DST gameplan advice

[OniricThanatos]

Usually my runs look like this, I often play alone and pick Wendy or Wigfrid.
I've never reached second winter nor the lunar island and I get killed at ruins, so, I was wondering if anyone would kindly share their gameplans, in order to get a better understanding of my mistakes. My main goal is to kill every boss.
Also I didn't add character-dependent goals like mourning glories for Wendy or Wigfrid's songs.
I drew the flowchart in Visual paradigm.
Thanks for your reading, have a nice day!

[SomebodyRandom]

Killing Bearger to get Insulation Pack, I assume?

Normally I do something similar but while exploring map I am also taming a Beefalo and during Summer, after killing Antlion, I use the Beefalo to clean the Ruins. I main Wormwood so getting the Potatoes & Toma roots to feed my Beef is extremely easy.

[lakhnish]

@OniricThanatos We need a bit more information. 

How are you dying in the ruins? Starvation, monkies, nightmares? Can you be more specific 

Best advice I can give is that you should bring lots of armor (like football helmets) and healing food. Getting blue mushrooms in the blue forest is what people typically do before going to the ruins.

If you have Drying Racks and a lot of meat, you can also dry your food and make Jerky.

Since you've never made it to the 2nd Winter but you are capable of killing at least the seasonal bosses, why not just skip the ruins for one Summer and get to your second Winter? You can always try to go to the ruins in your 2nd Summer  (Unless you are trying to challenge yourself by doing it by the 2nd Winter).

Also, is your goal just killing the seasonal bosses only or do you want to do the raid bosses too?

[Guille6785]

seems like a fairly normal start if you want to spend the first few seasons setting up your base and farms, not sure what aspect of your gameplay specifically you want to improve

[Baark0]

Gonna assume you're relatively new the game, so honestly, if you're playing alone, ignore the ruins for now, get comfortable with the game, and when you feel ready, make sure to make a meat effigy by a cave exit so that if you die you can teleport away from the ruins in a place where you can leave food, healing, heat/cold sources, light, and whatever else you need. You don't need to be like half the people on these forums who rush ruins without science in 5 days or whatever, play at your own pace.

If you want help killing bosses, just do a search on youtube, something like "dst x kill", x being the boss you're trying to kill, there's lots of guides out there on how to cheese pretty much every boss, and most of them don't even require ruins gear.

[blizstorm]

What is wrong with juicy berry bush? In fact, i would prefer them over normal berry bush. They are simply more powerful.

Even then, juicy berry is only on the level of farming pumpkin. Rather than normal berry bush, You should just work on farming pumpkin and other crops instead.

I would consider Oasis as an inferior base location. Basing in cave would really avoid wildfire and fire hound. Oasis is simply just too remote and the sandstorm makes you more vulnerable to hounds

[Cheggf]

You're supposed to flowchart Ken gameplay, not Don't Starve.

4 hours ago, OniricThanatos said:

I've never reached second winter nor the lunar island and I get killed at ruins

Deaths are caused by short term mistakes, not long term ones. Well I suppose not being able to revive could be considered a long term mistake. But you dying in the ruins isn't going to be stopped by creating a different flowchart, you need to look at exactly what's killing you in the ruins and think about why it killed you and how you could have approached the situation differently to prevent your death.

[Booieann]

Im just about on day 1000 of my game and im just finally working up the nerve to explore my ruins

Ive died a fair amount, but its no big, ive got mods that make my life easier while im trying to learn how to play the game and not die. Just gotta pick yourself up, get what you need to pick up your stuff, and learn from your mistakes

But if youre fighting bosses with Wendy, i def do suggest getting Nightshade Nostrum for bosses outside of caves, and maybe Distilled Vengeance for inside caves.

[DajeKotlyar]

I'm already kill every boss in my world and my plan is... different. Juicy berries isn't problem for me. Also, you should kill Klaus at the first winter cause good drop. Lunar island in the first spring. Ruins at the first summer. Also I usually try to fit killing Dragonfly in first year (in winter, for example)

[Pig Princess]

4 hours ago, Cheggf said:

you need to look at exactly what's killing you in the ruins and think about why it killed you and how you could have approached the situation differently to prevent your death

I agree with this, and my advice is to craft moggles for the ruins, as well as use body armor with them - like night armor, since nightmare fuel is not an issue in the ruins as long as you have a weapon and light source, and you can carry a lot of papyrus with you in single slot. Another option is to craft thulecite suits as soon as possible and use those; you can use log suits too if you don't get hit a lot, or marble suits if you don't mind speed penalty (tanking 2+ bishops at the same time, using beefalo (if you don't mind to add that step to your strategy; armor in this case is needed for bishops, but you can also kite them at this point even with war saddle)).

Since you typically have pig farm before ruins, you can also use head armor (football helmets/battle helmets/thulecite crowns) and magiluminescence (try to craft it as soon as possible, broken station allows to do it).

As for healing food, I personally prefer surf'n'turf for the first autumn rush, or for later clearings - cooked tomatoes/crock pot recipes that give both health and decent amount of sanity. Blue mushrooms might be a so-called "meta", but keep in mind that you have to waste additional time to fighting more shadows that way, and possibly waste additional weapon/armor (if not careful) durability. Compared to mushrooms you pick and bring across the map, sur'n'turf can be cooked much closer to the location you need healing food, and almost 100% fresh (monster meat from debth worms + eels from ruins ponds, 2 each result in surf'n'turf in regular crock pot).

For light I prefer moggles and carry extra glow berries, they are also acquired closer to the destination area (clockwork biomes) than light bulbs, and game delivers extra to you with debth worm periodic attacks; glow berries also spoil slower than light bulbs (10 vs 6 days respectively), which is another advantage. I suggest carry fully fueled backup light source too, like miner hat or lantern, but don't bother with fuel for that, since it's backup.

It's a good idea to bring life giving amulet, and to use it for additional healing while you are mining statues, for reviving (life giving amulet + lantern (both in the inventory, not backpack) - on spot, life giving amulet + magiluminescence (near cleared from clockworks pseudoscience station) - in case you don't want to dedicate 2 extra inventory slots for the second chance).

For weapon bring either nearly infinite one (ham bat, morning star (even in summer latter deals decent 43 damage + debth worms are always wet, so 72 to them)), or the one materials for which are space-efficient (living logs for dark swords, Wigfrid's spear is ok too, I guess, since it has really high durability, and you only need to carry twigs (flint and gold fall from the seiling periodically)), but it won't hurt to have 2 of them (my personal favourite - dark sword + morning star combination).

Short-term tips: always have second piece of armor just in case first one breaks, same for weapon if the first one is low; refuel you light source before the fight (moggles last 12 minutes, lantern and miner hat - 8 minutes, Willow's lighter - 10 minutes, magiluminescence - 8 minutes, glow berry light - 90 seconds regardless of freshness, morning star - 6 minutes; moggles, magiluminescence, morning star and Willow's lighter break upon reaching 0% durability, Willow's lighter and morning star can't be refueled (but lighter can be ok backup light source, and it's better to sacrifice some morning star durability than loose a world I guess)). My personal favourite backup light source is miner hat.

Character-specific tips: rooks deal 200 damage to Abigail because she is considered a mob, not character; small heal for Abi is more efficient than big heal for ruins clearing because damage is spread over time in 90% of the cases and multiple rooks will kill her even with big heal anyway. To safely go through monkeys during nightmare/dawn phase rile up Abigail. Wigfrid natural healing is enough to keep her alive provided you fight nightmares during nightmare cycle and kite well; her healing song can help, but not mandatory even in legit ancient guardian fight.

You can tell what phase it is without thulecite madallion: it's nightmare if red/purple parts of your surrounding are glowing brightly (for example, pieces of ruins turf, debth wormth elements, foliage, etc.), it's calm when blue parts are bright, and it's warn/dawn when everything seems to loose color (grey). You can look at gems at the statues: during nightmare and calm phases colors of gems are easy to distinguish, and impossible (at least for me) during warn and dawn; statues emit light in small radius during warn and dawn phases, and in big radius during nightmare (+ their appearance changes during nightmare). Don't go to monkeys during nightmare phase unless you are prepared to just run for next 4 minutes or so (not hungry, light source is fueled, because stop=death usually), same for going during dawn, but for 2 minutes. If you need food from them, either be Wendy with riled up Abigail, or approach them carefully to fight 1-4 at the same time.

And the most important tip: relics have very high attack priority, so keep that in mind while fighting something near them.

[Milordo]

7 hours ago, blizstorm said:

What is wrong with juicy berry bush? In fact, i would prefer them over normal berry bush. They are simply more powerful.

Even then, juicy berry is only on the level of farming pumpkin. Rather than normal berry bush, You should just work on farming pumpkin and other crops instead.

I would consider Oasis as an inferior base location. Basing in cave would really avoid wildfire and fire hound. Oasis is simply just too remote and the sandstorm makes you more vulnerable to hounds

It all boils down with preference. Juicy berry are not more powerful than normal ones, just different. Remember that juicy berry are the fastest thing on the game that rots normally and meanwhile rot is useful, many people would like to use them as ingredients for meatballs. Not to mention, after harvesting a juicy berry bush, you need to wait muuchhh longer to have again some berries in contrast to the normal ones.

I remember it was already discussed many years ago, but berry bushes and juicy berry bushes are totally balanced (surprising knowing the game) 

[Cheggf]

8 hours ago, Milordo said:

Remember that juicy berry are the fastest thing on the game that rots

That's good! It's better as a food source and better as a rot source!

8 hours ago, Milordo said:

many people would like to use them as ingredients for meatballs.

Why? Three berries and a meat doesn't add any hunger, while three berries and a morsel (which isn't common) would only add a single berry worth of hunger at the cost of the time it takes to put them in the crock pot and wait for it to cook. Making meatballs with juicy berries is always a loss of hunger.

Also, how is them rotting faster relevant to making meatballs when you can just not harvest them until you're ready to delete hunger by making meatballs?

8 hours ago, Milordo said:

Not to mention, after harvesting a juicy berry bush, you need to wait muuchhh longer to have again some berries in contrast to the normal ones.

They take 2.6x-3.0x as long to regrow but consistently give 4.5x as much food. If someone absolutely needs a few berries and can't go a few days longer the berries aren't what killed them, and even then you can just harvest a third of the berries each time and have the same (or shorter) wait between harvests as normal berry bushes but getting 1.5x as much food.

And all of that is even ignoring the fact that in a juicy berry world there'll be normal berry bushes underground so you can still have both of them. Juicy berries are clearly the much better option. Regular berries' only strength over them is that they rot slower, but the speed at which they rot is only really particularly useful if you're using berries as a food source for a longer expedition, but neither version of the berries are good at that.

[Milordo]

49 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

 

Why? Three berries and a meat doesn't add any hunger, while three berries and a morsel (which isn't common) would only add a single berry worth of hunger at the cost of the time it takes to put them in the crock pot and wait for it to cook. Making meatballs with juicy berries is always a loss of hunger.

Also, how is them rotting faster relevant to making meatballs when you can just not harvest them until you're ready to delete hunger by making meatballs?

It's true i checked, it's better 4 cooked juicy berries than a meatball but you still need consider in case i need to travel far distances. They rot immediately meanwhile meatballs in 10 days, more if you have better equipment. I lost you for the "morsel isn't common". Le bruh? Morsel or any kind of meat isn't common? What the heck? ahahahha. Maybe you wanted to say something else or i didn't understand it.

Btw i didn't express myself good about "they rot faster, so therefore you need to make them in meatballs" and now that i read it again, yes it wasn't a great example.

55 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

They take 2.6x-3.0x as long to regrow but consistently give 4.5x as much food. If someone absolutely needs a few berries and can't go a few days longer the berries aren't what killed them, and even then you can just harvest a third of the berries each time and have the same (or shorter) wait between harvests as normal berry bushes but getting 1.5x as much food.

And all of that is even ignoring the fact that in a juicy berry world there'll be normal berry bushes underground so you can still have both of them. Juicy berries are clearly the much better option. Regular berries' only strength over them is that they rot slower, but the speed at which they rot is only really particularly useful if you're using berries as a food source for a longer expedition, but neither version of the berries are good at that.

Okay yes, in the end you proved me juicy berries are in reality a bit stronger than normal ones but think about it, it really makes that much difference? We're talking on paper, in theory not in practise. Everytime i played or saw other people, you ever had the feeling "Noooo this world doesn't have juicy berries, now my experience will be much harder!". No, obviously not. When i see the juicy berries maybe the only thought i have is  "cool, another way to produce rot faster in this new world" but that's it. In the end, in the game they're both okay and became obsolete from better food sources.

Thx anyway for the information! 

[Cheggf]

20 minutes ago, Milordo said:

It's true i checked, it's better 4 cooked juicy berries than a meatball but you still need consider in case i need to travel far distances.

Meatballs only barely extends the time it takes freshly picked berries to go stale from 3 to 5 days. You get relatively more extension if you use freshly picked juicy berries, but if the goal is to travel far distances the meat would be much better spent on things that are more hunger efficient, give health, give sanity, and take longer to spoil like jerky, bacon & eggs, or honey ham.

20 minutes ago, Milordo said:

I lost you for the "morsel isn't common".

Most people aren't making splumonkey farms, so off the top of my head the ways left to get morsels that aren't incredibly inefficient would be being Wickerbottom, a byproduct of killing moose, or being Wendy during a frog rain. One of those is dependent on your character, one dependent on the season, and one dependent on both. All the common meat sources (Pigs, goats, koalefants, giants, bunnymen, etc) give large meats, not morsels.

20 minutes ago, Milordo said:

Okay yes, in the end you proved me juicy berries are in reality a bit stronger than normal ones but think about it, it really makes that much difference? We're talking on paper, in theory not in practise. Everytime i played or saw other people, you ever had the feeling "Noooo this world doesn't have juicy berries, now my experience will be much harder!". No, obviously not. When i see the juicy berries maybe the only thought i have is  "cool, another way to produce rot faster in this new world" but that's it. In the end, in the game they're both okay and became obsolete from better food sources.

Yeah either way what berries the world has is largely inconsequential because they're not particularly good past the first few days, but if we're comparing them then juicy berries are clearly the better option. If berries were a really good food source then there would be an issue since it would encourage people to regen worlds repeatedly to get them. Thankfully berries aren't that good so whether you get the better or worse berries doesn't really matter.

[Erineyes7]

I don't recommend sticking to a strict schedule, DST is all about the world changing, and you learning to adapt. Forcing yourself into the ruins and trying to do things you're not quite ready for can lead to death and or other unfortunate outcomes.

You don't need to optimize, you just gotta learn what you can handle

Anywho, good luck out there, and remember, Don't starve!

[W0l0l0]

I'm only here to acknowledge the flowchart and how much I love it. Just be sure to be willing to deviate if other opportunities arise, chaotic nature of Don't Starve is why I love it. span widget