Best way to get enough food for the players ?

[Odinfrom]

Hello everyone !

 

I really enjoy the game, it's fun, even with beginners it's even funnier to teach them and to help them.

 

But I'm facing a problem, I have to feed lots of people in the server so I need to find the best optimised way to feed them (and I would like to try wolfgang, but then it will be harder for me to help them too, since his hunger mechanic is crazy)

 

So what is your best way to get lots of food ? Obviously it's by using the crockpot.

For example if we think about it, the best one is to have a wickerbottom in the team, and gather stuffs with the players, and then when we have 20+ berries and so on, you use her book power and it's awesome, you have tons of ressources.

 

But now, let's imagine the case where we don't have wickerbottom. What should I do to get lots of food (enough to feed me and some other players)?

Obviously the koalephant is not really worth since you waste lot of time to chase him and kill him(one day, more than half day at least), I guess killing beefalos is not really the best way too, since you have to aggro them and catch one alone

 

Is dragon-fruit farm the best way ?

or is it bees (which bring butterflies too, which are awesome when you have lots of flower with your bee farm)? or rabbits ?

or something else ?

[ilys48]

I think it has to be a combination of everything.. :/

I believe jerkies are still the best course for winter, but to feed the most people, meatballs are cheap. Even better, eggs and bacons once you have enough rabbits at hand. I hear some players only sustain themselves on honey? 

[F1sh]

Settle down nearby a bunch of frog ponds, put a bunch of traps (15-20) right near the ponds, I was playing with 2 other friends, never went hungry again.

Also honey is a good option, but it's not too easy to get it set up before the first winter,

[Zillvr]

I've survived a whole default winter with only 6 baitless bird traps, a crockpot, a bird cage with a bird and three nearby spider nests. Cooking any caught birds straight into the firepit always gets you cooked morsels, instead of murdering them in your inventory which has a chance to drop feathers. Feeding the caged bird Cooked Monster Meat drops Eggs and using morsels and the nearby spider nests to get the monster meat to make bacon and eggs with this recipe: 1 Monster Meat + 1 Morsel + 2 Eggs. Using 2 monster meats instead of 1 monster meat and 1 morsel, has a chance to cook Monster Lasagna so there should always be a morsel. 

 

Do note that I survived with two other people with this setup and by the end of winter we were all full to the brim and overflowing with Bacon and Eggs. Hope that gives you an idea on what else you can do for your food supply. All other strategies mentioned above are great too. So just have fun, good luck and hope you find the perfect mix of things to do for your food supply. 

 

[Odinfrom]

Tbh you can have 4 beehives/flowers before winter easily, and more is not impossible at all.

 

And yes if you have bees farm you can sustain yourself easily with honey.

Mmh :/

[Pyromailmann]

I know, set up a base and set up some basic farms! Then get beefalo manure and keep fertilizing crops!

[Tumalu]

With some farms and/or berry bushes and Wickerbottom's farm book, the only limit to your endless bounty of food is her sanity. Especially if you have a birdcage to both create your own seeds, and before long, have only dragonfruits growing in the farms.

 

Birdcage also means cooked monster meat can be turned into eggs, so you can just farm spiders (traps or abigail so it's easy and safe) for meat, and if you have any amount of rabbits or frogs or etc for Morsels/frog legs, you can easily make Bacon&Eggs when you aren't eating dragonpie. (someone just went into detail on that tho)

 

Need to heal and don't have dragonpie left? If you have even one bee box you can make tons of Honey Ham with (monster) meat+morsel+honey for health.

 

And, koalaphant really isn't a bad food source. Those 8 meats can be used for a lot of meaty stews when you use monster meat+meat+2 morsel. Even with 4 people it lasts for awhile, especially when you consider how many koalaphants you can find with 4 people- although you do have to watch out for ewecus... (warg is easy if you have people helping you kill it)

 

...and yeah, frog ponds are like rabbits except more mass farmable, when it's not winter. Easy trappings! You'll want to be able to get a lot of rabbits during winter to pad out your food stocks, at least before you manage to stockpile infinite food in the second summer.

[F1sh]

Tbh you can have 4 beehives/flowers before winter easily, and more is not impossible at all.

 

And yes if you have bees farm you can sustain yourself easily with honey.

Mmh :/

 

Yes, I know you can easily set them up before the first winter, but there's a lot of more important things to do, and unless you do it pretty early, you won't get much honey.

[duhacinamufi]

first, gathering resources by:

 

early game ingredients (1-5 days)

- butterfly wing, punch the butterfly when it idle or land into a flower (ctrl + f to force attack it)

- frog, use trap (most recommended), kill by spear + log suit

- morsel, use trap on the rabbit hole (can keep alive in chest if you didn't have ice box or don't want to wait/waste resources on drying rack)

- twigs (good as a filler for various foods)

- carrot, berries and mushroom (duh)

- monster meat (kill a spider by use axe, spear or any tool, just press and hold f, no armor required, it can't hit you back if you hunt them 1 by 1) or use trap to help if 2 pop-out

warning: dont kill butterfly + rabbit more than 8 per day since its can spawn krampus http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Krampus

 

mid game ingredients (6+ day)

- fish (fishing by made a fishing rod) you may or may not found the pound to fishing

- meat (normal meat, the one you get by kill a pig or beefalo)

- egg (some kind of luck base here, since you need to find 8 reeds to make a birdcage and 4 webs for a bird trap)

- honey (may easier or harder than egg since you need some webs for bug net to catch the bees to make a bee box)

- all farm crops (corn, pumpkin, dragon fruit, etc.) need time to grow and need large amount of poops to make a farm/as a fertilizer

 

for recipes, use this (? = wildcard (you can use anything of that type), ! = you can't use this) and don't use more than 1 monster meat since it will results in monster lasagna except you use twigs too https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u4roRAyd1UTPK0RZDM2NoCuzYJIAHT0o4facmUHL8DE/edit#gid=463050158

[Odinfrom]

Mmh I guess my topic was not clear enough, I mean the best way, not "how to get food/one way to get food" on DST.

 

So for the time being it's :

 

-With wickerbottom :

No question, obviously get farms/berries/twig bush and so on and enjoy the crazy feast.

But it's a bit like cheating. It's way too broken .

 

Without wickerbottom (still no order, I don't really know..):

 

For winter :

-Bee farms(4 or +) for the summer and at  the start of winter (honey very slow spoiling food, + you can have crazy amount of butterflies)

-Spider farms (move them close to the base) to get fast monster eat and egg if needed. + rabbits (work in winter well)

 

+Koalephant/beefalo can be hunted to get some meats.

 

For summer only :

-Frogs

-Dragon fruit farm (or is there enough poo at winter to feed all people..? then it can be moved for winter but I'm not convinced it's the best way for winter)

 

Anything else ?

 

[RalphKastro]

just do everything that doesn't endanger you much, then go slowly sorting it out based on what gives more food per effort.

[The Letter W]

Set up near a Savannah with a good amount of Rabbit holes. Place a trap on every hole and check it daily. Make yourself plenty of farms and you should be able to get chests full of Rabbits in no time. They don't starve to death yet so it's completely viable.  

[CometChaserPleinair]

kill pigs, they spawn in winter and summer, the recipes you can make with a large meat is pretty big.

[XirmiX]

Farm dragonfruit. Trust me. Restores huge amounts of hunger AND health, plus it is OP in its recipe: Dragonfruit + 3 twigs and you have one! Once you got a bird in a birdcage and a dragonfruit, your hunger and health will no longer be an issue. Ever.

[Obbu]

Wickerbottom's book doesn't work in winter, but can be good for getting a stock of berries going for the first half of winter.

 

At the end of the day, most of the stuff listed here will help a lot, but i'd say koalefant hunting and mass jerky is by far the easiest, strongest and most versatile of the routes. Simply get a couple of people together and hit every track you find, with spears and log armor.

 

It can be done solo, but pay attention to your item durability (have spare weapons/armor available) and dont do it at night solo. If you are running around with a torch on and find ewecus instead of a koalefant, that's a very bad thing.

 

If you get low on health, eat jerky - or kill some spiders for salves.

 

Having a base in one of those extended rabbit runs is a good backstop - extra points if you have some beefalo on hand there too.

 

If they put the extra seasons in from RoG, that dynamic will change considerably though.

[StaypuftMMM]

In my opinion, setting up near the swamp or even in the swamp (on the green patch of grass that is there) usually results in the easiest gathering of food.  I typically just run through and gather up all sorts of supplies (this is before I even strategically replant spider nests for optimal conflict between merms and tentacles).  

 

Besides that, using the crockpot along with ice as filler for some recipes is the least hassle in my opinion.  I usually spend a majority of winter gathering as much ice as possible to load into an ice box or two.  Ice won't spoil like everything else so it keeps indefinitely and seems to be less hassle then berry farming from my viewpoint.

[BeastNips]

 

I've survived a whole default winter with only 6 baitless bird traps, a crockpot, a bird cage with a bird and three nearby spider nests. Cooking any caught birds straight into the firepit always gets you cooked morsels, instead of murdering them in your inventory which has a chance to drop feathers. Feeding the caged bird Cooked Monster Meat drops Eggs and using morsels and the nearby spider nests to get the monster meat to make bacon and eggs with this recipe: 1 Monster Meat + 1 Morsel + 2 Eggs. Using 2 monster meats instead of 1 monster meat and 1 morsel, has a chance to cook Monster Lasagna so there should always be a morsel. 

 

Do note that I survived with two other people with this setup and by the end of winter we were all full to the brim and overflowing with Bacon and Eggs. Hope that gives you an idea on what else you can do for your food supply. All other strategies mentioned above are great too. So just have fun, good luck and hope you find the perfect mix of things to do for your food supply. 

 

 

This, basically.

 

Dispite the other somewhat 'guerrilla' strategies; such as setting up in a swamp, killing pigs etc; being as viable or more viable, the above is by far the most reliable and safe method.

 

Spider dens, a birdcage and rabbit traps are by far the easiest way to produce food. All your food production time should be put into this when you start. Things like farms and berry bush are nice, but a bit of a waste of time in your first summer.

 

Spiders provide Monster Meat (MM).

 

Traps provide morsels.

 

Birdcage turns monster meat into eggs.

 

1 MM, 1 Morsel and 2 Eggs makes bacon and eggs, an excellent food source. This is actually 3 MM as the eggs come from MM too, meaning 3/4 cooking components come from spiders (or occasionally hounds). This method of food production doesn't change in the winter other than grass and twigs not regrowing for traps (you should use a lot of these for spiders and rabbits), so there is no winter prep or stocking up.

 

This can be stabilised further by creating about 10-20 drying racks to increase the length of time you can keep your meat.

 

Once you feel comfortable enough, add bee boxes to the equation. 1MM, 2 Morsels and 1 Honey produces Honey Ham. This food is excellent for health and keeps a while; good for exploring as you may be out a long time and may take damage.

 

Once your food production is essentially Spiders, Bees and Rabbit traps, you are set. After this it is a case of vary your food depending on what you're producing a lot of or what you're doing. As a rule of thumb: produce Honey Ham until you run out of Honey, or you have so much MM that it's spoiling. If you have spoiling MM or you run out of Honey, switch to Bacon and Eggs.

 

Meals can be preserved indefinitely by building multiple crockpots: they won't spoil on the crockpot so it's a good place to keep them.

 

Happy surviving!

 

Note: This relies partly on vanilla spoilage mechanics. Once RoG features are added, rabbits are more difficult to farm since they aren't present in spring, and they spoil in traps. This doesn't hurt the strategy too much, but it means it will require more micro-management and stricter limits on traps. Also, you will need a new Morsel option in spring (frogs are good for this, trapped the same way as rabbits).

 

Food on the crockpot and drying rack will also spoil once RoG hits so this will prevent you storing food this way long term. 

[Redpine]

I should note that regardless of strategy, if more than 4 players are in the game, splitting up is a good idea early to mid game.  I just had a game where food was a bit scarce, so we wound up split up. Two of us survived off of the pig king, werepigs, and spiders. The other four made a traditional rabbit / beefalo base. Because we stayed away from eachother while foraging berries, and gathered more twigs and grass altogether because we didn't overlap much, we wound up with more food than we normally could have.  Both of us had fully functional bases by the start of the second winter.  We only interacted to share beefalo specific ingredients and telltale hearts.

 

I've never seen a group of 6 survive very long using just one base, unless a few of them are taking turns traveling and foraging.  Have any of you ever managed it? The largest functional group I've seen is 4.

[Odinfrom]

I often play 5 or 6 players in a game and it's not a real issue tbh, but I guess it's because 3 of us are "good" at DST(+ the fact we played 6/7 games together, which help a lot), 1/2 are average and the last one/2 last one is often a beginner who often die/eat way too much. (We can't host more since it will be laggy otherwise...)

 

Usually everyone go his way at early/we split (like that we don't steal other one food, since if you walk with 2/3 friends you will starve since there is not enough food), and the first one to find a good spot for the base call the other players to come and then we make a base and so on...

 

When we have a base, everyone contribute to it. (for example one go for more rocks(need so much for winter because of the thermal rock), one for bees and so on...)

 

And we always have a librarian since it's way too op:

when you have crazy amount of grass/berry bush planted at the base because you have 3/4/5 who are using shovels to get stuff when they go on expedition, use the power of the book and enjoy the feast.

you can ask him to craft a backpack at early or a shovel for example.

 

 

EDIT : And I'm really looking forward for more contents of rog since ugh, no challenge anymore. =/

[zeero]

Can't wait until DST expands into ROG.  Honestly, by about day ~40 (right after winter) I've pretty much beaten the game.  This is all from the point of view of just 1-2 players.  But we have an easy-going first winter, and then a ridiculous surplus a few days after winter, it should scale decently.

 

Day 1-3, scout and pick berries/carrots/etc.  You're looking for a swamp biome with lots of murks (I think that's what they're called, the fish swamp monsters that drop Fish & Frog legs).  Cook the berries/etc and eat til full.

 

Anytime you find gold boulders, mine the crap out of them.  I like to have about 80 rocks and 20+gold

Anytime you find bee hives, mark them.

 

Day 4-6, by now you've found a good spot to make a base.  Ideally, near a large swamp biome described above, and near pigs.  If you're lucky you get a 1-2 clusters of berries.  If you found this setup, you've almost beaten the game.  Set up shop, science machine, crock pots (I like to take a night, and do a controlled burn of a forest area to be productive.  This gives you cheap light, and tons of charcoal).  

 

At any time, try to dig up *tons* of saplings/twigs.  They can be replanted without any fertilizer, they make massive fires, and the twigs are useful for filler, fires, and tons of recipes.  Berries and grass is welcome as well.  Once you get enough bee farms, berries aren't required anymore for food, and can be fed to pigs for more fertilizer than you'll know what to do with.

 

Day 7-10, prepare for war.  Have a couple log armor at all times (one equipped, one backup.  Believe me, one isn't enough.  You'll mess up with a cluster of 3 tentacles out of nowhere, and die in 1.0 seconds flat).  Lure murks (swamp monsters) to the tentacles you find.  Best way to do this is find the lone murk, and run him out of his radius.  He'll WALK back to his home.  If you led him in the path of a tentacle, get close to him and he'll stop to stare.  Tentacle will hit him, and agro all the murks in that house.   Pick up tentacles, MM, fish, and frog legs.  Feel free to attack murks/tentacles, whoever is not the underdog.  The idea is, if the murks are winning, try to kill a murk when it strikes the tentacle.  If the tentacles are winning, try to slap the tentacles a few times with a spear (until you find a tentacle spike).  

 

Also, for swamp biomes spiders are great.  Lure them into tentacles and watch the fun.  To make it sustainable, only destroy Tier 3 spider dens.  Plant the spider den near 1-2 tentacles.  Farm the resultant silk like a madman.  

 

Frog legs are great for bacon and eggs (MM, 2 eggs [from bird cage - made with papyrus, and common ingredients], frog legs).

Fish is king for hit points.  (Fish, twig, MANY fillers x2.  You can use 1x MM, or 2 honey, or berries, or caps, or a lot of other things)

 

At this point - you're solid - but you still need fillers.  Now comes the gravy.

 

Day 10-15, Try and make a bee keeper hat and many bug nets.  Capture bees, capture butterflys, kill hives.  If you have ~4-6 bee farms, with about 4 flowers each farm, you're golden.  Note, don't clump the flowers too close, I hear it messes up production.  Every 2 days each hive gives you roughly 6-7 honey.  Honey rots *VERY* slow.

 

Day 15-20, Go slaughter some beefalo for the beefalo hat materials, and keep the meat.  Go get some gears.  Make an icebox.  

 

Regular meat x2, MM, and frog legs or morsel, or chicken makes the meat stew which is a MASSIVE 150 hunger.  Killing the 3-4 beefalo required on average for a hat for winter, should give you about 15ish meat.  That should give you enough for 7 of these and should take care of winter, with the help of murks/tentacles/etc.

 

Day 20-35, If you've made it this far, congrats, you've nearly beaten DST.  Take winter to cut logs for log suits, dig up more grass/berry bushes/saplings for twings.  Find more bee hives.  Go into the swamp as required for more tentacle spikes, and food if required.  

 

Day 35-40, Set up all the bee hives.  On a normal map, you should have about 6.  Giant, I just set up about 12.  

 

3x honey + MM (you should be ROLLING in it now from spiders) yields honey nuggets which is I think 30 hunger and 20 health.  You can make about 12 of these every 2 days.  That's over 300 hunger and 200 health every 2 days from killing a few spiders and harvesting honey.  By about day 50+, I have a full icebox with honey alone.  It's insane.  Food starts rotting.  

 

To scale this better, one person can dig up berry bushes for extra food.  Another person can handle the murk (probably your more experienced player).  Another person can handle the spider farming.  Another person can do mass fishing.  Another person can take care of log armor, crafting, misc items, etc etc etc.

 

Hope my novel helps some people ><