How to...everything that's important!

To help you overcome the start which can be a little rough. So you can enter the phase where you enjoy the game faster!

Welcome to radiation island

Hello, fellow survival games enthusiast!

I had to learn many things the hard way in this game. That can add to the feeling of a survival game where you want to overcome some difficulties.
If you want the absolute masochistic, self-torturing experience, better stop here and start the game directly. If not, I'm willing to explain you how some things work without telling you what do - there's still a lot of freedom and discovery left!

Stats to keep in check

In survival games, there are often resources or values that you need to keep in check in order to survive. In radiation island, you have:
- hunger
- radiation
- temperature
- overall health

Now you need to know how these can deplete and what you can do to counter that.

Hunger
- as you may have guessed, you get hungry over time. There are fruits like bananas, ananas and coconuts laying on the ground which you can pick up and eat
- for a more nutritious meal, you need to cook meat in the forge, but more on that later

Radiation
- radiation is not very relevant in early game, but I wanted to mention it anyway
- you accumulate radiation in irradiated areas, protect yourself against it by wearing the radiation suit and take - if necessary - anti radiation pills

Temperature
- at night, you get cold
- wear wool clothes or start a fire
- while you work off, temperature decrease slows a bit

Overall health
- if you get hit, you lose health when lacking protection like good armor
- you can regain that with medicine or first aid kits
- sometimes you will start bleeding from attacks, use bandadges then

First steps

In the last part you learned about which things you have to keep in check.
Now, you'll partially find out how to that but also get some directions for you first steps.

You need basic tools first, namely an axe and a pickaxe. The axe needs a flint and some sticks. Punch a tree for sticks, flints lay around in plain sight, easiest to be found at the beach.

Now you can break rocks for stone and chop trees for wood. You want to build a fireplace because it's cozy and keeps you warm, plus it lights your camp at night. What you also want to build is a forge to melt down some ore.

The latter one takes some time to melt down ore so you want to set it up early in your camp and do other things while the forge is doing its work. And what do you want the forge for?
Your basic tools wear off incredibly fast. The first real achievement are iron tools which last longer! Furthermore, you'll be able to craft iron arrow heads and bullets with the forged ore types.

Now, what you want to do in this game and what follows in the next chapter is:

Explore, loot, craft!

A bit different from Julius Caesar's slogan, but still cool.

Explore, loot, craft!

Some hints about that, but I'll still leave you things to find out on your own :-)

Explore!
Because exploration is a basic thing in survival games and often part of the story, I'll only give some hints that come in handy.

You usually start in a zone with now or few enemies. There are zones with more difficult enemies and the toughest ones, indicated by a sign on screen. Be ready to be equipped well before facing them! Some basic armor is good and I'd advise some ranged weapons - more on that in the next chapter about combat.

Two more things about exploration:
- the burial sites hold extremely good loot...what might you have to do to get it? You'll figure out, I'm sure! :-)
- there are site where you can teleport to, you can see them on the map. Once you've almost reached them, give them a visit before getting back to unlock them, it saves a lot of time. There may be some form of vehicle to reach them fast...

Loot!

Basically, you'll do a lot of trips from your base into the wild and back, again and again. Your bag is notoriously small first, so this part is essential: think well about what you need at your current step for your little expedition, leave everything else in a chest. Respectively, only pick what you need then, no sulfur when you don't need it!
It's no problem to leave behind advanced materials because you encounter them a lot. The material you need, however, do stack a lot (ammo usually up to 30, stone up to 50, wood up to 100). So if you gather resources, gather a lot at the same time.

Craft!

It's worth to craft your tools at least on iron tier because basic tools wear down really fast. On the other hand, you'll find high-tier tools in the hands of some enemies and in some chests, so mid to late-game you no longer need to craft as much as in early game.
As mentioned earlier, starting the forge early saves a lot of time. It comes in handy to have a second to melt different ores, prepare coal or even food (wood + meat).

One essential thing however is the upgrade of your backpack, waste no leather on other things until you've done some upgrades, because the size of your backpack defines everything else - how much your expeditions yield, how versatile you can equip yourself for high-tier loot regions.

Combat

Some last hints about combat.

I completely prefer ranged combat in this game. Why? If you shoot fast enough, you don't even suffer any damage. Or worse: infection. You may find out about that. Or not. Who knows? This guide still leaves you some mysteries to unveil ;-)

Anyway, ranged combat is good but requires ammo which is rare at first. So in early early-game, you'll probably hit your enemies with an axe or a machete. Armor is worth a lot, you can find some where the good loot is, I gave a hint earlier in this guide.
Also, you should bring a set of bandadges with you to stop bleeding. Be not afraid however, death has basically no penalty other than letting you walk to retrieve your backpack.

Final words

Thanks to the developers for this uncanny, wonderful game. For some part, it feels a bit clunky, namely some mechanics and animations, but that only gives some nostalgia to older games. In other parts, the game looks really beautiful like the mist that slowly spreads, the sunrise, the night sky.

And to everyone who I could help getting on your feet in this game, enjoy! :-)

[Commander Shepard]

@craazyAAAA I don't think I wrote them down and the game is long uninstalled. But I think they were available on the web!

[Commander Shepard]

@Lowcko yeah! I bought it and only played it pretty late, but better late than never!

[craazyAAAA]

can you add the tower codes for dirty cheaters like me? Thx

[Lowcko]

Wait people still play this game-