouches that drop off the cannibals give out a lot of the pill bottles and there is the 2 plant healing mixes as well, easy to get healing items in this game once you know where they are.

bone armor shouldn't be a problem maintaining unless your meleeing alot of the enemies in the first part of the game, use ranged mostly at the beginning (pistol, bow) until you get the katana, it's by far the best melee weapon in the game. the cannibals and mutants hit pretty hard and you can go through a lot of armor if you melee them too much at the beginning unless your really good at it :)

[Saxon]

I'm seeing lots of great advice. Thanks, everyone! It looks like we'll have to adapt. We need to armor up, do more shooting and less bashing, and maybe strive for the more potent health mix.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Originally posted by Saxon:

I'm seeing lots of great advice. Thanks, everyone! It looks like we'll have to adapt. We need to armor up, do more shooting and less bashing, and maybe strive for the more potent health mix.

The katana is best for melee. For an early-game standoff weapon, get good with the bow. Headshots with the crafted bow will kill most cannibals. Let them run right at you, aim with the tip of the arrow is aligned with the cannibal's head, and let fly. Then use a torch to jab down into their rotting corpses to make bones. You get enough bones from one cannibal to make four armor pieces.

[distantlight]

Do you have the cooking pot? Some of the recipes you can make give you a small amount of health back.

[jswarpaint]

Boiling water in a pot and putting in two meat .. raw or dried or pre cooked meat .. gives a health boost and strength .. gives some food boost too. . Probably only useful at beginning of game when pills and stuff are hard to find .. You only get 4 swigs from the Pot .. then ya gotta boil more with the meat ..

[Squid]

You need to build a shack and sleep indoors.
I built mine on a platform in shallow water on the beach.
That way the creeps leave you alone over night.
Thats the better rested bonus.
Build a stone fireplace in there too to stay warm.
Also get your days and nights regulated by staying away through the night once in a while.
Theres not much explanation to this game so the beginning is hard.
Hope this helps.
Also the best weapon in the game is the golf cart. lol.....