Strategy Discussion - What do you do? - Discussion Thread for What is YOUR Strategy?

[StretchVanb]

Don't Starve Strategy Discussion

 

Welcome to my discussion thread! I will take no part in the discussion unless people want me to(insults count). Also, the title says it all.

Warning! Wall of text ahead.

Let us start with some basic tips:

1. Make sure to explore your map! If you do, then the game will be much easier for you.

2. Eat mushrooms at low sanity. Only eat them with

 higher health

3. Find a decent location for a base camp! If you make it the middle of nowhere you won't have as easy access to thing such as the pig king, beefalo, and other important areas.

4. Enemies tend to fight each other.

Now for the meat and bones of this discussion...

Doctor.H.Derp:

My most general strategy is tracing the perimeter of the island as I walk along in search of resources and an ideal place to set up. I used to not set up until I had traced the entirety of the map which takes roughly 10 days on default settings, but I've found that it's not really that necessary as long as I've found the resources I need.

 

Second I have enough resources, I'll wait for that evening to create a science machine, 3 ropes, a backpack, log suit, spear, and shovel. The backpack and helps me carry more, the shovel is just nice to have, and the log suit and spear make it so I can hunt clockworks and get their valuable gears without getting absolutely wrecked. I like having the gears before setting up.

 

Then I look for a place that's reasonably close to something that can help deal with hounds and is reasonably close to a cave entrance.

I try to set up my base in such a way that I could put 4 ice fling-o-matics around it and the snowballs will hit all objects within it except for the firepits. I also make an endothermic firepit really early in my main base's construction because I want my firepits in the center of the base, and while you can place structures next to the endothermic firepit, for some inexplicable reason, you can't place the endothermic firepit all that close to structures.

 

If I had room prior to setting up, especially if I found chester, or if not I'll start right after setting up the firepits, an alchemy engine, some chests, lightning rod, maybe an icebox, is go out and get an extra 80 cut grass and an extra 40 twigs so I can set up 9 drying racks. I'll also plant all the pine cones I've collected, around 30 just to be safe, in a fairly fire safe area so I can burn them down and harvest the charcoal necessary for a crockpot and said 9 drying racks.

 

Misc. stuff: I always make the ice boxes first before a crockpot is because the food I have on hand is usually either stale or spoiling and that helps keep it's longevity, and then I try to make a crockpot as close to my placed iceboxes as possible so I can just shift click the food from the icebox into the crockpot. I eventually set up 3 iceboxes. The 2 closest ice boxes have everything to do with food while the third farthest one has everything to do with ice and a chilled thermal stone and stale honey I'll eventually use for honey poultices.

 

Oh! I also either scout out or make 2 arenas. One for hounds and the other for giants. Nothing fancy, either I'm near a rocky biome, or I clear out an area of a regular biome so that I have a place to go before the giants/hounds will spawn that will cause as little collateral damage as possible when they do spawn. These arenas will be a good distance from my main base, but not so far that I couldn't quickly run to it when necessary.

 

 

That's pretty much the basics.

 

porps:

I pick wickerbottom- i build a backpack, an axe and a shovel on day 1. I use the shovel to dig up berry bushes, grass tufts and saplings. I do not settle down until about day 12 at the earliest, but usually later than that. That gives me plenty of time to explore the vast majority of the world, find chester and gather loads of stuff. Since i use wickerbottom, i can start making excess grass into rope, excess wood into boards and even prebuild base structures on the move. All of this creates more inventory space so i can gather yet more materials. 

When i have explored the world to my satisfaction, i will head to what i consider to be that worlds best location and set up a camp in a day. I usually like quite a central location, with fairly easy (<1day travel) access to at least 1 cave, a marsh, rabbit holes and beefalo. Pig king and/or desert is a bonus.  

Initial base build usually consists of a couple of crockpots, both firepits, 3 improved farms, a bird cage, an icebox, a few chests, a lightning rod and a couple of drying racks

At that point i start preparing for winter/summer, gathering plenty of grass and twigs, plus ice or beefalo wool depending on season.