Very Noob Question-_Starving to death?

[Captain Wolf]

Hello, Im new to this type of game. It seems like we begin with very little energy and need to eat fast. It is hard for me to make a bedroll, fire, and tools to hunt in the 3 or 4 minutes before starving to death. I eat a few insects but then get chased by something. What am I doing wrong? Ty.

[steventirey]

Initially handfuls of insects, fat grubs, and desert berries are a source of food. Though all of those aren't great. If you come across a shaleback nest or crocodile nest, take the eggs and run (climbing something also helps - unless its got a ranged attack, hostile creatures will eventually stop targeting you if they can't reach you.) Aloe leaves can also be eaten, but again are terrible.

As for actual meat, you can harvest imps for feral flesh. They aren't hard to take out with even a basic stone pick or stone axe. Cook that over a campfire (made with a bit of stone and wood) and you should be fine until you get an actual weapon and start on shalebacks for their savory flesh. Rabbits are also a source of feral flesh. Hit a corpse with your stone axe to harvest from it.

If playing on the Siptah map, initial food will be oysters. The materials for a fire are everywhere on the starting beaches, and the oysters can be found scattered around in groups.

[steventirey]

As for starting out, you can ignore crafting most things. Bedrolls only give you an additional place to respawn when you die (same with beds - without a bedroll or a bed you respawn in the starting desert area again). You don't get a whole lot of protection from the coarse clothing you can initially make, so you can probably skip that as well (though it does provide some protection from heat). A pick, skinning knife, or cleaver is nice, but not necessary initially when food is more your concern.

Basically, the only things you need to start out are a campfire (5 wood, 10 stone) and a stone hatchet (5 branch, 5 stone). So 5 wood, 5 branches, and 15 stone covers the bare necessities. Handfuls of insects and the fat grubs should be more than enough to handle your hunger until you get those and can start hunting rabbits and imps.

As you should be picking bushes for the handfuls of insects anyway, you will get plant fiber if you want to make clothing or bandages. So those shouldn't really add any extra time.

[ian.silver67]

The above advice is spot on and should help. The other thing you can do (if you don't consider it a 'cheat') is turn down your "Player Active Hunger Multiplier" on the server settings. It really annoys me that I eat 2 gazelles, my food is at max and then 2 game hours later I need to eat another gazelle. I have my hunger multiplier set to 0.3 and that gives me about 20 real world minutes of gameplay between having to eat again (so I only eat 6 gazelles a day not 20).

[2much]

Ahhh, starving to death. Those were good times :).

[Macdallan]

Once you understand the basics of the game hunger becomes trivial, and thirst is trivial right out of the gate. Honestly, once you understand the basics you'll have loads of food within 10 minutes or so.

Early on just eat bugs and grubs until you're full. Just spam the use button with the bugs or grubs selected in your inventory. Or you can put them in your hotbar and spam the hotbar button. Eat until your hunger globe is full or you run out of whichever you're eating. Once the hunger globe is full it'll stay full for quite a while.

A really easy food to make early on is gruel. Toss some seeds and plant fiber in a fire and hit the start button. It's only 5 plant fiber and one seed per recipe, and will take very little time to gather the ingredients.

There are attributes in the game and the survival attribute affects how you metabolize food, higher survival skill should mean you have to eat less frequently, however food becomes so easy to get that a lot of players don't put any points in survival. Survival 10 gives you a perk where you can eat raw meat and not suffer any negative effects. Survival 20 gives you double the drinks per waterskin. It's probably one of the worst perks in the game, you could get the same effect by simply carrying a second waterskin. Survival 30 can be worthwhile because it gives you faster harvesting. That means per swing you gather twice as much so your tools take have the durability loss. It's great when starting out to harvest faster, and there are ways to re-spec your feats and attributes if you decide you want the points elsewhere.

[steventirey]

Originally posted by Macdallan:

A really easy food to make early on is gruel. Toss some seeds and plant fiber in a fire and hit the start button. It's only 5 plant fiber and one seed per recipe, and will take very little time to gather the ingredients.

You know, it never occurred to me to think about eating gruel? I knew it was a food, but I had forgotten it was, you know, an actual food item. And it not that bad, seeing as how you get 10 pieces from it, and it restores not only hunger but thirst. Plus a good expiration time (1 hour, 20 minutes).

And you get the ingredients from harvesting bushes, which you are going to be doing for the bugs anyway.

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by steventirey:

Originally posted by Macdallan:

A really easy food to make early on is gruel. Toss some seeds and plant fiber in a fire and hit the start button. It's only 5 plant fiber and one seed per recipe, and will take very little time to gather the ingredients.

You know, it never occurred to me to think about eating gruel? I knew it was a food, but I had forgotten it was, you know, an actual food item. And it not that bad, seeing as how you get 10 pieces from it, and it restores not only hunger but thirst. Plus a good expiration time (1 hour, 20 minutes).

And you get the ingredients from harvesting bushes, which you are going to be doing for the bugs anyway.

It's easy to forget about it. The first few times I played I didn't even know it was a recipe.

[Nakos]

Originally posted by Captain Wolf:

Hello, Im new to this type of game. It seems like we begin with very little energy and need to eat fast. It is hard for me to make a bedroll, fire, and tools to hunt in the 3 or 4 minutes before starving to death. I eat a few insects but then get chased by something. What am I doing wrong? Ty.

It's a Survival game, so ... yeah, surviving is an issue.

The stuff that seems difficult now, will quickly start to seem trivial.

Harvest some plants
Eat the insects
Drink from the river

Run from everything, climbing helps

Look for grubs (on the ground), and eggs
Make some cheap linen clothes
Harvest rocks and sticks
Make a stone pick and a stone axe
Chop down some trees, mine some rocks
Make a wooden box to store stuff you don't want to carry
Make a stone weapon

Now you can start to fight back, careful, you'll have to learn how stuff fights.

Now start thinking about a bedroll and a fire place, near where you put your wooden box

Now start thinking about making a hut so that you have a place to hide during Sandstorms.

And so on, and so on.

[Macdallan]

Pro tip: If you try to do the journey steps you'll level very quickly for the first 15 or so levels. Makes surviving a lot easier.

[Lambros]

Magical desalinization canteen!

[steventirey]

Originally posted by Lambros:

Magical desalinization canteen!

Not a magical desalinization canteen. You have no problem with drinking directly from the ocean yourself, so the magic is in you. (Or really, probably in the magical bracelet.)

[Captain Wolf]

Originally posted by steventirey:

Originally posted by Macdallan:

A really easy food to make early on is gruel. Toss some seeds and plant fiber in a fire and hit the start button. It's only 5 plant fiber and one seed per recipe, and will take very little time to gather the ingredients.

You know, it never occurred to me to think about eating gruel? I knew it was a food, but I had forgotten it was, you know, an actual food item. And it not that bad, seeing as how you get 10 pieces from it, and it restores not only hunger but thirst. Plus a good expiration time (1 hour, 20 minutes).

And you get the ingredients from harvesting bushes, which you are going to be doing for the bugs anyway.

How was I supposed to know that I could make gruel from seeds and plant fiber. Is there a list of recipes somewhere, or is it trial and error? Ty.

[Nakos]

Originally posted by Captain Wolf:

How was I supposed to know that I could make gruel from seeds and plant fiber. Is there a list of recipes somewhere, or is it trial and error? Ty.

Well, it's not the most intuitive wiki ... but ... yes, there is a list:

https://conanexiles.fandom.com/wiki/Conan_Exiles_Wiki
https://conanexiles.fandom.com/wiki/Gruel

[steventirey]

Yeah, the game isn't clear in a few places. Gruel is one of them. What that 3rd ingredient you need to put in the composter is as well (bonemeal, gotten from putting bones/claws/fangs/horns in a grinder).

Basically, use the wiki or trial and error. Put random things in other things and something may happen.

[Duneman]

Gruel, Blood Sausages, and Bread are sort of there without a hint...
Blood Sausages in particular are nice in that the Blood doesn't have an expiration timer, so you can carry a stack and use a basic cooking fire when needed.

Bread, well, good luck figuring that out without a guide. Just the fact that it is cooked in a Furnace would throw most people.