Beginners Guide.

[Rats]

This game is a bit of a grind especially if you have no idea what your doing from the start.

Here are some tips I learned and will help to make it easier to level up and cut down the grinding a bit by crafting the right things and using your skill points on the right pathway to begin with.

Basics:
Water and food, blue bar is water (click the + sign to drink) food is the brown bar select food item in your inventory "I" key if you have a food item select it and click use. (Water can be found at spawn points and other places on the map at blue barrels just interact with them to drink or fill your Bota Bag "Water Bottle".) Red bar is health and orange is energy (this will drop down over time and only rejuvenate half way etc meaning you need to sleep to do this place a shelter and interact with it to sleep.
A lot of the screens where you use items you can drag and drop items across by clicking the hexagon icon and dragging it.

First do the Pre Tutorial, Prologue, To the Surface & A Gift of Gratitude quests. Then go out to Bob for the Teachings of Bob the Buidler and skip the his tutorial if you like because all he teaches you is very basic how to interact really where eveything is "E" key and gives you options anyway.

These are the various basic materials.

Trees: you can interact by either selecting
1. Cut (which is a 2 stage process, first to chop down tree, then work the fallen log to gather logs and branches out of container left on ground 2 logs, 3 branches).
2. Collect fruit
3. Collect branches (gives you 10 branches per tree)
(Leave shelter door and turn right, run through the valley turn right and head east through the refugee camp and you will see a hut and a group of trees which is an orchard where there are multiple trees to chop).
(Best place for tree harvesting is Oak Creek Canyon)
(There is a current known bug which is being worked on by the devs. You may chop a tree watch it fall but another one appears right away, but there is a fallen log on the ground which you may be able to chop but not the standing tree, work it once then sometimes you can see the container to get logs and branches sometimes you cant. If this happens just best to move to another tree and dont waste time on it.)
*** When you first start always do the 3 actions gather branches, collect fruit then cut tree. You will need as many of each of these items as you can get to level up faster***

Ore Deposits:
1. Gather stone (gives you one stone per deposit)
2. Pick (gather various different minerals and stone.
(Leave shelter door and turn right there are 3 deposits within 50 metres work around clockwise back around to the shelter entrance and you will get plenty).

Cloth Piles: these look like piles of rags on the ground interact with them to gather scrap cloth.
(Go to the Motel for the biggest cloth piles. You can also get cloth scrap and cloth from the cars near Bob on the highway).

UGC: is the in game currency, you will need to gather this if you want to start a city later or trade goods via the market.
Where money is found.
1. In wallets found in cars.
2. By killing bandits which also drop wallets on their corpse once you kill them. (they are found up far north on Lost highway map or various other locations like the bridges on Oak Creek Canyon.
(go to your inventory and use wallets to recover UGC from them).

Character Advancement: ("C" key)
many options here but first you want to level up your speed, condition because you run out of stamina real fast and it will drive you crazy (run 50 metres and have to stop and regain energy). Then attack strength is most important as well.

Skills & Abilities ("T" key)

Quests:
There are many quests a couple of them are bugged and have errors which are being worked on but most work fine and take a bit of thinking to complete. I know for sure the Serum quest is not working so dont bother with that one. There are two others that I'm having trouble with just waiting for devs to get back with a reply to see if the problem is me or the quest.

To activate most quests talk to the main people in the shelter like
Sgt Martin (near exit), Gertrude (Canteen), Capt Harris (Headquarters) Kolzak (warehouse desk), Andre (gatekeeper), Dr Haruoka (Hospital), Bob the builder (on the highway next to truck, run stright out from shelter door).
Most of the other quests activated by other people around the map (Oak Creek Canyon, Yuma etc). The simplest and easy ones are at The Lost Highway area. just check the map "M" key and scroll in to zoom in and find points of interest houses etc and go to those to activate more quests. If you head to the spawn point closest to Bob and head for an are 45 degrees to the right you will see a group of green trees, go there enter the gates and do the Merricks pig quest which is easy, find his three pigs which are all dead on the ground close by his farm next to rock faces.

Cities: (Map "M" key)
To start a city. (This is not important yet, work on levelling up first)
1. First you have to create an organization you need 1500 UGC to do this. (press P, select organizations, create new organization).
2. You then need 3 city coins for which you need to do a quest for Bob called "Trustworthy" which you need to go see Martin, Gertrude and Dr. Haruoka and ask then to vouch for you, but for them to do that you must complete a few quests for them in return.
3.Then return to Bob for "The supplier" quest and once completed he will give you 1 city coin. You can then repeat the quest once every 24 hours to gain another coin each time.
4. Once you have 3 city coins then you need to teleport to another map location via a spawn point and search for an empty city plot (these can be seen on the map as a square with a city icon on them). Once you find one go to the plot hologram and select start city.
5: Locations for starting a city. Tohomo Mountains, Hunters Plateu, Willow Swamp, Mountain Pass, Havusa Falls, Red Mesa, Devils Crack, Riverfall & Lakeshire.

Skills & Abilities ("T" key)

Blacksmithing:
First unlock nails, then primitive axe and primitive pickaxe, these are your basic tools you can create without needing anything other than hands (collect 5 stone and collect 2 branches to craft either). Work up your skills to a pointy axe as its the best low level melee weapon you can use on low skill level.

Building:
If your going to build a city it has to be strong so if your going to waste time grinding to gather resources you might as well just spend your points to upgrade metal walls or stone walls from the start and work up to level 4. and later work upto fortified city walls. Also start on prison door and work upto armoured door as well.
(Quick way to level building skills, just quick build as may low level walls, doors etc and either dump them or if your close to a scavenger bench and have the skills for it recycle them and rebuild them again, you can do this with many items.)

Carpentry:
First work on unlocking plank, quality plank and perfect plank. Then small chest, big chest and metal chest (the last two chests you can cypher and put your own combination on them. If your going to build a city you will need to work on unlocking all the workshops and benches at the top of the screen, so you can build and craft things in your own city.
(Quick way to level up carpentry skills, just craft as many planks as fast as you can then work your way up perfect planks give more points per log etc. No bench or workshop required)

Chemistry:
Low level priority to start unless you going to farm right away to craft fertilizers etc.

Combat:
First thing you want is guns, guns and more guns. Wrong they seem pretty weak and useless right now and ammo is very hard to find and to craft it you need a lot of resources and grinding. Work on 2 handed combat skills and work down the middle line to increase damage done.

Cooking:
Roast meat and Cooked meat skill is all you need to start really then its personal choice.
Quick way to level up cooking skills, go to the canteen use the stove behind Gertrude and cook as many raw meat gathered from killing animals as you can or use a campfire if you have crafted one. No Cooking bench required to roast meat.

Engineering:
Only two levels here so far you want picklock first though.

Farming:
Not real important but hoe and compost unlock first.

First Aid:
You going to need this up as fast as you can to repair damage:
Unlock weak bandage first, then work up the bandanges and over to first aid kits.
(Quick way to level up is by crafting as many bandages as you can. No bench or workshop required).

Forestry:
Not many skills to unlock here but cutting trees and collecting branches is the best choices.

Gunsmithing:
So many choices as usual the bigger the gun the better, but most are pretty useless.

Mining:
Unlock stone first then work down from coal mining until you get to iron mining and branch of left towards iron bars (your going to need millions of these to get anywhere later. Also work down the tree to level up pickaxes the final "Reinforced Modern Pickaxe" makes a lot of difference.
(Quick way to level up is just pick, pick, pick away at hundreds of ore deposits. You can find better pickaxes in crates around the map as long as you have the skills to craft them).

Survival:
This is the key to levelling up you character from the start, first unlock shelter, campfire, rubbish shelter, leather shelter. Then concentrate on Lockpick, Item Recovery & Item Repair (get these upto level 3).
(Quick way to level up is craft a heap of shelters to begin with you need to keep one to sleep in to regain energy as the bar drops over time. Once you level up a bit craft leather shelters as they give you more points. The item recovery and repair are most important as you find many items you cant use just yet because of your skill level if you have these skills you can take them to the shelter scavenger bench and recover resourses from them, iron bars, planks etc. Lockpick is needed to unlock crates you find on the map craft these from iron bars in the engineering tree.

Tailoring:
Not real important because most clothes you can find in crates anyway. Unlock cloth then thread first. You can make hundreds of cloth and thread to level up fast by farming cloth scrap piles found around the map in particular at the motel and inside cars.

Workshop Benches & Machines:
These can all be found at the shelter inside the canteen.
Or if you have a city craft your own.

Alchemist Workshop:
When you first walk in the Canteen its the room straight ahead and the Alchemist bench is the one by itself straight ahead and there is three tailoring machines to the right.
(craft chemicals).

Blacksmith Workshop:
Located inside the canteen in the main room off to the left with many machines and benches.
(Smith workshop is the big green machine you craft tools and weapons here and also mining items iron bars etc.)

Building Workbench:
Located inside the canteen in the main room off to the left with many machines and benches. There are three of these machines.
(Building workbench is the bench with a pinboard with plans on it. Craft all your base building parts here, walls, floors, doors etc.

Carpentry Workshop:
Located inside the canteen in the main room off to the left with many machines and benches.
(Carpentry Workshop is the flat top bench with the saw blade sticking out the top. There are four of these machines. Craft all your planks, crates, workbenches and furniture here.

Cooking Workbench:
Located inside the canteen behind Gertrude (The big lady serving all the soldiers food.)

Scavenger Workshop:
Located inside the canteen in the main room off to the left with many machines and benches.
(Scavenger Workbench is the only red one.)
Use this to repair items and recover resources provided you have unlocked the skills to use it. (Not all items can be repaired or have resources recovered from them though.)
*** Drag and drop items from your inventory into the hex icon***

Tailoring Workbench:
When you first walk in the Canteen its the room straight ahead it has three tailoring machines to the right. The bench by itself is an Alchemist bench.
(craft clothes here only).

[Sewerynque]

Maybe you should create a guide with this because post with time fall down?

[Rats]

I will ask the devs to pin it.

[Rats]

Tried to make it into a guide but kept getting errors when I submit it.

[Genos]

wish there was something like that when I started playing...

[Rats]

Originally posted by Maron:

wish there was something like that when I started playing...

So do I.

[Nuvibe]

Originally posted by Rats:

Originally posted by Maron:

wish there was something like that when I started playing...

So do I.

Thanks for taking the time out on creating this mate

[Genos]

how do you make fertilizer btw? cant find plant fragment

[pharfig]

A note on skipping Bob's Tutorial... The tutorial area is the only place to find chickens that I have found. Killing them will let you gather their meat, which can give you something different to cook. Also, if you can grind out some iron before you do the tutorial you can get Iron Bars. Then in the tutorial you can grind Blacksmithing (if you haven't already) to make Nails. Then you can build more Farming Beds and level your farming early.

[pharfig]

Also, once you get Iron Bars, drop a point in Picklocks in Engineering. Once you can make those open ever box you come across to help level your survival skill and gain better loot. Weapons and Armor drop from boxes more often than anything else.

[Rats]

You make fertilizer with a compost bin using plant fragments.

[pharfig]

Originally posted by Rats:

You make fertilizer with a compost bin using plant fragments.

Except I've been collecting plenty of plants and the two things I can't get are plant fragments, and Hemp without being on the quest.

[Rats]

You can grow hemp and plant fragments I found somewhere ?.

[pharfig]

Originally posted by Rats:

You can grow hemp and plant fragments I found somewhere ?.

But you can't grow hemp. You can't grow anything unless you have a plot of land to farm on (without staying in Bob's Tutorial), and as has been noted elsewhere, getting a plot of land is problematic.

[Los pollos]

da