Sprucecap question about playing in a new world

[Salanmander]

So I'm a perennial sprucecap. I've played off-and-on for a long time, but I pretty much always just want to make my own little cozy hermit farm. In the early stages I rely quite a lot on security through being too much trouble to bother with...I keep my claim a ways away from the water until I find the place I want to permanently settle, it usually takes me a couple weeks before I get a palisade up, and I gather materials for the palisade over a long period of time.

If I start playing near the start of the new world, is it likely to be significantly more dangerous for me than normal starting out? What recommendations do you have for a random hermit who just wants to stay out of people's way?

[linkfanpc]

So I'm a perennial sprucecap. I've played off-and-on for a long time, but I pretty much always just want to make my own little cozy hermit farm. In the early stages I rely quite a lot on security through being too much trouble to bother with...I keep my claim a ways away from the water until I find the place I want to permanently settle, it usually takes me a couple weeks before I get a palisade up, and I gather materials for the palisade over a long period of time.

If I start playing near the start of the new world, is it likely to be significantly more dangerous for me than normal starting out? What recommendations do you have for a random hermit who just wants to stay out of people's way?

Set up camp in a cave, preferably a decent bit in, lots of people enter caves real quick to find people camping in them but few, especially in the start, venture deep into caves for any reason.

Use lean-tos, which can hold two liftable objects like crates. Anything inside requires the Theft skill to take which would need 50k+ LP to get.

Commit mass genocide of every squirrel and chicken you see, you'll quickly have all the leather and bones for bone glue you'll need for a palisade. You can get strings for rope pretty easy from cattails, taproots, and making bark fibers. It's perfectly possible to have a palisade up day two/three, although you shouldn't set up shop permanently in the very first location you see until you've scouted the area thoroughly.

If you do find a nice spot though set a claim down ASAP. The sooner the better, you'll be glad you put the effort and 4k LP into it later.

One nice idea is to find something you're good at and like to do and do it a lot as a service. I like making leather so early this world i brute forced leather production by horrific but very efficient slaughter of every small helpless animal i came across and became the drug lord of leather of my neighborhood and it opened a lot of trading opportunities with other hermits/small groups who were busy with other things (like brute forcing other productions.)

[VDZ]

If I start playing near the start of the new world, is it likely to be significantly more dangerous for me than normal starting out?

Absolutely. At the start of the skins, even dried skins are very valuable and will be stolen unless you hide or protect them well. But that's part of the fun, as well.

What recommendations do you have for a random hermit who just wants to stay out of people's way?

Leave your stuff inside a cave, some distance away from the entrance (far away enough that people would need to walk a bit into the cave to see it), and do not leave any traces of activity near the cave entrance (either inside or outside) - do not build anything there, do not drop any items there, do not even chop trees there. If there's zero indication anyone visited the area, people will not check the cave for loot.

Other similar stealth strategies may also work. I've heard people use burrows to store stuff as well, and nobody seems to check those. I've also stored items in stumps and mirkwood logs before, and nobody checks those either, though the latter may get hauled off by someone wanting to make Mirkwood Offerings (and I have unexpectedly found stuff in mirkwood logs I took with me for that purpose before, indicating others do this as well).

[VDZ]

Use lean-tos, which can hold two liftable objects like crates. Anything inside requires the Theft skill to take which would need 50k+ LP to get.

Only when you're sleeping under it, right? In the first couple days, especially day 1, people are brazen enough to walk up to and grab your stuff while you're right there, and as far as I'm aware leantos do not protect you from that.

[linkfanpc]

Use lean-tos, which can hold two liftable objects like crates. Anything inside requires the Theft skill to take which would need 50k+ LP to get.

Only when you're sleeping under it, right? In the first couple days, especially day 1, people are brazen enough to walk up to and grab your stuff while you're right there, and as far as I'm aware leantos do not protect you from that.

You can't sleep in lean-tos. You're thinking of Thatched Bed. I'm 99% sure it's a constant theft protection, they act as mini claims. It also is an act of and requires Vandalism to bash them, that's why they made it so you can't build them adjacent to each other, people were walling in noob's hearthfires and other not nice stuff.

[VDZ]

You can't sleep in lean-tos. You're thinking of Thatched Bed. I'm 99% sure it's a constant theft protection, they act as mini claims. It also is an act of and requires Vandalism to bash them, that's why they made it so you can't build them adjacent to each other, people were walling in noob's hearthfires and other not nice stuff.

Don't you lift the thatched bed, place it under the leanto and sleep in it to protect your stuff? Or am I getting confused with legacy mechanics?

[MagicManICT]

That's legacy, VDZ. Now they act much like they do in Salem--a "mini claim" as long as a character has placed items in them. You can only use one lean-to at a time like this. I'm sure someone figured out they could abuse it a bit with fresh alts....

[Apocoreo]

Make a first camp that's ugly but secure, move to a pretty place once you know its safe to do so.