Wurt's Lunchbox (some bragging and notes on my recent Wurt game)

[Uncrushed]

I've said that Wurt's vegetarian diet and extra hunger satiation from veggies means she doesn't benefit much from a crock pot.  Well, Wurt's done her share of starving this playthrough as a result of that attitude.  A massive effort in the garden and kitchen can pay off for Wurt eventually:

I'm not gonna lie: dragonpie is really good food.

Most games, I end up feeding my characters a diet of of Honey Ham, Figatoni, and Jelly Salad at this point in the game.  I didn't realize how much I rely on Jelly Salad for sanity until I played Wurt (she can't eat anything made with Leafy Meat).  She also can't eat most of the common healing and sanity items, so mashedpotatoes and Salsa Fresca are two of the better vegetarian sanity options.  I might switch to banana shakes after Moon Quay.  For some reason I feel like harvesting ice for Veggie Stinger or Banana Daquari is a lot of work, but it's probably less work than gardening.  Hmm... With the Stinger, I could only grow tomatoes and dragonfruit which balance each other's nutrients (2 tomatoes to 1 dragonfruit).  While I was gardening this, I made a bunch of green mushroom planters.  It might be more practical to use them for sanity instead.

For all those who think gardening is OP, this is day 117 (the middle of the 2nd spring) and I've not fought any bosses besides Deerclops and Queen Bee (and those using the health-adjust mod to make them DS health instead of DST).  Well, a moose-goose died when I led a huge herd of mating Beefalo over to it, but I didn't hit the goose or goslings once.  I haven't made a single merm-house yet either, though I've hired a few merms from existing shanties.

Here's my cave garden.  This is at least my 6th full garden planting this game.  It's the first time I had enough of the right seeds to plant what I wanted.  I could have done it a little faster if I had a birdcage, but I was kinda starving at critical moments and a little lazy.  Because the crop pairings are nutrient balanced, I rarely had to add any nutrients after the initial fertilizing:

It's messy, I know.  I'm not *that* kind of base-builder.  I added 5 more crock pots after this screenshot to speed up dragonpie production.

Not shown here is the One-Man Band which is my go-to for crop happiness.  The Friendly Fruit Fly doesn't work when you're away from your farm!

Location
You can see on the mini-map in the upper-right that this is at the edge of the Blue Mushtree.  I get my water from the nearest vitreoasis in the the Lunar Grotto.  In this world, the blue-mushtree stair is really close to the surface spawn where I made my initial surface base.  The blue mushtree in the caves is almost the closest stair to the ruins, so this seemed the obvious spot.  Until I go to Moon Quay for Monkeytails, I make regular trips to the swamp for reeds.  It's definitely helped to have a steady supply of blue caps.

Nightmare Fuel
I like to make a ham bat, use the blue caps to go insane, satisfy hunger, and heal, and just harvest a bunch of nightmare fuel fighting shadow monsters by the light of the blue mushtrees.  I often wear Night Armor and hold a Darksword to keep sanity drain high, though I try to hit the shadow monsters (and most non-bosses) with the ham bat instead.  A beefalo is better, but that's a whole other project.  I usually make a little cobblestone arena in the blue mushtree, but I didn't this time (lazy).

Harvesting Pig Skin and Meat as Wurt
It took me a while to figure out how to make ham bats as Wurt.  As other characters, I feed all my monster meat to pigs and when one turns into a wearpig, kill it for 1 pig skin and 2 regular meat.  If Wurt makes a Clever Disguise, she *can* dodge the first hit from the pig and dexterously slip the disguise on the pig, then run away until she loses the pig's aggro.  Then she can feed that one pig monster meat like any other character.  It's easier though, if you can remember when full moon is, and bring a bunch of waste food to drop on the ground, you can kill the werepigs pretty safely while they are eating it.  The trick there is to avoid going near the pig houses until the moon comes out.  Otherwise, they go inside for the night and don't transform.  I'm mostly leaving monster meat on the ground to rot, or feeding it to the composter.

Skill Tree
I gave Wurt all the wetness skills.  When it rains enough, she can gain sanity from wetness in the caves about as much as wearing the Tam 'O' Shanter!  She had some freezing trouble in the caves the first 2-3 days of Spring, but has otherwise been fine.  I need to kill Dragonfly for a Scaled Furnace.

[Uncrushed]

11 minutes ago, SSneaky said:

I find roasts potatoes/tomatoes to be good day to day healing.

They are good!  Tomatoes are one of the few fruits that keep longer roasted than raw, but they still go bad pretty quickly.

11 minutes ago, SSneaky said:

But yeah healing super fast a tad issue.

You mean without Pierogi-type foods early-game.  True.  Most games I have a few pretty critical Surf-n-Turf or Tall Scotch Eggs meals, or even Fishsticks.  Not an option for Wurt.

11 minutes ago, SSneaky said:

Untill dragonfuits in season.

Yes, yes, yes!  Getting the seed stock for mass production is a huge effort.  I know I could have done this in maybe 4 gardens instead of 6 by feeding all my early dragonfruits to a bird for seeds, but I was hungry!  Oh.  Now that I think about it, a bird could turn all my Monster Meat and any extra morsels into eggs for Dragonpie filler.  Yeah, definitely should invest in a birdcage.  Waiting this long was a mistake.  I could keep bundling wraps full of eggs to make all my crops go farther.  It's faster than gathering sticks.

[DegenerateFurry]

Trail mix is a solid healing option earlygame, and so are blue mushrooms. Trail mix is more expensive, but better if you want to keep your sanity, while getting a stack of blue caps is super easy, barely an inconvenience (if you head down to the caves at night). 

[Sacco]

As a Wurt i don't care about crock pot that much.

I just eat whatever i find or straight up potatoes/pumpkins which are the only 2 veggies i farm.

[Maxil20]

Nice to see a post about a personal accomplishment of some general gameplay and someone having fun with it. Apart from the screenshot showcase/base threads, you don’t see these all too often, and it’s a neat refresher.

 

[Uncrushed]

9 minutes ago, Sacco said:

As a Wurt i don't care about crock pot that much.

I just eat whatever i find or straight up potatoes/pumpkins which are the only 2 veggies i farm.

Pumpkins satisfy 50 hunger for Wurt - barely more than even Durian, her favorite food, which gives 48.25!  Cooked potatoes are pretty great.  There's less for Wurt to eat in the caves if you don't want to be insane.  But if you don't stay down there too long, that would work great!

[Sacco]

1 minute ago, Uncrushed said:

Pumpkins satisfy 50 hunger for Wurt - barely more than even Durian, her favorite food, which gives 48.25!  Cooked potatoes are pretty great.  There's less for Wurt to eat in the caves if you don't want to be insane.  But if you don't stay down there too long, that would work great!

I honestly don't care about sanity.

I accept my fate of fighting shadows and get annoyed by them...

[Uncrushed]

2 minutes ago, Sacco said:

I honestly don't care about sanity.  I accept my fate of fighting shadows and get annoyed by them...

What about during boss fights?  I need to sober-up at least for those.  Most bosses are really difficult.  Add a shadow monster or two and I just die.

[Sacco]

41 minutes ago, Uncrushed said:

What about during boss fights?  I need to sober-up at least for those.  Most bosses are really difficult.  Add a shadow monster or two and I just die.

i mean you got warrior merms, they do everything, you just have to watch tehm steamroll the boss

[ShadowDuelist]

A few tips from what I’ve read, if you don’t mind:
 

Spoiler

- If you like using ham bats or maybe football helmets too, you can keep pigs out 24/7 making a small enclosed pen (3x3) where you drop some unperishable food item (like a pig skin or a powdercake). You can have that for 1 or 2 isolated pigs in different areas to cover any random day ham bat needs at any time of the day. The pig will stay outside trying to get the bait forever
And if you want to do it during full moon, you can create (in another area) this small enclosed food pen for more than one pig house and add fences around all that (so they dont randomly punch you all if you forget and walk by one day. During full moons you can kill all of them with the help of merms.
- If I were you I’d make my large merm army in the surface first, to start farming dragonfly for gems (which you can use to make ice staff, life amulets, starcallers and duplicate thulecite and living logs if you are not getting many to use thulecite crowns as boss armor) and farm bee queen for jellybeans and BQ crowns. 20 warriors are usually enough for all that.
- Enclose the lava ponds with walls, its a one time hard work thing but for wurt it will pay off in the long run. Your merms will no longer catch on fire against the ponds all the time, and you can easily kill DF often with it.
- If you havent already try to find moon island and bring some stone fruits, those will solve all your stone needs over time and it’s a very cheap food to keep your merms loyal. Also any merm cracks them open for you. My usual go-to to avoid early game starvation of Wurt, until crops start kicking off, are trying to find stonefruits in the early game before I run out of the berries and carrots I collected while exploring. But you are way past that so its just a fun little trip at the sea with a shovel.
- Wurt is a good tank, if you farm marble you can facetank some bosses phases with marble armor and keep your merms safe so they add damage. The merms will make mining marble super easy too.

I love your base, cave bases make some really pretty lush gardens. And the fact that it’s a cave base will come handy to keep growing plants after the surface rifts are open. 

[ChintzyGnat]

I just eat kelp lol. Day 800 and all I eat still is kelp and beans

[dst_lover]

6 minutes ago, ChintzyGnat said:

I just eat kelp lol. Day 800 and all I eat still is kelp and beans

+seeds

[mima_]

if lazy for farming dragon fruit u can invest in giant tree for fig.. to make figatoni .it give wurt 75 hunger 30 hp and 15 sanity 

[Bumber64]

1 hour ago, mima_ said:

if lazy for farming dragon fruit u can invest in giant tree for fig.. to make figatoni .it give wurt 75 hunger 30 hp and 15 sanity 

That's definitely more effort than dragon fruit. Need to get pinchin' winch, tree seed(+figs), and glommer goop. Then you need to wait for the whole tree to mature. This will give you a small handful of figs per harvest. Figs and figatoni also have a very fast spoil time.

You should really just be using blue caps or growing non-giant dragon fruit at that point. Banana daiquiri is also an option.

[mima_]

16 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

That's definitely more effort than dragon fruit.

not sure about that. maybe just different playstyle. u need rng for getting dragonfruit seed, u need get other seed as well if want to make combo. need to farm on right season need to tend them, tilling hammering then cooking. and u do this over and over while tree u invest on growing one or two tree and done. 

i always do pearl quest early so i acquire pinch early too sometimes lucky i pass waterlogged and snatch some of seed along the way and fig for the jam. 
they drop fruit every 2.5 day and its grow fruit thro winter too.