Food Tips For A Noob?

[CyanGuy]

Hey guys I recently got into this game on ps4 and have seemed to always have food shortages and never make it past the first winter.I was hoping some of you experts might have an idea of how to keep a steady food supply going while still having time for other things to do.If it helps I always make my base in a savanna with many beefaloes and rabbit holes.

[Cynical Cynicist]

Hey guys I recently got into this game on ps4 and have seemed to always have food shortages and never make it past the first winter.I was hoping some of you experts might have an idea of how to keep a steady food supply going while still having time for other things to do.If it helps I always make my base in a savanna with many beefaloes and rabbit holes.

 

Rabbits are an easy source, but you are limiting yourself through your dependence on them. Try to find as many ways to produce or process food, which will give you a lot more diversity in options and adaptability (e.g. I need to heal or regain sanity). As a general indicator, most bases have all of the structures in the "food" tab built in their base.

[negaman]

hunt lots of koalafant. try to get a ice box. get bee boxes and crock pots and farms and hunt dem rabbits! and i hope you already know this but ALWAYS COOK YOUR FOOD!

[TLLBRDWRNGLR]

Rabbits! as stated above you should at LEAST set up camp near 5 rabbit holes and set the trap JUST above the hole, that way as soon as they come out they will be TRAPPED for your eatinz plus set up a crockpot as soon as you can and put 4 of the morsels in, it'll give you meatballs which gives you plenty of food.

 

P.S. if you're having food issues don't try wolfgang 'til they're resolved, just a tip

[CyanGuy]

Thanks guys! These tips will help me for when I start my new world.

[puppet_rivers]

I generally collect some twigs, cut grass, berries and carrots and head for rocky biome to collect gold nuggets, after getting 20-25, i go and find beefalos not so close to them and next to some rabbbit holes i build my base, also gather some acorns to plant sicne u will need wood a lot, later i build some improved farms if i can find reeds, i make bird cage etc, i find a spider den closest to me and leave it and destroy all other for silk, make 2 tree areas, one for wood one to burn, if you can make cooking pots, drying racks etc soon, you wont have problem, also leave some traps next to rabbit holes for food. Generally sometimes im not available to dp beeboxes, because i start preparing for winter, make a heat stone leave it next to fire pit way before winter, make sure everything is ready. After the spider den u leave reach to level 3, destroy it with traps, you just basically be a bait let them follow u to traps, dont attack them inside dens or green jumping ones will arrive. Monster and rabbit meat can help u if u have bird cage, you can give ur extra monster meat to it (cooked) and get egges for them, you can cook bacon and eggs, plant twigs, berry bushes next to your base, since ur in savannah u dont need to plant grass, but if you like organizing you can do. When you destroy ur spişder then put it somewhere closer to u but not so close which they can disturb u and leave some traps next to it, visit it regularly so it wont turn to spder queen, make boomerang and hunt kolafents, for both trunk and meat. When its summer again, collect bees, make 3-4 beeboxes and start eating honey ham, it heals a lot and helps you also meantime, keep planting until u get dragon fruit, get it's seeds by exchanging it to birds, when you go to caves you can get dragon food with you, because having meat in your inventory will make you number one criminal for bunnymen.

[Zalyn]

Hi!  I didn't like the combat mechanics when I started, so I found ways to get plenty of food with pretty low risk (ie: no hunting tallbirds, beefalo, or koalefant). I usually end up with food spoiling because I have so much, so I must be doing something right even though I only use small meats (frog, gobbler, rabbit).

I see several stages of food production:  wild/gathering, simple foods, complex foods. The simple foods only require one structure - drying rack or crock pot (garden makes it easier) while the complex foods require bee boxes or bird cage.  

I also have two main types of food I use: filling and healing.  There are "simple" recipes in each that you can make early on, although the "complex" recipes are really easy once you get things going.

Types of foods:

Filling foods: Turkey dinner (simple),  Bacon and eggs (complex - needs eggs),  Honey ham (complex - needs honey)

Healing foods:  Froggle bunwich (simple), Fishsticks (simple), Honey nuggets* (complex - needs honey), Pierogis (complex - needs eggs)

Other: Jerky (use up your extra frog legs!), Meatballs (more efficient with less meat, use up berries and mushrooms: these will be your staple until you get more stuff set up)

* Honey nuggets are more meat-efficient than hams if you have plenty of honey and/or veggies/fruits, both on healing and hunger.

Good sources of food:

Frog ponds - best after a rain.  Go for a place with lots of them (at least 4).  Make lots of traps and put them all around the ponds; visit every couple days and you'll be up to your ears in frog legs.  Another way to gather them is to aggro one and lead the whole army (and there will be an army of angry frogs!) into a cluster of traps.  If you have tallbirds around, you can sometimes provoke a war, which ends in glorious meat everywhere, but it can be risky.  I will prioritize frog ponds over rabbit holes in the summer because they shut down in the winter - then I move all the traps to savanna where the rabbits have been spawning all summer.   If you play on Wendy, Abigail shouldn't be used to kill frogs unless it's dusk; even then, you'll probably lose her if there are more than 5.  

Berry bushes - source of berries AND gobblers (Turkey dinners are great - not picky about veg or fruit and soak monster meat).  This is kind of a zen or proactive thing - gobblers can be a pain to deal with, or you can accept that they exist and look forward to them appearing because they are a nice food supplement.  Even on Wendy, I can kill gobblers easily once I learn the technique.

When gathering berries, be ready with bait (a single berry or veggie - mushrooms are fine) so as soon as you hear the gobbler pop up (it may be just off screen), you can put the bait down and kill it before it eats up all your other berries.  For this reason, I don't plant berry bushes and instead just go "turkey hunting" in a place that has lots of natural ones.  Later on, when you get tooth traps, set up a trap on each bush so the gobbler will automatically get killed when it pops. Every few days, go on a berry bush run and you'll probably end up with some gobbler legs as well.

Spider dens - you can pick up a lot of monster meat from spider dens if you keep traps around them and keep aggroing the dens.  Be careful with lvl 3 dens if you're more of a lover than a fighter - spider warriors can be dangerous if you don't know how to dodge them.  Abigail is great against spiders, especially at dusk.  The other benefit to spider-gathering is that you'll get lots of silk (needed for higher stuff) and glands (for healing) - so work on these early on.

Bee boxes - I have found that playing as Wendy makes it much easier to set up bee boxes because Abigail is great against killer bees.  So as soon as I can get a bug net and catch bees in groups of 4 for the boxes, Abigail takes out the killer bees, and I can destroy the hives for combs.  I try for bee boxes before the bird cage so they have time to collect honey for the winter - and they are usually my first priority after I have the camp set up (fire pit, crock pot, racks).

Gardens - I use them for two things: dragonfruit farming and "light vegetable" farming for pierogis and bunwiches.

Birdcage - needed for high level farming (ie: selecting dragonfruit).  Since you need both gold and parchment for the cage and spider silk for the trap to catch the bird, I save this for last, but try to get one before winter.  But if you don't get one, you'll be fine with bee boxes and your piles of frog jerky.  

But once you have the birdcage (I put it next to my garden or food storage and crock pot), you're golden.  Any meat you have too much of (monster meat, frog legs) can be made into eggs for bacon and eggs (small egg x 2 + monster meat + small meat/frog).
 

Rabbits* - They are actually more valuable to you alive than dead because you need live rabbits for rabbit earmuffs and Prestihatitator.  And if you want to farm Nightmare Fuel or Beard Hair, it's much easier to have a chest or two of rabbits to morph into beardlings.  So unless I'm starving, I don't eat rabbits in the summer and instead store them live in chests (1 always full, try for 2).  If I'm short a meat on a crock pot recipe, then I can take one out and use it in a pinch, but thinking of rabbits as a backup rather than a staple food helps you to focus on other sources.

Camp site:

I actually don't try to camp on or right next to savanna; I find that when I make trips to go out to pick up rabbits, it helps make sure there is enough respawn time for all of my traps to be full.  Instead, I look for a place that has easy access (one heatstone's length) to three sites: frog ponds, berry bushes, and rabbits (look for a biome with LOTS of holes - more than 5 because 5 holes only gives you 10 rabbits max at a time).  Somewhere nearby should be a spot with lots of flowers for bee boxes (you have to have bee boxes near your camp for them to be most active), although you can plant more flowers if you need.  

I haven't tested this, but I suspect that not spending time trying to hunt lets me focus my time on "gathering runs" in the key biomes where I can get 10-20 small meats or 10-15 monster meats in one go.  That's a lot of jerky that can later be thrown into the pot for any of the recipes. I actually find that I run a bit short on veggies sometimes, but those are mostly needed for healing foods; if you don't get hurt much, then bacon and eggs / honey hams / jerky are great to live on.  The times I end up with some large meat, I make those into jerky so they last longer and can be a good boost for sanity if I need it.  I only try to get large meats if I'm making a meat effigy, so I never miss them.

I also suspect that since I play "one with the land" style, I'm spending less time trying to move things closer to me (berry bushes, twigs, grass, pig houses, etc) and instead going on 1-2 day trips out to key biomes for resources.  I like it more because it's less building and more traveling, and the rotation naturally allows more respawn.  It's like having your three favorite restaurants in town, and each day you go to a different one - "Monster Meat Bistro", "Le Angry Frog," "Hoppy Bunny".
 

Most of all, think about what elements of the game you like, and tailor your playstyle to take advantage of your strengths and preferences.  Good luck!

 

* With the new DLC (RoG) Rabbits now starve when trapped or held in inventory/chests; this section may be outdated as a result.

[CyanGuy]

Thanks for all the info you guys are giving me.I did a bit a bit of research on the wiki and am about to start my new world with Wilson.I hopefully will make it past winter with a walking cane.Thanks a lot @Zalyn since I will be trying your strategy of making a base in the middle of all helpful biomes.

[RobertinBham]

A couple of crockpots with 2 bee boxes in a base with 5 or more rabbit holes is ver doable before the first winter arrives is very doable. That lets you make honey ham using 1 monster meat morsels from rabbits and one honey.

Stock pile a much honey as possible before winter it will keep a long time even without an ice box.

Also use drying racks for any excess meat because the dried meat will help with sanity issues during winter.

[Misaki]

The best character in term for food is WX-78, but his starting stats that actually require you to fight with some crazy mobs are discouraging. You can always play as Woodie and enable god mode (by cutting down trees) whenever you are hungry.

Never play as Wolfgang, unless you are very good in this game.

 

Also, honey, the overpowered honey, putting down five hives will make you more honey than you need, and it spoils very slowly.

[wantin]

also try to use your crockpot most effectively (you can find lots of info to this in game wikis and stuff or by modding "food values" and "crock pot")

learning how to do the combat is however pretty usefull in this game.
the key is kiting: u hit and run, the other one misses u hit him again etc.. also one takes very little damage in th right protection so getting a football helmet and a log suit is way more important imo than getting something stronger than a spear (even though that is ofc nice to have)
the easiest way to get food in the early stages (day 5 - 20) is meat balls which is just anything but twigs with any meat and it is nearly enough for one day, so for example 3 berries and a monster meat give u 65 (anti)hunger and some health and sanity.
but as soon as you have honey and hunt for bigger animals there are better options also winter makes veggies hard to get.

[CyanGuy]

I tried wx but he is far to cheap to use if you upgrade him all the way.And yeah honey is a good hunger item but I seem to have trouble finding regular yellow bees to capture

[Zalyn]

I tried wx but he is far to cheap to use if you upgrade him all the way.And yeah honey is a good hunger item but I seem to have trouble finding regular yellow bees to capture

 

Are you locating hives?  The yellow (worker) bees come out one at a time over the course of the day, so it could take a while if you only have one hive. 

[Parrotoss]

Not sure if this has already been said but try to pick as few carrots as possible at the start. Save them for when there aren't any other possible sources.

[CyanGuy]

I found a pretty good way to get brews via a bunch of hives located together and I have a base with 10-15 rabibot holes nearby