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Don't Starve PS4 |OT| Free with PS+

So this game is making my actions border on insane behavior. I do almost the same thing every time only to die in winter.

I get tons of berrys and make a puffy jacket but die. I get tons of bee hives and a puffy jacket and die. I get tons of jerky and a puffy jacket but die.

How can I get past winter guys!?

Your base should be near three of more rabbit holes. You need to plant berry bushes next to your base as well. Don't eat any berries the bushes produce until winter. Honey keeps for a while, so you can mix two rabbit morsels, one honey and one berry in a crockpot nightly with one morsel left over to dry. I wouldn't worry about hunting for a puffy jacket on your first winter as it takes time from prepping your winter base. Making a winter cap is important though as it also keeps your sanity up and should be easy since you need beefalo manure to make farms and fertilize your planted berries. Kill two birds with one stone type of thing. I'm assuming you make a heat stone already.

With a good base set up and food being almost automatic, I search for gears to make an ice box after my first winter. I also do things like make a meat effigy and life giving amulet. The second winter is easier now because the icebox allows you to store extra rabbit morsels or daily farmed veggies. I bring about 10-12 jerky or monster meats if you have them to recruit pigs. Have them attack the machine things while you pick of stragglers. You get meat, pig skins, gears, marble, jewels all from this one battle. So. Make sure you have space to bring it all back.

Regarding beasties. I've found its a good idea to get pan flutes ASAP. Especially since it makes killing deerclops easy. I've also found it imperative to find a spiked tentacle in the marshes before the first winter. A spiked tentacle, wood armor, football helmet and pan flute allow one to survive some very sketchy situations. If deerclops shows up at winter to wreck your campsite, you can sleep him with the pan flute until day, then lure him to a tree guard and continue to sleep him and attack while your tree guard attacks.
 

shamanick

Member
Finished adventure mode today! Great ending, and very satisfying to finally finish after dying so many times.

Minor spoiler on character choice for adventure:
WX-78 is basically easy mode. You have boosted stats after finding the clockwork mobs, and by the third world I didn't need to find food or worry about sanity anymore thanks to my huge stack of gears.

Edit: also ordered three blind boxes of figurines from the Klei store. Hoping for a Wilson and a Willow, but they all look great.
 

hesido

Member
I hate this game but I want to play it! The little mundane tasks you have to get done concurrently (base prep, don't starve, have your sanity level in check, research) is too much for my severely single-tasking brain. My personal record is getting to the middle of a winter.

A few questions: Does building walls have ANY use? Is there a door lock system? Can I build a house and live happily ever after?

How many bases do you work with?
 

Number45

Member
I hate this game but I want to play it!
This is EXACTLY how I feel about the game. It's still sitting on my PS4 but I haven't touched it since mid January and I can watch people stream it for hours on end. :/

I think the game is just too oppressive for me, which isn't a problem when someone else is taking the risks.
 

Hedrush

Member
I got back into this last week on PS4 just in time for the new expansion which is out this week. I forgot how good this game is, it's very addicting.

Its official! We can now confirm that the Don't Starve: Reign of Giants Expansion is launching on PS4 on July 22 in North America and July, 23 in Europe! It will be available for $4.99 on PSN, and PS+ members will get a 10% launch discount!

Don’t Starve: Reign of Giants adds new characters, seasons, creatures, biomes, and other challenges to Don’t Starve.

The entire world of Don’t Starve has been expanded and is now even more uncompromising! New mysteries, challenges, and scientific innovations await your discovery.

Here’s an overview of what’s included.

KEY FEATURES:
New playable characters: Reign of Giants adds two characters for players to discover and survive with. Play as Wigfrid, a stage actress who went a bit too far with method acting on her latest role, an ancient Valkyrie, or Webber, a young boy who lives inside the spider who tried to eat him long ago.

Year-round starvation: Struggle through a full year of seasons as you experience the torrential rain falls of spring and the blistering heat of summer.

A bigger, badder world: New biomes have been filled to the brim with new creatures and gatherables that will either help you survive - or kill you.

An extra save slot: You asked, we delivered.
Giants: They’re in the name for crying out loud!

Also, along with the expansion being available, all Don’t Starve players will get a new free patch for the base game which includes performance enhancements, bug fixes and a some of the content that was previously only on PC including:

Added Snow Chester and Shadow Chester
New in-game text strings & dialogue
Option to disable Screen Shake.
Expanded options for World Generation.
New ability to save custom pre-sets in World Generation screen
Random character select option when starting a new game.

There's a 228mb update file which is live just now (EU). I presume this patch is for the PC content.

http://www.dontstarvegame.com
 

AdamMPSP

Member
Hey, so I'm having a weird issue where I bought the expansion, but it won't download. Says it's "unavailable at this time." Any idea?
 
I hate this game but I want to play it! The little mundane tasks you have to get done concurrently (base prep, don't starve, have your sanity level in check, research) is too much for my severely single-tasking brain. My personal record is getting to the middle of a winter.

A few questions: Does building walls have ANY use? Is there a door lock system? Can I build a house and live happily ever after?

How many bases do you work with?

Walls are useful for funneling the wolves into traps. Kind of like a safe/panic room. At least that's how I play.
 

AEREC

Member
Is there anyway to disable the button prompts when you get near an item? It's incredibly distracting...maybe move them into the bottom corner of the screen or all together.
 

mattp

Member
man, this game is so much better for vita
i think i'm gonna play a lot more of it now because i can just suspend and resume whenever i want by picking up my vita

also, i had some issues with the icons and text being kind of small on the ps4 version, but it's much more legible on vita cuz the screen is closer to my face

great port, blitworks. yet again
 
I'm gonna assume this is the best place to talk about the Vita version too. I've played maybe an hour and died about five times. I'm assuming as you level up you get access to new things to create? Meaning, you must be able to build a hut or lodge in which to hide at night? At the moment I'm pretty underequipped and on two map generations I haven't been able to find flint at all meaning I basically can't progress (unless I'm missing something?). Anyway, it is enjoyable and I love the art style.
 

mattp

Member
I'm gonna assume this is the best place to talk about the Vita version too. I've played maybe an hour and died about five times. I'm assuming as you level up you get access to new things to create? Meaning, you must be able to build a hut or lodge in which to hide at night? At the moment I'm pretty underequipped and on two map generations I haven't been able to find flint at all meaning I basically can't progress (unless I'm missing something?). Anyway, it is enjoyable and I love the art style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq9sjeyvdtU
 
Just finished a good hour-long session, and I think I have my head around the mechanics now. I built an alchemy machine and the other similar device and made a bunch of items. I guess the main aim is to create a farm? Can you create structures at all? I couldn't see the option to.

Fake edit - thanks for the above video. I'll check it out.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
What's the difference between the Giant Edition and Reign of Giants Console Edition?

Giant Editions only lists the Vita under playable on, but the description says: "Purchasing this content entitles you to both the PS4™ and PS Vita versions!"

Edit: The faq on the offical? Forums say:
If you purchase Don't Starve: Giant Edition on PlayStation Vita, you'll be entitled to receive Don't Starve: Console Edition for free (but without Reign of Giants expansion) on PS4.

Aight. If I like the free base game I guess I can support the devs for 5 dollas
 
Could anyone help me with this?

I recently got a new hard drive for the PS4 and am in the process of redownloading things, but Don't Starve is not showing up on my purchase list. I got it with PS+ (still subscribed).All other PS+ games can be downloaded again. I bought the expansion, which does show up, but not the base game. I only have the option to pay for it.
 

Garret

Member
Could anyone help me with this?

I recently got a new hard drive for the PS4 and am in the process of redownloading things, but Don't Starve is not showing up on my purchase list. I got it with PS+ (still subscribed).All other PS+ games can be downloaded again. I bought the expansion, which does show up, but not the base game. I only have the option to pay for it.

The same thing has happened to me! I used to have it installed, I deleted it, had a few days without PS+, renewed, and it tells me I have to purchase it. Hmmm...
 

JP

Member
Only had a very quick go on the PS4 and I have to admit that I just don't understand why people rate this so highly.

It may be unusual for this place but I' not here to dismiss the game but because I really want to find the enjoyment that other people are getting from the game. Although I've had very brief go I'd still say that I'm new to the game, can anybody just give me any hints or tips that give me a head start in this as I feel completely lost but I don't want to give up on it. Maybe there's something like a "Let's Play" video that you'd recommend me watching.

I usually love games that just leave you there and let you improvise but unfortunately I'm just not feeling this so far. Hoping to give another try this evening though.
 

Number45

Member
There's a video linked a few posts above that will probably help. Personally I got into the game watching it played on Twitch, and I actually find it a lot more fun to watch than play.

Really need to give it a chance on the Vita.
 

JP

Member
Managed to get to Day 6 before being murdered by a Buffalo, I only attacked it because I was desperate for food and I'd managed to kill one the day before but this time three of them attacked me. I think it's starting to work for me now although I was constantly on the verge of dying. I'm assuming that's normal though?

What the hell do I do with traps? I built some but all I could do was drop them.

Was going to start again but it only gives me the New Game option. I know that you start again but is it right that I don't continue the same save?
 

Jintor

Member
Managed to get to Day 6 before being murdered by a Buffalo, I only attacked it because I was desperate for food and I'd managed to kill one the day before but this time three of them attacked me. I think it's starting to work for me now although I was constantly on the verge of dying. I'm assuming that's normal though?

What the hell do I do with traps? I built some but all I could do was drop them.

Was going to start again but it only gives me the New Game option. I know that you start again but is it right that I don't continue the same save?

Well, it is called Don't Starve.

Okay so traps you can bait with food, but it's way more economical to just dump them over rabbit holes and come back for them later. Rabbits are forced to leave their holes at dawn so if you put them right over the entrance they'll pop into them.

The NG+ option gives you the same world seed (i.e. map, but without anything you built on it). I personally don't recommend it since exploration is kind of the name of the game, but whatever floats your boat.
 

GulAtiCa

Member
Finally played again. Wanted to see if I could survive all 4 seasons. Made it to day 68, of Summer, before I died. Boy, was I not prepared for Summer. Winter & Spring were mostly easy, give or take, cause of my good location. But summer was really touch cause of things whilting and then catching on fire.

Going to play again, going to start stock-piling now in advance. Esp during Autumn.

Also, got the dragonfly to show up. I dumbly attacked it and of course died. Didn't realize it was mostly passive (unless you attack it or stay close to it too long). It made nice work of the buffalo I had it spawn on. Lots of meat! I had a Touch Stone activated near my camp, so wasn't gameover yet. But it was during middle of Summer, so the heat nearly killed me. I did make it back, and ate my jerky I had to get some health back. But the next day hounds got me..

Certainly the best I've ever done in sand-box mode.
 
I've just returned to this game for the first time in months, and I've forgotten everything. Can someone please tell me how to make a respawn point from Wilson's beard?
 
Had a really great time on this last night. Made it to about day 20 (which is my best by some distance), and it crashed on me but luckily my file is saved so I'll go back and play it again tonight. It's the first time I've played in about 8 months, and I'm re-learning all the quirks like getting a pig village close to my base and managing spiders for maximum silk haulage. I got attacked by hounds but my base is close to Beefalo so I ran over to them who very efficiently dealt with them. I think maybe the Beefalo were on heat at the time too, which helped. I've got a pretty big farm now and about 14 berry bushes, as well as four pig houses close by. Definitely the best run I've had so far.
 

av2k

Member
Anyone have any recommendations on how to survive Winter? I just flat out die when Winter comes around, not exactly sure what I'm suppose to be doing to survive. Kill rabbits/pigs/spiders(for bird cage to spit out eggs)?
 
Anyone have any recommendations on how to survive Winter? I just flat out die when Winter comes around, not exactly sure what I'm suppose to be doing to survive. Kill rabbits/pigs/spiders(for bird cage to spit out eggs)?

You can keep yourself fed on morsels from rabbits you catch, just make sure you stock up on grass and twigs beforehand, since they won't regrow during winter. Make sure you craft a thermal stone and, at the very least, bunny earmuffs. A winter hat is better, and not too hard, but it does require some silk and shaving beefalo, which can be a pain. Also, remove all your warm clothing when you're close to your fire. It only degrades when you wear it, and you don't need it when close to a fire.

One of the best things you can do is build an ice box. It requires killing chess pieces (I find the knight to be the easiest), which can be hard if you haven't learned how, but once you figure out the kiting, it's not too bad. That will allow you to really stock up on food before winter.

Learning some of the better crock pot recipes is also really helpful, but I survived my first couple winters without one, so if that feels like too much on top of everything else, feel free to skip it. It's basically essential for the long game, but just focus on surviving one winter first.

If you have any other questions, or want some clarification on any of this, feel free to ask.
 

av2k

Member
You can keep yourself fed on morsels from rabbits you catch, just make sure you stock up on grass and twigs beforehand, since they won't regrow during winter. Make sure you craft a thermal stone and, at the very least, bunny earmuffs. A winter hat is better, and not too hard, but it does require some silk and shaving beefalo, which can be a pain. Also, remove all your warm clothing when you're close to your fire. It only degrades when you wear it, and you don't need it when close to a fire.

One of the best things you can do is build an ice box. It requires killing chess pieces (I find the knight to be the easiest), which can be hard if you haven't learned how, but once you figure out the kiting, it's not too bad. That will allow you to really stock up on food before winter.

Learning some of the better crock pot recipes is also really helpful, but I survived my first couple winters without one, so if that feels like too much on top of everything else, feel free to skip it. It's basically essential for the long game, but just focus on surviving one winter first.

If you have any other questions, or want some clarification on any of this, feel free to ask.

Oh damn, this is super informative! By the time Winter rolls around, I already have a crock pot and bird cage at least so I'm somewhere in the ball park. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it! As for the gear, I have a really hard time finding these guys even though I already outlined the entire map(takes about 7-8 days).
 
My GF usually lives on Bacon & Eggs. Set up camp near a decent supply of rabbits. You can easily catch them with traps placed directly over the rabbit hole; no bait required. Just cover every hole in the area with a trap, and harvest rabbits as needed. That'll give you a steady supply of morsels.

She also farms spiders. Find a level three spider den, and chop it down to get the egg, which you can plant near your camp to relocate the nest. You don't want spiders roaming through your camp during the night, but you'll want to have 2-3 nests within reasonable walking distance from camp. When your spider nest reaches level three again, chop it down and replant it so it doesn't spawn a queen. Farming the spiders will give you a good supply of webs and glands for sewing kits and healing salves, but more importantly, it gives you tons of monster meat, which will be the primary ingredient in your bacon and eggs.

You make the bacon and eggs in a crock pot with two eggs and 1.5 meats. You can feed rancid monster meat to the bird to get fresh eggs. Combine two of them with another monster meat and a morsel, and you've got bacon and eggs, which restores 75 hunger, 20 health, and 5 sanity.

You can substitute jerky for raw meat in the recipe, so having some drying racks will help preserve your ingredients for cooking later. You can also just cook them over a fire and use them in the recipe, but dried meat will keep longer. Oh, your bird won't eat raw monster meat, but it will eat cooked or dried monster meat, so spider meat can be used to keep you stocked with fresh eggs.

So yeah, with a supply of bunnies and spiders at hand, food really shouldn't be too much of a problem for you, and you'll get lots of bonus goodies from your farming. Sanity will still be an issue during the winter thanks to the long nights, but Small Jerky gives 10 sanity, which is a nice boost, and you're going to be drying morsels anyway. If you keep bees, Taffy gives 15 sanity and restores more hunger than jerky, but at the cost of a bit of health.

Once you've got your food production up and running — which should be your primary goal during that initial summer — things should get a lot easier for you. You'll find yourself spending less and less time worrying about feeding yourself, which will free up time for you to start focusing on other projects. Eating one bacon and eggs will completely counteract the standard hunger loss of 75/day. That means you can whip up a short stack in a few minutes, and spend several days not worrying about food at all.

Oh, rabbit earmuffs, winter hats, and thermal stones are all super useful in the winter, and the clothing will be easy for you to make, since you're farming spiders and bunnies. Use the silk to make the winter hat, which not only keep you warm, it also restores sanity like a garland does. Once you've got the hat, it wears out with use, but you can repair it cheaply with the sewing kits, also make from silk.
 

av2k

Member
My GF usually lives on Bacon & Eggs. Set up camp near a decent supply of rabbits. You can easily catch them with traps placed directly over the rabbit hole; no bait required. Just cover every hole in the area with a trap, and harvest rabbits as needed. That'll give you a steady supply of morsels.

She also farms spiders. Find a level three spider den, and chop it down to get the egg, which you can plant near your camp to relocate the nest. You don't want spiders roaming through your camp during the night, but you'll want to have 2-3 nests within reasonable walking distance from camp. When your spider nest reaches level three again, chop it down and replant it so it doesn't spawn a queen. Farming the spiders will give you a good supply of webs and glands for sewing kits and healing salves, but more importantly, it gives you tons of monster meat, which will be the primary ingredient in your bacon and eggs.

You make the bacon and eggs in a crock pot with two eggs and 1.5 meats. You can feed rancid monster meat to the bird to get fresh eggs. Combine two of them with another monster meat and a morsel, and you've got bacon and eggs, which restores 75 hunger, 20 health, and 5 sanity.

You can substitute jerky for raw meat in the recipe, so having some drying racks will help preserve your ingredients for cooking later. You can also just cook them over a fire and use them in the recipe, but dried meat will keep longer. Oh, your bird won't eat raw monster meat, but it will eat cooked or dried monster meat, so spider meat can be used to keep you stocked with fresh eggs.

So yeah, with a supply of bunnies and spiders at hand, food really shouldn't be too much of a problem for you, and you'll get lots of bonus goodies from your farming. Sanity will still be an issue during the winter thanks to the long nights, but Small Jerky gives 10 sanity, which is a nice boost, and you're going to be drying morsels anyway. If you keep bees, Taffy gives 15 sanity and restores more hunger than jerky, but at the cost of a bit of health.

Once you've got your food production up and running — which should be your primary goal during that initial summer — things should get a lot easier for you. You'll find yourself spending less and less time worrying about feeding yourself, which will free up time for you to start focusing on other projects. Eating one bacon and eggs will completely counteract the standard hunger loss of 75/day. That means you can whip up a short stack in a few minutes, and spend several days not worrying about food at all.

Oh, rabbit earmuffs, winter hats, and thermal stones are all super useful in the winter, and the clothing will be easy for you to make, since you're farming spiders and bunnies. Use the silk to make the winter hat, which not only keep you warm, it also restores sanity like a garland does. Once you've got the hat, it wears out with use, but you can repair it cheaply with the sewing kits, also make from silk.

In this case, should I just skip my advanced farms and bird cage all together? This sounds wayyyy easier than having a bunch of farms. I rather have a bunch of drying racks and near by spiders and rabbits. Thanks :D

my build order for reference:
Outline entire map
find beefalo
set up camp
3x advance farms
1x bird cage

but in your case, I could just..

Find Rabbits and spiders
Set traps for rabbits
Crock pot
Murder spiders
Eggs and bacon for the rest of my life once I get a bird cage going to feed cooked monster meat to
winter clothing

Is that right?
 
but in your case, I could just..

Find Rabbits and spiders
Set traps for rabbits
Crock pot
Murder spiders
Eggs and bacon for the rest of my life once I get a bird cage going to feed cooked monster meat to
winter clothing

Is that right?
Pretty much. You'll start out eating a lot of cooked morsels, which'll reduce your dependence on foraged food like berries and carrots. Small jerky is even better for you than cooked morsels, so get your racks set up sooner than later, though you don't need many until later when you wanna do stuff in large batches before long expeditions. Three racks will get you started, and six will last you a long time. Drying racks are also nice because you can hang stuff like fish and frog legs on there to make Small Jerky as well.

Spiders are pretty easy to kill. You can actually kite them in to traps, which is pretty safe, if a bit fidgety and tedious. You'll need the bird cage to make the eggs, yeah. Before that, you'll mostly be eating jerky, but it shouldn't be difficult to trap a bird and relocate a couple of spider nests before winter sets in.

Really, bunnies and spiders are all you need to survive, so you can really build your fire pit next to the first bunnies you find, and then start looking for spiders once you've got your morsel train running. Like I said, after the spiders/birdcage/crockpot phase, step three is "enjoy all of your free time." Once you have your food production set up, then you can go out on expeditions to do stuff like mining, beefalo shaving, etc.

Edit: Oh, and yeah, it'll eat cooked monster meat, but like I said, if you have room on the racks, making monster jerky will give it a shelf life of 20 days versus 15. You can also use that jerky in the crockpot to make your bacon and eggs, and since it spoils more slowly, it'll make healthier bacon and eggs in the end. You know about how freshness works when combining things?
 

av2k

Member
Pretty much. You'll start out eating a lot of cooked morsels, which'll reduce your dependence on foraged food like berries and carrots. Small jerky is even better for you than cooked morsels, so get your racks set up sooner than later, though you don't need many until later when you wanna do stuff in large batches before long expeditions. Three racks will get you started, and six will last you a long time. Drying racks are also nice because you can hang stuff like fish and frog legs on there to make Small Jerky as well.

Spiders are pretty easy to kill. You can actually kite them in to traps, which is pretty safe, if a bit fidgety and tedious. You'll need the bird cage to make the eggs, yeah. Before that, you'll mostly be eating jerky, but it shouldn't be difficult to trap a bird and relocate a couple of spider nests before winter sets in.

Really, bunnies and spiders are all you need to survive, so you can really build your fire pit next to the first bunnies you find, and then start looking for spiders once you've got your morsel train running. Like I said, after the spiders/birdcage/crockpot phase, step three is "enjoy all of your free time." Once you have your food production set up, then you can go out on expeditions to do stuff like mining, beefalo shaving, etc.

Edit: Oh, and yeah, it'll eat cooked monster meat, but like I said, if you have room on the racks, making monster jerky will give it a shelf life of 20 days versus 15. You can also use that jerky in the crockpot to make your bacon and eggs, and since it spoils more slowly, it'll make healthier bacon and eggs in the end. You know about how freshness works when combining things?

ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD... now I'm on day 37, thanks so much gaf. I'm pretty stoked! I had six dry racks with spiders to north of me and rabbits to south of me. I have no idea how freshnsess works when combining items.

woot woot, super excited.
 
ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD... now I'm on day 37, thanks so much gaf. I'm pretty stoked! I had six dry racks with spiders to north of me and rabbits to south of me. I have no idea how freshnsess works when combining items.

woot woot, super excited.
Hey! Glad to hear it! Just remember, it's kinda like Bloodborne, in that it can feel comparatively easy if you're doing everything right, but once you start thinking it's actually easy, you fuck up and die. lol

Okay, spoilage. In a nutshell, food only lasts so long, and a given type of food will have a certain number of days it'll last before it completely turns to Rot
, which has its own uses, of course
.

More relevantly, once a particular piece of food has lived more than 50% of its total shelf life, it has reduced nutritional value, as described in the link above. Bacon and Eggs has a shelf life of 20 days. That's how long it takes to turn to Rot, but even after 10 days in your pocket (or a chest…), it will only restore 50 hunger when you eat it, instead of the normal 75.

That's what makes the bird so cool. Even if a piece of meat has rotted down to 1%, the bird will cheerfully eat it and produce an egg with 100% freshness. Ditto for the drying racks, actually; as long as the raw meat hasn't completely rotted away, you can dry it and produce a perfectly fresh piece of jerky.

Now, the normal way of increasing freshness — or more accurately, reducing rottenness — is cooking. As a general rule, cooking a piece of food will halve it's rottenness. So if you have a morsel that 80% fresh, that means it's 20% rotten, so cooking it will result in a cooked morsel with 90% freshness. If the morsel starts at 40%, the 60% rottenness is halved to 30%, giving you a cooked morsel that's 70% fresh. Follow?

Now, when you put stuff in the crockpot, not only is it all (re)cooked, the freshness of the four ingredients you place inside is averaged. So let's say you've got a bunch of jerky you dried 17 days ago, so now it's all down to 15%. Basically useless at this point, right? Wrong.

You feed two of the rotten jerky to the bird, which produces two fresh eggs. You put those in the crockpot with the rancid monster and small jerky. The rottenness of the jerky is halved to 42.5% before being averaged in with the eggs, producing a meal with a freshness of 79%. That means it'll be good for almost 6 days in your pocket before it starts losing any nutritional value. Not bad for a meal made with a bunch of meat you harvested more than two weeks ago.

Basically, you're gonna need three spider meat and a morsel per day to survive. So let's say you hit your three nests and kill two dozen spiders. That should give you a dozen monster meat, along with ~6 each of webs and glands. On your way back to camp, nab about 6 bunnies. With a spear and a log suit, you should be finished with this by about noon. Make four batches of B&E, and you'll have a couple of morsels left over for spare jerky.

Less than a day's work, and you have enough food to feed you today and three more days beyond that. Alternatively, make your B&E just for today and tomorrow, and dry the rest of the meat, making B&E with the jerky later. Eventually, you'll just make big batches of jerky, and cook it up in to B&E as needed, either daily-ish or making a big stack for a long trip. If you have multiple stacks of jerky laying around, feed the old stuff to the bird, and put the fresher stuff in the crockpot. Nice thing is, none of this slows down in the winter like farming and beekeeping do.

Like I said, you wanna keep a little extra small jerky on hand, because it makes a great snack, especially after a fight. Most fights will affect your sanity in addition to your health, and jerky actually recovers a fair bit of both. Preferred snack food of four our of five spider farmers.
 

av2k

Member
Hey! Glad to hear it! Just remember, it's kinda like Bloodborne, in that it can feel comparatively easy if you're doing everything right, but once you start thinking it's actually easy, you fuck up and die. lol

Okay, spoilage. In a nutshell, food only lasts so long, and a given type of food will have a certain number of days it'll last before it completely turns to Rot
, which has its own uses, of course
.

More relevantly, once a particular piece of food has lived more than 50% of its total shelf life, it has reduced nutritional value, as described in the link above. Bacon and Eggs has a shelf life of 20 days. That's how long it takes to turn to Rot, but even after 10 days in your pocket (or a chest…), it will only restore 50 hunger when you eat it, instead of the normal 75.

That's what makes the bird so cool. Even if a piece of meat has rotted down to 1%, the bird will cheerfully eat it and produce an egg with 100% freshness. Ditto for the drying racks, actually; as long as the raw meat hasn't completely rotted away, you can dry it and produce a perfectly fresh piece of jerky.

Now, the normal way of increasing freshness — or more accurately, reducing rottenness — is cooking. As a general rule, cooking a piece of food will halve it's rottenness. So if you have a morsel that 80% fresh, that means it's 20% rotten, so cooking it will result in a cooked morsel with 90% freshness. If the morsel starts at 40%, the 60% rottenness is halved to 30%, giving you a cooked morsel that's 70% fresh. Follow?

Now, when you put stuff in the crockpot, not only is it all (re)cooked, the freshness of the four ingredients you place inside is averaged. So let's say you've got a bunch of jerky you dried 17 days ago, so now it's all down to 15%. Basically useless at this point, right? Wrong.

You feed two of the rotten jerky to the bird, which produces two fresh eggs. You put those in the crockpot with the rancid monster and small jerky. The rottenness of the jerky is halved to 42.5% before being averaged in with the eggs, producing a meal with a freshness of 79%. That means it'll be good for almost 6 days in your pocket before it starts losing any nutritional value. Not bad for a meal made with a bunch of meat you harvested more than two weeks ago.

Basically, you're gonna need three spider meat and a morsel per day to survive. So let's say you hit your three nests and kill two dozen spiders. That should give you a dozen monster meat, along with ~6 each of webs and glands. On your way back to camp, nab about 6 bunnies. With a spear and a log suit, you should be finished with this by about noon. Make four batches of B&E, and you'll have a couple of morsels left over for spare jerky.

Less than a day's work, and you have enough food to feed you today and three more days beyond that. Alternatively, make your B&E just for today and tomorrow, and dry the rest of the meat, making B&E with the jerky later. Eventually, you'll just make big batches of jerky, and cook it up in to B&E as needed, either daily-ish or making a big stack for a long trip. If you have multiple stacks of jerky laying around, feed the old stuff to the bird, and put the fresher stuff in the crockpot. Nice thing is, none of this slows down in the winter like farming and beekeeping do.

Like I said, you wanna keep a little extra small jerky on hand, because it makes a great snack, especially after a fight. Most fights will affect your sanity in addition to your health, and jerky actually recovers a fair bit of both. Preferred snack food of four our of five spider farmers.

Holy moly, I had no idea there was so much to just the freshness mechanic, thanks so much for that. Wish I had more to contribute to your essay like response to my simple request. Eggs and bacon are a life saver for sure, without it, I'd imagine the game would be extremely difficult. Thanks again :D
 
Holy moly, I had no idea there was so much to just the freshness mechanic, thanks so much for that. Wish I had more to contribute to your essay like response to my simple request. Eggs and bacon are a life saver for sure, without it, I'd imagine the game would be extremely difficult. Thanks again :D
lol Well, the game's mechanics are actually all comparatively simple. There are just a lot of them in play, so you end up with a decent amount of strategy and depth. The trick is to learn how the various systems work, and then leverage them in the most advantageous way possible.

Take drying meat. A cooked morsel lasts 10 days, but if you dry the same piece of meat, it lasts 20 days, and it adds a health and sanity boost. Making monster jerky offers no nutritional benefits we care about, and a monster steak does keep for 15 days, but the monster jerky keeps for 20. Five days may not seem like much time, but extending the shelf life of your supplies by 33% is indeed significant, and adds up if you do it regularly.

So now that you know how to feed yourself, my advice would be to just take things one step at a time and start learning the game, system by system. Make a plan and execute it. Return to base and start making preparations for your next project. Measure twice, cut once. Accept the fact that things are gonna slow down in winter and travel will be difficult; it's a good time work on stuff near your base, or the base itself. When things go wrong, return to base, relax, and regroup.

Good luck, and enjoy! It's a really fun game.
 

kriskrosbbk

Member
Anyone having issues connecting to servers since last week?I have a game saved on a server and I cannot connect at all. Trying every day and this is frustrating.Any fix? (ps4)
 
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