NOTE: Before anyone saying anything, this is NOT a Tutorial, it's not meant to hold your hand per-say, rather the goal of it is to so show common tactics for making the best use of that early game, or give some ideas on how to get started. It is assumed that the reader has some basic knowledge such as how to craft items and gather resources. Since we are getting a influx of new players, thought I might as well set up a short guide, as those first 7 days are like a milestone, and can be critical to your survival, as Winter will start in the next 1-2 weeks. All of this guide assumes you are playing non-modded. Introduction and Tips NOTE: Before anyone saying anything, this is NOT a Tutorial, it's not meant to hold your hand per-say, rather the goal of it is to so show common tactics for making the best use of that early game, or give some ideas on how to get started. It is assumed that the reader has some basic knowledge such as how to craft items and gather resources. Since we are getting a influx of new players, thought I might as well set up a short guide, as those first 7 days are like a milestone, and can be critical to your survival, as Winter will start in the next 1-2 weeks. All of this guide assumes you are playing non-modded First off, some Tips; (http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Don%27t_Starve_Wiki good resource to use if you do not know what some things are) 1) Keep moving. You want to keep moving from place to place collecting supplies. You don't want to make your base-camp until you have a good amount supplies or find a good spot (Near a Cave, Pig-king, Pond field, Useful Wormhole etc etc). 2) Make a Backpack Day 1 if possible. 3) Keep an eye out for the Eye Bone. This handy little item summons Chester, a sweet mobile chest/dog/spring thing. You'll come to love him. 4) Start digging. When you make your backpack, make sure to make a shovel or two as well, digging up all of the Grass and twigs you come across, at least a stack of each. You'll want them for a farm when you make base-camp. 5) Pick your fights, don't get into fights if you don't have too, even if you think you can win, you''ll just waste resources at this point. 6) Follow the road. Not only will this let you travel quickly, but more often than not, there are some interesting things at the end, Maybe even a suitable camp site. 7) Don't pick all the Berries. While it might be tempting to grab them as you go, Berries rot pretty quickly. It's better to grab 3-4 days worth (about 12-15) and leave the rest for later. 8) Grab that poop. You'll need 1 for every grass you have. It will be hard to find at first, unless you get lucky and spawn near some beeaflo, and excess can be used in place of logs as fuel. Day 1 Day 1: Simple enough, walk around collecting all of the Grass, Twigs and Flint you can find. Collect at most 12 berries for now, leave the rest. The First tool you should make should be the pickaxe. This will allow you to break up Boulders and collect stone, more flint and gold. Ignore the nitre. Once you've broken a rock or two, make a Axe and chop down a tree. you do not need a lot of wood right now, so 10-12 for the day will do fine. Keep the pinecones that drop. Continue along as before, but add Boulders to your list now. By nightfall, you should have a decent amount of Grass, Flint, Stone and Twigs. Build a basic campfire, trowing 1-2 logs on it for good measure. Cook 3-4 berries on the fire and eat them. Now, if you got any gold from the boulders (you should have), make a science machine near the campfire, in the Science tab (the atom). stand near it and now make a Backpack (survival tab), Shovel (Tools), Rope (processed tab) and Hammer (Tools). Equip the Hammer and break down the Science machine, getting back some of your mats. By the time you are done, morning should be approaching Day 2 & 3 Day 2: Same plan as yesterday, gathering supplies, although a few new items have been added to your gathering list. Equipping the shovel, start to dig up any Twigs and Grass. Do NOT dig up the Berry bushes yet, player planted berries will not grow unless fertilized, keep the natural bushes for food till you can get a better source. You can either pick a few more berries to supplement the ones you ate, or gather a few carrots (not recommended, to save space and save them for winter). If you pass by a Savannah with Beefalo, look around for manure and collect all you find. If you do not, do not waste time looking for one at the moment. As you are collecting supplies, keep a eye out for a road and start following one once found, they will often lead you to something nice. Start making a mental note of key locations suck as ponds, swamplands, or Beehives. As night falls, make a basic fire and wait it out, cooking a few berries and cutting down any trees in the range of your light. Day 3: A rehash of Day 2 mostly. If you've found a good spot to make camp, skip to day 4. Day 4 Day 4: Assuming you've not found a awesome campsite, your inventory is probably full, or getting there by now. If you've found a great spot (near cave, Pig king, etc etc), great, if not, take a look at your map (tab) and pick somewhere that is at least decent (near a pig village, forest, Savannah with Beefalo, etc etc) and build a Fire pit, this will be your Base camp, at least for now dump a few items like stone on the ground near it to make some room. Cut down a good number of trees in the area till you have a nice number of logs, at least 2 stacks. throw down a Science machine and make Planks (processed tab). Make 12 planks and build 4 Chests (Structures tab) and place them close to your fire pit. Next, make Cut stones (same as planks) and use those, planks, and gold to make a Alchemy machine. destroy your science machine with your hammer. You can take this time to organize your inventory using the chests. Plant your twigs and Grass within sight of the camp, as compactly as possible. This might take some learning, but it is doable. next, take all of the manure you gathered, and fertilize the Grass. if you do not have any, that is fine. Next, go to the Alchemy machine and make a lighting rod and place it near the Grass and twigs. This will protect them from lightning during rainstorms. If you have any Gold left, make a Winter-o-meter and any gold tools you can. Next, go a little ways away from your camp not far, but far enough you'll feel safe if a Treeguard spawns, a good idea is just far enoguh that camp is juuussstttt off screen, and separate your Pinecones into two stacks. Plant them in two patches a good distance away from each other, digging up Twigs, bushes, Grass and stumps to make room if necessary. By the time you get done, it should be near night, get back to camp, put some logs on the fire and make dinner. If you have some time to spare, gather more supplies Day 5 Day 5: Now, time for some fighting! but first off, by this time, your Sanity will be relatively low. To fix this, gather 12 flowers and make a flower hat (forget the name, it's in the dress tab, easy to spot), this will slowly raise your sanity back up. You can find flowers often in grasslands (light green floor), but will struggle to find many in most other biomes. This can be done on Day 3 as well, but you may not get as much out of it. Next, cut down a few more trees if you don't have any logs left and make a Log suit back at camp. this will take up your backpack slot, but it will protect you from alot of damage (not all, but alot). next, make a Spear. Alternatively, you can use your Hammer as a weapon, as you'll have no real need for it for awhile, although it does less damage. Once equipped, bring some Food, logs, grass, twigs, a pick, axe and some flint as supplies. Find a spiders nest and get ready for a fight. lvl 1 nests are going to be most common right now, with some lvl 2s here and there. for level 1s, the concept is simple. Step on the webing and make a spider come out, wait till he gets near and hisses, this will mean he's aggroed. pull him off the web and start hitting him with your spear. DO NOT HIT HIM WHILE STILL ON THE WEB, this will cause more spiders to come out. Spiders can be "stun locked" meaning attacking them stuns them for a second, stopping them from attacking. This allows single spiders to be delt with easliy. if you pull multiple spiders, you need to time your attacks between their however, or you'll get hit. Collect the Silk and spider glands they drop, ignoring the monster meat (for now) Once you've cleared all the spiders out of a nest (no more spiders spawn when on the web), attack the web and collect the Silk it drops. Do this for about 5-6 nests, or until it starts to get dark. Once back at camp, use the silk to craft first a Beekeeper hat, and then as many Bug nets you can. if you do not have enough grass for the rope, wait till the next day and gather some up. Day 6 Day 6: Assuming you made the hat and nets last night (if not, get to it!), find the nearest grasslands with Beehive, pick up some supplies, and start heading to it, gather more grass and twigs as you to supplement what you've used. Once near the beehives, start catching all the bees and butterflies you can till you have enough bees for around 5-6 Bee boxes (about 24 bees) and around 10-15 butterflies. You can catch the killer bees as well, although that it will take more nets to reach your goal. Once you have the bees, attack the beehives and gather the combs they drop (warring, if you did not clear the Killer bees, a good number will spawn when you attack) You'll need 1 comb for every Beebox you want to make. This will probably take you all day, but if you have some time to spare, once back at camp, head to the trees you planted a few days ago and you will see they have Grown. Make a torch and burn down one of the patches, this will make charcoal trees, which you'll cut down for charcoal later. Take the rest of the day to cut some logs, then head to camp and make dinner. REMEMBER TO REPLANT YOUR TREES! Day 7 Day 7: Now it's time to get a reliable food source up and running. If you did not have time to visit the tree farm last night, do so now If a Treegaurd spawns, lead it away from camp and plant pinecones to pacify it. Once you've a good number of logs, head back to camp and make some planks. while there, use any spare stone (leaving about half a stack for later) to make Stone walls. go a good distance away from the Camp (a bit closer than your tree farm, but in a different direction) and make bee boxes (must be prototyped first), putting them close, together but with enough room to move. Next, start building a wall of Stone walls around the Beeboxes, with enough room from the wall to the end Beebox to stick another group of Beeboxes in."Plant" all of your butterflies in this open area in the Wall, BE CAREFUL NOT TO RELEASE THEM BY MISTAKE!!!. (3x3 example, modify to your liking)确保在墙上留一个开口以便轻松进出，并移除墙外所有附近的花朵，防止蜜蜂四处游荡。现在你拥有了可靠的食物来源——蜂蜜。种植10-15朵花（蝴蝶会授粉），6个蜂箱大约半天就能装满（见相关图片的 bottom row）。这将为你提供足够的食物，还能带来不错的“收入”来储备过冬。只需戴上养蜂帽，收集蜂蜜后跑开。不要攻击你自己的蜜蜂，直接跑回营地。 从这里开始，你可以自由探索或继续建造营地。 好了，各位！我知道内容有点长，但希望这能帮助你更好地享受游戏。我知道这可能挺麻烦的，但这都是学习的过程。如果你有任何问题、建议，或者发现我可能遗漏了什么，欢迎在评论区告诉我！ 额外内容 第8天： 回到你的树木农场，你可以开始砍伐第6天留下的焦树。这会获得木炭，木炭有多种实用用途。它可以用来制作火焰飞镖和回旋镖这些强力远程武器，以及用于改良特定食物的烹饪锅和晾肉架。木炭还能作为燃料，堆叠数量可达40个，而原木只能堆叠20个。建议你先制作一个烹饪锅和4-6个晾肉架，再将木炭用于其他用途。至于当天剩下的时间，建议你收集更多丝绸，或者采集草和树枝来补充资源。

Hey guys, today I'm going to teach you how to NOT starve, as well as all of the other things, like (but not limited to): staying sane, staying alive, building a base, and dealing with enemies with ease. Hope this helps! [NOTE: All information applies only to base game, although it might help in RoG]. Last updated 2/5/15 First off, some vocabulary! Aggro - Getting an enemy to follow you in order to attack you. Baiting - Getting an enemy to attack. Kiting - The process of attacking and killing an enemy without taking damage from it. Filler - An item in a crock pot recipe that is not specifically required for that recipe. Tanking - The process of killing an enemy without moving. Dragging - Aggro-ing an enemy and then having it follow you to a desired location. Now that that's over with, let's get to the interesting stuff - How to say sane. How to Stay Sane One of the hardest things to deal with in this game is sanity. Some people can change from sanity to insanity with ease, but for most of us, it's hard enough staying sane at all. Here are a few items that will help you stay sane. Green Mushrooms - These things are amazing. When cooked, they restore sanity at the cost of health. I know, the sound of losing health isn't very appealing, but don't fret. You get a whopping 15 sanity and lose just one health per mushroom! The inverse of these are cooked red mushrooms, which should never be eaten alone. Ever. Seriously, just eat a flower or something! Jerky - If you're having second thoughts about making drying racks since you probably won't use them, let this change your mind. Only one small jerky restores 10 sanity in addition to both health and hunger. Normal jerky is even more. Not to mention they last forever, too. Crock Pot Food - Depending on the food, using a crock pot is usually enough to keep you sane without even using any funky recipes. The most obvious food is Taffee, but there's another food that I feel is much better that is often overlooked - Meatballs. They restore quite a bit of sanity from only 4 lower pieces of food, so if you don't think you're ready to switch to the bigger stuff, don't rush yourself. These things are great. The Power of Invention - Did you know that when you create prototypes you gain a small sanity boost? For this reason, whenever I'm thinking about making something like a pitchfork or a boomerang, I wait until I'm low on sanity. Another thing: Don't just invent things that are useless to you. Golden tools, weapons, armor, and even clothes will give just as much sanity as that potted plant or wooden flooring. Hats - Whenever I create a new world, I'm gathering 12 flowers immediately for that sweet, sweet, garland. Any hats that have durability will give you sanity regen when worn. Most people know this about the garland, but not any other hats. After you've made a base, I recommend always having a hat on you to wear after night to regain the sanity you lose, but don't wear it at dusk or night - this wastes durability, as the sanity degen during those times is enough to counter your hat. Also, don't just use garlands - while they are easy to make, they use a lot of flowers and don't last as long, because they still lose nutrition during dusk and night. A winter hat is your best bet, just be sure to keep your beefalo shaved to keep up with it. The most common reason that people go insane is because they're hovering right above the mark constantly. Don't wait until you're insane to use these items - learn what your max sanity is, and try to keep it as close to max as possible. This way, you won't lose your marbles whenever hounds attack, or a treeguard spawns. How to Avoid Starvation This is probably the easiest of the three to keep up with - at first, anyway. As long as you don't run out of food, you'll be ok... right? Here's a few ways to help you do that. Crock Pot Food - A Crock Pot should be rushed almost immediately in virtually any world, as it is extremely useful. If you don't know how to use a crock pot, there are some mods that can help you, as well as a wiki if you're desperate. You COULD experiment with it, but I don't recommend it as it's a waste of food and most good recipes are very specific. Some foods that I recommend are: -Meatballs (1 Monster Meat + 3 Fillers) - Restores around 1/3 of hunger as well as some health and sanity. -Honey Ham (1 Meat, 1 Morsel, 1 Monster Meat,1 Honey) - Restores a good chunk of hunger as well as 40 health. -Meaty Stew (1 Meat, 2 Morsels, 1 Monster Meat) - Restores entire hunger bar for all characters except Wolfgang and an upgraded WX-78. Bacon and Eggs (1 Morsel, 1 Monster Meat, 2 Eggs or 1 Tallbird Egg, 2 Monster Meat, 1 Twig) - Restores around 1/2 of hunger bar. Dragonpie (1 Dragonfruit, 3 fillers - includes sticks) - This is definitely the cheapest out of all crock pot foods as it only requires 1 food - The Dragonfruit. The other three can just be sticks. It restores hunger as well as some sanity. Seeing a trend here? Most of the better crock pot foods all require meat (as well as some other ingredients), so you're going to want to set up your base near a good source of meat - spiders, rabbits, koalefants, and the occasional beefalo or pig should be enough for all three, but if you want to only live off of one I recommend rabbits as they can be stored in chests until needed, and respawn every day. Also, I got rather specific with the types of meats to use, because they are the best ways to conserve food - Using monster meat whenever you can and meats and morsels whenever they are required. If you don't have monster meat, they go 1:1 with morsels, and both of those go 2:1 with meat. Another thing, the Fillers - I tried to stay clear of them in every recipe except Meatballs (<3) because they are also very specific, and you can ruin an entire recipe with just one incorrect filler. Some of the best fillers to use are Berries, food from Farms, Mushrooms, and - wait for it - Butterflies! That's right, you can combine a Spider and three Butterflies to make some meatballs. They can be a little tricky to kill at first, but I don't recommend using a net because that wastes silk. Basically, whenever they are flying in place in a figure 8 or are still on the ground, they are vulnerable. They take one hit from any weapon (incuding your fists) but are pretty hard to hit with your mouse. To counter this, Hold Ctrl and press F to auto attack them. They drop their wings as well as an occasional Butter, which are both great healing items in bulk and take a very long time to spoil. Careful though, Krampus LOVES butterflies! He'll show up after you kill around 30 of them at once, so even though they may be great, 30 of them will probably spoil anyway - Don't bother! A few more tips: - Never make the breezy vest, or the puffy vest if you can help it. The trunk is a great item to eat as it restores hefty amounts of health, hunger, and sanity. - Save carrots until winter. Yes, they ARE really good, but they can only be picked once, unlike berries. Save them for winter or when you really need them! - Keep farms on cooldown - Whenever you see anything grow back, just go right ahead and pick it again. It might seem pretty obvious, but when you delay picking it, you delay even more food coming from it too. This goes for farms, drying racks, berries, mushrooms, etc. - Pick up seeds and berries even if you don't need them. Seeds are decent enough to keep your hunger topped off if you're not using farms, and berries take a lot longer to spoil then you might think. - Staying ontop of spoilage - There are several ways to keep food from spoiling. Putting some spoiled food into a stack of fresh food will balance out the spoilage for all of them, making them a little more than stale. Also, both cooking them and using them in the crock pot will restore spoilage, and you can do both (cooked food can be used in crock pots). Not positive but I think drying it restores some as well, and an ice box will reduce the spoilage rate dramatically. If you have some spoiled meat or eggs, feeding them to a bird will turn them into a fresh egg, but both monster meat and eggs must be cooked before you can do this. This is an amazing way to keep large amounts of meat from spoiling: remember those 3 Koalefants you killed before you got a fridge? Have fun with your 24 fresh eggs! Moving on! How to Maintain Your Health I've seen a lot of people asking for this, probably because it's the one thing that keeps you alive - you only die when you run out of health. There are a bunch of obvious as well as hidden ways to keep your health up, and while they all may seem really small, they do a lot when you use a lot of them. Crock Pot Food - Along with sanity, there are some foods that give health when cooked in a crockpot. Some of the better ones are Dragonpie (40 hp), Honey Ham (30 hp), Butter Muffins (20 hp), and Meaty Stew (12 hp). Jerky and Cooked food are also good too. Healing Items - In addition to crock pot foods, there are also some pretty great healing items you can get. These include Spider Glands, Healing Salves, Deerclops Eyeballs, and Koalefant Trunks, as well as Gears if you're WX-78. It never hurts to keep a spare gear with you for emergencies, as they restore a ton of health. And that's pretty much it. Honestly, there aren't very many ways to heal yourself in your game, so there is one other solution: Don't take damage. I know you probably wouldn't be reading this if you didn't, but honestly, that's the best way to stay alive. Avoid fighting anything that can fight you back before you're ready for it, which usually consists of just having a way to get your health back up after the fight (as well as not dying in the middle of the fight). Remember, in this game, it's usually not one thing that kills you: it's a combination of things. Always prepare for everything to go absolutely horrible, and you'll never be suprised when it does. Plan ahead, avoid damage, and reheal when you do take damage, and staying alive will become a lot easier. How to Kill Enemies With Ease This section could be written in one word: Kiting. That's the secret to killing anything and everything you feel like. Don't like the way those Merms are looking at you? Introduce them to kiting, and I assure it will never happen again. How to Kite: The entire process is this: Aggro the enemy, bait their attack, attack them for x amount of hits, dodge their attack again, and continue on with steps 2 and 3. Don't know what any of this stuff means? Here ya go. First, you must aggro them. Usually this can be done by walking near them if they are hostile, or hitting them once if they are not. Be careful though, as the very second you hit them, they will start their attack cycle: And you're in range. When aggroing a non-hostile mob, you should use a ranged attack if possible, and if not, run in, hit them, and run back out. Second, you must bait their attack animation. With non-hostile mobs, this has already been done. After you dodge their attack, go straight in for the hits, and then dodge the second one. However, for hostile mobs, you must bait them by running into and out of their range without being hit. THEN you can go in for your hits, dodge their second hit, and keep going until you kill them. After baiting, you can hit them with your weapon. Apparently, the amount of hits you can get in depends on the character, but I find it's too insignificant to matter most of the time. However, if you're not sure about the number because you're using a modded character or something, start off with 1 less. The amount of hits varies with every enemy, but after learning how long it takes them to attack and their attack interval it's pretty easy to find out this number. Each of your hit takes around 1 second, so after you bait, start counting and stop on their next attack. This is about how many hits you can get in. That's pretty much it, but with most things, it gets easier with practice, and it's very hard to explain. Start off with the weaker enemies and continue moving up, and eventually you will get it. ALWAYS wear armor though, no matter how confident you are in your abilities. You never know when your game might lag, and it seems to do this a lot during combat - I've died multiple times because I got too cocky. Another thing: Kiting is amazing, but only if you have the patience for it. It sometimes takes a very long time, and even significantly longer than just tanking it, but usually it's worth doing in the long run. What if you're at low health from tanking a treeguard, and then all of a sudden, some hounds come and kill you? You probably would'ove lived if you would'ove kited it, but instead you decided to go the easy route. And now you're dead. Hah.