Starting Guide: My Time at Portia

Basic starting guide for beginning My Time at Portia. Beginners tips and walkthrough of mechanics.

Your House

Let’s get to it. Boot up the game, create your player, adjust your graphic settings, and decide if you are going to use a controller or mouse & keyboard. I find the controller a much smoother experience but check out both and you do you.

NOTE: This is not meant to be a thorough walkthrough, just enough to get you started with some basic information that the game may not communicate to you properly.

YOUR HOUSE SUCKS… BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO.


When you wake up after your boat trip to Portia you will find your house in shambles. There are 4 holes in the floor. You are hinted to fix them. If you take a look at your stamina at the bottom, you can see it is not full. You will not be able to fully recover over night until the floor is fixed.

Wood required for each hole: 3,3,10,20 So you’ll need 36 wood right away. You don’t have to fix them all at once. (but hopefully you have enough to do it before the 1st night.)


Sleep to recover you HP and Stamina and it’s the only way to save (auto). You’ll pass out at 3am.
The board on the wall will show your house bonuses. These apply to your character. You can loot and craft furniture that when placed in your house will buff you while they are there.

THE MENU!

If you are using a controller, start will pull up the options/exit menu, this pauses game time.
Hit select and you will pull up your map. (Y button for quick jump to inventory)


The gui will update if it detects a controller, you can see the LB and RB, that cycles through the menus. Otherwise I think you just mouse click arrows. Missions will be starred and highlighted on the map, depending if they are active, need to be turned in, or someone has a new mission for you. Need more detail?


Go to the mission page and see what you have to do and who you have to see. Some have timers…


Do not miss out on this festival on the 19th. Gifts will drop from the sky and it is a mad dash with all the citizens to get the loot. Don’t be late! If you do, reboot and start the day over.


The handbook page shows the more complex recipes. Always reference this when you are out gathering/mining. They have nice little arrows that show what makes what. On the left, it needs 1 stone stool and 10 wood. But you also see that the stone stool takes 10 stone to make. You don’t need to run to your worktable to see what the subcomponents need. It is all here.

LEVELING UP!

In the menu you will find the character page. Much like MMO’s, you have 3 trees. Exp is given per action taken: gathering, mining, fishing, crafting, quests, kicking trees...

Spend your points where you want. You might want to invest in stamina early on in gather. In combat, it might be tempting to get the exp bonus, but is it really worth it? Exp isn’t that hard to get. You might find that dodge will be more useful, especially when you start fighting bosses. If you make a mistake, you can always see the nurse. She’ll give you acupuncture and reset your skills.

INVENTORY… I NEED SPACE!

If you use the controller, you really have to pay attention to the gui labels. Highlight a locked row then press the right stick to buy. If using a mouse, it will pop up UNLOCK once you hover over it. Also, don’t throw items away, you can make crates to store everything… and it will all eventually be used for something.

Use storage boxes. You are able to craft storage boxes for 20 wood at your worktable from the start. Use any left over stamina at the end of the day to get some wood before 3:00am. You can never have enough wood. You can also color code your boxes by hitting LB, select a color, then X to confirm. Once you start getting enough of them, keep you items separated for organization. Have a mining box, a wood, a food, a materials, a sub component box… Storage boxes can be placed in your yard or in your home. Workshop items can only be placed in your yard.

YOU GOT MAIL!

Hope I don’t get sued for that title… but check your mail. You can’t miss it. Sometimes the mayor will announce a meeting in the town square at 7pm. Go to the event and see what’s going down that night. Requests from other citizens will pop up with job opportunities or they’ll update you on something.

MAKE FRIENDS

If you pass by them, chat… it will add 1 friendship point, if you leveled up that tree it may add 2. You can also give them a gift in your inventory. I don’t think there is a full list right now on the wiki. But check it regularly. It’s usually safe to give necklaces and power stones. But just test out stuff and make note of what happens. Some with give 0 points, 1, 5, and I think 10. You can also have a bonus if you leveled gifting. Or you can stick to doing quests for certain characters for a guaranteed 10 friend points.

You can also interact, as you can see sparring and rock, paper, scissors. Each will cost a bit of stamina but allows you to gain more points in a day than just 1 for talking.



On your friend page you can see the progress. Heart characters are romanceable. You can go on dates and eventually marry. Once you get your builders license you will be given a quest to speak to all the vendors. Do this; they will give you starting materials. The important one is the Furniture and Tool vendors. One of them will give you 3 “hardwood”. This is the amount needed to craft your first sword. Use it for this because you won’t be able to gather hardwood until later. You’ll have to craft a bronze axe to chop medium trees for hardwood. You don’t want to be gathering fur by punching with +1 damage boxing gloves.

BEGINNING GATHERING

In early game, pay attention to your stamina and how much is cost per action. Example, you can pick up a pile of sticks that give you 2-3 wood and it costs 2 stamina to do so. Sometimes swinging the axe at a bush will take 3 swings or 6 stamina and only net you 4 wood. Pay attention to the size of bush you are hitting and make not of swings, stamina, and resource ratio. Stamina management is key until you level your stamina, get stamina equipment, or better tools that use less stamina. So try and rush a bronze pick and axe as soon as you can.

NOTE: If you run out of stamina early in the day, you can sit down in a chair or sofa in town or your house. It will recover about 1 stamina per 7 in-game minutes. It’s not much, but it can help you harvest a few more piles right before you sleep to get furnaces working overnight.

STARTING

You’ll be asked to see Presley at the Commerce Building. You’ll have to complete some easy tasks to get your builder’s license so you can take jobs. It can all be completed in one day if you are quick.



You’ll have to make an axe and pickaxe.

Axe-5 wood, 8 stone

Pickaxe-8 wood, 5 stone

So 13 each of stone and wood. You can easily gather these around your house. I’ve marked areas that have stone and stick piles.



Build the 2 tools then you can make a furnace. 10 more stone and wood. Except this time that stone needs to make a stool first at your worktable. You saw the diagram earlier.

You should be able to use the stamina left to mine a few of the small boulders and maybe small trees or bushes for the 10 stone and 10 wood. The small rocks will be to the left of the city entrance. Small rocks are the size of you or smaller. If it looks bigger it will probably tell you that your tools sucks and come back later. Get these items and make a furnace at your assembly deck.





Note: if you are using the controller, press left arrow pad to select the left page recipe or right arrow pad for the right page. If you select the wrong one, you can remove it. Any items already placed will go back to your inventory, no worries.

You have to have the ingredient selected in your toolbar to place it on the blueprint with X.

Once you do that, run back to the Commerce building and turn it in. Now you’ll be told to get a paper signed by the Mayor and then you are a builder. Run back to the Commerce building and a cut scene appears with your first big job… but before you leave, you can still grab another job off the board. Grab an easy one. Before you select it, back out and check what ingredients and what workshop equipment is needed to craft it. Check the wiki too instead of running back to your shop if you can’t remember what is needed for a talisman. Worktable items are not in detail in your handbook, only the large items.

You will need 80 gold so you can start mining. Prioritize this.

If there isn’t a job you can do that only requires wood, stone, and your furnace then you’ll have to harvest some berries, wood, and stone to sell in order to get that 80. You will sell them at the vendors you make. You can sell food items to food vendors and materials to furniture vendors and so forth.




Back to missions… these missions/commissions will be timed. Time left will be shown on your mission page. Don’t grab jobs with time limits you can’t finish, you’ll lose friendship points.

FISHING ROD

You’ll also run into a guy that will give you a quest to make a fishing rod for him. You don’t need to prioritize this, but if when you run by a tree, give it a kick. You will need some wild cocoons to make the fishing pole. These drop from kicking big trees. You can kick a tree a few times and it will drop multiple items until it says that’s all it has for the day. Usually the really large trees will have cocoons. Turn in the quest when you run across him. Don’t waste valuable resource harvest time by running all the way to the river or his resort to turn it in. Every so often he passes by your house early in the morning.

CRAFT EQUIPMENT

So now you met the town douche bag but still got a big town commission to make a bridge. But you see it requires some items you can’t make. You’ll actually need to make 2 bridge heads and one bridge body.

Total raw items:

Hardwood x50 (5 planks)

Stone x96 (12 bricks)

Tin Ore x15 (15 plates)

Copper Ore x96



Cool, you can make bricks and bars with your furnace. Start loading them up if you have them. But what about planks, plates, and pipes? Check your handbook.





These are the three items required. You’ll need to make them in order. Grinder, Cutter, then Skiver. Why? The Skiver needs marble planks. Planks are made on the Cutter. The Cutter needs blades made by the Grinder. The Grinder uses grinding stones made by the worktable. It’s all there in print if you are confused. The old parts? TO THE MINES FOR THOSE!!!

THE MINES… YES MASTER, RIGHT AWAY…

Check you map, you’ll see the mines in an orange circle for you quest. If you haven’t already run by it, you’ll have a cut scene with one of the explorers.



80 gols to get in. The elevator switch on the left is basically a reset button. It costs 20 to reset the mining floor and you get to work on a flat surface again, or if you’ve already mined all the copper.

Copper and stone? Check the floor color once inside.



The brown on the left is copper, the right is stone. Tin will be found randomly with copper. Other mines will have other shades for iron and such. So what about those old parts? Well you got a little intro about using the scanner, but it might be confusing, or like me you didn’t really pay attention and skipped it. LOL. The scanner or L trigger will help you find artifacts/relics. Let’s do it!



Man, if goggles worked like this, they would have found that treasure on Oak Island already.

If you don’t see any glowing orbs, try a different part of the cave, run around. When you see some, highlight them. A gauge will fill up and mark it along with the distance. Once that is done you can turn off the scanner with L trigger and the waypoint stays. NOTE: you can only highlight one at a time. If you do another, it will overwrite it. The items isn’t removed, it will still be there and available to dig. You can reselect it late.

So, let’s dig!



Looky looky, I got Hooky! Here’s your 1st old part. Many items use these, so save them. Find 1 more for your grinder. Then focus on copper if you still need some. Other items you will need that are relics are power stones. Power stones are used to power the big equipment tables… like your grinder. So might as well keep searching relics until you get 1 of those too. You can also find furniture and clocks. Place those items in your house for a stat buff. Then there is “DATA DISC”. These items can be given to the church for seeds or to the research building “Petra” to discover new schematics. Woot!

PETRA

You will be given the option to turn in stacks of 5,10,20 discs. You turn them in and she takes a few days to decode them then sends you a letter in the mail with a schematic. Focus on the 5 first. These will be the advanced versions of your basic workshop benches like a furnace that crafts iron bars and so forth.

CONSTRUCTION UPGRADES

Eventually you’ll check out the construction upgrades. It’s the shop to the left of the Commerce building. A & G Construction.



Jackpot. Level 2 bench. It will craft you the stuff you need for the vehicle on the quest after the bridge. Start saving money, parts, and wooden boards when you have spare wood. You can also upgrade your home here. But that’s down the road. You’ll be a pro by then.

ORGANIZE YOUR Sh… STUFF!

Keep making storage containers. You might want to start separating them, placing them near dedicated equipment. Keep making more equipment. You might want to have items of every type running at once. But you’ll develop your own strategy eventually. Adapt. Also, you might want to consider making a box just for your main project. Throw in your materials that you’ll be using so you can keep track of what you are lacking.

POWER & FUEL STRATEGY

Early on, power and fuel will be short in supply. You’ll feel that you never have enough. There are a few things to note.

Fuel and power don’t degrade when not in use. Put 10 hours in, use 3 for a project, that 7 stays there for later.

Sometimes putting in 5 hours of fuel then putting in 5 hours of materials… it will stop at 4:59 wanting more power. Safe to just keep 1 hour over. You’ll use that eventually.

Why not load every furnace to the max? If you got it, do it. In the beginning it will be tough. Strategize your time with what you need. If you have 3 furnaces, 1 glass, 1 copper, 1 brick… but you need copper bars like now. Cancel the other two and place copper in them. The materials won’t go to waste.

Check the time each item takes.



2 bronze bars is 7 hours. Put 8 hours of fuel to be safe. If you already have 1, then put 7 more.

“But I need 9 bars!”

Break it up. 3, 3, and 3. If you are short on wood, place only what you need in each one. Use the left overs for that box because you are running out of space, or for another furnace crafting bricks you also need. It comes down to micromanagement and planning for speed. Need time to plan out your strategy, hit pause, check your handbook, time stops.

NOTE: Time does not stop when you are talking to someone and don’t select a response. You’ll see people walking by.

COMBAT

Pretty simple. Attack and dodge. At least from what I’ve experienced so far. When you get to a boss or the hazard caves, most likely you’ll be dodging… a lot. That’s why I’d recommend leveling dodging instead of experience gain. Every creature has an attack pattern and a tell that signals their oncoming attack. You can thank Mike Tyson’s Punchout for that because pretty much every game uses that now to help the player time attacks and dodges. Bosses are tough and deal big damage. Just run in a circle, wait for their attack and dodge towards them at an angle then strike twice and run away. You’ll probably have to dodge twice immediately away instead of running because most will do an area attack right after you bonk them on the head. Rinse and repeat. All those crappy berries and other hp/stamina items, take the large stacks with you when you go into the advanced caves later on.

RECAP

• Pay attention to stamina/resource ratio when harvesting at the start of the game
• Rush wood and stone for pickaxe and axe: 13 wood, 13 stone
• Fix floor so you regenerate fully each night: 36 wood
• If you run low on stamina during the day, take a seat on the bench near the city entrance or anywhere to regen stamina slowly. (you will not find this stamina regen hinted anywhere in the game)
• Utilize multiple furnaces. Only place fuel with what you need for the job to conserve wood in the beginning.
• SAVE 80 coins so you can start mining as soon as possible.
• After you get the bridge quest, you can still pick up a regular commission from the job board that day. Suggest bricks, stools, or talisman jobs. They only require worktable or furnace. Marble for talisman can be found breaking small stones to the left of the city entrance.
• Only sell harvested items to get 80 coins if there are no easy jobs available.
• Save the 3 hardwood from the meeting quest to build your 1st sword.
• Get the most of your day. If you are out of stamina, talk to villagers and get your friendship for the day. You can still craft and use your workshop stuff. You can also rest in a seat to gain some stamina back, maybe enough to chop a tree or two before 3am.
• Check the wiki page or steam community forum for updated hints, guides, or news. Watch some Youtube if you want to see 1st hand examples.


HAVE FUN! It’s still early access. You can rush if you want, or take your time and test things out. Test out strategies. Making another character is easy to do. Find a bug? Post it so the devs can fix it. Help out if you can. Got some hints, make a guide, post a Youtube video. Don’t have the time for all that, just enjoy the game.

[Ren_Cloudkicker]

Candeyn, thanks, I really should update this. Haven't played it in a while.

[candeyn]

Very very nice starting guide :) I wanted to add one thing (I might've missed it and its there) Pay attention to which missions/commisions have a time limit and which dont, and focus on those that do have a time limit!

[worstcase11]

I just made similar guide in german language but ^^' yours looks much better.

[Ren_Cloudkicker]

Are you using mouse or controller? I use the controller and the right stick does the camera. Not sure on mouse.

[slchapman]

is there a way to get the camera to move with the movement/direction of your character? i have to constantly move my mouse around while my character is moving to change the camera view. this is really annoying and makes the game less fun. please help.

[linnense]

The massage chair(6000) that Paulie sells will replenish at a faster rate than regular seats. Additionally, he can sell metal storages(500) that have all the inventory slots unlocked.