Acceptable places to settle?

[Enaragon]

What's the minimum quality soil someone should settle on? Is q29 soil good enough? Suppose I had q29 soil and an unclaimed mine nearby. Would that be a good enough place to settle down?

[TeckXKnight]

q29 is pretty low but it should be just fine. If you find it's not suiting your needs then go ahead and move. Either way the big limiting factor is going to be your skill levels for farming and your access to traders.

[shubla]

You should settle away from water so everyone who passes by cant just come and raid you.

[Aishata]

What are the most important resources to being successful as a hermit though? The place I'm describing is really far inland, but I'm afraid of investing too much resources and structures into it and regretting it as the game passes. How suitable would this place be for a while?

[LadyV]

Make sure you have a clay node nearby to make bricks. It does not have to be high quality. Soil only matters when first starting farming. Crops will grow to soil quality as an absolute. There after it is random variation of +/- .

[Aishata]

So soil quality stops being important after a while? Also, suppose a clay node in ten minutes away. Is that considered close enough?

[Vengyr]

First of all, check the surroundings for other players. It is okay to have palisade or less developed neibourghs, but NEVER settle near large villages.

The most important thing, as for me, is a cave. Cave speeds up metal finding rapidly, allowing you to mine it much faster than it would be without a cave. Basically all you need is to kill a bear and make a q10 axe, and it probably will be enough for your first metal. Even if not, just buy a quality pickaxe and you're set. By the way, while you're at the cave, try checking water quality. Having high quality water in a such a safe environment is really cool, even though it is highly unlikely, just try.

Next one is a clay. As already mentioned, having a clay node nearby (as close as possible) is really good. You eventually will want to build a brickwall - and you HAVE to build it as soon as possible, and clay next to the settlement speeds up the process a lot. However, if you make some wine, it becomes a bit less important. Personally didn't have much problems with brickwall making without a node below - I simply travelled between node and village using a wine. If you find q30+ clay, it will speed up your development a bit, allowing for a bit higher quality metals and pies while you're farming your goodies for a higher q bricks/clay. It is possible to find up to q50 unclaimed clay, and q50 unclaimed clay might be even traded a bit.

Next in my priority list are curio sources. There are swamp, mountain, and desert to suit your needs. Desert is bad, but does not hurt. Moutains are great, but a bit rare, and often claimed for sake of annoyance (you can still harvest it without leaving any summonable scents, but you will get hurt a little everytime you pass there). Still, try settling in the way so you can trip to one in okayish time (whatever is okayish for you). And swamps are good and quite common at the same time, so you might end up settling close to the swamp. Swamp can also heal you, which is nice aswell.

Having quality water, while might be not absolutely necessary, is very helpful. Even q25 water basically works as 50% more water while drinking (as if you had a bucket of 15l), and q40 water doubles that amount. On top of that, it is absurdly important in pie making, so your terribly low q early pies can grow up simply by the water. To check the water, apart from random dippings, you may randomly build the wells inland, which may eventually goldfish you, or not so randomly, near the quality water spots to try getting a water-point closer to the spot center (spots are circular).

Soil is not that important, personally I had q71 soil which noone claimed and I used for my mass tree production, apart from trees, soil only helps with early farm growing, and sets the q of foraged goods, which is a nice little feature but nothing to worry about.

Try moving to the far away grids, for instance my cozy settlement has been built at the far west grid, and there were basically no treats outside of one bunker ~30 grids from me.

[Enaragon]

First of all, check the surroundings for other players. It is okay to have palisade or less developed neibourghs, but NEVER settle near large villages.

The most important thing, as for me, is a cave. Cave speeds up metal finding rapidly, allowing you to mine it much faster than it would be without a cave. Basically all you need is to kill a bear and make a q10 axe, and it probably will be enough for your first metal. Even if not, just buy a quality pickaxe and you're set. By the way, while you're at the cave, try checking water quality. Having high quality water in a such a safe environment is really cool, even though it is highly unlikely, just try.

Next one is a clay. As already mentioned, having a clay node nearby (as close as possible) is really good. You eventually will want to build a brickwall - and you HAVE to build it as soon as possible, and clay next to the settlement speeds up the process a lot. However, if you make some wine, it becomes a bit less important. Personally didn't have much problems with brickwall making without a node below - I simply travelled between node and village using a wine. If you find q30+ clay, it will speed up your development a bit, allowing for a bit higher quality metals and pies while you're farming your goodies for a higher q bricks/clay. It is possible to find up to q50 unclaimed clay, and q50 unclaimed clay might be even traded a bit.

Next in my priority list are curio sources. There are swamp, mountain, and desert to suit your needs. Desert is bad, but does not hurt. Moutains are great, but a bit rare, and often claimed for sake of annoyance (you can still harvest it without leaving any summonable scents, but you will get hurt a little everytime you pass there). Still, try settling in the way so you can trip to one in okayish time (whatever is okayish for you). And swamps are good and quite common at the same time, so you might end up settling close to the swamp. Swamp can also heal you, which is nice aswell.

Having quality water, while might be not absolutely necessary, is very helpful. Even q25 water basically works as 50% more water while drinking (as if you had a bucket of 15l), and q40 water doubles that amount. On top of that, it is absurdly important in pie making, so your terribly low q early pies can grow up simply by the water. To check the water, apart from random dippings, you may randomly build the wells inland, which may eventually goldfish you, or not so randomly, near the quality water spots to try getting a water-point closer to the spot center (spots are circular).

Soil is not that important, personally I had q71 soil which noone claimed and I used for my mass tree production, apart from trees, soil only helps with early farm growing, and sets the q of foraged goods, which is a nice little feature but nothing to worry about.

Try moving to the far away grids, for instance my cozy settlement has been built at the far west grid, and there were basically no treats outside of one bunker ~30 grids from me.

Woah, that info is really helpful. Crap...now I have to look for some good water...gonna be hard.

What if I settled next to a large village that had clearly been abandoned for a really long time? That should be fine right?

[TeckXKnight]

Are you sure it's actually abandoned and they just don't have different play times than you?
It can also be a jump point for other villages to port around and visit the area.

There are risks inherent to being near locations that you think are abandoned. That said, if you're confident in your appraisal and you think you're safe, then go for it. If their walls are decaying, cattle are starving or dead, crops haven't been harvested in long enough that all of the tilled soil has reverted to grass, their village is out of authority, etc.. then it should be fairly safe.

[Enaragon]

Are you sure it's actually abandoned and they just don't have different play times than you?
It can also be a jump point for other villages to port around and visit the area.

There are risks inherent to being near locations that you think are abandoned. That said, if you're confident in your appraisal and you think you're safe, then go for it. If their walls are decaying, cattle are starving or dead, crops haven't been harvested in long enough that all of the tilled soil has reverted to grass, their village is out of authority, etc.. then it should be fairly safe.

Yes, the crops haven't been harvested to the point where the soil has reverted to grass. I don't know how to check authority. Can't see too far inside past their brick wall, but I know they have been disbanded or abandoned for more than 6 months because I searched them up on the forum. After what Vengyr said I'm probably just gonna claim the entrance to the mine and find another place to settle.

So I should look for a place with:

-High q water
-Clay node
-Near swamp/mountain

And soil is not important so I don't need to look for that.

Did I get that right?