Starter tips for the new world

[Kamekono]

Hello!
With a new world coming soon, and all the changes we've seen in the last year, I was thinking it would be nice if more experienced players would write down some tips for newbies on how to get a good start. We could make some sort of list and see what comes out of it.
I'll start:
1. Meet the neighbors! The first few days are the best to meet people and establish relationships. Very few people will have the skills required to attack you, and if things go wrong you'll lose a day or two of gameplay instead of weeks or months. Kins made early on can be very useful down the road: you can get good trades, share information about good spots or dangers to avoid, maybe even become allies or merge together to form a larger community.
The longer the world goes on, the harder will be for people to trust newcomers because of all the risks that come with it.

[TerraSleet]

Here's a mini-walkthrough courtesy of linkfanpc that I've been using to refresh my memory on the early game: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=67559&start=10#p852532

Obviously it assumes a solo hermit playstyle, groups and villages will play much differently.

[Zampfeo]

My advice is to not get too attached to the first place you settle down. You or someone your playing with should spend the first few days scouting out a good area to settle and foraging while doing it. You'll thank yourself later when you have medium-high quality soil/water/clay to use and trade with later.

[vatas]

Catch fish and spitroast them for easy FEPs.

[Sevenless]

I'm digging the suggestions above, linkfan's post contains most of what I'd say other than stats. I don't remember my preferred stat order off the top of my head, so I'm not going to endorse stat choices until I rummage the dusty brain first. Zamps point is super critical too, getting attached to the first palisade you need to build in order to get rolling is a terrible idea long term.

One extra suggestion: Gilds are crucial to early game, almost more so than later. Making a nettle set with taproot lacing gildings will easily double your survival for quite a while and is a very early priority. Double gilding with forager broaches or mole paws (whatever's easy to get), is something I slow burn by grabbing nettles while doing other things to make more sets.

More survival/exploration just explodes your long term growth by helping you see new things faster and those first 20pts of quality are by far the strongest. Also handles the empty world syndrome that happens, where early haven is utterly barren due to your character being blind.

Edit: Also, be careful. Healing many wounds is a struggle early game. Accidents with wild animals mid game are annoying, but in the first week they can actually hurt your character badly enough that drowning it and starting a new one is the better choice.

[abt79]

Some great tips in this thread. I'll add:

-besides a few starter skills (foraging, lumberjacking, hunting, carpentry, maybe fishing/swimming/boatbuilding), your main LP priority early on should be Exploration. Once you get 10ish EXP you can start pumping some Survival too, boosted by gilded nettles/sprucecap/clogs

-don't bother eating garbage like tree nuts/fruits. Spitroast meats, pitbakes, spitroast/dried fish all give better FEPs/energy for the hunger they fill. Prioritize Intelligence and Perception food

-squirrels are the easiest hide-bearing creature to catch and are quite plentiful in forests. Catch every one you see so you can make leather as soon as possible

-a cave makes a pretty solid starter camp. Plenty of space, a degree of separation from the hostile wilderness, and can be used to flee animals (simply leave the cave to escape bats)

-to add on to

My advice is to not get too attached to the first place you settle down. You or someone your playing with should spend the first few days scouting out a good area to settle and foraging while doing it. You'll thank yourself later when you have medium-high quality soil/water/clay to use and trade with later.

there's no reason to build/farm/level much in your initial camp. A fire pit, some drying racks, a leanto; just the basics. The more you build the more attached you'll become to a place you probably shouldn't stay in.

-your camp and your permanent settlement should both be somewhat far away from lake/river systems as potentially dangerous players boat through them. Natural springs are a safer replacement, and you can always build a Well.

-your permanent settlement should be near, but a reasonable distance away from: a Swamp, a Mountain, an Ocean shore, and a Mudflat (in that order of importance). These all give unique and useful materials/curios, but settling too close might attract unwanted attention and have other negative side effects (midges from swamps, difficulty leveling near mountains, etc)

[vatas]

I'd probably raise Exploration to just 5 initially, then aim for 10 survival, after that start full nettle/taproot set and increasing exploration further.

Maybe even use rule of thumb of raising them equally at very start? Then leaving base survival to sit on 10, since you get another 10 from clothes. Pump everything into exploration afterwards.

I wouldn't completely disregard berries/fruits/nuts from trees, they're not best but 1) they at least aren't capped by survival and 2) if you missed it, they fill only 0,5% hunger now (used to be 4% which made them a newbie trap.) Still, most effectively used only as filler and relying on other stuff as main source.

If you're into alt meta or spawn with a big group, have one character/player invest all their discovery LP on boat building and start cranking out Dugouts (preferably from logs that have been spent up to 90% (assuming this won't be changed.))

[linkfanpc]

Actually one thing i would add is make sure you memorize and at least try to kin every person you see. I also keep a notepad and jot down when i met them, IE "mister guy: saw him on a clovered horse picking taproots". Especially early world when there's a big influx of people it can get confusing as to who is who especially if you start asking for/offering items to trade and such. If you memorize them but they refuse your kin give them a custom name. Even if they're only memorized you'll see that custom name you gave them over their hearthfire should you ever find it. It's definitely not a bad idea to memorize that guy who stole your basket and bashed your drying rack so you know which base is his just in case, and so you'll recognize him if weeks from then he shows up at your doorstep at midnight clad in bronze.

Also be really careful about how many rat-on-a-sticks and roasthoppers you eat, i ended up way over levelling my Will early world due to how many i was stuffing my face with to replace energy lost to terraforming and it got pretty annoying. If your energy keeps getting low maybe use the chance to feast on some spitroasted fish and up your INT and kill two magpies with one stone.

It's true they lowered the hunger penalties of berries and such, but i still think there's better uses for your hunger.

The tip about caves is a good idea, make your first camp inside one, it makes you a lot less likely to have your hides stolen off your racks, especially if you build it deeper in a bit so that anyone who takes one step inside to look for bases to strip hides off they won't notice yours.

And one last thing, if someone starts trying to bash your claim before it's up, remember you have a push command.

I also kept all the stuff needed to make another claim pole itself in a lean to. I never had to do it and i don't know if it works, but my idea was that if someone was smashing my claim pole, then i would wait until it gets to 25% to waste their time as much as possible and then rebuild a second claim pole on another spot, deleting the first and forcing them to start over. I don't know if that will stop or pause the claim drying or even if you actually can move it before it's dried, but that was my plan, but i didn't end up needing it anyway, nobody tried to bash mine.

(i forgot i wrote that little guide, thanks for recommending it, i appreciate it )

[iamahh]

my biggest priority early world is escaping strangers

used to be mods helped with that, alarm and autohearth was better than nothing, but now probably mods will be broken

so detach the minimap and keep it close to eye reach, hopefully you'll see other players approaching

[Sevenless]

And one last thing, if someone starts trying to bash your claim before it's up, remember you have a push command. )

I'm always wary of people like that. Usually people aware enough to try and clear out beginner claimpoles with people actively there (willing to be memmed and recognized) are also going to keep being a problem. Be ready to ditch the area before they get too aggressive if they're looking that way.