Surviving throught summer as a starting season

[Skorp]

After many tries with ended in my death on the first couple of days I finally managed to survive the first week of summer as a starting season and even have a surplus of resources, basically this is how it went:

 

Starting with Wickerbotton since its the only character with a minimal chance to survive thanks to his knowledge of endothermic reactions (tier 1 science), at the start I began to collect sticks, grass, flint and flowers while exploring the map.

 

I made a pretty parasol but it was useless as soon as I began to overheat so I run down a road to find some rocks, which I did when I was almost dead, I mined them quickly and build a endothermic fire.

After that I focused on mining the rest of the rocks and cutting some trees to build a science machine and with that a endothermic fire pit

Now I had a chance of survival, the next problem was food, which was a pretty big problem because I couldn't go away from my base for more than 25 seconds, I decided to go to the savannah next to my base, set a cooling spot and start hunting the rabbits.

Making traps would be a waste of resources, luckily I found a carrot in the birch biome next to the savannah so I used it as bait for the dumb rabbits to come closer and then crush them with the spear I found on a set piece next to my main camp.

Feeling more confident now that I wouldn't starve I explored a little more around my base, I found more trees and a graveyard but sadly no gears, just trinkets and gems which were useless to me. I almost died of heat for nothing.

I build a fire pit (no way I was going to waste grass with a normal campfire) and cooked my hard earned morsels.

The fourth day I went back to rabbit hunting but in the morning I decided to start a tree farm, I needed to start planning for mid-long consequences and without wood I didn't stand a chance against summer.

The fifth day I decided to make a heat stone, so I spend most of the time mining rocks but I was so worth it. Also the tree farm suffered some casualties but it was expected.

The sixth day was used to gather more wood, morsels and even explore a little. I finally collected enough grass to build a straw hat, I used to dismiss it but now its the best hat in the universe.

Also I constructed a new endothermic fire pit in the savannah, so now its officially my second camp. I probably should have done that at the beginning but my pride refuses to live in the middle of rabbits and the spontaneous combustion might have some backdraws.

By the end of the day  I ended with a full stomach for the first time.

The seventh day was more of the same, I found a fire dart and planted some trees, I don't expect all of them to survive, I want charcoal for a crockpot if I ever find some more sticks.

And here I am now, with the hat and the stone I can do some exploration and with the fire pit and the rabbits I can survive the entire summer without much problem. Since I'm starting to recover health I should be able to deal with the hounds easily so my only concern would be the summer giant. If he comes I'll try to lure him with some birchnuts but I really hope that he doesn’t come

 

Has anyone else managed to survive starting on summer? What strategy did you used?

[mitboy]

OMG, man, you rock!

[Skorp]

Part 2

 

Guess what? He did come the very next day, those deerclops sounds don't suit him but I guess I will be changed. He was mostly buzzing around spitting fire from time to time and I was ok with it, I don't have anything important that could be burned other that all the grass in the savannah but I'll gladly trade it in exchange of my life so I didn't make any aggressive moves.

Also he doesn't care for the birchnuts, who said that he liked them?

I decided to go away for a while but he followed me, burned a big part of the deciduous forest and eventually he started to attack me, to make it even better the hounds are also coming.

After some time running in circles around the firefly with the pair of hounds following me they decided to bite the giant, I don't know how they could have thought this was a good idea but I'm not complaining. Now its only me and him.

This thing won't leave me alone, after killing the hounds he returned to his normal mode but I foolishly tried to attack him, the result was 2 HP left.

Thankfully it was a full moon night so I ran to my first base through a road but eventually he caught up so I turned back and ran the other way to the east hoping to put some distance between me and the demon spawn.

I should say that his AI behaved weirdly, he loses the agro when I get far away but he follows me in his attack form anyway, he seems to return to normal form only if he kills something.

When I felt safe again I constructed a endothermic fire in a place away from him, I had enough food to survive a couple of days.

Rage possesed me when I realized that he had kicked me out of my home, I decided to go back without any particular plan but after arriving the rage turned to fear and I came back, you can have that science machine, deformed fly.

Not you! Can't you see that I'm having enough problems already?

Well, that was easier than I thought.

When I was thinking on what to do I heard the morning tune differently, this time I didn't sounded muffled, could it be?

Summer is over, the dragonfly is gone, I don't have to worry about the overheat... I feel both happy and sad, I was starting to get used to it. I guess this it it. Next time I'll get you, flaming moth.

 

 

So that was summer, if you can survive the first couple of days and set some kind of camp its very doable, my only complain is that archiving that is completely luck based, if I had not found the rock biome next to the savannah with rabbits I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

 

The spontaneous combustion didn't look like the game breaking feature that other people have talked about, I almost forgot that it existed since the only things that it burned where a couple of trees, evil flowers, grass and a crow.

[pwhampton]

Summer only is hard, but do-able. I have a thread on how I did it around here somewhere. I decided to run it with Wendy instead of Wickerbottem though. I had 5 hp left when I got my fire going. It is VERY luck based on the spawn. go default plus if you want a 100% chance of living

[Lady Tyrantess]

This very much reminds me of a picture book story version of Don't starve, I want to print this out into a book form and read it to my kids one day and tell them the moral of the story is that keep your wits about you, try and know about what your doing and pick your battles. I found myself frowning at my frustration and the irritation of others I've seen with the new DLC, but you made me laugh and smile, lightened mood if you will.

 

You make me feel like it is possible to survive the summer. Kudos to you and your picture-esque story

[Renmiri]

Now that you can extinguish fires, surviving without the ice flingomatic is doable, before they added that I had to watch my entire camp burn after one of my saplings smoldered, without being able to do a thing...

[Skorp]

Now that you can extinguish fires, surviving without the ice flingomatic is doable, before they added that I had to watch my entire camp burn after one of my saplings smoldered, without being able to do a thing...

You could also use rot but yeah, if you didn’t knew that or you used all of it you were screwed. In this particular run I wasn't bothered by the combustion because I didn't left anything on the floor and I planted the trees far from each other.

 

[Hantoki]

Wow this was a really fun read. Thanks for posting!

[MatGreevil7]

That was a great read. Appreciate the time it took to take and upload all of the pictures. I got through the seasons pretty well so far, starting spring or the easy autumn. But Im looking for a challenge at the moment, either starting summer/winter (might be a bit too killer on me atm) or living a year in the caves or something of the like. 

[MaxStrategy]

This is actually very impressive, well done

[pwhampton]

That was a great read. Appreciate the time it took to take and upload all of the pictures. I got through the seasons pretty well so far, starting spring or the easy autumn. But Im looking for a challenge at the moment, either starting summer/winter (might be a bit too killer on me atm) or living a year in the caves or something of the like. 

 

Starting in winter is a LOT easier then starting in summer, and is actually not as difficult as you may think. just get your first torch asap and BURN EVERYTHING FOR HEAT.

[Ridley]

You are doing remarkable on a challenge I wouldn't attempt. 

[darthyank]

Nice story, congrats

[J20hawkz]

Awesome job mate! I'll be using this as an example to anyone who moans about summer being a challenge after they have had a few seasons to prepare for it.

[Strangerdanger101]

You are my hero.

[rezecib]

Also he doesn't care for the birchnuts, who said that he liked them?

This is a misconception that people had because they looked at the new birchnut code without comparing it to other items. Each world object has a different priority for the Dragonfly, so he'll try to burn higher-priority things if he can. In the code, it shows it as setting a "dragonfly bait" level. Birchnuts are actually on the lowest level, with things like structures on the highest level.

 

EDIT: Actually, I misread the code on this (it lists priorities by number, which it then converts to tags, and then the tags are converted to numbers again in the opposite order... xD). So birchnuts are high priority, but so are most things (everything that's combustible and can go in your inventory, I think). Structures are mid-priority, and plants are low-priority (flowers, bushes, etc).