Starting on the lunar island

[Glomglom]

Can you survive on the lunar island? How far can you get? Which rescources are renewable?

 

So I thought of a challenge:

As soon as you spawn in a world you have to execute 2 commands: c_gonext("moon_altar_rock_glass") and c_setsanity(0).

This will place you at the inviting formation for the celestial altar base and you will have 0 lunacy. The goal of this challenge is to survive on the lunar island and get as far as you can. The only rules are that you cannot touch the mainland. So the lunar island, the oceans and the hermit island are ok.

My strategy so far:

You have to  factor one thing into the equasion: The amount of gold veins spawned in the lunar mine, since they are your only source of gold nuggets at the start. The first thing to do is to survive the first night, wich is a new moon so celestial fissures do not give off light. Since there is absolutely no grass on the lunar island you can´t make a torch. Let me repeat. NO GRASS. This will make crafting a lot more complex. There are 2 ways to survive night 1: Looking around the lunar baths to find an already bath bombed hot spring, which will give off light, or quickly gather the materials for a campfire. Since there is always a bath bombed spring I recommend the first method. Next problem is to make science. You will need at least 5 gold nuggets to survive winter. One for the science machine and 4 for an alchemy engine. The alchemy engine is important, since it is needed for a thermal stone, the only obtainable winter "insulation" item (beside Wilsons and Webbers beard). I once spawned on a world with only 2 gold veins, so be prepared. In the end, gold is one of the most limiting factors, since you need 5 for winter, 3 for spring (lightning rod) and maybe 4 more gold for an endothermic fire pit, depending on the temperature. The next limiting factor is grass. You need grass for a bug net, so you can reproduce lune trees. Against common sense, grass IS obtainable, by ocean debris, which has a 20% chance to be grass and a 20% chance to be a sunken blob, which is basically a tumbleweed of the sea.

[Mike23Ua]

15 minutes ago, Glomglom said:

Can you survive on the lunar island? How far can you get?

If you START on Lunar, you’ll make it till you start starving, then you’ll attempt to pluck carrots and they’ll run away and not be catchable, you’ll then see Saladmander and think, Salad.. yup that’s good! Then you’ll smack it with a spear and regret it afterwards.

(I may or may not be speaking from personal experience)

[Glomglom]

So I thought of a challenge:

As soon as you spawn in a world you have to execute 2 commands: c_gonext("moon_altar_rock_glass") and c_setsanity(0).

This will place you at the inviting formation for the celestial altar base and you will have 0 lunacy. The goal of this challenge is to survive on the lunar island and get as far as you can. The only rules are that you cannot touch the mainland. So the lunar island, the oceans and the hermit island are ok.

My strategy so far:

You have to  factor one thing into the equasion: The amount of gold veins spawned in the lunar mine, since they are your only source of gold nuggets at the start. The first thing to do is to survive the first night, wich is a new moon so celestial fissures do not give off light. Since there is absolutely no grass on the lunar island you can´t make a torch. Let me repeat. NO GRASS. This will make crafting a lot more complex. There are 2 ways to survive night 1: Looking around the lunar baths to find an already bath bombed hot spring, which will give off light, or quickly gather the materials for a campfire. Since there is always a bath bombed spring I recommend the first method. Next problem is to make science. You will need at least 5 gold nuggets to survive winter. One for the science machine and 4 for an alchemy engine. The alchemy engine is important, since it is needed for a thermal stone, the only obtainable winter "insulation" item (beside Wilsons and Webbers beard). I once spawned on a world with only 2 gold veins, so be prepared. In the end, gold is one of the most limiting factors, since you need 5 for winter, 3 for spring (lightning rod) and maybe 4 more gold for an endothermic fire pit, depending on the temperature. The next limiting factor is grass. You need grass for a bug net, so you can reproduce lune trees. Against common sense, grass IS obtainable, by ocean debris, which has a 20% chance to be grass and a 20% chance to be a sunken blob, which is basically a tumbleweed of the sea. So grass is obtainable, althoug grindy, so you want to save as much grass as possible. Set your base up near some hot springs and also near the shore. If you are playing Webber, set your spiders up and start farming them. Else, dig up every anenemy and plant them near the closest shattered spider den. When winter hits, you make a thermal stone and hang around the bath bombed hot spring. Another thing is that nitre and flint are absolutely non-renewable, so you can run out of flint for tools or nitre for bath bombs. Deerclops will inevitably come, and since most armor requires rope, you will have to fight unarmored so for most characters 2 to 1 (Maxwell) hit from deerclops will be your doom, so fight especially careful, in the best case with a glass cutter. Use a 1 to 2 hit kiting pattern around a bath bombed hot spring. Make boat trips if possible to obtain a hammer, so you can hammer sea bones for an eyebrella. After winter, place a lightning rod, wear your eyebrella and take a breath. Spring is an ideal time to look out for the hermit island and messages in bottles. After you visit the hermit, try to get the friendship to Lv2 so you get a random lure, in the best case the stupifying lure, which has good stats, caches all kinds of fish and is effective all the time. Also save grass for a pinchin´winch. The easiest tasks to perform are: 1: Dry 6 meats (kelp works too) and 2: Give the hermit a body insulation dress while it is snowing. This is easily done with a dapper vest, but only if you discover the hermit early, during winter. The next best thing is to upgrade the hermit home to Lv2, but you need 10 cookie cutter shells for that, so you have to risk your life farming cookie cutters. Spring is relatively easy, as long as you manage to stay dry. While being wet, your temperature will be up to 30 degrees lower, so beware of freezing, this all doesn´t apply at all, if you have an eyebrella, of course. When summer arrives, you hopefully have the eyebrella, and even then, you will overheat eventually. The obious solution to this is to screw up rowing of course. The wetness will cool you down and decrease sanity, which is good, of course. More to that later. If all this doesn´t help during mid-summer, make an endothermic fire pit, to save nitre (Not wasting it on endothermic campfires). Stay near base as long as possible, since you pretty much can´t get a flingomatic up. This should be enough to survive summer. Now to boating. A great problem is to fully stop the boat. If you don´t, the thing will drift away and you will basically loose every rescource on the boat. You can either use a ton of grass on an anchor or use the more rescoure-friendly method of dropping any heavy object into the water and recovering it with a winch, because successfully grabbing an item with the winch will slow the boat down by a lot. After you pick up the item, you just throw it back into the water for another stopping later. After you get the winch, you can scout for buried treasure. These things are one of the most important things for renewability, since you can get gears, gold nuggets, making them renewable, and even armor. When possible, make an anchor for easier boat stopping. 

Now to managing the stats:

HUNGER: The primary hunger sources are stone fruits and kelp. Stone fruits are plentyful but require a pickaxe to be opened which can become a problem with the flint consumption, except for playing as maxwell. The other food source is kelp fonds which you should gather and cultivate (building the base near the ocean). Uncooked they provide hunger as well as decrease sanity, at the cost of health, which can really sum up. another method is monster meat obtained form (shattered) spiders which you can combine into meat balls in a crock pot. The only catch being that you need 2 grass for a torch to light trees on fire for charcoal. When you level the hermit up and gain lures, you can also make california rolls or even the mighty surf n turf. 

SANITY: Due to the lunar island, you will quickly become enlighted, which contrary to insanity can not be easily fought since there is no way to fight gestalts and you don´t want them popping up in a boss fight or while kiting spiders. All in all the lunar island wants you to go "sane" so you have to fight it ASAP. Kelp fonds are a good idea, but there is another food that decreases sanity easily: Literally every spoilable item Just put some lune tree blossoms on the ground and wait for them to spoil. I don´t know if this effect stacks with the sanity decrease from raw kelp but in this case, kelp is an even better alternative. Another way to loose sanity quickly is to hop on a boat at night and sit in the twilight. This lets you loose 50 sanity per minute, resulting in the total drainage of sanity in half a day. Further up I said that there is no other insulation item other than the thermal stone, which isn´t exactly true. The dapper vest exists too, but its 3.3 sanity/minute gain is not advisable for a mere 60 insulation.

HEALTH: You are mostly fighting unarmored so health is a problem. You could farm spiders for glands but it´s just not worth it with the danger of loosing more health than you would gain. So another viable alternative are cooked stone fruits. 3 health can sum up as fast as the health loss from uncooked kelp. So in this case see every stone fruit bush as a free 9 health. If you have a crock pot and a good lure, you can make california rolls for an extra 20 health.

 

And last: The character choice.

Wilson: No downsides are great, but no upsides aren´t good either. The beard is better than normal due to the lack of insulation items.

Willow: The lighter makes surviving the first night trivial and you can easily get charcoal. But beware that the lighter is non-renewable, because you just can´t obtain petals. This leaves her more ineffective winter insulation, the sanity "gain" from fire and the higher fuel efficiency. Bernie is almost useless, since he will deactivate on the lunar island and farming nightmare fuel is useless due to the lack of rabbits and thus no magic. So you are left with a hand insulation and warmth item. Not too shabby. But the sanity gain from fire is super contraproductive, since you will go "insane" faster. All in all is willow okay, her sanity gain is her biggest downside in this challenge.

Wendy: Abigail is more useful since the rework, but beware that you can not craft any tonics, due to the lack of pipspooks. Her slower sanity loss is contraproductive, since you want to hang in the twilight on boats for maximum enlightment loss. Her lower attack damage doesn´t really matter, since you immediately get access to a high damage weapon (the glass cutter).

Wolfgang: He is very good, since you not only get a ton of food through stone fruits but also regain health by eating, since added health points due to hunger filliing will be full. Beware of the limited amound of stone fruits due to pickaxe durability limitation. This is all negated by bringing in a maxwell. His higher sanity loss is good, because you can loose lunacy faster. No wonder Wolf is a part of the standart meta. A really good character who can turn his down- into upsides.

WX-78: Becomes worse on the lunar island. Because gears are only obtainable as a rare loot in sunken chests, which you can only get to in the mid- to lategame. His ability to eat spoiled food is actually bad, since it doesn´t allow you to reap the benefits of spoiled food. Being overcharged can be a blessing and a curse, because if you don´t have lightning rods, you can stay near base to attract lightning. You will still set objects under your feet on fire, so don´t stay in base for too long. This all applies only, if you dont have a lightning rod. Taking damage in rain can be detrimental, if you don´t have the eyebrella so watch out. Wx  becomes a low-tier character for lunar survival.

Wickerbottom: Her inability to sleep will not be much of a problem, because you will regain lunacy in sleep anyways. Taking a bigger toll with spoiled food is not too bad, while her books can become very good. Reeds grow everywhere and boosting stone fruit bushes is really good. On tentacles is unobtainable, since there are no tentacle spots. An ok to good character.

Woodie: His curse becomes rather good, the moose can kill many spiders at once, the beaver can chop trees and the goose can scout for the hermit and stuff. Just be prepared to run quickly to island if the weremeter gets low, since you can only land on the lunar island/fragment. For Woodie, nothing really changes.

Wes: He gets a bit better, since you loose sanity while making balloons? There is a reason Wes is not really liked by the community.

Maxwell: His sanity gain can be devastating, but this can be countered by spawning 2 harvesters. The harvesters are super good, since you can have a miner around and let him mine all the stone fruits. The lack of armor early game is evil, since of his low hp. Maxwell is an interesting choice, with a hard earlygame and an easier mid to lategame.

Wigfrid: Being carnivore, she is a rather bad choice, being only able to eat monstermeat and products of it. The helmet and spear are useless, since they use up valuable gold. Her life and sanitysteal is a good and bad thing for reasons you can figure out yourself. The best thing about her is the damage bonus and resistance. A lower than average choice.

Webber: Becomes really good, due to the ability to spawn and farm weaker spiders. No penalties with monstermeat is good too. He has an easy way for healing (glands) and his low sanity is a double edges sword: He can become sane and insane quite fast. There are no mobs considering him a monster so your basically free to go. A good character.

Winona: Taking a free Charlie-hit is good for a insanity trip going wrong. Her crafting speed is not a big deal, while her inventions are basically useless. The catapult gobbles up valuable grass, the spotlight is useless due to the light of the fissures and the generator eats up valuable nitre. A below average wilson.

Wormw00d: No healing from food is really bad, so he is bad, except with webber. His seed planting is really good, especially if you can afford a birdcage. Gaining/loosing sanity with gardening is good and also bad. He is rather weak on his own, but grows stronger with certain other characters.

Warly: The limited rescoure availability (veggies, meat, maybe fish) makes Warly below average. His porta pot is good, since it saves 2 grass in the early game. He is rather weak, but skyrockets in usefulness when combined with wormwood.

Wortox: Really good. Souls are free health from something like moon moths and eating them lowers lunacy. The sould hop makes exploring the lunar archipelago easy, just don´run out. Loosing half the sanity is bad, although this can be countered by eating souls. A good character.

Wurt: The merm king is unobtainable (pig skin, beefalo wool) and so are merm houses(no freshwater fish). She is still rather ok due to the higher hunger boost while eating veggies. About on the same tier as Wilson, maybe above.

 

Most character opinions are just theoretical, so you might find a new and cool strategy with your character. If you do, post it and others might profit!

All in all this challenge is very difficult. Choose your character wisely and proceed with caution. The guide above is just my approach on the challenge, so you can try your own way.

[Well-met]

you definitely can, however silk is a pain to farm.

and eventually you run out of gold.

and no nightmare fuel.

[Charesque]

1 hour ago, Well-met said:

you definitely can, however silk is a pain to farm.

and eventually you run out of gold.

and no nightmare fuel.

Nightmare fuel is farmable on Pearl's Island. Gold and golden tools can be acquired from sunken chests.

[Charesque]

4 hours ago, Glomglom said:

-snip-

I do not recall Deerclops spawning at the Lunar Island at all.
And if it does spawn, you don't need to dance around the hot spring, the entire island will be fully lit up by lunar fissures.

Also, spring is not an ideal time for sailing because, u'know, lightnings.

[gghhrr]

8 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

If you START on Lunar, you’ll make it till you start starving, then you’ll attempt to pluck carrots and they’ll run away and not be catchable, you’ll then see Saladmander and think, Salad.. yup that’s good! Then you’ll smack it with a spear and regret it afterwards.

(I may or may not be speaking from personal experience)

carrat is catchable

 

Spoiler

equip the kelp, pick carrot

press force attack, due to medium attack range

carrat will die before escape

 

[Glomglom]

4 hours ago, Charesque said:

I do not recall Deerclops spawning at the Lunar Island at all.
And if it does spawn, you don't need to dance around the hot spring, the entire island will be fully lit up by lunar fissures.

Also, spring is not an ideal time for sailing because, u'know, lightnings.

Yeah, I forgot the lightning :/ Spring IS an ideal time however, if you manage to save up gold for a lightning rod. If not, theeeeen...

[qaday123]

How do you drop the heavy item into the ocean? I've retrieved a shell bell cluster but have no idea how to drop the item into the ocean

[-Variant]

2 hours ago, qaday123 said:

How do you drop the heavy item into the ocean? I've retrieved a shell bell cluster but have no idea how to drop the item into the ocean

There's no direct way to drop heavy items in the ocean unlike regular items. Though, they can fall in the ocean if the boat they're on breaks or if you somehow fall into the ocean whilst carrying them. (Jumping onto a blocked boat and the like.)

You can pickaxe/mine the cluster to break it though.

[qaday123]

22 hours ago, -Variant said:

There's no direct way to drop heavy items in the ocean unlike regular items. Though, they can fall in the ocean if the boat they're on breaks or if you somehow fall into the ocean whilst carrying them. (Jumping onto a blocked boat and the like.)

You can pickaxe/mine the cluster to break it though.

Well that sucks. How come the post says to drop it back into the ocean to slow it down? Does it mean something else or...?

[-Variant]

2 hours ago, qaday123 said:

Well that sucks. How come the post says to drop it back into the ocean to slow it down? Does it mean something else or...?

Grabbing a large sunken objects acts like dropping your Anchor for a few seconds. The post says you can use that to slow the boat/stop it but I've got no idea what they're saying by dropping the heavy objects back into the ocean.

[qaday123]

Also I want to note that instead of a torch a ripe saladmander could be used instead: attack it, go to some trees and set them on fire, however when I did this i could only set myself on fire then light a nearby tree, so you might have to take some damage, however now i don't have to use 2 grass!

[Ohan]

Wormwood can also 'grow' grass by planting a lot of wild crops and letting them wither during the summer 

[minespatch]

8 hours ago, Ohan said:

Wormwood can also 'grow' grass by planting a lot of wild crops and letting them wither during the summer 

Y'know, that does raise a point:

What if grass grows like weeds around the Wormwood farms?  It'd be a beneficial bonus to farming as Wormwood.

[Mike23Ua]

So I had a crazy idea... what if you could- now hear me out on this, Reverse the Roles  of the games biomes?

What I mean by that is what if you could turn Lunar Island into the entirety of your game world map.. and the normal island.. would now be in the tiny Lunar Area.

Making 95% of your world Lunar.. and the other smaller island is now default DST..

noobs will die left and right even more then they do now..... but I would find it enjoyable.

[Ohan]

13 hours ago, minespatch said:

Y'know, that does raise a point:

What if grass grows like weeds around the Wormwood farms?  It'd be a beneficial bonus to farming as Wormwood.

i was thinking wormwood's wild crops could have like a 10-20% (or whatever) chance to grow 1 or 2 reed/twig/grass. I discovered the withered crop thing in my solo world when all the extra crops i couldnt possibly eat withered lol. it was actually nice cuz i was running low on grass then haha. i think it could indeed be nice if he had a small perk towards those basic resources instead of just being a farmer bot for warly in multiplayer contexts xD 

[Maxposting]

On 4/23/2020 at 10:43 PM, Glomglom said:

HEALTH: You are mostly fighting unarmored so health is a problem. You could farm spiders for glands but it´s just not worth it with the danger of loosing more health than you would gain. So another viable alternative are cooked stone fruits. 3 health can sum up as fast as the health loss from uncooked kelp. So in this case see every stone fruit bush as a free 9 health. If you have a crock pot and a good lure, you can make california rolls for an extra 20 health.

A reminder that Moon Moth Wings heal 8 HP.