No Science Machine Challenge

[Kraglok]

Night 30 (Maxwell)

 

Two more blueprints:  Thulecite Crown (basically useless) and Lightning Rod (marginal usefulness).  Not much luck there.

 

I’m up to 8 Blue Gems with two more shots at McTusk’s hounds before the end of Winter.  I should get my 9th but I’m a tad nervous.  My Dark Armor has 2% left after my previous battles so I better make sure to bring pig allies.

 

I’m going to put a bit of effort into getting Tentacle Spots for a Rain Coat by the start of Spring.  Wetness probably affects Maxwell less than just about any other character but it does contribute to freezing and I’d like to avoid the slowdowns and resources that costs.

 

[Kraglok]

Night 35 (Maxwell)

 

Quite an eventful few days.  As I ventured into the swamp to try and grab some Tentacle Spots (and hopefully a Tentacle Spike to replace my Spear), I hear the familiar growl of the Deerclops.  I figure if I’m going to deal with him anywhere, the swamp is my best bet.  He comes stomping around and encounters many Tentacles before he’s finally killed by one.

 

I can’t do anything with the Eyeball (at least not yet) but all that meat would be useful so I go in to grab it, successfully dodging the Tentacle that killed the Deerclops...but managing to dodge right into another one hidden behind a Spiky Tree.  It killed me and I respawned at a Touch Stone.

 

Luckily I had materials for fires stashed nearby and it was the Touch Stone in my desert so I have several other Fire Pits nearby.  Survived that no problem and was able to retrieve my kit just in time to dash off, grab a couple pigs, and fight McTusk one last time before Winter is over.  I got my 9th Blue Gem!

I got a pair of Tentacle Spots from the Deerclops Rampage so Spring should be free of wetness and I’ll be farming tumbleweeds in the hopes of gaining some blueprints to help me survive Summer.

[Kraglok]

Night 41 (Maxwell got excited once again)

 

Spring began with a bang.  The Goose Moose spawned almost immediately and killed the pigs in my nearby village.  I then led her up to my Spider Den and she survived their attacks.  Finally I took her to the nearby field where Beefalo in heat along with the Torch Pigs killed her and then each other.  Lots of meat!  Unfortunately it’ll spoil soon…

 

But I got my Snow Chester!  I’m going to go and mine up some Ice to test the theory about it melting inside Snow Chester.  Not that I don’t believe the poster here but I want to get a feel for what that melting rate is like.

 

I also did a brief exploration of the nearest cave and it was fairly inhospitable down there.  A Rock Lobster helped me clear the two Spider Dens right on top of the entrance.  I found a huge field of Light Bulb Plants but they are in an underground swamp full of giant Tentacles and regular Tentacles.  Not sure I want to build a Summer Home there.

 

[Kraglok]

Night 45 (Maxwell)

 

Interesting turn of events.  I was spelunking a different cave entrance and found the underground base set piece.  I won’t use the Science Machine of course but it also has an Ice Box.  I don’t think that means Summer will be a breeze, but the ability to gather ice while it is still relatively cool, store it temporarily in Snow Chester (it does melt in there slowly for sure) and transport it to the Ice Box in the cave is great.

 

I’m going to spend a couple days gathering all the ice I know of and getting it stored away.  Once that is done I’ll go back to farming tumbleweeds with the occasional pause to collect Honey from my Bee Boxes.  Food will be my main challenge in the Summer but I can probably collect enough Monster Meat to survive in conjunction with the Honey.

 

[emerphish]

Aha! for summer I will mine all the ice I can during the winter and store it in an ice box if I can find one in the caves! From the looks of things that won't be too hard to accomplish.

 

EDIT: I post this right after Kraglok figures it out

[Kraglok]

Great minds think alike, emerphish!  Here's my latest update:

 

Night 50 (Maxwell)

 

94 Ice.  That’s what I’ve got to get me through Summer.

 

Food-wise I think I’ll be ok.  I’ve got three Spider Eggs and TONS of grass and twigs.  I’m hoping I can set up a spider farm a short distance from my base.  Eating Cooked Monster Meat but offsetting the health loss with Spider Glands and the occasional Honey should be fine.

 

Near the underground base is a nice area of Light Bulb Plants so that won’t be a problem.  For no reason I can understand there are several Tentacles (the regular ones, not the giant ones) scattered throughout that area (it isn’t a swamp), along with some Slurtle Mounds.  I’ll have to survive a few Depth Worm attacks and I hope to lure them into that area.  I might see if I can find a few Rock Lobsters to be my friends as well.

 

I should have about 7 more days of Spring and I plan to use that time to keep farming tumbleweeds.  I’m not hopeful I’ll get something amazing (like a Thermal Stone) in terms of blueprints, but you never know.  For sure all the Cut Grass and Twigs will be helpful in farming my spiders in the Summer.

 

[Kraglok]

One thing I'm thinking about for Summer is whether or not a Pretty Parasol will be essential.  No good way to get flower petals in the caves.  I might need to pick a bunch before I go down and store them in the fridge.

[Kraglok]

Night 55 (Maxwell)

 

Spring is rapidly drawing to a close and I’m planning to spend the last couple days of it a bit dangerously.  I’m going to round up a posse of pigs and try to knock down a bunch of Beehives.  the extra Honey will come in very handy for both hunger and healing.

 

While I’m in that meadow I plan to gather every flower I can and build up a stack of petals for Pretty Parasols.  I figure I’ll keep making them until my petals turn to rot.  It looks like they take 6 days to rot, which I should be able to double thanks to Snow Chester and my Ice Box.  The Pretty Parasol takes two days to rot.  I should be able to get through most of the summer with one up constantly but we’ll see how that turns out from a practical standpoint.

 

Time grows short.  In 16 days I’ll be victorious or dead.

 

[emerphish]

So I got a thermal stone blueprint (yay!) and I think I found the "winter trap". It is a low reading thermal measurer, a chest, and an ice box. Does anyone know specifics about this trap, like what do I open to trigger it, can I hammer the ice box for gears, etc. I might want to save it to "erase" summer but it depends on what is inside.

[Kraglok]

Day 57 (Maxwell)

 

So yeah...Dead, not victorious.

 

I thought I had one more day to prepare and I got careless thinking I wouldn’t start seriously overheating.  Wrong.  I was running toward my sinkhole when the heat caught up with me and I died.  So stupid.

 

Ah well.  Looks like I’ll be trying again with another character.  Wigfrid is up next.

 

[grekon]

I just checked the caves and it doesn't work. I stood under the trees in caves but mid summer trees didn't work under the caves too. Unless you have a way to cool down you won't survive summer.

 

@PolarBeer,Yeah well I never fully understood how summer works. I just knew that hiding under the tree worked a few times so I thought it would work all the time. And who's playing as Woodie? I was playing as Wilson .

 

Edit: You can still use trees for cover in the first few days of summer. I started overheating under the tree on day 62 but on day 61 I my screed edges were yellow all the time. You won't overheat at dusk and night if you stand under the tree even in the middle of summer.

[Gingerbread]

Okay so winter started and I opened the winter trap in the same day (I guess I made a mistake here, since I should have opened that chest in summer not in winter to buy some time to open more tumbleweeds)

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/396673505666879845/A45EADD9D39EAF3102C20ADFB58150B3825A6FB2/

 

So winter trap gave me breezy vest and winter hat (along with ice staff, grass, twigs etc.. NO THERMAL STONE!!). I actually expected to have thermal stone as well but nope. Not happened. Killed mactusk for 4 times i got lotta tusk but no tam o shanter... So it was a really useless activity..

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/396673505666881472/7837F5AE63F952B8E72F05E76E1745E5012F2439/

 

Here is my base that you can see...

 

I survived until spring and made a rain hat for me (found its blueprint in tumbleweed farming). It was maybe the only useful thing i know so far...

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/396673505666885041/8264409A56FEC283C7A5BC3C322206243DFBBD56/

 

Also trying to have a snow chester but I only got 3 blue gem. Planted a lot of pine cones to desert for tumbleweed opening. 3 treeguards spawned in 3 different area in desert so hound attacks are too easy for me to defend at the moment...

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/396673505666889102/2EA74F8AB48846482D499AE8D076A06AA932AD4F/

 

Also one good thing is to have glommer for sure.. Glommer goop saved my life for a lot of times.. As you know it is a good healing item.. It is really easy to get back sanity from cooked cactus and such but once you lose your health there is not much option (fastest can be to eat blue mushroom and glo goop)

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/396673505666890030/28CF1531CD3A490408947C4D31CBF3B6B5F1860C/

 

I am in day 46

 

Things that I can craft via tumbleweed blueprints:

 

 

1) Thermal Measurer (cannot craft boards but can get boards from pig houses, though thermal measurer would be useless to have. Also I already have in my base but even i did not have it, its not a crucial survival item)

2) Cut Stone

3) Electrical Doodad (easy to craft, since I now even know how to craft cut stones...)

4) Moggles (I know how to craft electrical doodad so its too easy to craft moggles. But where to use? Seriously... Maybe would be useful in summer to use at night instead of camp fire to keep myself cold.)

5) Rain Hat (too useful for spring.. Better than looking for petals to craft pretty parasol all the time)

6) Miner Hat (not really possible since i cant make a bug catcher.)

 

I am really worried about summer. I got only 2 stacks of ice in the icebox... By the way since I activated winter trap in the first day of winter, winter lasted only 14 days... I wish I would have opened it in the very first day of summer to have more ice, more blueprints...

 

[emerphish]

Day 57 (Maxwell)

 

So yeah...Dead, not victorious.

 

I thought I had one more day to prepare and I got careless thinking I wouldn’t start seriously overheating.  Wrong.  I was running toward my sinkhole when the heat caught up with me and I died.  So stupid.

 

Ah well.  Looks like I’ll be trying again with another character.  Wigfrid is up next.

Not sure I recommend that, if you don't get something like an endothermal fire blueprint you won't be able to hunt in the summer (which is the real challenge here)

[emerphish]

So right now I'm about to start in on winter, and I want to know, since this is sort of a community challenge, if you guys think it is cheating to use the winter trap to erase summer in surviving a year. I don't exactly know how I feel about it, because it would mean forgoing a bunch of helpful stuff to use during the winter.

[Kraglok]

So right now I'm about to start in on winter, and I want to know, since this is sort of a community challenge, if you guys think it is cheating to use the winter trap to erase summer in surviving a year. I don't exactly know how I feel about it, because it would mean forgoing a bunch of helpful stuff to use during the winter.

If I were playing and found a Winter Trap, I would probably try to trigger it at the start of Winter and then progress through Winter, Spring, and Summer.  If I triggered it later on, I'd still hang on through Spring and Summer afterwards to feel like I'd survived all four seasons.

 

I guess I'm saying I view my challenge as trying to survive all four seasons without ever building a Science Machine or Alchemy Engine.

[emerphish]

If I were playing and found a Winter Trap, I would probably try to trigger it at the start of Winter and then progress through Winter, Spring, and Summer.  If I triggered it later on, I'd still hang on through Spring and Summer afterwards to feel like I'd survived all four seasons.

 

I guess I'm saying I view my challenge as trying to survive all four seasons without ever building a Science Machine or Alchemy Engine.

I was thinking along similar lines, but after seeing three failed attempt im scared of summer lol. I think I'll use it at the beginning of winter.

[emerphish]

NO! PLEASE GOD NO GOD! NOOOOOOOO!

IT WAS A SUMMER TRAP! I'M NOT READY!

 

ERROR: ABORT ABORT

 

FINISH THE TELEPORTATO!

 

Goddamnit! I now have to either survive TWO summers and a winter or re-do the first 20 days AGAIN!

 

*sigh* whatever

 

[grekon]

NO! PLEASE GOD NO GOD! NOOOOOOOO!

IT WAS A SUMMER TRAP! I'M NOT READY!

 

ERROR: ABORT ABORT

 

FINISH THE TELEPORTATO!

 

Goddamnit! I now have to either survive TWO summers and a winter or re-do the first 20 days AGAIN!

 

*sigh* whatever

Its all fine if you have a way to cool yourself I think. Did you get a thermal stone? If so you should be okay. The problem with this challenge is that there is no basic crafting for summer otherwise I would have succeeded already. For food you can have rabbits and butterflies. Since its only the start of summer you can still hide under the trees so go and get some green or blue mushrooms for sanity.

 

Good luck.

[emerphish]

Its all fine if you have a way to cool yourself I think. Did you get a thermal stone? If so you should be okay. The problem with this challenge is that there is no basic crafting for summer otherwise I would have succeeded already. For food you can have rabbits and butterflies. Since its only the start of summer you can still hide under the trees so go and get some green or blue mushrooms for sanity.

 

Good luck.

Not gonna happen. I have some type of body wear and an umbrella, but that won't cut it. Plus, I will complete the challenge much faster in terms of days played if I use the teleportato again. It sucks, but it has to be done.

[Kraglok]

I decided Wigfrid is probably going to be too difficult to keep fed and went with Webber instead.  I played him a fair bit when RoG first came out but hardly at all since.  Hopefully I don’t end up getting him killed by pigs because I’m not paying attention.  So far, so good…

 

Night 5 (Webber)

 

Got a fairly good start, finding the desert on Day 3.  It has Maxwell’s Door plopped right in the middle of it with a small Grassland biome with a few rabbit holes.  At the north end of the desert there are a lot of Hound Mounds directly adjacent to a Meadow full of Killer Bees.  They will be fighting each other constantly and it is possible I could profit in terms of dropped Honey and Monster Meat but it’s pretty dangerous and I’ll likely try to avoid it most of the time.

 

The Meadow up there contains the Wooden Thing set piece so I can get gears any time I want.  The entire area gives me a nearby refuge from Hound attacks and even Giants so I guess I like having it there.

 

I’ve explored a bit of the remainder of the map and I think I know the approximate location of the Pig King.  The only other thing I’ve found of any value was a body with a 24% Shovel.  I used it to dig up some nearby graves and got Blue Gems on both tries.  Hope that luck sticks with me.

 

[Kraglok]

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure the Summer Trap will always be located in a desert.

[Kraglok]

Night 10 (Webber)

 

It’s been quite the 5 days for Mr. Webber.  This map is really nice for what I’m attempting.  Turns out I had a similar setup to what WX-78 had, with two deserts separated by a small Forest biome.  Immediately south of there was the Metal Potato Thing and its farms right next to three frog ponds and a big Grassland with plenty of rabbits and Beefalo.  Perfect spot for my camp.

 

I set up there and soon discovered in the eastern part of that small Forest was a Pig House (not great news but there’s only one of them) and a McTusk Camp.  So far that’s the only McTusk Camp I’ve found so farming him and his hounds won’t be quite as great as some of my previous playthroughs.  But I haven’t explored the whole map so there’s a chance I’ll find more.

 

What I did explore though has been great!  Found a nearby Wormhole that takes you to the Swamp, right next to the Reed Trap set piece.  That makes a PERFECT place to lure Hounds or Giants to be taken care of by the massive amount of Tentacles.

 

Even better, as I was coming out of the swamp I found two bodies with awesome loot.  One had all the “straw stuff”:  Hat, Rope, Straw Roll, and BACKPACK!  Then, before I could even finish celebrating that find, found one with a Walking Cane!  Exploring this map and gathering tumbleweeds just got a lot more efficient.

I’m trying to decide at this point whether I want to dig up all the graves in the hopes of getting gems for Snow Chester or focus on tumbleweed farming.  I think I’m going to explore a bit more just to see if there are more set pieces and bodies I can use and then settle into the farming.  With my silk beard I should have a slightly easier time in the Winter than some characters.

[Kraglok]

Night 15 (Webber)

 

Not a lot to report.  I basically finished exploring my map with no more major boons or surprises.  I did come across ANOTHER Walking Cane, which isn’t terribly helpful, but I’ll stash it by one of my touchstones so I can recover more quickly if I die.

 

No further blueprints, which is a little disappointing considering how much desert I’ve got and how many tumbleweeds I’ve gathered.  I forgot to mention earlier that I did get one early on:  The Insulated Pack.  Great IF I got a Bearger AND had the blueprint for Electrical Doodads.  But I have neither and I doubt I’ll spawn a Bearger in my first Autumn.  Haven’t seen one yet in any of this series of playthroughs.

 

I’m going to need to relocate more Spider Dens near me soon.  Right now I’ve just got the one I started with.  I’ll need Spider Allies for fighting McTusk for sure.

 

[Kraglok]

Night 21 (Webber)

 

Winter has begun and it’s been tricky but I’m off to a good start.  On Day 20 I finally managed to get a second Spider Den moved to near my base, close to the McTusk Camp.  I charged in at dusk with a small army of spiders and we took him down!  My Tam’o’Shanter luck held and we got one on the first try.  That is a HUGE relief as sanity management has been tricky.

 

With plenty of Monster Meat to feed me now, I should be able to farm tumbleweeds throughout the Winter.  I did get one more blueprint:  Pick/Axe, which is useless to me.  Sigh.

 

[Gingerbread]

So right now I'm about to start in on winter, and I want to know, since this is sort of a community challenge, if you guys think it is cheating to use the winter trap to erase summer in surviving a year. I don't exactly know how I feel about it, because it would mean forgoing a bunch of helpful stuff to use during the winter.

 

thats not cheating.