Dealing with Hounds in Shipwrecked

[darkscaryforest]

Hello all, I'm a don't starve veteran, shipwrecked newbie (not the beta branch).  I've looked and read many posts about dealing with hounds in RoG and shipwrecked, but I don't think I've come across any good solutions.

I've finally gotten a successful save going at about day 120, but I am seeing a big problem unfold.  For me, the definitive way to deal with hounds has always been tooth traps:

-They're not flammable, so red hounds aren't a problem

-They don't go to sleep at night, or well.. ever. They always work

-You can make enough of them as time goes on.  They were (until now) relatively cheap. Teeth seem to be much rarer in shipwrecked.

In RoG, thanks to walrus camps, getting enough teeth for a tooth trap field was always possible.  Further it seemed like Blue/Red hounds spawned year round so there's some guaranteed teeth with each attack to replenish the field.  But in shipwrecked there's no walrus camps and red/blue hounds only seem to come in hurricane/dry season. My tooth trap field of 12 or so is barely getting me by (and sewing kits are an impossible luxury).  The 10 or so hounds that come past day 100 is too much to face off against directly no matter how good I can kite.  I think the hounds are triggering the traps faster than they drop teeth and I will eventually be overrun.  I could try to hunt sharks, but the drop rate is pretty bad so it takes too much time and resources.

Does anyone have any other creative solutions that are pretty solid?  I could try using npcs like wild hogs, but usually they aren't viable in the long term since they're structures are flammable and they go to sleep at night.

I don't mind any "cheese" type solutions that aren't cheating.  I did experiment and have some success staying out on a boat using spear guns to thin a hound pack.

Thanks for reading and any suggestions!

[grekon]

2 or 3 spider nests, run around them until hounds switch aggro

5 or more pig huts

a bunch of monkey huts

lure sharx to water beefalos

or just switch between land and sea. hounds cant follow you to the sea, sharx cant follow you to the land. Kite the sharx when you are on land. thats the way you deal with sharx cuz you dont really have a way to fight them at sea.\

edit: also merms

[Ispin69]

Elephant cactus farm. Yes they will take fire damage but you can easily dig up, replant and fertilize with 1 ash. Do two lines on each side with enough room for you to run through the middle. Later you might want to double up on each side. I would do 6-8 on each side. Go to volcano, attack 3 or so with a ranged weapon (spear gun/darts/fire staff/boomerang) or you can tank with armor or find one that the dragoons have attacked. Get 3 cactus spikes and logsuit armor to make the cactus armor (need alchemy to prototype). Use 5 individually placed turf (or logs but i hate burning wood) on the ground around the cactus and burn with your cactus armor on.  Dig up and get a bunch more. Also needs ash/volcanic turf to plant elephant cactus.

Water beefalo are okay for the first 50 or so days but when the amount of hound sharks get bigger, they will destroy an entire herd of water beefalo which is bad news. There is only so many herds of water beefalo . Lureplants are okay for early game too but they do burn so you better have a lot before you consider using them. Ballphins are like the water beefalo but probably weaker. I've had the hound sharks destroy an whole group as well.

Use toothtraps for fire hound group and elephant cactus for the ice hound group.

 

 

 

 

[darkscaryforest]

Thanks for the replies!  Holy crap your elephant cactus idea is effective, like way more effective than tooth trap fields themselves.  I suppose I could also try placing a flingo to help mitigate fire damage from fire hounds.  Thanks again!