Don't Starve Together: The Three Item Rule

This guide explains the "Three Item Rule" that my friends and I follow when starting and playing Don't Starve Together. The Three Item Rule states that there are three main materials you need to survive in don't starve based on how long you've survived and how advanced your base is. Once you get those three items, or they become abundant for you, you can then move on to the next three items which you can use to increase your capability of survival. Of course there are more items that you can find and work with in don't starve, and you can do these completely out of order, but they're just the path I usually follow.

Introduction

This guide will show you the method of starting survival in a Don't Starve Together server called the "Three Item Rule". The jist of the Three Item Rule is that you find the three items of their tier you're on. Once the items of their tier are either found, or just abundant for you in your base, you can continue to the next tier of items, which inchease your survivalibility and your quality of life.

Because there are three items each tier, if you're starting a DST run with multiple people, it's best to split up to collect these materials, specifically materials up to tier 3. Tier 3 is the basebuilding tier, and you're gonna want to be together by winter with a hearty base built by then.

This guide is more for familiar players of don't starve, but require a nudge in the right direction when it comes to item priority and usage. This guide does not have to be followed strictly. They are more like frames or guidelines. You can stray from the path as much as you like. This is mearly a simple path you can take to survive comfortably.

Tier 1: Baby Steps

Grass, Twigs and Flint

Any Starver worth their salt knows these items. They're the basics, As soon as you're spit from the wet womb of Maxwell and colide with the soft grass, these items are usually already within eyeshot. They're basic pick and run items, pick them up as you explore your initial surroundings, get a good perimiter of the place, check the surrounding biomes. Chances are you're gonna be into tier 2 before the first half of the day, maybe even the first quarter, and it's suggested you do, because night is always approaching.

Things you can create in this tier:

Axe and Pickaxe

Torch

Rabbit Trap

Grass Suit

Tier 2: Swinging Things

Logs, Rocks and FOOD
You can accidentally stumble into this tier if you autopilot in the beginning. This tier contains tool harvested materials; mining rocks and axing questions to trees. This tier also includes FOOD! Pick that stuff up! It's edible! Not too much though; Making too big of a stack of food early on can lead to spoiled food later on. Be modest, but greedy. The food i'm talking about here are berries from bushes, and carrots, which are randomly strewn in the ground around calmer, green biomes like forests or gardens. (Berries grow back in 3-5 days, carrots don't grow back at all)

At tier 2:These are the new things you can make:

Campfires and Fire Pits

Tier 3: Base Building

Gold Nugget, Charcoal and Manure

After you've cut down a few trees,mined a few rocks and given the map a good peekaround, the next line of thinking should be "GOLD, CHARCOAL, POOP" This mature list gives us Tier 3, the materials required (along with items from tiers 1 and 2) to make a homely base.

Gold Nuggets can be harvested from tall boulders displaying gold veins. These boulders when destroyed, give almost identical drops regular rocks, but instead of giving nitre, give 1-2 nuggets of gold. This gold can be used to make a Science Machine, a staple of any base. The science machine allows you to "prototype" new recipes, ones that are unavailable to you when starting (Unless playing as Wickerbottom)

Charcoal can be harvested from burnt trees. Where do you find burnt trees? Wherever you find regular trees, plus a torch and a little time.The best ways to get charcoal are by creating a forest fire, or by ignighting a tree farm. A tree farm is basically small circle or line of 5-15 trees, planted using pinecones, and waiting until the trees grow to their first level. Once they've grown, even a bit, you can light the trees on fire using a touch or a snug campfire. The trees will turn thin and black. Then you can hit them with your axe. One hit and the tree collapses, giving one characoal each tree and possibly a pinecone for your troubles. If you plan on lighting a forest on fire, first check for inhabitants that may be of intrest later on in your career (Pig houses, spider nests, total ordinary trees, regular and evil flowers, boons) If an area is clear, light the sucker up and charge in chopping. You need 2 charcoal for a drying rack and 6 for a crock pot, so make of this what you will.

Manure, or as I will call it, Poop, can be harvest from beefalo herds. Beefalo can be found in savana biomes usually grouped up in a small area. If the server is new, then there aren't going to be any large groups, as the beefalo familys just spawned as well and haven't been given time to populate. When around beefalo, every once in a while it will poop. You can pick this poop up. It's deceptively simple. With this poop, you can make farms, which are an extremely useful food source and a great thing to have close to your base. With poop, you have the choice to make either basic farms or advanced farms, basic farms needing 4 poop, and advanced needing 6 poop. I suggest under all circumstances to skip straight to advanced farms. Don't even prototype a basic farm. You will need a science machine to make a farm, so gold is necessary first.

In tier 3, you can now make:

Science Machine and Alchemy Engine

More Tools

Log Suit

Gold Tools

Drying Racks and Crock Pots

Advanced Farms

Replanted Berry Bushes, Grass Tufts and Saplings

Tier 4: Better Food Production and Defense

Pig Skins, Reeds and Silk

Once you're in a comfortable a location, with your science all reved up, your fire pit a'glowin and your garden a'growing, now you can better your base and your own defense.

Pig skins can be found by killing pigs. There is a 25% chance for a pig skin to drop from a pig kill. Pig skins can be used to make a Football Helmet, which absorbs 80% of damage taken in fights (not including fire damage) Pig skins can also be used to make Pig houses, which close to a base can be very useful. Spawned pigs can help fight attackers, chop down trees, and can be killed for large meats and more pig skins. Pig skins also are used in Parasols, along with silk and twigs for 100% rain immunity and removing the loss of sanity in rain. 100% immunity to rain is useful for WX-87, who loses health in the rain.

Another way to get Pig Skins is by killing Were-Pigs. Were-Pigs are normal pigs that have eother been exposed to the light of a full moon, or pigs that have been fed 4 monster meats (raw, cooked or jerkied). When a Pig becomes a Were-Pig, it starts attacking and eating at random. If you have any food laying around, it will eat it. If it is close to a structure, it will destroy it. The best thing to do is to attack it during it's transformation. It has an attack window ot 2 hits, so you can easily kill them without taking a hit. The main reason to kill Were-Pigs is that they drop 2 large meats and a pig skin EVERY TIME. This is the equivelent of killing 3 pigs and getting lucky with a skin. This is further convenienced by the fact that if you attack a were-pig, normal pigs around will not help fight it, so it's mano on pigo.

Reeds are exclusive to swamps in vanilla don't starve. They are very similar to grass tufts: they grow back every 3 days and do not grown in the winter. You can refine 4 reeds to make a papyrus, 2 papyrus' are required to make a Bird Cage, which is very useful when it comes to farming and food production. Giving a bird a vegtable (not a berry) will give back 1-3 seeds and possible+1 normal seed, guarenteed to grow that same vegtable in a farm. Giving a bird a meat will create an egg, which is useful if the meat is about to spoil. If an egg is about to spoil, you can cook it and feed it back to the bird for a fresh egg.
Raw reeds are also used to make blow darts, which are very powerful long range weapons.

Silk is found by killing spiders and spider bases. Silk is used to make very useful clothing and advanced tools such as bug nets, fishing rods, bird traps, top hats, winter hats and as mentioned before, Parasols.
There are different ways to farm silk, the most common and convenient ways include getting spider eggs. Once a wild nest has reached level 3, destroying it drops a spider egg, which is a little spider den in your pocket. You can put it down anywhere, preferably somewhere where spiders can easily be killed naturally (pig village, beefalo herd, merm tuck).

Things you can make in tier 4:

Better tools

Better clothing

Armour

Pig Village

Bird Cage

Tier 5: More Food and Defense

Gears, Honeycomb and Hound's Teeth

Gears can be found in clockwork set peices. Squares of marble and carpet flooring can be found randomly in other biomes. These set peices contain knights, bishops and rooks. All these mobs attack on proximity and are very dangerous, you must be fully prepared to fight. As well as the gears they drop, gears can be laying around the set peice. Gears can be used to make ice boxes, which slow down food spoilage by 50%. Hella tight. WX-87 can also eat these gears as a quick Health/Sanity/Hunger Boost as well as a boost the maximums for each.

Honeycombs are found by destroying naturally spawining bee hives. Bees attack when their hive is damaged so be prepared. Trick a mob into doing it for you, either by hound attack, or befriending a pig to take the brunt of the bees while you spear their hive. Be careful when using red hounds or fire to destroy beehives as they can set the beehive alight, which would destroy the honey and honeycomb it drops. Honeycombs can be used to make bee boxes, a very conditional but rewarding source of food. The number of flowers around the bee box dictates how much honey is produced a day, the max being 6 honey. Honey is used in lots of recipies. Taffy, pumpkin cookies and honey ham come to mind.

Hounds teeth are dropped by hounds, naturally occuring predators that spawn more and more frequently the longer you survive. Hounds teeth are used for blow darts and teeth traps. Teeth traps are used to make panic rooms, which are large areas covered by teeth traps with a fire pit in the middle in case of a night time hound attack. Teeth traps do 60 damage a hit, so killing chasing hounds is much easier and near automatic. Keep the panic room away from your base as fire hounds spawn in the summer and ignite when they die. This ignition can hit flamable materials and structures and may reak havoc.

Things you can make in tier 5:

Bee Box & Beekeeper hat

Tooth Traps

Ice Box

Tier 6: Luxury

Gunpowder, Rocky Turf and Walrus Tusk

Gunpowder is the strongest weapon in the game. It is used as a bomb. Place it on the ground, light it with a torch or a fire rod, and 2-5 seconds later it explodes. One gunpowder does 200 damage, killing most small mobs in one hit, but the gunpowders can be stacked, adding 200 damage each time. It has a small range, only about the size of a boulder, so be careful when trying to damage moving enemies. Based on the damage it can deal, it is more useful killing bigger mobs like tree guards, beefalo and deerclops.
Gunpowder is made from once useless nitre, charcoal and rotten eggs.

Rocky turf can be dug up from quarry biomes. Rocky turf can be combined with boards to create cobblestone path, which is manmade road. Putting it down anywhere makes it so you move 25% faster while walking on that turf, which is useful as a base flooring and making paths to distant, useful biomes (swamps, savanas)

Walrus Tusks are a 50% chance drop from MacTusk, a winter only mob that spawns from walrus camps. There are different ways to farm walrus tusks, the easiest is to wall in a walrus camp with a hostile mob spawner (pig house, spider den). When winter is over, you can check the camp and there may be a tusk or two laying on the ground. If you're very lucky, you may find a Tam O'Shatner, a hat that gives tons of sanity and warmpth, and can only be found by killing MacTusk.

Walrus tusk is used to make a Walking Cane, a weapon with infinite uses. It is very weak, but makes you run 25% faster when held. This can greatly increase efficiency doing day to day chores, and makes running from enemies extremely easy.

In Tier 6 you can make:

Cobblestone

Walking Cane

Gunpowder

[Jacob]

10/10 Nice

[NEPPLETHECREPPLE]

8/8

[Trienomicorn]

well my inventory got more than 3 slots so i can carry more stuff XP
but seriously this guide will help some new people to play this game right
AND NOT DISLIKING THIS GAME JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE ATE NOOBS you know this people so you know what i mean so thank you for a guide to teach the not so good people

[Suwariish]

For pig skins if you find pig heads (merm heads work this way too) make a hammer and just farm the free pig skins no murder of pigmen required.

[2 dregs in a trenchcoat]

I myself follow the 5-item rule, similar to this:
1 - Grass, Twigs, Berries, Flint, Rocks
2 - Logs, Pinecones/Birchnuts, Gold, Ash, Charcoal
3 - Pig Skin, Beefalo Wool, Honeycomb, Silk, Spider Gland
4 - Hound teeth, Fireflies, Rocky Turf, Nightmare fuel, Purple Gem(I play with mods)
Usually leads to a fast and easy start.

[heartrender]

Really useful guide. Thank you!

[JANKSON!]

Just got this game loving it and this help lot! Thanks :D

[Phatnom]

Very professional guide and well-written, thanks!

[Dr. Placebo]

Having just bought the game I thank you for writing this. I got the jist of the game on my own but this certaintly explains things I didn't know about yet. Good Job!

[mss]

Very interesting, really helped!