Your first Week: How to make the most of your first 7 Days.

[Osamaru]

NOTE: Before anyone saying anything, this is NOT a Tutorial, it's not meant to hold your hand per-say, rather the goal of it is to so show common tactics for making the best use of that early game, or give some ideas on how to get started. It is assumed that the reader has some basic knowledge such as how to craft items and gather resources.

Since we are getting a influx of new players, thought I might as well set up a short guide, as those first 7 days are like a milestone, and can be critical to your survival, as Winter will start in the next 1-2 weeks. All of this guide assumes you are playing non-modded
First off, some Tips; (http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Don%27t_Starve_Wiki good resource to use if you do not know what some things are)


1) Keep moving. You want to keep moving from place to place collecting supplies. You don't want to make your base-camp until you have a good amount supplies or find a good spot (Near a Cave, Pig-king, Pond field, Useful Wormhole etc etc).

2) Make a Backpack Day 1 is possible.

3) Keep an eye out for the Eye Bone. This handy little item summons Chester, a sweet mobile chest/dog/spring thing. You'll come to love him.

4) Start digging. When you make your backpack, make sure to make a shovel or too as well, digging up all of the Grass and twigs you come across, at least a stack of each. You'll want them for a farm when you make basecamp.

5) Pick your fights, don't get into fights if you don't have too, even if you think you can win, you''ll just waste resources at this point.

6) Follow the road. Not only will this let you travel quickly, but more often than not, there are some interesting things at the end, Maybe even a suitable camp site.

7) Don't pick all the Berries. While it might be tempting to grab them as you go, Berries rot pretty quickly. It's better to grab 3-4 days worth (about 12-15) and leave the rest for later.

8) Grab that poop. You'll need 1 for every grass you have. It will be hard to find at first, unless you get lucky and spawn near some beeaflo, and excess can be used in place of logs as fuel.

Now that we got that out of the way, the actual guide. Forgive me if some of the tabs are wrong, I did not have the game itself open while typing this.
Day 1:
Simple enough, walk around collecting all of the Grass, Twigs and Flint you can find Collect at most 12 berries for now, leave the rest. The First tool you should make should be the pickaxe. This will allow you to break up Boulders and collect stone, more flint and gold. Ignore the nitre. Once you've broken a rock or two, make a Axe and chop down a tree. you do not need alot of wood right now, so 10-12 for the day will do find. Keep the pinecones that drop. Continue along the same as before, but add Boulders to your list now. By nightfall, you should have a decent amount of Grass, Flint, Stone and Twigs. Build a basic campfire, trowing 1-2 logs on it for good measure. Cook 3-4 berries on the fire and eat them. Now, if you got any gold from the boulders (you should have), make a science machine near the campfire, in the Science tab (the atom). stand near it and now make a Backpack (survival tab), Shovel (Tools), Rope(processed tab) and Hammer (Tools). Equip the Hammer and break down the Science machine, getting back some of your mats. By the time you are done, morning should be approaching

Day 2:
Same plan as yesterday, gathering supplies, although a few new items have been added to your gathering list. Equipping the shovel, start to dig up any Twigs and Grass. Do NOT dig up the Berry bushes yet, player planted berries will now grow unless fertilized, keep the natural bushes for food till you can get a better source. You can either pick a few more berries to supplement the ones you ate, or gather a few carrots (not recommended, to save space and save them for winter). If you pass by a Savannah with Beefalo, look around for manure and collect all you find. If you do not, do not waste time looking for one at the moment. As you are collecting supplies, keep a eye out for a road and start following one once found, they will often lead you to something nice. Start making a mental note of key locations suck as ponds, swamplands, or Beehives. As night falls, make a basic fire and wait it out, cooking a few berries and cutting down any trees in the range of your light.

Day 3:
A rehash of Day 2 mostly. If you've found a good spot to make camp, skip to day 4.

Day 4:
Assuming you've not found a awesome camesite, your inventory is probably full, or getting there by now. If you've found a great spot (near cave, Pig king, etc etc), great, if not, take a look at your map (tab) and pick somewhere that is at least decent (near a pig village, forest, Savannah with Beefalo, etc etc) and build a Fire pit, this will be your Base camp, at least for now dump a few items like stone on the ground near it to make some room. Cut down a good number of trees in the area till you have a nice number of logs, at least 2 stacks. throw down a Science machine and make Planks (processed tab). Make 12 planks and build 4 Chests (Structures tab) and place them close to your fire pit. Next, make Cut stones (same as planks) and use those, planks, and gold to make a Alchemy machine. destroy your science machine with your hammer.
You can take this time to organize your inventory using the chests. Plant your twigs and Grass within sight of the camp, as compactly as possible. This might take some learning, but it is doable. next, take all of the manure you gathered, and fertilize the Grass. if you do not have any, that is fine. Next, go to the Alchemy machine and make a lighting rod and place it near the Grass and twigs. This will protect them from lightning during rainstorms. If you have any Gold left, make a Winter-o-meter and any gold tools you can. Next, go a little ways away from your camp not far, but far enough you'll feel safe if a Treeguard spawns, a good idea is just far enoguh that camp is juuussstttt screen, and separate your Pinecones into two stacks. Plant them in two patches a good distance away from each other, digging up Twigs, bushes, Grass and stumps to make room if necessary. By the time you get done, it should be near night, get back to camp, put some logs on the fire and make dinner. If you have some time to spare, gather more supplies.

Day 5:
Now, time for some fighting! but first off, by this time, your Sanity will be relatively low. To fix this, gather 12 flowers and make a flower hat (forget the name, it's in the dress tab, easy to spot), this will slowly raise your sanity back up. You can find flowers often in grasslands (light green floor), but will struggle to find many in most other biomes. This can be done on Day 3 as well, but you may not get as much out of it. Next, cut down a few more trees if you don't have any logs left and make a Log suit back at camp. this will take up your backpack slot, but it will protect you from alot of damage (not all, but alot). next, make a Spear. Alternatively, you can use your Hammer as a weapon, as you'll have no real need for it for awhile, although it does less damage.
Once equipped, bring some Food, logs, grass, twigs, a pick, axe and some flint as supplies. Find a spiders nest and get ready for a fight. lvl 1 nests are going to be most common right now, with some lvl 2s here and there. for level 1s, the concept is simple. Step on the webing and make a spider come out, wait till he gets near and hisses, this will mean he's aggroed. pull him off the web and start hitting him with your spear. DO NOT HIT HIM WHILE STILL ON THE WEB, this will cause more spiders to come out. Spiders can be "stun locked" meaning attacking them stuns them for a second, stopping them from attacking. This allows single spiders to be delt with easliy. if you pull multiple spiders, you need to time your attacks between their however, or you'll get hit. Collect the Silk and spider glands they drop, ignoring the monster meat (for now) Once you've cleared all the spiders out of a nest (no more spiders spawn when on the web), attack the web and collect the Silk it drops. Do this for about 5-6 nests, or until it starts to get dark. Once back at camp, use the silk to craft first a Beekeeper hat, and then as many Bug nets you can. if you do not have enough grass for the rope, wait till the next day and gather some up.

Day 6:
Assuming you made the hat and nets last night (if not, get to it!), find the nearest grasslands with Beehive, pick up some supplies, and start heading to it, gather more grass and twigs as you to supplement what you've used. Once near the beehives, start catching all the bees and butterflies you can till you have enough bees for around 5-6 Bee boxs (about 24 bees) and around 10-15 butterflies. You can catch the killer bees as well, although that it will take more nets to reach your goal. Once you have the bees, attack the beehives and gather the combs they drop (warring, if you did not clear the Killer bees, a good number will spawn when you attack) You'll need 1 comb for every Beebox you want to make. This will probly take you all day, but if you have some time to spare, once back at camp, head to the trees you planted a few days ago and you will see they have Grown. Make a torch and burn down one of the patches, this will make charcoal trees, which you'll cut down for charcoal later. Take the rest of the day to cut some logs, then head to camp and make dinner. REMEMBER TO REPLANT YOUR TREES!

Day 7:
Now it's time to get a reliable food source up and running. If you did not have time to visit the tree farm last night, do so now If a Treegaurd spawns, lead it away from camp and plant pinecones to pacify it. Once you've a good number of logs, head back to camp and make some planks. while there, use any spare stone (leaven about half a stack for later) to make Stone walls. go a good distance away from the Camp (a bit closer than your tree farm, but in a different direction) and make bee boxes (must be prototyped first), putting them close,together but with enough room to move. Next, start building a wall of Stone walls around the Beeboxes, with enough room from the wall to the end Beebox to stick another group of beeboxs in."Plant" all of your butterflies in this open area in the Wall, BE CAREFUL NOT TO RELEASE THEM BY MISTAKE!!!. (3x3 example, modify to your liking, http://s181.photobucket.com/user/Mahikari/media/2013-04-26_00002_zpsdcf86215.jpg.html?sort=3&o=11). Make sure to leave a opening in the wall to allow easy access, and remove all nearby flowers outside of the wall to prevent the bees from wandering. You now have a reliable food source in the form of Honey. with 10-15 flowers planted (the butterflies) the 6 boxes should fill up in around half a day (see bottom row in linked picture). This will give you more than enough food to last, as well as give a good "income" to stock up for winter. Just equip your beekeeper hat, gather the honey and run. DO NOT ATTACK YOUR OWN BEES, JUST RUN BACK TO CAMP. From here, you're free to explore or continue to biuld your camp.

BONUS Day 8:
Going back to your Tree farm, you can start to cut down the burnt trees from day 6. This will give you Charcoal, which has several useful uses. IT can be used to make Fire Darts and Boomerangs, powerful ranged weapons, as well as Crock Pots and Drying racks, use to improve certain foods.It can also be used as fuel, stacking up to 40, instead of the 20 logs. It's recommended you first make a Crockpot and 4-6 Drying racks before using it for anything else. As for the rest of the day, It's recommended you collect more silk, or gather Grass and Twigs to supplement your supply.


Well that's that people! I know it's a lot to read, but i hope this helps you to better enjoy the game. I know it can be quite a pain in the but, It's all about the learning. If you have any questions, suggestions or see something I might have missed, feel free to say so in the comments!

[Osamaru]

Now in handy Steam Guide form!!!

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160919312#

[jmido8]

Awesome guide. Although, I tried not to read much of it just because I'm still pretty new myself and part of the fun is just trying to figure everything out on your own. Once I survive a couple weeks on my own, I'll come back and read it over to see if there's any tips or tricks that'll help me make it through the first week a little smoother. As it is right now, my longest streak is 9 days and before that maybe 5 haha.

[Osamaru]

Originally posted by jmido8:

Awesome guide. Although, I tried not to read much of it just because I'm still pretty new myself and part of the fun is just trying to figure everything out on your own. Once I survive a couple weeks on my own, I'll come back and read it over to see if there's any tips or tricks that'll help me make it through the first week a little smoother. As it is right now, my longest streak is 9 days and before that maybe 5 haha.

Yep, That's how this guide is meant to be used. It's not a "walkthrough", It's a optimizer, something to help you hit the ground running once you've got your feet wet a bit,

[Kolumbo]

A less combat-intensive alternative for setting up a food source is to focus on rabbits & jerkey drying racks. Days 1-4 remain the same, with the key being setting up your base near or on a field with lots of rabbit holes. Then instead of going after spiders & bees on days 5 and 6, just spend some extra time gathering logs, grass & charcoal. Build 5-6 traps and place them directly over rabbit holes (no need to bait them). Build the same number of drying racks (it can be nice to position them on the limits of your fire halo so you can do access at night). Keep a constant rota of jerkey drying from the rabbits. Pretty soon you'll have a good stack, and can slow down your efforts a bit.

You can live pretty happily off just jerkey (great for sanity) and use it as meat for other recipes. But the best bit is that rabbits are active all winter, so if you have a good setup, you'll never go hungry or insane as long as you go into the winter with very good grass & stick reserves

[Osamaru]

Rabbits are a great early game source, if you can't find any Bees.But I don't focus much on them for 2 main reasons; heavy farming can build Naughtiness very fast and they are far more resource and attention intensive in the longer run.
Bees, while taking a bit more effort to set up, supply a more reliable and far "cheaper" food source in the long run. Of course, if you have a large Rabbit field near your based, combining the two; hunting Rabbits till you get your Bee Boxes, or even using the rabbits and honey to make meatballs once you get your Crockpot, is a viable strategy

[Kolumbo]

True -- I have found myself transitioning more and more to bees ever since. It's primarily the nuisance of gathering silk the in the early game that held me back from attempting bee boxes my first summer. And of course, as usual, a great deal of the decision was based on the location I found for my base.

[Osamaru]

Originally posted by Papercut:

True -- I have found myself transitioning more and more to bees ever since. It's primarily the nuisance of gathering silk the in the early game that held me back from attempting bee boxes my first summer. And of course, as usual, a great deal of the decision was based on the location I found for my base.

Ya, The trick is all in how you approch the spiders. remember, large forest can hold a lot of nests, so going there during the Day and taking out the lvl 1s is the best way to get silk. With practice and a little luck, it's easy to get even 20-30 silk in a day.

[Osamaru]

bump

[Osamaru]

Bump some more, trying to keep it above the flood as it where ROFL.

[Houndog]

great guide thanks!

[Osamaru]

Thanks, hope it helped!

[Kolumbo]

So I've mostly transitioned my sustenance from jerkey to honey now. Definitely much less labour intensive -- but I'm getting frustrated by sanity now. That's probably my fault for relying on jerkey for so long: I got used to sanity being pretty directly tied to hunger, and am not accustomed to managing it separately. Tents are the solution I guess -- but having left serious silk hunting so late, the forests are swarming with queens & level 3 nests. I can handle them but it's annoying. Ah well, lesson learned! The time saved by gathering honey instead of managing an armada of rabbit traps makes up for it, in the long run.

[Kolumbo]

(I really wish there was a fruit/vegetable that restored sanity -- I have a sustainable dragonfruit farm going, but I don't really need it with all the honey, and I don't think there's anything more useful I could change it to...)

[Osamaru]

Originally posted by Papercut:

So I've mostly transitioned my sustenance from jerkey to honey now. Definitely much less labour intensive -- but I'm getting frustrated by sanity now. That's probably my fault for relying on jerkey for so long: I got used to sanity being pretty directly tied to hunger, and am not accustomed to managing it separately. Tents are the solution I guess -- but having left serious silk hunting so late, the forests are swarming with queens & level 3 nests. I can handle them but it's annoying. Ah well, lesson learned! The time saved by gathering honey instead of managing an armada of rabbit traps makes up for it, in the long run.

A Good silk farm you might want to look into is using Lure plants. make a 3x3 or so and then place Spider eggs around them a mid distance away. You'll have to break the Lureplants every morning to get your loot, but it's nice. It'll take some experimenting, but it does work well.

[Osamaru]

Originally posted by Papercut:

(I really wish there was a fruit/vegetable that restored sanity -- I have a sustainable dragonfruit farm going, but I don't really need it with all the honey, and I don't think there's anything more useful I could change it to...)

Taffy is also a very good way to restore Sanity, although it takes a small bit of health, although this is turn can be remedied by the Honey Poultice