Hard Difficulty Survival Guide

[Wildly Mild]

If you're struggling to survive on the hardest difficulty, or any other difficulty, I have a list of tips and advice that hopefully will prove to be as invaluable to you as they were for me.

First of all, do not bother with farming. potatoes/beets provide little food, even cooked, it's a waste of water, and seagulls are a constant annoyance that are difficult to land a hit on to get their meat. Best to wait much later when you have sprinklers and lots of big plots to make use of all your seeds.

Now if you're like me, you crafted shark bait to have some time to harvest the sand/clay/seaweed around islands, only to realize how quickly the sharks gobble up that bait, leaving you with next to nothing to show for it. But then i realized that it's not meant to be used as a distraction, but rather, a way to kill sharks faster! Just throw the bait into the water as close at possible to your raft, and stab em in the face every time they attack it. Once your shark is dead, you'll have more than enough time to go diving and you'll have plenty of shark meat to eat.

Another way to mess with the sharks is the fact that you can remove collection nets while sharks are attacking them and replace them instantly with no durability lost! It completely resets the sharks attack timer, essentially skipping it for free. You even have time to get in a few attacks to whittle down the sharks health. This may be considered something the devs don't intend, but if that doesn't bother you, i suggest you take full advantage and stock up on nets. The only issue is when you have multiple sharks that attack nets at the same time. But you can get them out of sync by letting one attack a little longer than you usually let them while you repair.

When it comes to crafting, priorities are important. Some might have different opinions on what order things should be crafted in, but in my experience, the first thing you should make after getting a forge is an advanced purifier. It uses no fuel whatsoever which pays off immensely long term, and it is both quick and does the job of 5 regular purifiers while taking the same space as 1.You should have an abundance of wood once you're no longer using it on water. And don't forget to make a bottle to go with it.

Next for crafting is the advanced grill. It also makes a big difference towards efficiency. it's 3 grills with the wood cost of 1, plus you can cook any big fish you've caught that won't fit on the regular grill, freeing up inventory space and giving a ton of food. After that, you should work on getting an anchor so you can stop at islands without crafting a one-use anchor every time, and it helps a ton to loot sharks you've killed at sea. Make sure to save their heads too for biofuel way later.

After you have an anchor and it becomes easier to harvest islands, craft more forges right away. Atleast 3-4 is your goal. Spending all your time waiting for items to smelt is something you want to fix as soon as possible.

The metal hook and axe are faster and last longer, so they save a decent amount of time overall, but crafting a metal spear should take priority over them to get sharks off your raft.
The bow isn't needed until way later when you unlock large islands, but feel free to craft it if you have plenty of resources. When you do get attacked, remember that you can repair using middle click with your hammer instead of manually going thru the craft list. You should always be repairing damage when you get attacked, during or after. Atleast until you have too much plastic, then you can just replace the foundation if you'd prefer.

After reading this guide, you should have no trouble surviving with ease. Hope you have fun!

[Sigh-Phi-Guy]

i like to put seeds in old shoes SPECIFICALLY to attract birds.
its pretty decent FREE food(and feathers) and they really arent that hard to kill.

i can loot around the whole island with the shark(s) alive.
just go to the opposite side of the island from the raft and work around in 1 direction until the shark comes for you.
then exit the water, go to the opposite side again and work around the other way.
that just leaves the bit under the raft. just move the raft to the opposite side of the island and then go for it.
on large islands, just go a short distance away and it/they wont attack.

[Wildly Mild]

I find i always die when i loot with sharks still up no matter how far away i go. They zoom up on me right away and get me before i can reach land. I totally forgot about old boots tho, somehow i haven't fished one up in ages, i've just been using a scarecrow, but i still manage to rarely hit the birds. A boot would sure be better.

[Sigh-Phi-Guy]

Originally posted by Midget Breeder:

I find i always die when i loot with sharks still up no matter how far away i go. They zoom up on me right away and get me before i can reach land. I totally forgot about old boots tho, somehow i haven't fished one up in ages, i've just been using a scarecrow, but i still manage to rarely hit the birds. A boot would sure be better.

i find if i jump while swimming on the surface, the shark rarely hits me.

[Wildly Mild]

Yea but diving tho

[Sigh-Phi-Guy]

Originally posted by Midget Breeder:

Yea but diving tho

yeah...i dont know...
i guess i have the timing down fairly well and dont get hit often.
and there is a sound cue for about 3 seconds prior to an attack.