Are Koalefants vital for surviving at least early game?

[Zackman777]

Warning: If you are sensitive about learning too much about the game and instead enjoy trial and error, then don't read this post. I don't want to ruin the experience for new players. 

 

 

 

Main Question:

   Hi guys, I've just recently survived through my first winter and have some questions. I've been playing Don't Starve Together a lot with some friends and alone recently trying to figure out some of the best ways to survive, especially early on. I may just still be a noob, but I've noticed that it seems almost impossible to survive efficiently past day 10 or 15 without at least a little help from hunting Koalefants down for meaty stews. Does anyone else think that you have to hunt Koalefants for meaty stews so that you can buy yourself some time to actually pay attention to exploring the game and crafting, or is there another way to? I just felt like maybe the only way to survive effectively is to hunt them down, buy yourself enough time to start a variety of farms (since you won't have to worry about hunger with Koalefant meat), then only have to rely on those farms alone for the rest of the game (instead of Koalefants)?

 

Possible Theory:

     I'm wondering if the game was made this way on purpose as a representation of how humans had to hunt stuff first for food before we decided to rely on agriculture. I know it sounds weird, but that would be kind of funny. I mean, it would make sense because as the days go past, the chances of getting the two other creatures from tracks increase, but maybe I'm just thinking too much into it. Though, it feels like it's suggesting that you rely less and less on Koalefant meat as time goes on.

 

Check it out!:

If you haven't seen my other post on Koalefant mechanics and advice, check it out and maybe even contribute if you want:

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/57857-koalefant-questions-opmechanicadvice/?hl=koalefant

 

Additional Questions:

Also, do Koalefants seem to be a lot easier to find in DST compared to the original DS? I'm asking because maybe it's actually impossible to rely on them in the original game anyway. Lastly, are Koalefants part of the DLC for DS or have they always been in the game? (I don't own the originally DS, but I'm thinking about buying it soon)

 

Of course, I don't expect anyone person to answer all these questions in one post, unless you want to do that.

[Toros]

I personally never make meaty stew, and if I'm doing early game koalafant hunting regularly, turn most of the meat into jerky for winter.

 

The simple reason is that if you're using 4 meat for meaty stew, you get 12 health, 150 hunger and 5 sanity.

 

If you add any of the plentiful filler you'll find early (berries, carrots, mushrooms) you can make 4 meatballs, which will restore 250 hunger and you can throw in useless garbage like red mushrooms with each of  the meats.

 

To me, the best recipe early game for converting trash into hunger is 1 monster meat and 3 red mushroom caps.

 

 

I like to build a base somewhat near beefalo and spiders for fuel and food.  If you get a birdcage you can feed a bird cooked monster meat for eggs, and trap birds using a bird trap (cook birds over fire for 100% chance of morsel).

 

1 meat (monster or normal), 1 morsel, 2 eggs gives bacon and eggs, which lasts for a long time, gives 75 hunger.  You can use 3 monster meat (2 converted to eggs) and get a potent, filling, long lasting food.

 

First few days to first week I'm mostly exploring, picking up stone/gold/reeds and maybe plopping down a science machine for an early shovel, backpack, spear, logsuit.  I like to gather twig saplings because you don't need to fertilize them.  You should be able to find enough food by foraging until you can build a crockpot, and then I make meatballs from low-quality ingredients until I can get bacon and eggs up and running.

 

I don't bother with farms at all until after the first winter, and then just make dragonfruit.

 

Really, two spider nests and a bird trap are enough to keep two people from starving through the first winter.  There are a lot of other strategies (bee boxes for honey ham is a great idea, but if you're doing an autumn start you'll probably have to wait until spring.)

[Rily]

this is one of the best things about the game, there is no right answer there are many ways to deal with a situation that branches in more possibilities, in my opinion is not necessary to hunt one single koalefant to survive infinitely, if it is more efficient or not depends on how you play, personally one of my favorite ways to play is improvising, I think it's important to have a strategy, but if I find a trace and the conditions are favorable why not?

[Zackman777]

Hey Toros! I see what you're saying and it makes a whole lot of sense, but I've tried just surviving off meat balls too. The problem ended up being that there weren't enough berries/carrots/mushrooms far around our base near the Beefalo around day 10-15. We did try to make berry bush farms (20-30 bushes fertilized), but it seems like the nature of the farms in this game is that they're slow and you have to be very patient. So by the time we get farms up, we're usually on the verge of starvation because we ran out of resources around us. Even alone, it gets very difficult to live off that kind of stuff during the winter. Because the farms seem slow, I wanted to take a guess and say that Koalefants would act as a safety net until you're able to get the farms going(or whatever other strat you wanted to do). It also seemed like winter would hit just as we get just a little bit of food from the farms, then they'd stop growing. 

 

The way I ended up surviving was making a bee farm before winter hit, but I was on the verge of starvation and realized it wasn't the best idea by the time it was done. The problem was I did it too early before making sure my hunger was satisfied first and that I wouldn't have to worry about it. I ended up hunting one Koalefant to make 3-4 meaty stew using one monster meat and a vegetable for each, and this helped me stay alive for a solid 6-8 days to build my camp up and get a farm going for when winter concluded. During winter, I already had a wood log, football helmet, a long beard (Wilson), and killed two Koalefants which kept me fed through all of winter. Is this not possible in the regular DS? If I bought DS, would I have to change my current strat because maybe their tracks are really rare to come across in the original? 

 

Thank you for the response btw.  If we were possibly doing something wrong, please point it out!

[Zillvr]

@Zackman777, A few things I would point out about Koalefants that hasn't been said or answered yet:

 

I haven't played DS in a long while so I can't say for certain, but based on memory DST Koalefant tracks are more frequent compared to DS. I'd like to believe it's because it's multiplayer, having more mouths to feed and all that. By my rough estimations I think its frequency is somewhat like this, the Default Preset Setting for DST Koalefant Track is as frequent as More Preset Setting for DS Koalefant Track. I could be entirely wrong though, but that's just what it feels like to me.

 

Secondly the Koalefant has always been in the game and can exist in the DS world without RoG. Lastly, I agree with most of what's already been said, I steer towards bacon and eggs and if the risk vs reward is deemed profitable I hunt for it.

 

I hope that helps, cheers.

[TeichMan]

I rarely find my self in need to hunt Koalefants early on (unless we have a Wigfrid, in which case hunting is a must). Usually the vegetables we find along the way while exploring prove enough for the first days of exploration and base setup. Later on Koalefants are one of the easier ways to get meat for jerky, so we start hunting them early on and drying the meat as soon as we set up a base. 

[Derpime]

Early games...No.

[Lumina]

I don't often hunt koalefants. Sometimes i follow a track when i'm exploring (because this way i make two thing in the same time), but the more often i don't kill the koalefant and keep it near my camp for manure.

 

Often, i go in the swamp and pick the drop of the merm/tentacle fight. Some fish, monster meat and frog leg, it's helpfull.

I harvest berrybush and mushroom, but not the carrot, unless i really need it. (I see it as an emergency food source, because they don't grow back)

 

And i pick the seeds i found, and eat it when i travel.

[Luponius]

To answer the core question of whether it's vital or not you'll eventually find out that almost nothing is forced in the game, especially when playing a standard world (not lights out or modded for increased difficulty). There are players quite capable of playing without any kind of camp (not even pit or pot) and continuously move (which is a big part for the success of nomads)

Essentially, don't assume or place any limits on yourself or others, and welcome mistakes since you'll always learn something new

[Shian]

I personally think of Koalefants as inefficient. Not that the time taken to find and kill a Koalefant plus the risk of getting hit, getting Ewecus etc. is a bad trade-off, but rather because it's too good. That is, 8 meat and one trunk plus all the other stuff I collect on my travels will make me more food than I need. Considering the time spent tracking the Koalefant + the risks involved I would rather explore in exactly the direction I want to and be able to collect stuff without worrying about the track disappearing. 

 

The easiest way to show this is the fact that the only characters I hunt a Koalefant with are Wes and Wolfgang. I played a server today where I was Wolfgang, and used the stuff from a Koalefant + other things I found to make enough meaty stews and meatballs so that I could be Mighty form while searching for a place to set up base, and it was just about right. Considering Wolfgang's hunger drain that means I would have had way too much food as anyone else.

[Arcita]

To answer the core question of whether it's vital or not you'll eventually find out that almost nothing is forced in the game, especially when playing a standard world (not lights out or modded for increased difficulty). There are players quite capable of playing without any kind of camp (not even pit or pot) and continuously move (which is a big part for the success of nomads)

Essentially, don't assume or place any limits on yourself or others, and welcome mistakes since you'll always learn something new

This. Personally I only hunt koalefants to make them ornamental pets for my base. The only scenario I can imagine where they'd be useful is if you entered a world in the middle of winter that was completely stripped of all food-based resources (no beefalo, goats, cactus, mushrooms, bushes, carrots, rabbit holes, pigmen, tentacles, spiders, merms, etc), but even in this extreme case they're not technically necessary because there are still buzzards and birds. I guess if you got rid of literally everything in the game except koalefants, then they'd be necessary.

[merkmerk73]

I hunt them all the time, but I use farms too. Most of the power gamers just focus on one thing - meatballs.

 

I like making bunwiches and fish sticks and all kinds of crap

[SageKun]

I haven't played DS in a long while so I can't say for certain, but based on memory DST Koalefant tracks are more frequent compared to DS. I'd like to believe it's because it's multiplayer, having more mouths to feed and all that. By my rough estimations I think its frequency is somewhat like this, the Default Preset Setting for DST Koalefant Track is as frequent as More Preset Setting for DS Koalefant Track. I could be entirely wrong though, but that's just what it feels like to me.

Pretty sure the reason koalafant tracks spawn more frequently is because more people = more spawn rates sorta like hound attacks

[Edebadi]

I always cook meatballs early game.Till the time I build a crock pot;I would have had lots of carrots,monster meats,mushrooms,berries and stuff.

[Zillvr]

@SageKun, that is what I meant with "...multiplayer, having more mouths to feed..." Was I confusing? 

[Zackman777]

Wow, thanks for a the replies guys! I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying in terms of not limiting yourself or others and that there are many ways to play the game. As with most survival games, do things your way. If anything, I think it's just because I'm not good enough yet to survive effectively without Koalefants. I'm getting faster, but maybe I'm not fast enough yet.

Also, I recently bought the original DS game with the DLC (I think it's awesome btw) and played for a good while paying particular attention to Koalefant tracks. Tracks definitely seems to be more rare in DS compared to DST, so I'm pretty sure you guys are completely correct about the whole "more mouths to feed" idea. I could be completely wrong though because it appears to be a random occurrence, so maybe I was just unlucky in that world. Even though it's more rare, it still seems to spawn enough for you to have more than enough food for yourself if you make four meaty stew with the meat. (I usually just use one monster meat and a veggie as fillers)

Do you guys just get your farms up fast enough to get food, or do you just tend to gather a massive amount of food from the environment to last you a really long time?

[Zackman777]

Early games...No.

Well I don't mean the first five days if that's what you're talking about? I meant from day 10-20.

[Arcita]

Do you guys just get your farms up fast enough to get food, or do you just tend to gather a massive amount of food from the environment to last you a really long time?

In my opinion, farms (the ones you craft) are the most inefficient sources of food in the game. The only worthwhile thing to grow from farms are dragonfruit, but mostly because of their healing potential. I could tell you all of the most efficient strats, but I think it's more fun to do your own thing and figure things out as you go. And even if you happen not to be a min/max type of person, and you just enjoy fishing or growing crops, then those are still perfectly valid ways to play.

[Flare2V]

Wow, this response is surprising. Koalefants provide a great deal of food on top of some healing. Why not track them down and kill them? It doesn't take very long at all.

[Arcita]

Wow, this response is surprising. Koalefants provide a great deal of food on top of some healing. Why not track them down and kill them? It doesn't take very long at all.

Koalas aren't bad. I think people were just responding to OP's assertion that they are vital. I don't really go for koalas because my playstyle is more focused on base-building. I don't want to spend a day following a track out to the middle of nowhere when I can subsist just fine off the weekly monster meat deliveries and some berry bushes. If your playstyle is that of a roaming scavenger then koalas are probably more attractive.

[Lumina]

Wow, this response is surprising. Koalefants provide a great deal of food on top of some healing. Why not track them down and kill them? It doesn't take very long at all.

 

It's maybe because i play with the Koalefanta Proboscidea ( http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409858663 ) but sometime, i search for one track, and there are two track : the one i'm following for some minute and a new one. So sometime i follow the wrong one and it take more time.

 

Beside, sometime, at night for example, i don't find the track and i have the feeling of wasting time.

 

So i don't hunt them often. Time to time, when i'm in one unexplored area, or when i'm in a swamp, because, this way, i have often no need to fight, tentacles kill the koalefant for me.

But hunting a koalefant take time when there is a lot of "passive" food source. Farm, berries bush, trap, you just have to harvest them.

[Mday]

The way I see it, is that hunger is usually not an issue. 1 meat plus 3 ice give a meatball which is good for 62.5 hunger. Also Ice last forever when stored in an ice box. I only hunt for meat when I need to make jerky or ham bat .

 

There is 4 easy prey for meat hunting. Koalefant, tallbirds, werepigs and volt goat

 

2 koalefants kill in a day give 16 meats which is equivalent to 8 tallbirds / 8 werepigs / 5~6 volt Goat.

 

Except that with the 2 koalefants you also get 2 trunks. Each trunk gives 40 health and 75 hunger when cooked. Its usually available all year around in all biome (though it is possible that you just cannot find any nearby track). I would recommend making a miner hat for effective night hunting.

 

If you kill 8 tallbirds you may as well get their eggs which is good for 37.5 hunger when cooked, as a nonperishable food, and as a crock pot ingredients (Bacon and Eggs / Pierogi). There is usually 1~3 Tallbird nest on a map and tallbird respawn every 2.5 days. You won't get as many eggs if you repeatedly hunt from the same tallbird nest as often as you can, since it takes time for them to lay the egg.

 

It cost 4 monster meat upfront to turn a pig into a werepig. Killing the werepig drops 2 meat and 1 pig skin. Since 1 monster meat and 3 ice = 1 meat ball which give 62.5 hunger, its probably not worth the trade hunger wise. However for the pig skin it may be worth the while. You can make football helmet out of it, which is a very good protective gear that allows you to carry a bag around.

 

Volt goat is easy to kill at night while they asleep. However it takes awhile for them to reproduce so you probably won't be able to rely on volt goat hunting alone for all you needs.

 

Mosling can be a good source of meat too if you know how to kill them safely by melee. Otherwise you can also kill them by laying some 30+ tooth traps or use fire dart/fire staff.

 

If you want a large amount of meat within short period of time (e.g to mass produce fresh jerky for cave adventure), then hunting koalefant/ voltgoat / Mosling is probably the way to go. 

 

If you have many players settled in the same camp, then you will probably need to gather form every possible food source anyway so it won't matter.

[Derpime]

Well I don't mean the first five days if that's what you're talking about? I meant from day 10-20.

 

Still no.You won't need it till day 60.

[NotStarvnMarvn]

Hunt beefalo id no koalefants. Always leave 3 no matter what.

[Zackman777]

Still no.You won't need it till day 60.

I'm just curious to why it would matter. Do you get hungrier faster over time, or are you just thinking about making the vests? Plus, I thought the longer you wait the higher the chance is that the other two hostile creatures will spawn from tracks instead. It would make more sense to hunt them down a lot earlier for almost guaranteed Koalefant spawns if that's how it works.