Best way to accumulate food in DST?

[goldfish911]

What's the best way to accumulate a food surplus in DST?

I've been playing on a server with some friends, and we tried several strategies that rapidly depleted:

 

6 farms of dragonfruit near a frog field

-supposedly after I left the server that day winter hit, and two out of 4 people who originally set up the base barely made it through winter.

2 beeboxes and about 8 berry bushes

-beeboxes took too long to set up, due to difficulties getting silk.

-berrybushes...aren't that useful, we  had more, but they were unfertilized.

 

Koalefant hunting-with someone constantly hunting koalefants, we got a fairly decent rate of meat coming in...that soon stopped because the hunter left. most of the meat was converted to jerky.

 

Any ideas? Tips? Strategies for food rationing?

[PandaWaffles]

Collect a lot of grass and sticks, then use them to craft a hell of a lot of traps. Just plop them down near a spider nest and then lure some spiders into them for silk, spider glands, and monster meat (you'll probably need all three, including the monster meat). You can use the silk for all your bee box fantasies, the glands for tell-tale hearts/healing salves, and monster meat for a bunch of great stuff I'll explain later. Also make sure you have these things built: birdcage, crock pot, and night light.

 

You'll want to catch a lot of butterflies and plant them as flowers near your bee boxes. After you have a pretty decent amount planted (I'd say about 15), get someone with the least lag, or minimal lag (preferably the host) to go butterfly hunting for the next couple days. It's really easy; just study the butterfly flying motions, and when they stop moving for a bit, move closer to attack them and they'll drop butterfly wings (or butter, if you're lucky). If you find that clicking them is too hard, press ctrl + F on your keyboard to perform an auto-attack; it makes it a lot easier. You will want to collect at least 40 butterfly wings, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem if you stay focused. Also, make sure you be wary of Krampus; killing butterflies does raise naughtiness levels, so you're likely to spawn a Krampus. Not too hard to kill if you have friends.

 

Once you have your butterfly wings (will take approx. 2 days, if you have the flowers planted), take 4 pieces of your monster meat and feed it to a friendly test subject pig. Drop all your butterfly wings on the ground and shed a tear as the werepig plows through your 2 days' worth of work and leaves behind a fat stack of manure. Oh yeah, you might wanna do this in the middle of some beehives so that your pet werepig attacks a random beehive instead of you after he's done eating. Bonus meat when he dies! Just make sure you're far enough so that he doesn't target you. You can now use the manure to fertilize your bushes.

 

When winter gets here, you won't be able to use butterflies or farms or berry bushes for food, but if you have your bird cage and a steady supply of monster meat, you'll be fine. Cook the monster meat and feed it to your bird and it'll exchange it for an egg. If you use this recipe: 2 eggs + 1 morsel + 1 monster meat at the crock pot, you'll create bacon and eggs, which is a pretty nifty recipe. Fills up a decent portion of hunger. For the morsel, you can hunt for rabbits or build a bird trap with all that extra silk. Probably also won't hurt to hunt MacTusk every now and then. I've heard that walrus meat is very satisfying.

[cezarica]

Instead of killing the butterflies I would honestly just catch and plant them then pick flowers. This way you get a sanity increase, don't get any naughtiness and still benefit from that fat stack of manure after you feed or drop the flowers in a pig village.

 

What about fishing and at the same time catch frogs with traps? In like half a day I caught like 15 fishes all by myself from 4-5 ponds.

[tetrified]

Honestly I find the best strategies involve as few pieces as possible.

 

1. find beefalo, they'll be next to rabbits, trap the rabbits
2. plant spider eggs close enough to fight in the winter, but far enough that they won't bother you much at night
3. use crockpots

A single crockpot is enough to survive the winter, as long as you keep checking those traps and run to the beefalo whenever there are hounds

 

That's what I find is the easiest strategy for newer players.

 

 

optional pieces are:

• pigs
• bees
• farms
• birdcage

these things can be helpful, but really aren't necessary if all you want to do is survive winters. Seriously, all you need is monster meat, morsels, and a crockpot, a few friends can live on just that.

 

I find that berry bushes are generally a waste of time and resources.

 

 

[Michi01]

Any ideas? Tips? Strategies for food rationing?

1.)Build birdcage and imprison a bird in it
2.)Plant spider eggs in a area near base
3.)Hunt spiders(If you're bad in kiting use traps)
4.)Feed the bird with cooked monster meat to get eggs
5.)1 monster meat+ 3 eggs=meatballs

[rezecib]

5.)1 monster meat+ 3 eggs=meatballs

No, this is a terrible recipe. Instead, you should get a morsel, and do 1 monster meat + 1 morsel + 2 eggs = bacon & eggs. 

[Michi01]

No, this is a terrible recipe. Instead, you should get a morsel, and do 1 monster meat + 1 morsel + 2 eggs = bacon & eggs

Oh right, forgot about that.

[BeastNips]

The forum dwellers (I mean that in a nice way) above have made some brilliant suggestions, so the credit goes to them. I'd just like to sum it all up in a short, comprehensive guide:

 

 

Introduction

The main point I want to make is that while Berry Bushes and Farms may seem like the best way to produce food, these can be a distraction in the early game. Lots of time can be wasted trying to aquire these, then Winter will hit and they are useless. This guide attempts to offer a way to better use your time in the early game.

 

Foods

Your primary crockpot foods are Honey Ham, Meaty Stew, Bacon and Eggs, and Meatballs. They vary in priority, which I'll go into.

 

 

Meatballs

Meatballs have two roles. They are both a starter food, as you have plenty of filler, and they are an emergency food on occasion. They only require 1 meat (of any kind) and 3 filler - Berries, carrots and other vegetables. They are a decent-ish meal, but will spoil quickly and pale in comparison to the other foods mentioned. A good strategy for early Meatballs is your forage filler (carrots and berries) and rabbit traps. Set up close to a lot of these.

 

 

Rabbits

Just to hammer the previous point home: set up near lots of rabbit holes.

 

 

Bacon and Eggs (B&E)

These are your staple crockpot food, as they can be produced in a stable, renewable way and they are not dependent on the season; winter does not affect this food (much).

 

Rabbits - Did I mention you need to set up near a lot of these?

 

Spiders - Spiders are something you will have to travel to initially; it's not worth putting your base near them because they can be moved eventually. They are however, something you will want to start killing early. Spider give you  Glands , Silk and M onster Meat (MM). MM is the main resource of this guide.

 

Spiders can be killed in various ways, I suggest you find a wiki for them. The main point is that you need to kill them. If one of their dens has reached what is called Teir 3, meaning it will have 3 levels to it, you want to destroy it. Do not destroy a spider nest until it has reached this stage unless you have to; the Teir 3 nest will produce an egg sack. This egg sack can be planted closer (not too close!) to your base and it will form a new spider nest. You're going to want a fair few of these if you have many players; I couldn't possibly work out an exact amount due to the number of factors involved.

 

Birdcage - The birdcage is a crucial part of this food strategy, as it converts cooked MM to Eggs. By feeding cooked MM to your imprisoned bird, the birdcage will spit out Eggs. The birdcage is created with   Papyrus  ,  Gold  and Seeds.  You will find Reeds in swamps; you can use these to make Papyrus. You will need 8 Reeds to create enough Papyrus. The Gold and Seeds are fairly straight forward.

 

To imprison a bird, you will need a Birdtrap. This is made with Silk and Twigs; you should have Silk if you've been killing spiders. Use this Birdtrap to trap a bird and then put it in the cage.

 

Recipe - Bacon and Eggs require 2 Eggs and 1.5 meat. Use your MM to produce Eggs using the birdcage; 2 MM = 2 Eggs. Add to this, 1 MM, which is worth 1.0 meat. Finally, add one Morsel from one of your rabbits, which is worth 0.5 meat.

 

So: 2 Eggs, 1 MM, 1 Morsel.

 

This food uses Spider Nests, Birdcage and Rabbit Holes; nothing else. It only depends on seasons because you need Twigs and Grass to make Traps for rabbits. 3 parts of it are MM as you use this to create the Eggs; spiders regenerate very quickly so you'll have more MM than you know what to do with. For this reason, Bacon and Eggs are your staple food.

 

 

Meaty Stew

If you're familiar with Koalefant hunting, this can be the result! I mentioned that MM counts as 1.0 meat, and Morsels count as 0.5 meat. Meat (or Big Meat as it's sometimes called) counts as 1.0 meat. Meaty Stew requires 3.0 meat, so if you add this to 2 Morsels and 1 MM you have your Meaty Stew. Big Meat is needed because using more than 1 MM may cause your meal to become Monster Lasage; you don't want this to happen!

 

So: 1 Meat, 1 MM, 2 Morsels.

 

You should make Meaty Stew whenever you can. It may need an extra Morsel and not use much of your now plentiful supply of MM, but it offers double the hunger increase of Bacon and Eggs. This is your luxury food item; cook it when the hunting is good! You can also replace the Koalefant with Pigs or Beefalo; do so at your own risk!

 

 

Honey Ham

This has a unique place in our food chain. This is a food with the hunger benefits of Bacon and Eggs, but it also heals a great deal of health when used; on top of this, it keeps for a very long time before spoiling. You can make this a combination of ways:

 

1 MM, 1 Meat, 2 Honey --- 1MM, 2 Morsels, 1 Honey --- 1 MM, 1 Meat, 1 Morsel, 1 Honey (by far the least efficient recipe)

 

Anything under 2.0 meat will produce Honey Nuggets, which I don't personally find very valuable.

 

Bee Boxes - For Honey Ham you will need these. As this is primarily a food guide, look up how to obtain Bee Boxes on the wiki.

 

 

Priorities

1. Rabbit Traps
2. Spiders
3. Birdcage
4. Bee Boxes (you may wish to leave these until your second summer)

Drying Racks

You may wish to start building these if you have the resources spare. They will greatly increase the time it takes meat to spoil; since the guide is based on meat, Drying Racks will give you far more breathing room to produce vast quantities of food. These will become a priority when you're eating less than you are producing.

 

 

I hope you found this guide useful, thanks for reading.

[Learner]

In my opinion, having a ton of berry bushes nearby never hurt (especially if you were smart and careful enough to avoid the risk of fire). If you can gather a ton of bushes, then you can harvest a bunch of berries every 3-5 days. In one case, me and some friends had somewhere close to nearly 40 berries bushes.

The nice part about that was how we never had a food problem to begin with. There was no immediate need or rush to harvest those berries. So the berries often stayed on the bushes for a couple of days.

There was one especially pleasing part about that fact: as we progressed through the winter, and food became a little more scarce, I could sit by the fire as I waited through the night... and counter any fears of famine through those berry bushes. "If we can't find any more meat, at least we have 40 berries available for harvest, and 20 in the fridge!"

Having that many berries nearby available for harvest has the nice benefit of easing ones mind.

And they make great jam too!

 

~snip snip~

 

Even though I'm an experienced veteran of Don't Starve... I've got to say that this is a very well done guide, and it's useful to even vets like me!

[tetrified]

Strategies for food rationing?

 

Oh, forgot one of my best tips for this.

 

Never eat anything that hasn't been cooked in a crockpot.

Never.

 

Like, seriously, crockpots are the best. Even cooking four rabbits to make meatballs is better than just eating the morsels.

 

This advice only applies until you really know what you're doing because some foods (certain mushrooms come to mind) are better on their own.

[BeastNips]

Don't get me wrong, berries and farms are definitely useful. All I was saying is that there can be better ways to use your first season. If you have time to get berries too, go for it! It's just that sometimes if you're new to the game, you can prep all that seasonal dependent stuff in your first season, then you don't get to properly use it until the next summer.

Terrified is correct, almost always use the crockpot. The certain times you won't, as terrified pointed out, is mushrooms which can be used to restore sanity and occasionally jerky to restore health.

[Buldric]

No, this is a terrible recipe. Instead, you should get a morsel, and do 1 monster meat + 1 morsel + 2 eggs = bacon & eggs. 

 

It's not very efficient, but if you need food fast and have nothing but monster meat, you still have a 50% chance of getting Bacon & Eggs if you use 2 monster meat in the recipe.

[BeastNips]

It's not very efficient, but if you need food fast and have nothing but monster meat, you still have a 50% chance of getting Bacon & Eggs if you use 2 monster meat in the recipe.

Yeah, this is situational. If you have more monster meat than you know what to do with, risk the monster lasagne. If MM is more limited, go for meatballs. In theory you get more hunger for your MM making meatballs if you have a 50% chance to make lasagne with the 2 MM Bacon and Eggs recipe. However, Bacon and Eggs are a much better food, so if you can afford to waste half your MM, make that.

[Delannion]

TL;DR - Focus on your early-game solo play and base building.  Also Beefalo Hats are awesome. 

 

Edit - Oh yeah, and the usual disclaimer that this is my personal opinion, others may disagree.  However, I have hundreds of hours played and I stand by my opinion regardless of any nay-sayers 

________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Long Version:

 

One problem you and your friends are experiencing is a simple lack of experience.  The resources you list:  6 farms, 8 berry bushes, and 2 bee boxes, are what I would expect from a relatively inexperienced solo-player, not from a team of friends working together.  

 

@BeastNips suggestions are great, but I think you also want to think about how you start off your game.  

 

While not strictly a food based suggestion, here's what I would advise you try next time you play with your friends.  Basically you want to all start off as solo players, and only get together once you each have the means and resources to build a very basic base.  3 basic bases put together = one very nice basic base, and then you work together to improve it from there.  

 

1)Location, Location, Location

Plan on building your base right at the portal, unless it's in a truly abysmal location( EG at the end of a peninsula).  This will save you from spending time running around the map trying to find the 'perfect' spot to build, a process which can easily waste more time than it's worth.  Ideally it'll be a mediocre or good location but not a terrible or great location.  Despite what many people claim, a good base is defined primarily by its construction and only slightly by its location.  This is because nearly every resource in DS can be relocated. 

 

As a note, I was never that interested in rabbits or fish so I'm a bit biased.  In DST I recommend them because there's always at least 1 player who is happy to spend their days trapping, fishing, and drying, but I can assure you they're not a necessity.

 

 

2)Exploration

Each of you picks a different direction and goes.  This works with 3-4 players, if  you have 5-6 you'll want some people to buddy up.  Even if you start at different times, it's fine to send players off to do these starting tasks before joining you at the base.

 

Each player should complete the following tasks before returning to begin base construction:

    -Harvest at least 25ish each of twigs & grass, and a handful of flint.

    -Harvest at least 1-2 stacks of wood(more is fine). 

    -Harvest at least one pick's worth of stone(more is better), and 5-10 gold.

    -Build a Science Machine wherever they happen to be. 

    -Note - Whoever gets to this stage first should build BUT NOT PLACE an Alchemy Machine.  

    -Craft a backpack, hammer, shovel, spear, and log suit.

    -Destroy the science machine to recoup the materials.  

    -Harvest no more than 10 each of grass tufts, saplings, and berry bushes.

    -Return to portal/base.

 

 

It's totally fine to take some time out for other tasks as you go.

-If you come across koalefant tracks, spawn it.

-If you come across spiders, grab some silk.   

-Find a swamp? Grab the reeds you'll need for your birdcage.  

-"Accidentally" burn down a forest? Grab that charcoal.

 

 

All of this will take a good five days and maybe as many as ten days to finish, but has a number of important benefits:

-You will have located all or almost all the important biomes & resources.

-ALL of your players will have and be able to make all the basic tools, weapon, and armor.

-You should have enough resources to immediately build a lightning rod, birdcage, crock pot, and alchemy machine, with resources to spare.  

-You'll have a respectable amount of twig/berry/grass plants, even if you don't get around to harvesting more before winter.  

 

 

How quickly and effectively you finish the Exploration phase is a good benchmark for how prepared you'll be for winter. 

 

3)Improvement

Once you've all returned and set up your base, hopefully you have enough food to go around and fuel your next few days.  Your base is 'started' but not yet functional.  You'll want to split up for individual 'tasks' for the next part.  I won't go into too much detail on the steps, you can easily look them up if you have any questions.

 

Note 1 - Any time a player leaves the base they should take a shovel and bring back some grass tufts, saplings, and/or berry bushes. 

Note 2 - Don't kill Koalefants unless you badly need the food, or need to make the clothing.  Instead, chase them back to base and use them for manure. 

Note 3 - Warm clothing plays a critical role in surviving winter, and more importantly, enjoying winter.  You'll want a minimum of a Beefalo Hat, and I recommend a Breezy/Puffy Vest as well if not playing Wilson.  

 

In order to have a fully functional base, you'll want to do all or most of the following.  Each of these are 1 or 2-person jobs, and should take 1-2 days to complete each.  The numbers are flexible, just suggestions.

 

-Gather manure/beefalo fur/Beefalo Hats

-Build 1-2 bee boxes.

-Create a Spider farm with 1-3 nests.

-Build 1-4 Ice Boxes(2 person to kill the chess monsters, they're tougher in DST)

-Build 4-8 Drying Racks.

-Build 4-12 Advanced Farms.

-Smash at least 6 Pig Houses and reconstruct them 1 1/2  - 2 1/2 screens away from base, preferably near your wood-chopping area.

 Note - Pigs aggro against Hounds, provide manure when fed veggies, help chop trees, restore sanity when nearby, and are a source of meat/pigskin in a pinch. Don't underestimate their value.

 

4)Preparation

By this point your base should be capable of generating food and hopefully you have a few days to stockpile for winter.  

However, more important than food is clothing.  A player with 12 days worth of food and no winter clothing is a dead player.  A player with no food, a Beefalo Hat, a breezy vest, and a spear is going to be fine.

 

Note - Don't use Heat Stones. Now that they wear out and are destroyed they're not worth the hefty stone cost. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Delannion]

Oh, forgot one of my best tips for this.

 

Never eat anything that hasn't been cooked in a crockpot.

Never.

 

Like, seriously, crockpots are the best. Even cooking four rabbits to make meatballs is better than just eating the morsels.

 

This advice only applies until you really know what you're doing because some foods (certain mushrooms come to mind) are better on their own.

 

 

I would amend this to say never eat Meat that hasn't gone into a crockpot.  

 

Eggplant/Pomegranate/Pumpkin should always be cooked but should (almost) never be put in a crockpot(Exception:Pumpkin Cookies).

 

But yeah, other than those veggies it's solid advice. Until you know what you're doing it's way better just to always put food through the crockpot.

[Delannion]

It's not very efficient, but if you need food fast and have nothing but monster meat, you still have a 50% chance of getting Bacon & Eggs if you use 2 monster meat in the recipe.

 

Monster Lasagne deals 20 damage and 20 sanity loss.

Bacon & Eggs heals 20 damage.

 

If your sanity regeneration is positive, this is totally viable.

[Killerpenguin5]

Sheesh everyone's posting such detailed guides.

My advice, get a guy willing to manage 24 farms at once.

Also Honey lasts quite a while through multiple seasons. 

My usual base setup is 24 farms, a large pen to hold tons of koalefant for easy to get manure.   And then any berry bushes your team was willing to get.

 

And of course create over a dozen chests to store extra bunnies in stasis for hte winter. In case no one goes out to gather said bunnies that they should continually do each day.

[BeastNips]

 

-Build 4-12 Advanced Farms.

 

My usual base setup is 24 farms

 

I really do try, but I just can't see the benefit of farms. At least not in the early game. Ok... Maybe the VERY early game as an emergency food if poop is no issue; but this would be highly situational. Don't starve is certainly a game that forces to adapt now and then. 

 

I do concede a full Dragon Pie operation is pretty awesome, but should it really be the priority? At least not when spider/rabbits/birdcage is so efficient and immune to winter. Berry Bushes certainly have the place of sitting on the plant and not spoiling, in case of an emergency, but only because they don't take any additional effort to create/mantain if you aren't using them regularly.

 

I admit I often get a Dragon Pie operation going in my single player game, but this is always at least a year into the game when I have the breathing room to mess around with projects like that (I admit I'm not the best DS player...). Most of the time it's to explore caves without fear of a bunny attack, but I found I didn't need it much for that either.

 

Finally, using spiders also gives you silk and glands; both of these are resources you need plenty of. Obviously you can use farms with spiders, but then you're only producing meatballs really; the farms would be much better used by transitioning to Dragon Fruit making the spiders redundant.

 

My argument is that farms are simply not as effective as the spider/trap/birdcage method, on almost all fronts. The one exception may be Dragon Pie because of it's additional benefits, but even that has its downsides, particularly in multiplayer.

[Asparagus]

Anyone try Toasted Seeds? During Summer, birds drop seeds ever-so punctually... It's a good (well, not that good) source of food for early exploration. With being able to stack to 40, lasting a very long time and giving Hunger 4.5 pt, Health 1 pt, (this goes a long way; especially when some players hog food) and picking up the odd mushroom here and there (balance the pros and cons of each for better results), you can save your meats/berries/fruits/vegetables/honey when you don't want to (or can't) use them in a crockpot recipe...

 

 

...

Hopefully, when DST gets RoG, we can make "Trail Mix" again...

 

*flies away

[Pyromailmann]

I know people have already provided answers but I'll give my advice.

 

Get basic farms when you find beefalo and probably a reliable source of cut grass (you will have found logs by now because it'd be like trying to walk without legs). Another is, with the beefalo you can get easy meat, beefalo wool and some beefalo horns. You should also hunt koalefants especially if you're the host (on a server you create, not a dedicated one, but dedicated servers are good since everyone's on the same playing field). When you get birdcages, you should use crops to make seeds of that crop and regular seeds for your farms (you can also upgrade the farms by then so you can do that I guess. Make drying racks and dry morsels, meat, and monster meat. Anything else you can dry (such as drumsticks, frog legs, or fish) should be used in specific recipes they can be used for. Also, you should make either meaty stews, bacon and eggs, or meatballs.

When making meatballs, you should use 2 morsels (or small jerky), 1 monster meat (or monster meat), and one vegetable you can get that is an abundance (such as carrots or corn). When making Bacon and eggs, use a small jerky (or morsel), a monster jerky (or monster meat) and 2 eggs (raw or cooked). Making meaty stews should be when you need to use them for starving teammates or when you're starving, not when you're at 50 (below 25 is the best for me, but for Wolfgang players, it should be used when you need to fight, but it should be used as a last resort). Making the meaty stews means you should use 1 jerky (or meat), 1-2 morsels (or small jerkys) and 1 monster meat (or monster jerky). 

And now, I'll leave you with this wounderful song:

c:

[Asparagus]

And now, I'll leave you with this wounderful song:

 

The Music of our generation... it covers every aspect of life; from politics, religion...

 

 

...

 

Also, I think I've eaten too much raw green mushrooms... 

[tetrified]

When making meatballs, you should use 2 morsels (or small jerky), 1 monster meat (or monster meat), and one vegetable you can get that is an abundance (such as carrots or corn). When making Bacon and eggs, use a small jerky (or morsel), a monster jerky (or monster meat) and 2 eggs (raw or cooked). Making meaty stews should be when you need to use them for starving teammates or when you're starving, not when you're at 50 (below 25 is the best for me, but for Wolfgang players, it should be used when you need to fight, but it should be used as a last resort). Making the meaty stews means you should use 1 jerky (or meat), 1-2 morsels (or small jerkys) and 1 monster meat (or monster jerky). 

c:

 

two things real quick

 

why would you ever make meatballs with that recipe when you can use 3 veggies and a morsel or monster meat?

 

Also, when left in crockpots, things keep forever.

Crockpots are cheap to make

 

Therefore, make a dozen meaty stews and eat them once every two days, if you have the materials to do so. I mean why not?

[Kuldiin]

 

 

I find playing improves food production, Beast.

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[BeastNips]

I wish I could! I'm always too busy. I'll have to try and catch up this Sunday

[usernamepass]

Famine where to download.

Please help me!

 

 

And I think we can live in yak live nearby, they can provide us with protection, and may, when necessary, to kill them for meat and fur, but I don't do this, because it takes a long time to reproduce.

My food source from the pond and brush oh ~ ~ ~

 

Please tell me where to download free hunger, you can use the module, thank you! ！