What I've Learned About Not Starving

Day 83 and still counting - What I've learned over the time I've played the game. Methods I taught myself to avoid being stabbed, swallowed, starved, or skewered.

Starting Out

Okay. Don't Starve. The title says it all - that sounds like it shouldn't be too bad.

Trouble is, food isn't always your concern. This guide will -- hopefully -- help you live, as it has helped me live. I've only had the game for a couple days but I'm onto day 83 in-game and counting, with plenty of supplies to go on living.

In the first day, you'll want to get a bit of work done. First, start moving while gathering all of the twigs, grass and berries you can. Berries are a great source of food and they recover your health pretty decently too.

Also, keep an eye out for flint. It's a small pair of stones that you can quite commonly find on the ground. It's used for making tools such as axes. With flint and twigs in hand, make an axe and a pickaxe.

Your next goal is to get some wood - cut down trees. After day 3 there's a ~1.3% Chance for a Treeguard to spawn -- That's bad news. Don't try lighting it on fire -- I have tried, it doesn't work. It just makes him from an angry rampaging tree man to a flaming rampaging tree man. Good if you don't like living.

In the rare event that a treeguard starts beating the pulp out of you, your safest bet is to start planting pine cones. Plant a few and there's a good chance he'll bugger off and go back to being stationary -- then, just make sure you don't cut any trees near him, or it's the same mess again.

After you have about 10 logs, you'll probably have about half a day left. Use this time to move quickly via roads, and try to find grasslands. They'll look like golden fields. They usually have a whack of stones for you to chip at, and once you have some rocks you can make a fire pit. This is a permenant installation and a necessity for a base camp. Before you plop one down wherever your heart desires, look around you. Grasslands are a haven for rabbit holes. Try to build your base near at least two, to ensure you will always have a food source.

Week One

Okay. So you've found some rabbit holes and you dropped your fire pit. Good start! You now have somewhere to retreat to when night time falls, without wasting all of your supplies making temporary camp fires or torches.

Your next goal should be to find some way to protect yourself. You might have a fire pit, but you are far, far from safe. Spend your days mining stones - try to find some gold nuggets, identifiable by their outward appearance; regular stones are slate gray, and gold veins have small yellow streaks through them. With gold, you can make a science machine -- Handy for.... Well, science.

Drop your science machine near your fire. You're going to need to keep it tight. Once it's out, you can make prototypes for many things. Start by making a shovel with twigs and flint. Shovel in hand, you can go and dig up berry bushes, saplings and grass tufts. These, you can replant at your camp to have a supply of materials and food! But food won't just grow because you dropped it in the ground again.

You need poop.

Oh yes, poop. Beefalo are the prime supplier of the stuff. They seem mostly to just walk around and poo endlessly. Gross, but useful. Be mindful that they aren't too near your house, because when mating season kicks in they get hostile. It will be noticable by their red hides when they're angry. Anyway, run around for a bit trying to find some poop, and then fertilize your berry bushes to have them produce in your base.

Finally, with all of that sorted out, you can gather some spare rocks! Spend some time busting up big stones and gathering rocks and flint.

With a decent supply of rocks in hand, go back to your science machine. Cut them into Cut Stone under the refine tab, and then make them into stone walls in the structure tab. Make out a small area at first, that you can contain your plants and fire. Expand as time goes on! It won't happen overnight.

Long-Term Survival

So you've got a base surrounded by stone walls with some food inside. Not a bad start. But you're going to have to amp it up if you want to survive winter.

Your goal at this point should be gathering supplies of wood, food and stone. Store your bunnies LIVE inside treasure chests -- this ensures the meat will not spoil and go to waste. 10-15 is a decent start, with traps always on the go. Once you have a decent supply of food, build a Forward Operating Base (Herein referred to as FOB.). The reason for this is that there is a chance - albeit small - that a winter boss monster, the Deerclops, will come and crush your ♥♥♥♥. I have experienced it. It is not pleasant. He made straight for my storage chests full of delicious little squeaky rabbits, smashed it, and promptly pissed off into the woods. Three days later, after I just finished rebuilding everything, he decided to do it again.

With your first FOB underway, you'll probably hear some growling over the time. Make sure you have log armor on you at all times - wear a backpack, but carry the armor - and at least one spear. When you hear the growling, drop your bag near your fire pit and slap on the armor - the hounds are coming. With armor on you will survive it fairly easily at first. They have a chance to drop "Hounds tooth", which you can use to make tooth traps. These will be your best friends in future hound attacks. Build them as you can, and use them to protect your main base.



It is advisable to build several FOBs within a short-day's travel to one another. Before you do this, however, focus on surviving your first winter as it will soon be upon you. Gather some stones, make a few standard pickaxes, and a bit of extra flint and make three Heat Stones. Drop two by your main base's fire pit, and keep one on your person.

During winter you should only leave your base for a short period of time or if you have a system designed to support winter travel. My setup currently consists of six FOBs within half a day's travel of each other, with each of them having 2 heat stones by the fire pit at all times, allowing me to grab one and go, to travel through winter. Keep good supplies of food at these FOBs as well, in case you have to retreat away from your main base. Always have a backup plan. Winter isn't easy to survive.

In Closing

To sum everything up, here's a breakdown of what to do to survive.

Day 1
-Gather Twigs, Grass, Berries, Flint
Days 2-5
-Gather Stones, Gold Nuggets, Flint, Berries, Carrots
-Make Traps, catch Bunnies, cut Wood, mine Rocks
-Make Science Machine, Fire Pit, Stone Walls
-Gather poop
Days 5-7
-Make Log Armor, Spears, Shovel, Backpack
-Gather Bushes, Saplings, Grass Tufts
-Cut Logs into Boards, make Chests
-Store rabbits LIVE in chests
-Begin prep for making an FOB
Days 7-14
-Wall around your main base
-Prepare for hound attack
-Gather hound teeth if present
-Make an Alchemy Engine


The rest is up to you to manage. These're just some tips I've found useful to survive, and I hope they help you out, too.

Thanks for reading!

Extra: The Things Not To ♥♥♥♥ With Section (TTNTFWS)

Trial and error is a great thing -- unless it leads you an error such as bleeding through a hole in your head, then it's troublesome. So I'm adding a Things Not To ♥♥♥♥ With Section.

First and foremost.

See that bee hive over there?

Yeah, that one.

Don't. Don't punch it. It is a bad idea.

Second.

See that spider nest? Instead of running in because of how badass you are in your shiny grass suit, set about 10 traps up. Run in, piss off the spiders, and run behind the traps. Let that take care of itself until no spiders are spawning, then destroy it.

Third.

See that other spider nest? Yeah, the bigger one.



Fourth.

No, you still can't fight that bee hive.

Fifth.

Don't piss off the Deerclops unless you can do this;

[noknowname #FixTF2]

"Swallowed"? Thats pretty... sussy

[Goblin Slayer]

I haven't played in probably 9 years now.

[Staplegunner]

also, you must be on day 100,000 by now..

[Staplegunner]

crazy how this review is over 10 years old lol

[jamesondangers]

why cant i do special emojis

[jamesondangers]

:derp:

[Yeetmaster48]

do not put walls around base they restrict movement

[leadpipe]

thought this was shit post, was actually really ♥♥♥♥ing helpful fam

[the]

also the quacken[real name] tiger shark fish bone yarrctopus instead of pig king

[the]

in shipwrecked there are boats and wobsters and corall [hahahahahahaha] reef but.........