Checklist for the first season?

[ChickenSoap]

Hey, I played the game for quite a while, but I still can't really set my priorities... Maybe someone can tell me what goals I have to achieve during the first month\year? My surviving record is still an embarrassing duration of 60 days... (First summer I experienced in the game xD )

[ChickenSoap]

PS: I love lureplants

[Jacob]

it's going to depend on what season you start on. it's going to either be autumn or spring on default settings.

autumn is pretty lax and you can take your time. know that you'll be heading into winter after, so you're going to want to prepare for that by getting some warm clothes done and out of the way. i usually get the winter hat and the breezy vest (hunting koalafant is required).
getting yourself a bird cage and bird is also a handy thing to have.

for spring, you'll be on a bit of a tighter leash.you'll be heading into summer, so that's what you'll be preparing for.
you're going to want an umbrella to combat the heavy rains you'll be getting as well as a straw hat to get as much early game water resistance as possible.
you'll also want to get gears for a fridge and afterwars, if possible, enough gears and ice for an ice fling-o-matic to keep your valuable items from smoldering and igniting in the summer.
don't forget to research the endothermic campfires before summer roles around.


as far as food goes, you'll more than likely be gathering and eating as you go to get the lay of the land.
if you find yourself in a desert biome and see vulture shadows on the ground, throw some monster meat (more despensible) on the ground to lure them down. once they start eating, run in for the kill. this is a good source of early game food in the spring.

[Shello]

So here's how I play the first season (autumn only, I feel like that's how the game's supposed to be, feel free to disagree). I've done this start dozens of time, so it's quite specific and perfected for my playstyle. You can adjust the numbers or anything as you want, what matters is the idea behind them.

Day 1: You start in Grassland or next to one. Find it and gather some Berries (no Carraots if it can be avoided, as they serve as a good emergency food in, well, emercencies), some flint, around half a stack of grass and twigs, and some flint. Once you have it, start exploring along the edge of the map. During night, continue exploring using a torch. There are usually enough berries on your way that you don't need to worry about cooking them. It's a waste of time and resources imo. I aim for having it all explored at day 8. Depending on the world, it can take 6 to 10 days.
Day 2-X: Continue exploration. As soon as you can, build a science machine and prototype a shovel and backpack. During your exploration time you want to chop 3 axes wort of trees (only large ones!) and dig their stomps, which yields exactly 1 stack of pine cones and 4 stacks of logs (minus the ones used for the science machine). You also want to get 1 stack of gold and 2 stacks of rocks. With 4 pickaxes, you mine gold boulders until you have a full stack of gold. The remaining durability is used to get the 2nd rock stack full by mining flintless rocks. If you don't need the 4th pickaxe entirely, you can keep it as a backup weapon. If inventory space is a problem, drop it. If you don't get 2 full stacks of rocks, pick a couple of rocks up in the mosaic biome.
I also aim for 2 stacks of twigs and 3 stacks of grass. However don't collect more than 1 stack each before you have discovered the desert biome. Since we explore along the edge of the map, we will get tons of grass and twigs from tumbleweeds. While going along the edge of the desert, pick every tumbleweed along your way, but don't chase (!!!) them, it's not worth the time. If your inventory is full cause of tumbleweed drops, drop trinkets etc. If you get gears, keep them. Also gems as their hard to come by early. Everything else can be dropped if it's necessary. After leaving the desert, work on filling up your 2nd stack of twigs and 3rd stack of grass.
Day X (~8): Once you have explored the entire map along its edge, you should easily be able to decide a location for your base camp. The next days focus on buiding 6 drying racks, 2 crock pots, 1 ice box (not very high priority if you haven't any gears yet), some chests, a fire pit and some traps for bunnies. For the needed charcoal, find a safe location to place the cones, and burn them once they're at the first stage of growth, which gives you enough coal plus some extra. During full moons, priority 1 is to get glommer. While at it, mine his statue for the old bell blueprint. Only read the blueprint if you need the 15 sanity or inventory space (efficiency, baby). If you managed to get glommer the first night and you have already discovered a touchstone, go hammer the pigheads in the second night. 8 pig skins and 4 nightmare fuel. A random note here on prototyping: If you're at full sanity, the 15 sanity gain would go to waste. Instead, go dig some graves to lower your sanity and then prototype. Free stuff from graves basically.
Rest of autumn: You will probably want some more logs, so chop some trees. I recommend using a gold shovel, since I more often run into the problem of not having enough twigs for normal tools and traps than Gold. Gold shouldn't be a real problem. Also, don't plant the cones yet if you have glommer, because on the second full moon, you kill glommer in the first night, kill the sleeping krampus, get a new glommer in the second night, make an old bell, place the cones (80-100 I'd say) in one go. Once they're fully grown, use old bell. Boom, tons of logs. Repeat as necessary, never chop a single tree by hand again. Regularly harvest your traps and dry the meats. If you haven't already, build an ice box. If you don't have the gear for it, slay a clockwork knight. If you're confident it can also be a rook, but make sure, he's not useful in chopping trees or something before killing him. Stay away from bishops if you value your life. Farm some spiders for meat, which can be used for meatballs. You also want some silk to get a Top Hat and Bird Trap. If your Top Hat reaches 1% durability, unequip it and use it for a magic station. Build a bird cage. You should also shave beefalo for their wool. And if you have lots of beefalo, kill some of them until you get a beefalo horn to craft a beefalo hat for winter. Also make a thermal stone. If you don't want to kill beefalos, make a winter hat, but in this case the next step is more important.
1st day of winter: It's still quite warm, use this to immediately hunt down and kill a koalafant for its trunk and make a puffy vest.

This is quite a stressfull 1st autumn, but it rewards you with a winter, where you don't have to worry about surviving and enables you to think forward. Prepare for the clops, gather ice and nitre, prepare for spring (manure for farms, tufts, saplings bushes, tentacle spots for a rain coat etc.), make lots of meat and anything you'd like. If you're always ahead of the game, you can always chose what to do and when to do it rather than the game telling you what you have to do immediately or you're done.

PS: Sorry for the wall of text, I got somewhat carried away while writing. I hope you still find this useful. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[memeda]

play with me?in dst