Tips to Equip a Big Team

[Bumble_Vee]

I've been playing DST by myself for a while, but recently I've had 4 friends join me for a weekly gaming session.
They are all pretty new to the game, but they are starting to get the hang of things. 

I would like us to fight some bosses together. In my solo games I usually have multiple football helms and I use a hambat,  but I'm really struggling to get helmets and hambats for a team of 5 people. 

Does anyone have some tips for equipping a big team of noobies?
Should we just go in there with log suits and spears and hope for the best?

(we don't have a Wigfrid btw)

[LimeGreenINC]

If you have some extra monster meat you should feed it to pigs to turn them into werepigs since they're always guaranteed to drop meat and pig skin on death

[QuQuasar]

Set up a werepig farm! 1 pig skin protected by a small fence, surrounded by pig houses. When full moon comes, kill the werepigs one by one for 2 meat and 1 pig skin each.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 minute ago, LimeGreenINC said:

If you have some extra monster meat you should feed it to pigs to turn them into werepigs since they're always guaranteed to drop meat and pig skin on death

this and you can also use the piggies for chopping to get wooden armor before the slaughtering

if you are too many take in count marble suits too, they arent expensive and makes you able to tank a lot. With that many players you can smack F and the damage will split between players (with non aoe damage bosses)

[Bumble_Vee]

16 minutes ago, QuQuasar said:

Set up a werepig farm! 1 pig skin protected by a small fence, surrounded by pig houses. When full moon comes, kill the werepigs one by one for 2 meat and 1 pig skin each.

I did this once in a solo game, it was great! 
I will try to explain it to my team, hopefully we can set it up before the next full moon. 

17 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

this and you can also use the piggies for chopping to get wooden armor before the slaughtering

if you are too many take in count marble suits too, they arent expensive and makes you able to tank a lot. With that many players you can smack F and the damage will split between players (with non aoe damage bosses)

Oh that's such a great combo, getting them to chop first then get the skins. Nice.

Will try to get some marble suits too. Thanks!

[Mike23Ua]

Here’s a tip: Build Pigman houses, block each one of them off with walls and a fence/door so they can not escape.

Kill them ALL for Meat and Pigskins without having to worry about them all attacking you in a group beat down: Profit.

[Cheggf]

Smash every single pig house you see around the world and use those resources to make a pig farm, as others have said. Additionally, smash every single set piece that includes anything that lets you get marble from it. You can easily end up with more than a stack of marble, so you could make a few marble suits to equip the worse players with and give them a tank playstyle, while you use the rest of the marble to plant as beans to make said strategy a long-term one.

Log suits are also a completely fine armor source. Perhaps not always optimal but if you're unable to secure enough leather for football helmets, and especially if one of you is Woodie or Maxwell, you can either supplement armors with log suits so they last longer, or replace armors with log suits entirely.

Ham bats are an easy weapon to arm people with, but if that's not an option perhaps you could use tentacle spikes, or even spears are a decent enough weapon.

[Bumble_Vee]

25 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Smash every single pig house you see around the world and use those resources to make a pig farm, as others have said. Additionally, smash every single set piece that includes anything that lets you get marble from it. You can easily end up with more than a stack of marble, so you could make a few marble suits to equip the worse players with and give them a tank playstyle, while you use the rest of the marble to plant as beans to make said strategy a long-term one.

Thank you for all the help!
I'm always reluctant to smash the pig houses, but I guess they aren't helping anyone out in the deepest corners of the big forest, so I will smash away. 

How many pig houses do you usually want to build for the pig farm? 

[Cheggf]

3 minutes ago, Bumble_Vee said:

Thank you for all the help!
I'm always reluctant to smash the pig houses, but I guess they aren't helping anyone out in the deepest corners of the big forest, so I will smash away. 

How many pig houses do you usually want to build for the pig farm? 

All of them. If a pig house is not part of a pig farm it must be destroyed and relocated to the farm. That's my philosophy. I usually end up with 40-80 leather by the time I find a base location, and then I use the majority of that making pig houses, and continue to expand the farm as I have leather to spare.

[Mike23Ua]

1 minute ago, Cheggf said:

All of them. If a pig house is not part of a pig farm it must be destroyed and relocated to the farm. That's my philosophy. I usually end up with 40-80 leather by the time I find a base location, and then I use the majority of that making pig houses, and continue to expand the farm as I have leather to spare.

Actually I would recommend NOT following this advice (smash some.. but not all) the reason? If you have a Wigfrid on the team having a few pig houses out in the wilds can sometimes be her only means of a meat source on longer adventures, and now that extra especially holds true with Return of Them and long boating trips.

You can get pigskins from smashing the decapitated heads on a stick that can be found in Merm swamps or around resurrection stones.

Use those to get your pig village started- because Remember: Wigfrids character benefits by being able to kill pigs & then trade the wars of your battles to pig king in exchange for gold.

You said you had no team Wigfrid but it’s still something to keep in mind for the times you do.

[Cheggf]

7 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Actually I would recommend NOT following this advice (smash some.. but not all) the reason? If you have a Wigfrid on the team having a few pig houses out in the wilds can sometimes be her only means of a meat source on longer adventures, and now that extra especially holds true with Return of Them and long boating trips.

You can get pigskins from smashing the decapitated heads on a stick that can be found in Merm swamps or around resurrection stones.

Use those to get your pig village started- because Remember: Wigfrids character benefits by being able to kill pigs & then trade the wars of your battles to pig king in exchange for gold.

You said you had no team Wigfrid but it’s still something to keep in mind for the times you do.

The more pig houses in the pig farm the more meat Wigfrid has for her longer adventures. Why would she want to have raw meat for 25 hunger and -10 sanity when she could have 10 bacon and eggs for 750 hunger, 200 health, and 50 sanity?

[1bubbainpa]

49 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Actually I would recommend NOT following this advice (smash some.. but not all) the reason? If you have a Wigfrid on the team having a few pig houses out in the wilds can sometimes be her only means of a meat source on longer adventures, and now that extra especially holds true with Return of Them and long boating trips.

You can get pigskins from smashing the decapitated heads on a stick that can be found in Merm swamps or around resurrection stones.

Use those to get your pig village started- because Remember: Wigfrids character benefits by being able to kill pigs & then trade the wars of your battles to pig king in exchange for gold.

You said you had no team Wigfrid but it’s still something to keep in mind for the times you do.

Tbh I’d rather feast on koalas

[Mike23Ua]

1 minute ago, 1bubbainpa said:

Tbh I’d rather feast on koalas

B.. but.. they’re too adorable 

[maquinarara1]

You can manage large teams by tasking them to different tasks, but first:

Decide where you will base: You will need an uninterrumpted very large area to base, I would suggest the Oasis desert because you will not need to worry about fires in Summer (the sandstorm will be managed further down) and natural spawns will be less likely to occur inside, the cacti are a great source of food in winter and in summer you can fight right away the antlion to avoid quakes.

Another great location is near Pig King, but be careful with monster players like webber, wurt and wortox. In the decidious forest there can spawn too the Klaus Sack and Glommer.

Undergound is a great alternative too, just becareful with the passive sanity drop, many new players can succumb to this.

Next will be tasking every player with roles:

Lumberjack: These players are tasked with gathering wood and planting them, they will need resoruces from miners and support from fighters if treeguards and poison birchs arise. They should be relatively close to base, and replanting seeds in an orderly manner. Best lumberjacks are Maxwell and Woodie. They should manage the seeds carefully to not screw themselves over.

Miners: These players are tasked with travelling to rocky biomes and setting temporally camps to mine rocks, bringing rocks, nitre, gold, flint, and even fossils if they venture to the caves. Maxwell Is the best one here, but other characters are not useless here too. Once all the stone is up, you can mine petrified trees (can happen to the trees that the lumbers planted too) and can also plant marble trees, to make marble armor and decorative structures. Find a balance between marble seeds and profits.

Farmers: These players are key to long term survival, as they are tasked with 3 main roles. Mantain the farms, collect general resources and relocate them near base (Twiggys, grass, berries and honey), and cook food. Mantaining farms must be done in an efficient way obviously to yield giant crops, and to deal with the flies, you can ask help from fighters if you need it. The general resources are found all across the constant, but you will need some shovels, hammers and bugnets. Shovel up any sapling, grass, and berry bushes that you find and plant them near base, having quick acces to these resources is godsend, Honey is another resource that is highly apreciated, capture first the bees, then hammer the beehives that you determine are most convenient, killerbee hives are the best candidates for this. Then place them somewhat far from the base, the bees in spring are aggressive. Pigmen houses are of course a mayor contributor of resources like meat and pigskin, there are many answered replies so I will not addres all the quirks here, Bunnymen can also be used in this regard too, just be careful with meat though. And finally cooking, you need to keep an eye on which characters have an restriction on their feeding needs, Wigfrid can only eat meat based foods, Wurt is a vegan, Warly will only benefit from different meals, etc. So try to prepare meals accordingly, use the cookbook to be aided by this. Best characters fitted to this role are Wickerbottom, Warly and Wormwood. Other players should not be afraid to do these tasks too, but all should communicate what they are doing and what are they taking and giving)

Base decorators: These players are tasked with building the base per se, creating multiple chests to keep valuables, pens for the cattle (pigmen, grass geckos, etc) resting areas with tents, Fireplaces in strategic places, crockpots with fridges (a 6 crockpot configuration is very efficient) Fling o matics to put out fires, and even cobblestone pats to make travelling faster. They also should consider making a "safe haven" a place where they can go and fight waves of enemies or even bosses, having a great advantage. This haven consists of multiple traps, fling o matics, some chests with healing remedies, armor and weapons, and telltale hearts with healing salves, you can make use of shootious houndious and catapults to better aid in these combats. The best base decorator should be Winona, but Wormwood should contribute with armor and traps too. Once the base is built, they should consider making an outpost or even making combat arenas for the Beequeen, Firefly, Antlion, the caves bosses, and even Klaus, if they can pinpoint the sack spawns and block the undesired ones.

Explorers: These players are tasked with exploring the whole world looking for interesting things, like pigking, the oasis desert, beequeen, firefly, gloomer, caves entrances, the chess pieces, the lunar island, the hermit island, crabking, the ruins, the underground lunar biomes, and many more. These player should focus on getting maps and placing markers on the land to indicate directions and interesting things, all while doing it quickly. Walter, Wortox and WX are excellent at this job. Tamming a beefalo can look tempting, but they take too much time in doing so and you can have most of the map explored before a fully tamed beefalo becomes available. You should mark wormholes to indicate where they lead too same with giant tentacles holes, cave entrances too, make bridges out of boats and suggest the best routes and roads locations.

Fighters: These players are tasked with defending themselves and others from the many perils that endanger the lives of everyone. They are the first to engage hound waves, to attack the warlus camps, the ones that destroys treeguards, the ones that kills spiders and tentacles into extinction (if desired), the ones that fight the giant monster bosses, either seasonal or raid. You should bring always the top gear to fight in any circumstance, and have healing options. Naturally this task is reserved to Wigfrid and Wolfgang, but other characters fit other niches, like Walter that can harass enemies from a distance, Wendy can eliminate multiple mobs with ease, Wx, with enough gears, can tank some attacks, and being electrified can kite extremelly easy, Wortox can use souls to heal, dodge attacks and regain sanity, Webber can use spiders to aid him in combat, as well as Wurt with her Mermen, Winona, with a little of preparation, can make short of bosses with her catapults. Of course, all players will be needed to fight raid bosses and aid in combat, no one should be a damsel in distress and should be able to defend themselves.

With the roles established, you must also be used with sharing, either food, resources and even nice items. Alway prioritize healing the players that are in inmediate peril, feed the characters that are starving, give them clothing if they are freezing or overheating, keep your team alive and do everything to contribute with the team. Use /roll to give each player a chance to win highly contested items, like a walking cane, or other types of gear. But try to be fair.

When leaving the world, any important item should be left in the ground, or better yet in a chest, that way the rest of the players can make use of those while you are away, keeping everyone happy at the end of the day.

Those are my suggestions, but you can play any way you desire and decide how it is better for your team.

[BeeClops]

With a 5 man team you can basically brute force any boss with a little knowledge, logsuits and spears should work just fine. Ideally you want everyone to provide materials for themselves but if they're not there yet and want to have some boss fights, I'm sure you can easily do so.