My two cents about surviving the Summer. a.k.a. the Chilled Amulet and You

[gagreflex910]

So I've been lurking around here for a while, reading all the topics complaining about Summer and how unbearably hard it is and the topics/guides on surviving through said Summer, and I finally felt like getting off my bum and speaking up. 

The Summer is hard. Stuff combust into flame randomly, it's too hot to walk around and everything withers away in the heat. Also the giant is a total jerk who incinerates all hope in living. The only positive seems to be the music.
But it's not impossible to survive. Remember your first Winter; your first time making it to day 36 was probably one of the greatest moments of the game. The key is preparation.

Brings me to my key point: Make the Chilled Amulet.

From all the Summer posts I've looked at, no one seems to realize the amulet exists, and the one post that does is chided by a "chilled amulet is useless". I assure you friends, the amulet is the key (and the most well kept secret apparently) on making the Summer a breeze.

So here's the how-to: make your first priority crafting a Prestihatitator whether you start in Autumn or Spring. From there you need 3 gold and 1 blue gem; both can be gotten with some ease by digging up graves, or if you're feeling brave, spelunking. Ice hounds can also be an outlet for blue gem farming.
After that, just build up your usual Summer defenses: Summer Frest, Umbrella, Thermal Stone in Icebox, etc. etc. Personally, I made it through with ease by just having a Summer Frest and a Stone, I didn't touch my Ice Cube or Fashion Melon all summer.

 

Just keep your Frest on as your default attire, carry around a frozen Stone (remember to toss it if it turns yellow!) and keep your Chilled Amulet in your inventory. If you start overheating, put on the amulet and voilá! You are cooled! Keep it on for 5-10% or so of durability as you wish and put your Frest back on. Using this strategy I had no problem at all surviving the Summer and was able to use the season to properly explore my world and sufficiently not starve.

I hope this helps open the eyes to a few people about one of the least-talked about but more useful items in Don't Starve!
Cheers!

tl;dr Chilled Amulet can counter overheating by putting it on for 10-15 seconds at a time. 
 

 

 

 

[PlusFiveCharisma]

Wow thanks a million, man. Welcome to the forum by the way!

[mizukisha]

It's not really a secret.That's just another spoil.A lot of threads are tlaking about that.

And the chilled amulet isn't alone,you have also the luxury fan. The best combo is the Umbrella,straw hat and summer frest,with that you have a good protection.Of course you ca replace the straw hat by the eyebrella.The chilled amulet is a waste of blue gems because they don't spawn a lot. but good guide anyway.you tried ...

[BurningBalls]

It's a good idea if you don't have a snow Chester to cycle your thermal stones.

And a lot cheaper in terms of blue gems as well.

I need more blue gems. Time to farm MacTusk and his blue dogs!

[Vanderer]

Nothing I haven't read before, but always wanted wisdom non the less, and welcome to the forum, pal. Hope you enjoy it here.

[CaptainClam]

I just completely survived my first summer with just two heat stones, two straw hats, and a fashion melon. Dragonfly didn't spawn, but I still don't get what all the fuss is about... it was over before I expected!

[Decelexevi]

I make a point of exploring the map as best I can, learning all the wormhole paths, and gather up all the resources I need and then some by the time summer ever hits. Never had a need for anything more than a heat stone and umbrella because I just spend the whole season farming my spider dens and gathering mushrooms in the deciduous biome. The worst outcomes I ever have in summer (now that I can deal with a dragonfly) are my grass patches burning slightly off screen and not giving me the opportunity to catch them before they go up.

 

It is wonderful advice for anyone willing to take on the spring starts though.

[orian34]

we were thinking about: "chilled amulet is useless, we don't need such costly thing if we have more than enough to pass infinite summer..."

[Doctor H. Derp]

That is one aspect of Summer that I really enjoyed: how a lot of items that seemed to be under appreciated like the chilled amulet and nitre became a whole lot more useful.

[NotCrazy]

So here's the how-to: make your first priority crafting a Prestihatitator whether you start in Autumn or Spring.

 

You can't make the prestihatitator if you start in spring, though. No rabbits.

 

[Dasein808]

From all the Summer posts I've looked at, no one seems to realize the amulet exists, and the one post that does is chided by a "chilled amulet is useless". I assure you friends, the amulet is the key (and the most well kept secret apparently) on making the Summer a breeze.

 

 

.

[orian34]

HEY, i explained myself!

[Decelexevi]

You can't make the prestihatitator if you start in spring, though. No rabbits.

 

 

You can totally make it, just dig up their holes with a shovel. They don't renew that way, but you don't really need rabbits at all once you get your momentum going. Unless you like multiple bases. Then you'll need 4 for every presto.

 

Spring starts suck and I hate them and always start in autumn, but nothing is unattainable during any season, just harder to come by. (edit - actually don't think frogs/mosquitos/fishing is available in winter but you get my point).

[mwelling12]

It's not really a secret.That's just another spoil.A lot of threads are tlaking about that.

And the chilled amulet isn't alone,you have also the luxury fan. The best combo is the Umbrella,straw hat and summer frest,with that you have a good protection.Of course you ca replace the straw hat by the eyebrella.The chilled amulet is a waste of blue gems because they don't spawn a lot. but good guide anyway.you tried ...

 

This is really a rude post. You're pretty much saying that there's only one way of doing something in this game. That, to me, cheapens it. This guy thought to make a post about an interesting strategy that he felt works well and that, in his experience, wasn't being discussed by many people. Saying "you tried" is akin to saying he failed at talking about a valid strategy. And that's just wrong. In addition, you call his post a "spoil," but then you go on to discuss your own strategy. If his is a "spoil," why isn't yours?

 

Why do you need to put others down because they do things differently?

[Battal]

The chilled amulet is a waste of blue gems because they don't spawn a lot. but good guide anyway.

 

I dug up one from a grave in spring and made it through summer with it.  And it's not a waste, since @mwelling12 is right; it is the key to easy summer survival.

[Sporb]

This strategy also works with the ice cube, if you're not keen on blowing blue gems for the chilled amulet. Put the ice cube on when you start to overheat, and take it off when you start to get really wet. It doesn't rain often in summer, so nothing else should be getting you wet. Obviously, this works better when used with other cooling items like the summer frest, because you'll have more time to dry off.

[polygone]

I actually survived my first summer using just two straw hats and a chilled amulet to explore with. First straw hat was just one I happened to have since I like wearing straw hats for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and the second one I made during summer actually. I had the prestihatinator because rabbits are actually awake at the start of spring and their holes only close up when they retreat, so if you enter an unexplored savannah you could still see bunnies walking around that you can bait into traps using carrots. The funny thing is I didn't actually realise I had a spring start because of that, so when Summer hit and I started burning alive I freaked out and started running home, sticking to the trees since I learned that trees protect from weather from it raining so much during spring.

 

Once I got home I made an endothermic fire pit and sat there feeding the flame with my two-three stacks of logs trying to figure out how to survive. I happened to have blue gems and the prestihatinator built so I made the chilled amulet right as my hat disappeared. Once my hat was gone I had no chance outside of the fire pit, but because I had the amulet I could just wear it until I was freezing, take it off, then wait until I start to burn to put it back on. I went to the nearby savannah where I got the rabbits and made another straw hat, from there it was easy to survive just camping by my endothermic fire pit and surviving off the nearby spiders and a few drying racks. If I ran low on wood I just put on my chilled amulet and chopped some more. The only thing that happened that was annoying was one of my chests caught fire while I was away so all my stuff was on the ground at one point since I tend to keep my chests tight.

 

...so yeah, chilled amulet is the easiest way to survive summer. You don't even need the summer frest or any other expensive cooling item with it. The straw hat is cheap, and is enough protection really. It gives you enough time to notice the red vignette and put on the amulet, and if you have an endothermic fire pit you can just shove logs into it like you do with normal fire pits in winter. Heck the only winter survival item I make is the rabbit earmuffs, a surplus of wood solves both extremes fairly readily. Only reason summer is harder is you need nitre, but other than gunpowder that isn't much use anyways so you should have plenty.

 

Straw hat+tree=keeps you from overheating except at the very middle of summer. Doesn't take much to keep cool. Just watch out for your base catching fire.