When do I set up a base?

[Marduk]

A lot of guides say I should set up a farm and science machine when I find beefalos. But 90% of the time it takes more than 10 days and I end up dying, also farms take days to make useless flowers.

[Philtre]

If you are new to the game, I suggest starting in autumn, since it's the easiest season (and also winter is easier than summer IMO). If you start in autumn, you don't absolutely have to build a base until a few days before winter starts, so you can spend the first 10-15 days exploring the continent and finding all the major biomes. Keeping on the move will make it easier to stay fed, since you will keep encountering new berries and carrots, etc. Don't over-harvest food; berries in particular rot very quickly, so there's no point in having more than you can eat in about 2 days. (Rot can be very useful, but if you don't have inventory space for it, or don't know what to do with it, it's better to leave the berries on the bush where you can eat them later.)

Inventory will be a problem, so don't load up on non-essentials; do make sure to have a stack or so of each major resource, and do grab highly useful items like gears. Once you find the materials for a science machine, make one, and prototype a backpack, spear, etc. (If you have enough materials, build but *do not place* an alchemy engine - if you cancel out of placing a buildable item, it stays in a sort of invisible inventory and you can then place it later whenever you're ready.) Then prototype a hammer, and hammer down the science machine to get some of the materials back.

Once you know where everything is, try to pick a good central location within good commuting distance of major resources (including beefalo), and set up there. Some crockpots and drying racks, and a icebox if you have found gears, will help a lot with staying fed.

Farms are slow but reliable and useful food; you will need to learn how to identify plants so you can uproot the weeds (the "useless flowers") right away, and once you have a handle on farming you can start getting identified seeds to target specific crops.

[tools guy-kun]

I usually set up base near a pig king. I can just turn the pig event on and cheese them out of 30-40 gold nuggets every time, plus there's almost always a cave entrance that spawns close by. 70% of the time, the resources I need aren't TOO far away of a travel, plus I have a fast travel with signs mod that makes travelling to places I'd frequently visit much less tedious and time consuming.

even without the mod I'd still base near PK, but it ultimately depends on your needs.

whenever I play Wurt/Webber/Wortox, I can't take advantage of the pig game because pigs hate these characters. this means that I need to find elsewhere to base because of the character I'm playing.

Wurt players usually base at the first swamp they find, Webbers can pick a spot where there's a lot of dens planted, but anyone can simply base somewhere that's in the middle of everything they need.

regardless if you're new or not, I'd recommend setting up bee boxes. not difficult to set up and way more reliable than farms in the early stages because of how fast they're produced, whether you use them for honey poultices or to drizzle on your food in the crock pot, or to simply eat it by itself.

you could also find suspicious dirt piles and track them to (hopefully) a koalephant, which are super easy to fight (granted you learned how to kite them) and provide a high reward of meat and a trunk.

farming crops can also be rewarding, but is way more complex than it might sound if you want to know all of the nitty gritty, but in reality, all you'd need to know is how to grow giant crops which aren't too difficult, but granted you gotta tend to them in every single one of their growth stages.

[Marduk]

Originally posted by Philtre:

If you are new to the game, I suggest starting in autumn, since it's the easiest season (and also winter is easier than summer IMO). If you start in autumn, you don't absolutely have to build a base until a few days before winter starts, so you can spend the first 10-15 days exploring the continent and finding all the major biomes. Keeping on the move will make it easier to stay fed, since you will keep encountering new berries and carrots, etc. Don't over-harvest food; berries in particular rot very quickly, so there's no point in having more than you can eat in about 2 days. (Rot can be very useful, but if you don't have inventory space for it, or don't know what to do with it, it's better to leave the berries on the bush where you can eat them later.)

Inventory will be a problem, so don't load up on non-essentials; do make sure to have a stack or so of each major resource, and do grab highly useful items like gears. Once you find the materials for a science machine, make one, and prototype a backpack, spear, etc. (If you have enough materials, build but *do not place* an alchemy engine - if you cancel out of placing a buildable item, it stays in a sort of invisible inventory and you can then place it later whenever you're ready.) Then prototype a hammer, and hammer down the science machine to get some of the materials back.

Once you know where everything is, try to pick a good central location within good commuting distance of major resources (including beefalo), and set up there. Some crockpots and drying racks, and a icebox if you have found gears, will help a lot with staying fed.

Farms are slow but reliable and useful food; you will need to learn how to identify plants so you can uproot the weeds (the "useless flowers") right away, and once you have a handle on farming you can start getting identified seeds to target specific crops.

Thanks for the help, I'll try that in the next playthrough. How can I get identified seeds? does it come after eating a fruit I planted?

[Marduk]

Originally posted by tools guy-kun:

I usually set up base near a pig king. I can just turn the pig event on and cheese them out of 30-40 gold nuggets every time, plus there's almost always a cave entrance that spawns close by. 70% of the time, the resources I need aren't TOO far away of a travel, plus I have a fast travel with signs mod that makes travelling to places I'd frequently visit much less tedious and time consuming.

even without the mod I'd still base near PK, but it ultimately depends on your needs.

whenever I play Wurt/Webber/Wortox, I can't take advantage of the pig game because pigs hate these characters. this means that I need to find elsewhere to base because of the character I'm playing.

Wurt players usually base at the first swamp they find, Webbers can pick a spot where there's a lot of dens planted, but anyone can simply base somewhere that's in the middle of everything they need.

regardless if you're new or not, I'd recommend setting up bee boxes. not difficult to set up and way more reliable than farms in the early stages because of how fast they're produced, whether you use them for honey poultices or to drizzle on your food in the crock pot, or to simply eat it by itself.

you could also find suspicious dirt piles and track them to (hopefully) a koalephant, which are super easy to fight (granted you learned how to kite them) and provide a high reward of meat and a trunk.

farming crops can also be rewarding, but is way more complex than it might sound if you want to know all of the nitty gritty, but in reality, all you'd need to know is how to grow giant crops which aren't too difficult, but granted you gotta tend to them in every single one of their growth stages.

Thanks for the reply, how do I get giant crops? I usually talk to all the plants and fertilize the tile every day. Also, which ones would feed the most or be most useful? I wouldn't wanna spend all the effort growing it to its fullest if it barely offers anything.

[tools guy-kun]

Originally posted by Marduk:

Originally posted by tools guy-kun:

I usually set up base near a pig king. I can just turn the pig event on and cheese them out of 30-40 gold nuggets every time, plus there's almost always a cave entrance that spawns close by. 70% of the time, the resources I need aren't TOO far away of a travel, plus I have a fast travel with signs mod that makes travelling to places I'd frequently visit much less tedious and time consuming.

even without the mod I'd still base near PK, but it ultimately depends on your needs.

whenever I play Wurt/Webber/Wortox, I can't take advantage of the pig game because pigs hate these characters. this means that I need to find elsewhere to base because of the character I'm playing.

Wurt players usually base at the first swamp they find, Webbers can pick a spot where there's a lot of dens planted, but anyone can simply base somewhere that's in the middle of everything they need.

regardless if you're new or not, I'd recommend setting up bee boxes. not difficult to set up and way more reliable than farms in the early stages because of how fast they're produced, whether you use them for honey poultices or to drizzle on your food in the crock pot, or to simply eat it by itself.

you could also find suspicious dirt piles and track them to (hopefully) a koalephant, which are super easy to fight (granted you learned how to kite them) and provide a high reward of meat and a trunk.

farming crops can also be rewarding, but is way more complex than it might sound if you want to know all of the nitty gritty, but in reality, all you'd need to know is how to grow giant crops which aren't too difficult, but granted you gotta tend to them in every single one of their growth stages.

Thanks for the reply, how do I get giant crops? I usually talk to all the plants and fertilize the tile every day. Also, which ones would feed the most or be most useful? I wouldn't wanna spend all the effort growing it to its fullest if it barely offers anything.

I recommend watching this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VcvBoghafOk

It’s only 8 minutes long which isn’t long at all, and it does a way better job at explaining it all than I could ever try.

[Marduk]

Originally posted by tools guy-kun:

Originally posted by Marduk:

Thanks for the reply, how do I get giant crops? I usually talk to all the plants and fertilize the tile every day. Also, which ones would feed the most or be most useful? I wouldn't wanna spend all the effort growing it to its fullest if it barely offers anything.

I recommend watching this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VcvBoghafOk

It’s only 8 minutes long which isn’t long at all, and it does a way better job at explaining it all than I could ever try.

Awesome, thanks!