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Ocean Survival in DST: A Fisherman's Unnecessarily Detailed Guide to Staying Alive at Sea


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Inspired by Electroely's extremely detailed guide on fishing mechanics, I thought I'd make a likewise-detailed guide showing you guys how to SURVIVE out at sea. If you haven't read his guide on how to fish yet, I highly recommend reading it before diving into this guide, which assumes you already understand fishing mechanics and especially how to use regular lures.
 

I've decided to include a table of contents for anyone who wants to skip over specific topics in this guide. Without further ado, let's hop into the details.

Table of Contents:
1. Why Survive at Sea in the First Place?
2. Constructing the Ultimate Boat
3. Fish Swimming Mechanics and Which Fish to Catch
4. Food for Survival
5. Miscellaneous Advise and Situational Tricks to Improve Survivability



1. Why Survive at Sea in the First Place?

You might be wondering what the point of all this is. Why should you ever live out at sea when the mainland has an abundance of resources for you to survive on? Why should you put all this effort into sailing when you can just make boat bridges to wherever you want? 

There are a variety of answers depending on who you ask. For me personally though, the answer is simple: it's fun, it's safe, and it's a nice escape. Pretty much anyone I've talked to has commented on how fun and especially relaxing ocean fishing is; the reeling mechanics and variety of fish to catch just make the experience a nice way to escape some of the monotony of mainland survival, whether it's harvesting the same plants over and over or killing the same old spiders. While you're out at sea, hounds and seasonal bosses WILL NOT attack you, and that even includes the antlion's annoying sinkholes. Making boat bridges to places you want to go, while certainly a viable and popular option, costs an ungodly amount of wood to build, restricts your movement at sea by the very nature of a bridge, can be destroyed long-term by smoldering in Summer or accidental gnarwhale aggroing, and makes it impossible to freely chase after fish unless you want to invest the resources into building an anchor on some of the boats that make the bridge OR replace the boat every time you chase after the fish. If you make a proper boat like the one I will explain in the next section, you can survive at sea without ever returning to land for multiple years if you wanted to. 

2. Constructing the Ultimate Boat

Before I dive into how to make the ultimate boat, I need to explain the mechanics behind structure placement. As many of you - especially those who are annoyed whenever someone puts down ice boxes before the crockpots - are aware, structures in DST are not made equal when it comes to placement. Some structures can be placed in tight spaces while other structures are annoying to put down if something as miniscule as a seed gets dropped nearby. I've managed to divide these structures into 4 groups:

Type I: structures that are normally blocked by other structures but occupy ZERO space. The only structure I've found so far that falls in this category are the sails.
Type II: structures that are VERY easily blocked by other structures and occupy a normal amount of space. Structures like crockpots, the 2 fire pits, ice flingomatics, sisturn, pig houses, bird cages, drying racks, the furnace, and tackle receptacle fall under this category. Remember this because it's the most important type of structure to consider when building the boat.
Type III: structures that are normal all-around; normally blocked and occupy a normal amount of space. Things like fishing bins, ice boxes, pinchin winches, the anchor, and the steering wheel are type III structures. 
Type IV: structures that are BARELY blocked by other structures at all and occupy a normal amount of space. The only structure I'm aware of that falls in this category is the wooden chest. 

Here are some pictures that illustrate the significance of understanding what structures fall under which categories. As you can see, the type of structure you place down first directly affects the amount of space you have available to put down future structures.
Crockpot (Type II) vs chest (Type IV):
20200510192515_1.thumb.jpg.acf5d16a4d9b778581406bd784457c67.jpg20200510192549_1.thumb.jpg.2d2db7569bc4a26f4a503b5b1ac03bbc.jpg


Type III vs Type IV:


20200518015841_1.thumb.jpg.a2c353eb9263d70bd7aedf7e190c77e2.jpg20200518015857_1.thumb.jpg.b43cec8dc09b6f8bfe86e77c42480764.jpg20200518020030_1.thumb.jpg.395b353e5032f029acdee4cbaea998e4.jpg


Now let's talk about how to build the ultimate survival boat using this information. The reason why I named these structure types the way I did is because it makes it easier to memorize which structures you should place on your boat FIRST. You need to place type I structures on the boat first (because they take literally zero space on your boat), then type II (because these are the most easily blocked), then type III, and then finally type IV. Here is how I built my personal boat step by step based on structural types.

Step 1:
Build1.thumb.jpg.85484d098faf24d708facaf029610651.jpg

Step 2 (right picture is rotated view to see what's behind the bird cage):
Build2.thumb.jpg.55e348e2e2da6b48c4a428a5edc91bd4.jpgBuild2Rotate.thumb.jpg.aff59296c6d0ecf2a9b7b913e6b3b9a6.jpg

Step 3:
Build3.thumb.jpg.82c3e17533a6384955b4e69a87f4f92e.jpg

Step 4:
Build4.thumb.jpg.57b322c14cbce739dd9b3eb91c089242.jpg

Type II structures are the most challenging structures to properly place on this boat. What you see in step 2 is the most optimal way to place type II structures, and as a result, the maximum amount of these structures you can ever have on your boat is 7. Step 2 is without a doubt the hardest part of making your survival boat because this arrangement is tile-perfect, with the 6 outer structures being as close to the rim of the boat as physically possible. If even ONE of your type II structures is a unit of space closer to the center (I don't mean a tile, I mean a literal unit of space, specifically the units of space you can see with geometric placement), you will not be able to fit your 7th type II structure on the boat. 

Keep in mind that the pinchin winch is a type III structure, but you won't get it until after you've set sail and found the crabby hermit, so reserve some space on your boat for it. Don't put down too many chests until all of your type III structures including that pinchin winch is constructed. You should have plenty of space in general after step 2.

3. Fish Swimming Mechanics and Which Fish to Catch

To make this section as simple as possible, these are the fish you WANT to catch for food whenever you see them due to their hunger value, fast reeling, and use of regular lures as opposed to seeds (I recommend keeping multiple ice breams alive in your fishing bin to use as a better summer thermal stone before using for food): LandLandLandLandLandLand

These are the mediocre fish that are okay to go for if you're in no particular rush: LandLand


These are the fish you want to avoid period unless you're on the brink of starvation:  LandLandLand
These are the seasonal fish you should catch only to give to the crabby hermit or (for the sunfish) to use as a better winter thermal stone: LandLandLand

For anyone who wants to see the catching difficulty for all of these fish, the following are gifs depicting their swimming patterns:

1. Runty Guppy  1608928796_Fish1Guppy.gif.c3e906d2e034aef9b90b72060c52c4de.gifLand
2. Needlenosed Squirt 905756176_Fish2Needlenose.gif.6dc4268316568cec3a6c644306c0b613.gifLand

3. Bitty Baitfish 452896963_Fish3Bitty.gif.0aaf87cbbeb2081dcd09fc641e26d7a7.gifLand
4. Smolt Fry 946391958_Fish4Smolt.gif.f54beb12f11e2f273e8146a869bd31d6.gifLand
5. Popperfish 1541965471_Fish5Popper.gif.e45da47aa383e29facece0a2b6df87d5.gifLand
6. Fallounder 246823816_Fish6Fallounder.gif.889d6487d3e6c10d4198a136b87130dd.gifLand
7. Bloomfin Tuna 1866007158_Fish7Bloomfin.gif.bae123b83c26c2e5ed31a77f87678475.gifLand
8. Scorching Sunfish 615695356_Fish8Sunfish.gif.3584a3549db797d05ddf8103f498345c.gifLand
9. Mudfish 336339255_Fish9Mudfish.gif.64df4b4c9e258d0b05831fb4f4f30f83.gifLand
10. Deep Bass 790452761_Fish10Deapbass.gif.5f223b50ae4b09460622503ddd8906c2.gifLand
11. Dandy Lionfish 1265057100_Fish11Lion.gif.970754b3405436e0e972e175e2a036fd.gifLand
12. Black Catfish 1377453461_Fish12Catfish.gif.7fbc864c26fdd0b390d1231945470e57.gifLand
13. Corn Cod 860880201_Fish13Corn.gif.cf05544d8cc6cf91acbdbf84d4c4ba96.gifLand
14. Ice Bream 1892520398_Fish14Bream.gif.bcf6487f48166ef001bd7e45a1a70121.gifLand

4. Food for Survival

So now that you know how to build a fancy survival boat and understand which fish to look out for, the next thing you need to know is how to efficiently use your food.

There are 4 recipes you can utilize to keep your hunger and sanity up respectively during your voyage: Meaty Stew/Bacon and Eggs/Meatballs for hunger and Surf n' Turf for sanity. Thanks to the bird cage, what you can do is turn small fish into eggs to use for meatballs. Likewise, thanks to the drying rack, you can strip away the fish value of your fish meat in order to make meaty stew and squeeze as much hunger out of your fish as physically possible. For those who aren't aware, meatballs require 1 of any meat value + 3 filler ingredients; meaty stew requires at least 3 meat value + less than 1.5 fish value due to surf n' turf priority; surf n' turf requires at least 1.5 fish value and at least 2.5 meat value; and bacon and eggs require at least 1.5 meat value and at least 2 egg value. I highly recommend saving the monster meat you'll get from cookie cutters and squids for meaty stew or bacon and eggs because monster meat has the meat value you need for both recipes while conserving fish meat. Here are the ways I recommend using your food sources out at sea, with the recipes you should prioritize at the top based on spoilability of ingredients, hunger profitability, and storage space.

1. latest?cb=20130117000546Fish Morsel + Kelp Fronds x 3 = 62.5 hunger (21.875 hunger profit)

2. latest?cb=20121215201357 = Monster Meat + latest?cb=20130314200644 + Fish Morsel x 2 = 150 hunger (81.25 hunger profit)

3. latest?cb=20121215201357 = Monster Meat + latest?cb=20130314200644 + Raw Fish + Egg or Kelp Fronds = 150 hunger (68.75 hunger profit)

4. latest?cb=20121215201357 = latest?cb=20130314200644 x 2 + Fish Morsel x 2 = 150 hunger (75 hunger profit)

5. latest?cb=20121215201357 = latest?cb=20130314200644 x 2 + Raw Fish + Egg = 150 hunger (62.5 hunger profit)

6. latest?cb=20121215143942 = Monster Meat + Fish Morsel + Egg x 2 = 75 hunger (18.75 hunger profit)

7. Corn = 25 hunger

8. latest?cb=20130117000546 = Fish Morsel x 4 = 62.5 hunger (12.5 hunger profit)

9. latest?cb=20130117000546 = Fish Morsel + latest?cb=20140711022650 x 3 (from ice bream, only if you have excess ice) = 62.5 hunger (43.1 hunger profit)

10. latest?cb=20151208110013 = Monster Meat + Fish Morsel x 3 = 33 sanity + 37.5 hunger

11. latest?cb=20151208110013 = Raw Fish + Fish Morsel x 3 = 33 sanity + 37.5 hunger

Note: Egg comes from feeding Fish Morsel to Crow
latest?cb=20130314200644 comes from drying Raw Fish on Drying Rack or Drying Rack for 1 day

5. Miscellaneous Advise and Situational Tricks to Improve Survivability

If you've made it this far, you have the bare minimum you need to survive a multi-year voyage. The following is extra advise with regard to other situations not yet covered in this guide.

I highly recommend sailing with one other partner. Not only is it good company; that extra partner can be a great asset during the voyage as the emergency anchorman or boat chef while you're on the wheel, all without being a hindrance to your food supply (due to the limited number of fish that spawn in the ocean next to you at a time). From my personal experience, 2 people > solo > 3 people >>>> 4 people >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 5+ people. I do not recommend fitting past 3 people unless you're a claustrophobic masochist. 

Here are the benefits of a boat partner in action:
BoatPartner1.gif.17cf9f0ef484d1b801da6159c929c8e6.gifBoatPartner2.gif.bfcba9b4c783b06f19c793f168cef359.gif


I mentioned in Part 3 of this guide that there were 2 fish you shouldn't bother catching because of how long it takes to catch them: the black catfish and the dandy lionfish. However, there is a trick you can use to circumvent the entire reeling process completely. If any fish bites your hook while the hook is basically touching your boat, you will instantly pull the fish up and skip the reeling battle. You can execute this normally by reeling in after your hook lands in the water and the fish is interested; however, this does NOT always work because sometimes, your hook will be close enough to the boat for you to "stop" and pull the hook out of water but NOT close enough to the boat for you to skip the reeling process. What you can do to manually force the hook onto the side of the boat is to anchor down but keep 1 sail open so you're slightly moving in one direction, and then toss your hook in the direction you're moving. This will guarantee that the hook is touching the side of the boat. Here is a demonstration of this technique.

FishTrick.gif.0cf7497fcd36cb00155e0955995ce2c1.gif

If you use this trick, you can instantly catch dandy lionfish and black catfish without having to go through the painstakingly long reeling battle. Do note that I do NOT recommend actively trying to catch these fish with this method; you save more time catching them the old-fashioned way than manually changing the direction of your sails every time the fish move away from you. I suggest using this trick only at the VERY START when you're running into a school of lionfish/catfish and ONLY if you actually plan on catching the rest of the school.

Another thing I want to talk about is fuel. If it isn't clear at this point, the amount of time you are able to last out at sea is limited by the amount of fuel you brought with you at the start of the voyage in the form of logs, planks, charcoal, etc. You will be consuming logs every night to see and/or keep yourself cool in summer. This means that any way of saving fuel or finding more fuel is ideal for maximizing the amount of time you have left out at sea.

If you see any boat fragments along your travels, be sure to hammer them for an easy plank. These are renewable because they occasionally spawn next to you, so don't be afraid to hammer any that you see. 
Type 3
I highly recommend bringing a lantern to save fuel at night during autumn/spring because squids drop lightbulbs which you can use to refuel your lantern instead of wasting logs. 

If you have the pinchin' winch and saved a bunch of UNOPENED bottles, open them up and go treasure hunting for sunken chests if the location that pops up is convenient. Each bottle opened has a 34% chance of spawning a sunken chest up to a maximum of 4 on the map. Aside from some decently valuable items like gems and a walking cane, sunken chests can drop some redundant flammable items you can use as fuel.  

image.thumb.png.67fbf8d7b71fa3d21fcc268d8ce556ca.png

Finally, the last thing I want to mention is the value of Wendy - specifically Abigail - out in the ocean. I made a supplemental thread talking about the use of Abigail as a powerful ranged weapon out at sea that you can check out here: 


That's all I've got. Thanks for reading!

Special Thanks:
@thegreatmanagement for helping me with getting some of these recordings-turned-gifs and helping me discover the instant-catch trick.
@Electroely for making the guide that inspired this guide. 

Sources Used:
The Don't Starve wiki for the item pictures used in this guide, the renewability of boat fragments, and sunken chest drop table


EDIT: I completely forgot to add another helpful monster meat recipe: bacon and eggs. (May 27-ish)
EDIT 2: Corrected information regarding sunken treasure chest spawns from opening bottles. (May 27-ish)
EDIT 3: Changed "2 recipes" to "3 recipes". (May 27-ish)
EDIT 4: Added a tip to save fuel: using lanterns and lightbulbs dropped from squids. (May 29-ish)
EDIT 5: Took out the "fish you should only catch for the heavy-fish task" category and moved the fish in this group to the "fish you want to avoid period" category due to the fact that ANY fish above the 70th percentile in weight for their species can be handed in to complete the task, and all 5 fish can be the same species. (June 1st)
EDIT 6: Added a 4th recipe: meaty stew, and changed recipe paragraph to reflect the value of this added recipe. Also added drying racks as an example type II structure. Also re-arranged the food recipes in order of what you should prioritize. Also deleted the "spoiling-monster-meat meatballs" recipe; you can make bacon and eggs with the same ingredients. Also replaced the standard meatball recipe; you don't have to convert small fish into eggs to make meatballs since the fish value isn't a threat. Also added the hunger profit of each recipe in parenthesis. Also deleted part of a sentence in Part 5 to better emphasize the fact that you can use any non-seasonal fish species for the heavy-fish task. (June 6th)

 

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Amazing post. I might comment later and ask you a few things, but I just wanted to quickly say how much I enjoyed reading this! I love sailing and making boat bases, so a lot of these tips are really useful to me! Thank you! 

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Random thoughts:

- Would you say Wendy is the best sailing character? I can see how Abigail is amazing for hunting Cookie Cutters and Gnarwails. I'm of the opinion that Woody is the best character for sailing. You can get wood fast to build your boat, but also the goose transformation is incredibly useful, especially in public servers. If you get disconnected and your boat is moving, you will appear at spawn when you log in. Getting separated from your boat like that is usually a death sentence, but with Woody, you can turn into a goose and quickly make your way back. 

Only downsides are full Moons. Really dangerous if you're not paying attention. I've had a few close calls where I was sailing and I transformed, making me unable to steer the wheel as my boat was going full speed. I've been lucky that I've never hit anything.  

- I'm very different with my boat bases. I like keeping things minimal and having as much space as possible. My boats usually look like this: 

image.thumb.png.d9269897f036e4bbcf8b9d434a349e9e.png

image.thumb.png.42bfa319c1ca476cf6f6839a5b81f179.png

image.thumb.png.ac98b6c23419f70b50f55cdec1be183b.png

But I can't survive summer on them. 

I tend to stick my mast in the middle for aesthetic purposes. Have a crockpot, ice box and tin fishin' bin on one side. On another side I have my fireplace. On another side I have a lightning rod. And on the last empty side, I have my alchemy machine. Recently, I've been trying boat designs without alchemy machines and I use that space for Pinchin Winch or a birdcage. I prefer to just craft things on land because the alchemy machine is SO LOUD and really disturbs me when I'm fishing. 

How come you don't have a Lightning Rod on your boat? How do you avoid lightning?

- Couldn't agree more with having an extra person on the boat. Sailing and fishing with people is so much fun. Plus, having two people fishing brings so much more food onboard.  

image.thumb.png.32bb36dd53a013e1b626b0b874b53019.png

image.thumb.png.0c998551c55a456f9c399dc63ba7eaa2.png

- Last thing, do you not eat California Rolls? I find them amazing for sanity.

image.thumb.png.e034edd27e4c82938159e818d35fc127.png

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27 minutes ago, Squirrel12 said:

Amazing post. I might comment later and ask you a few things, but I just wanted to quickly say how much I enjoyed reading this! I love sailing and making boat bases, so a lot of these tips are really useful to me! Thank you! 

I'm glad you enjoyed it; I really think ocean content is an underappreciated experience because some of the handful of people who actually try out sailing end up stressing out and dying because their boat is underprepared for a voyage, they have too many people on-board, or they don't know how to exploit the food sources out at sea. 

Feel free to ask any questions that you have. I can't promise that I'll know the answers however; most of what I know is compiled in this guide after all.

32 minutes ago, MagicalSkies said:

It’s okay! We don’t mind! :) 

I appreciate that; I'm just a bit self-conscious of the fact that there's an "edit" label on the guide which some people could interpret as me giving out bad information. 

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1 minute ago, Rinkusan said:

I'm glad you enjoyed it; I really think ocean content is an underappreciated experience because some of the handful of people who actually try out sailing end up stressing out and dying because their boat is underprepared for a voyage, they have too many people on-board, or they don't know how to exploit the food sources out at sea. 

Feel free to ask any questions that you have. I can't promise that I'll know the answers however; most of what I know is compiled in this guide after all.

I have a question, usually around how many days does it take you to prepare to go sailing? I usually try to go by day 14 but constantly keep having a problem with food on land before going onto sea :( 

And which lures do you think are the best or would you recommend the most?

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44 minutes ago, Squirrel12 said:

Random thoughts:

- Would you say Wendy is the best sailing character? I can see how Abigail is amazing for hunting Cookie Cutters and Gnarwails. I'm of the opinion that Woody is the best character for sailing. You can get wood fast to build your boat, but also the goose transformation is incredibly useful, especially in public servers. If you get disconnected and your boat is moving, you will appear at spawn when you log in. Getting separated from your boat like that is usually a death sentence, but with Woody, you can turn into a goose and quickly make your way back. 

Only downsides are full Moons. Really dangerous if you're not paying attention. I've had a few close calls where I was sailing and I transformed, making me unable to steer the wheel as my boat was going full speed. I've been lucky that I've never hit anything.  

- I'm very different with my boat bases. I like keeping things minimal and having as much space as possible. My boats usually look like this: 

 

 

 

But I can't survive summer on them. 

I tend to stick my mast in the middle for aesthetic purposes. Have a crockpot, ice box and tin fishin' bin on one side. On another side I have my fireplace. On another side I have a lightning rod. And on the last empty side, I have my alchemy machine. Recently, I've been trying boat designs without alchemy machines and I use that space for Pinchin Winch or a birdcage. I prefer to just craft things on land because the alchemy machine is SO LOUD and really disturbs me when I'm fishing. 

How come you don't have a Lightning Rod on your boat? How do you avoid lightning?

- Couldn't agree more with having an extra person on the boat. Sailing and fishing with people is so much fun. Plus, having two people fishing brings so much more food onboard.  

 

 

- Last thing, do you not eat California Rolls? I find them amazing for sanity.

 

 

 

In my opinion, Wendy is BY FAR the best sailing character in the game, and no single character even comes remotely close. Woody is absolutely great for resource collecting, but Wendy is only slightly inferior to Woody when it comes to building the boat because Abigail can farm silk much more efficiently than Woodie. Out at sea, however, Woodie doesn't bring much to table from a survival perspective outside of the goose form that you mentioned, which can be circumvented by having a friend on the boat hit the anchor and move the boat back to the spot where you DC'd (or sail the boat back to the coast so you can hop back on board if they don't remember where you DC'd). What he does bring, however, is the ability to scout the ocean ahead of time, which helps a lot if all you want is to kill the Malbatross or Crab King but doesn't help much if you're trying to SURVIVE at sea. Fun fact: you can exploit the full moon to your advantage by transforming into a goose before the full moon hits to get rid of the random transformation effect AND extend your goose timer. Just remember that the full moon hits every 20 days starting from Day 11. 

I can respect the minimalism, but unfortunately, you won't be able to survive all seasons with just those structures as you mentioned. The reason why I don't have a lightning rod on my boat is because the flingomatic covers that scenario. If lightning strikes my boat and sets it on fire, I'll just turn on the flingo and problem solved. If lightning strikes me and does damage, well, I can just heal with hunger food over time. Bacon and eggs gives 20 hp, surf n turf gives 60 hp, and fish meat gives 8 hp.  Hp should rarely ever be an issue out at sea with this diet.

California rolls unfortunately give 10 sanity, which to put into perspective, is just 2 meatballs' worth of sanity. Surf n turf gives over 3x that amount of sanity, which, by the way, you don't really need unless you're sailing right next to shore because shadow creatures don't spawn out at sea. To put this in mathematical terms, I could either use 3 fish morsels, 6 kelp, and 3 twigs to get 30 sanity + 112.5 hunger, or I could use the same items plus 2 fish morsels and 1 monster meat minus the 3 twigs (so 5 fish morsels, 6 kelp, 1 monster meat) to get 43 sanity + 162.5 hunger. So that's 13 extra sanity and 50 extra hunger for three pieces of "weak meat", and you save twigs to boot. 

EDIT: Almost forgot the sanity from meatballs, so that's actually 43 sanity, not 33 sanity. Also forgot 1 extra fish morsel for the surf n turf recipe.

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43 minutes ago, MagicalSkies said:

I have a question, usually around how many days does it take you to prepare to go sailing? I usually try to go by day 14 but constantly keep having a problem with food on land before going onto sea :( 

And which lures do you think are the best or would you recommend the most?

Because the fancy boat requires so many resources, I usually end up setting sail a few days before winter hits. It takes a while to rush the dragonfly to get the furnace, and to prototype the tackle receptacle, you have to build both a think tank and a boat kit so that you can grab any piece of driftwood that spawns next to the coast. I'll be frank; rushing this boat by yourself is pretty tough and stressful, and it's even tougher if you're playing on a pub server where some people might not be kind enough to hand over their pan flute and 3 gears. The relaxing stresslessness comes AFTER you've built the boat lol. While I've personally never rushed this boat with a friend before, I highly recommend that you work together with a partner because the amount of resources you need for this boat is VERY overwhelming, let alone the inventory management that you have to juggle with as you're prototyping these structures. 

For lures, I only ever use the 3 colored spoon lures. The snow/rain lures are a luxury, and the spinner lures only work on big fish minus the cord cod. The stupefying lure I feel is almost exclusively meant for the ice bream and catfish, the latter of which really isn't worth catching imo even with this lure, so just like the snow/rain lures, this lure is a very situational luxury. I very occasionally use seeds for the fallounder and tuna ONLY for the crabby hermit's friendship level. 

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@Squirrel12 Sorry about this. I realized from re-reading my post that my explanation of the california roll wasn't very good. Let me try again:

Let's say you have 20 small fish in your fishing bin, 12 twigs in your chest, and 24 kelp + 4 monster meat in your ice box.

Scenario 1: You try to make as many california rolls as possible using that kelp.

- You make 12 california rolls using 24 kelp, 12 twigs, and 12 small fish. This yields 450 hunger + 120 sanity, and you have 8 small fish + 4 monster meat remaining.
- The most optimal dish you can make with the remaining meat is bacon and eggs, so you make 3 bacon and eggs using 3 monster meat + 3 small fish + 6 eggs (the eggs coming from feeding the bird the rest of the meat). This yields 225 hunger + 15 sanity, and you have nothing remaining.
- Total gain: 675 hunger + 135 sanity

Scenario 2: You instead try to make as many meatballs as possible using that kelp.

- You make 8 meatballs using 24 kelp and 8 small fish. This yields 500 hunger + 40 sanity, and you have 12 small fish + 4 monster meat + 12 twigs remaining.
- The only way to get your sanity above scenario 1 with what you have left is to make surf n turf, so you make 3 surf n turf using 3 monster meat + 9 small fish. This yields 112.5 hunger + 99 sanity, and you have 1 monster meat + 3 small fish + 12 twigs remaining.
- Finally, the best dish you can make with the remaining meat is bacon and eggs, so you make 1 bacon and eggs using 1 monster meat + 1 small fish + 2 eggs (from feeding 2 small fish to the bird). This yields 75 hunger + 5 sanity, and nothing is left other than the 12 twigs.
- Total gain: 687.5 hunger + 144 sanity + 12 twigs

You can see how, in every aspect, using that kelp for meatballs instead of california rolls gets you more stats out of it. To make things better, this is ONLY assuming you actually want to keep your sanity up during your voyage because as long as you're not sailing right next to land, shadow creatures will not spawn on you. What this means is that the sanity from california rolls/bacon and eggs for scenario 1 (and meatballs/bacon and eggs for scenario 2) mean nothing when you can just stay at 0 sanity for most of your voyage and then stuff your face with 2-3 surf n turf if you plan on making a pit stop at the mainland or the hermit island.

If you plan on making a pit stop at the lunar island, or if you have a filled Sisturn on your boat, you straight-up don't even need to care about your sanity whatsoever, meaning you can turn all of those surf n turf from scenario 2 directly into bacon and eggs for EVEN MORE hunger. 

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Nice work, particularly the fishing tips. There's just the one thing that needs correcting:

You mention that players should only catch Black Catfish and Dandy Lionfish for the Crabby Hermit's heavy fish quest, but they are not needed for that at all. The Hermit wants fish that are heavy for their species (namely, in the top 30% of their species' weight range). You can complete the quest with 5 unusually heavy Smolt Fries if you want to and it's easier to do so than with Dandy Lionfish or Black Catfish, since they are so much harder to catch and offer no advantage compared to other fish.

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4 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

Nice work, particularly the fishing tips. There's just the one thing that needs correcting:

You mention that players should only catch Black Catfish and Dandy Lionfish for the Crabby Hermit's heavy fish quest, but they are not needed for that at all. The Hermit wants fish that are heavy for their species (namely, in the top 30% of their species' weight range). You can complete the quest with 5 unusually heavy Smolt Fries if you want to and it's easier to do so than with Dandy Lionfish or Black Catfish, since they are so much harder to catch and offer no advantage compared to other fish.

Interesting; I figured out that it works with all fish a few days ago, but I didn't know that you could use 5 of the same fish for the task. I'll go ahead and correct this on both this guide and the wiki. Thanks for pointing this out! 

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You can replace

9 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

The reason why I don't have a lightning rod on my boat is because the flingomatic covers that scenario. If lightning strikes my boat and sets it on fire, I'll just turn on the flingo and problem solved.

You don't need to have flingo on your ship. Luxury fan covers almost the entire area of the boat, so nothing can get burned. 

6 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

If you plan on making a pit stop at the lunar island, or if you have a filled Sisturn on your boat, you straight-up don't even need to care about your sanity whatsoever, meaning you can turn all of those surf n turf from scenario 2 directly into bacon and eggs for EVEN MORE hunger. 

I also find sisturn useless generally at sea, because shadow creatures don't spawn there. Only if you come close to land. 

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2 minutes ago, KeshS said:

You can replace

You don't need to have flingo on your ship. Luxury fan covers almost the entire area of the boat, so nothing can get burned.

Luxury fans have a very limited use though and can only be acquired in Spring. The flingomatic can be made at any time outside of Summer and can be used almost indefinitely without eating up much if any fuel due to the fact that you can turn it on and off at will. 

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On 5/25/2020 at 9:17 AM, Rinkusan said:

While you're out at sea, hounds WILL NOT attack you,

They don't attack? Oh that's very helpful, thanks for sharing.

I've always waitad till hounds attack to go sailing and was always worried that they'll catch me off guard in the middle of the ocean

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7 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

They don't attack? Oh that's very helpful, thanks for sharing.

I've always waitad till hounds attack to go sailing and was always worried that they'll catch me off guard in the middle of the ocean

No problem! And just to clarify, as long as you're on a boat, hounds will not spawn on YOU specifically. Your boat can literally be touching land, and as long as you're on the boat, they won't spawn on you. HOWEVER, hounds can still spawn if, for example, your friend is on shore close to your boat, in which case you and your friend will have to deal with them because hounds can swim. 

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33 minutes ago, Rinkusan said:

Luxury fans have a very limited use though and can only be acquired in Spring. The flingomatic can be made at any time outside of Summer and can be used almost indefinitely without eating up much if any fuel due to the fact that you can turn it on and off at will. 

 

I'll agree with Kesh about the needlessness of Flingomatics on a boat. I used to have a flingo instead of a lightning rod too, but lightning is far more destructive cause it creates fire instantly and the flingomatic's projectiles can only do their job if the boat is still or moving rather slowly.

It's far easier to extinguish smoldering structures/objects by hand, since it costs like 3-5 health, whereas a single raw Fish Meat restores 8 health. Luxury Fans would be a last resort and you can also use an Ice Staff for similar effect (that is, extinguishing fires that you didn't manage to prevent).

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20 minutes ago, QuartzBeam said:

 

I'll agree with Kesh about the needlessness of Flingomatics on a boat. I used to have a flingo instead of a lightning rod too, but lightning is far more destructive cause it creates fire instantly and the flingomatic's projectiles can only do their job if the boat is still or moving rather slowly.

It's far easier to extinguish smoldering structures/objects by hand, since it costs like 3-5 health, whereas a single raw Fish Meat restores 8 health. Luxury Fans would be a last resort and you can also use an Ice Staff for similar effect (that is, extinguishing fires that you didn't manage to prevent).

I went ahead and tested this out with a sail + malbatross mast for that extra speed. It seems like the flingomatic failure you're mentioning only actually happens when one specific object on the boat is smoldering. The moment something is set on fire, the flingomatic seems to do a pretty decent job because the extra objects around it start to smolder as well, which the flingo likes to over-compensate for by firing a disproportionately large number of snowballs covering a large area. For the one possible smoldering object that the flingomatic can't get, you can just extinguish by hand. 

1387290703_ScreenRecording(6-1-20206-50-33AM)_Trim_Trim.gif.70e486466b24d1e5ca73a7c8292af26b.gif
1735755827_ScreenRecording(6-1-20206-50-33AM)_Trim_Trim(2).gif.9bee7f072a102990976b6b044c655ff8.gif

All of this aside though, even if the flingomatic actually did a bad job while the boat's moving, you can always just hit the anchor and let the flingomatic do its job really quickly before pulling the anchor back up and turning the flingo off. 

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ice fling > luxury fan

gives you light for little fuel, great if you already have heat and cold fishes and dont mind afking the nights to browse the internet, stretch, take breaks

extinguishing things by hand/ice/manure/balloons are too risky is u afk for a moment

luxury fans only available on spring, so you need to wait 4 hours and a half just to get it in a new world

and it's not like u lack the space for it, machines (can be destroyed later) + crockpot + ice fling is all u really need after the first year with the proper fishes for winter and summer otherwise get an icebox (which is small) and a fire pit

woodie > wendy only on public servers, gotta go fast to make a boat, take too long and your time is up. and he can keep the boat far away from randoms you don't know

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I think flingo is better than lightningrod because you can also use a flingo to freeze hounds.  While hound waves don't spawn while you're out at sea once you land (especially on solo server) you will face them.  I can turn my flingo on and use a torch to light up the hounds freezing them so that I can pick them off easier.  Because of the dual use I prefer flingo.

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6 hours ago, Sweaper said:

ice fling > luxury fan

gives you light for little fuel, great if you already have heat and cold fishes and dont mind afking the nights to browse the internet, stretch, take breaks

extinguishing things by hand/ice/manure/balloons are too risky is u afk for a moment

luxury fans only available on spring, so you need to wait 4 hours and a half just to get it in a new world

and it's not like u lack the space for it, machines (can be destroyed later) + crockpot + ice fling is all u really need after the first year with the proper fishes for winter and summer otherwise get an icebox (which is small) and a fire pit

woodie > wendy only on public servers, gotta go fast to make a boat, take too long and your time is up. and he can keep the boat far away from randoms you don't know

To be fair, the scaled furnace gives you a little bit of light already in case of an emergency, but I agree that the flingomatic is just overall more convenient. Beyond the Spring restriction, luxury fans only have 15 uses whereas flingomatics can be used practically infinitely because you can turn them on and off with almost no fuel consumption.

Wendy isn't much slower than Woodie when it comes to making fancy boats, and Maxwell tops both of them. Out at sea, however, the difference between Wendy and Woodie is night and day when it comes to surviving at sea. 

3 hours ago, Shosuko said:

I think flingo is better than lightningrod because you can also use a flingo to freeze hounds.  While hound waves don't spawn while you're out at sea once you land (especially on solo server) you will face them.  I can turn my flingo on and use a torch to light up the hounds freezing them so that I can pick them off easier.  Because of the dual use I prefer flingo.

Sounds like it would also be more than useful for dealing with any red hounds you kill near or even on the boat. 

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I would personally recommend ditching the Endothermic Firepit and the Dragonfly Furnace. They take up too much space and their unique properties are rendered obsolete by having Thermal Stones + Icebox /Ice Breams and Scorching Sunfish respectively. That leaves the Firepit as the best option imo, since it's cheaper than both and has a huge light radius that lets you explore at night.

Loooong term, I'd even go as far as to replace the Firepit with a Mushlight or two. A fistful of lightbulbs will light your way for a whole season, removing the need for fuel entirely. The cooking functionality of the Furnace/Firepit is generally not that useful out at sea anyway, since you can restore freshness with salt crystals instead.

 

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1 hour ago, QuartzBeam said:

I would personally recommend ditching the Endothermic Firepit and the Dragonfly Furnace. They take up too much space and their unique properties are rendered obsolete by having Thermal Stones + Icebox /Ice Breams and Scorching Sunfish respectively. That leaves the Firepit as the best option imo, since it's cheaper than both and has a huge light radius that lets you explore at night.

Loooong term, I'd even go as far as to replace the Firepit with a Mushlight or two. A fistful of lightbulbs will light your way for a whole season, removing the need for fuel entirely. The cooking functionality of the Furnace/Firepit is generally not that useful out at sea anyway, since you can restore freshness with salt crystals instead.

 

I don't advise throwing away the endo fire pit. You can absolutely survive the hot summer by swapping thermal stones in the ice box or ice breams in the fishing bins. But why would you go through the effort of keeping track of your thermal stone every 3-ish minutes when you can just dump a log into the endo fire pit that'll keep you cold for longer AND provide light? Same logic goes with the furnace/fire pit vs sunfish. The breamfish and sunfish can be very helpful for extended visits on land away from your boat, especially in winter where spoilage rate decreases by 25%. The dragonfly furnace certainly can be replaced by the fire pit, and I do just that in games where I physically can't rush the dfly. But why replace what is basically a superior version of the fire pit with permanent heat and emergency light? After all, walking away while the fish is moving makes you lose your float and lure completely. 

I played around with the mushlight. Unfortunately, the light radius is smaller than an endo fire pit's, and the light intensity is so uncomfortably dim, even with 4 lightbulbs. It's doable and DEFINITELY does get rid of the need for combustable fuel outside of summer, but you just can't "comfortably" fish or sail at night with that kind of light. You might as well use a lantern instead. With all that being said, however, mushlights are a small type III structure just like ice boxes, so if you really want a mushlight on the boat instead of a fire pit/endo fire pit, why not both?

20200602055927_1.thumb.jpg.c8809bb13558884972687f74449953c1.jpg 

 

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Also, just to be clear, I don't think the boat I shared is the most optimal survival boat you can possibly make. The boat you see in the guide is just the boat I usually solo rush in public servers during autumn so that I can have fun out at sea with 1-2 random strangers from late autumn onward. I think mushlights have value as a convenient back-up light source that covers for the furnace's awful light range really well, but there's no way I can possibly solo both the dfly and toadstool as Wendy before autumn ends.

There's a specific game-changing structure I recently thought of that I haven't mentioned in the guide yet because there's a boat-building competition coming up within the Steam group that I'm part of, and I want to see if anyone has the same idea. When that competition is done, I'll edit the guide (for the nth time) to include this structure.

Thanks though for the many ideas you and other forumgoers have pitched in this thread!

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5 hours ago, Rinkusan said:

But why would you go through the effort of keeping track of your thermal stone every 3-ish minutes when you can just dump a log into the endo fire pit that'll keep you cold for longer AND provide light?

Because Thermal Stones require no fuel whatsoever and the nights are so short during summer that you'd be wasting tons of logs to get light that you'll only use for about 1.5-2 minutes out of 8.

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