Claim keeps getting destroyed, how can I even get started?

[SynthAura]

I can't even keep a personal claim up for 24 hours, it keeps getting destroyed before it "sets". There are so many people playing right now it's impossible to keep the claim from being discovered and destroyed. Am I missing something here? If I make any progress it will all be stolen lol, I can't dry skins or make leather.

[Audiosmurf]

Are you building in the same place over and over? Try moving several minimaps in another direction.

[kirion]

It's incredibly difficult indeed at world start. Here's a few honest tips, learned through experience myself:

- Don't pave or terraform until you got a "dry" claim. Better yet, don't pave or terraform until you got a dry palisade.
- Put stuff in a leanto, it's moderately protected. You can put two containers or moveable things.
- don't sleep in a spruce bed, it's useless early on. Some custom client may get a ping when it detect a sleeping sprucecap.
- When building a palisade, always use visitor gates facing outward, leave your hearthfire inside your claim and never leave with your master key.
- Better yet, make an alt account then give the master key to your alt, keep a slave key on you.
- Not quite a protection but more of an early world deterrent : build a stick fence and lock the gates. They'll need vandalism to get into your claim, which deter at least a few petty thieves.
- Preferably don't settle too close to water sources. Too many boaters. They'll spot your place fast.
- If nothing seems to work and you keep on getting frustrated... wait a few months. The try-hards will be bored and mostly gone. Then the game is left to the hermits to enjoy.

[pagsiu]

Build a boat (tar pits exist) or use a dugout and enter the vortex. Other continents are literally deserted.

[gravesmerch]

finding a vortex is not that simple
you need patience and luck to not stumble into someone
heck last world I've seen a vortex once or twice

[cecil01]

The single most important thing to be safe, is distance. You need to be as far away from everyone as possible. Doesn't matter what defences you have, if you settle near bellicose people, they will get you eventually.

1. Stay away from thingwalls, obviously.
2. Stay away from vortexes, and any body of water readily connected to them.
3. Stay away from bodies of water in general, especially rivers and the sea.
4. Naturally, avoid any area with evidences of crimes. Don't feel safe just because you're "far enough", you're never far enough from criminals. Stay a dozen map tiles away at least.

Don't bother trying to settle somewhere useful right away. Settling in an unconvenent place like a cave or deep in a forest and then moving somewhere else is much better than settling next to a nice river and having everything destroyed in two days

[Reiber]

Build a boat (tar pits exist) or use a dugout and enter the vortex. Other continents are literally deserted.

what other continents are you talkin about, i know of 2 besides the spawn continent, and they are all crowded by facions,and hermits,

[Aerona]

I haven't found "the spawn continent" (is there really just one?) to be crowded, I've only seen around half a dozen claims in enough space for dozens of them, including several biomes with no claims in or adjacent to them.

[Sevenless]

Build a boat (tar pits exist) or use a dugout and enter the vortex. Other continents are literally deserted.

what other continents are you talkin about, i know of 2 besides the spawn continent, and they are all crowded by facions,and hermits,

There's 4 total I know of, with a "fifth" that's connected by a long string of odeep. Also a couple spots for mini continents hiding around but you'd need a snekkja to visit probably.

Same as past worlds. The smaller less populated continents are such because they have no or almost no whirlpool connections within the first week.

2 worlds ago there was a nice little continent that only had an open WP for like 8 hours after launch. Because not as many people were aiming to hop continents at the time, literally like 3 groups (two of which were hermits) of people ended up on a cont that could comfortably hold 5+ villages.

[pagsiu]

Build a boat (tar pits exist) or use a dugout and enter the vortex. Other continents are literally deserted.

what other continents are you talkin about, i know of 2 besides the spawn continent, and they are all crowded by facions,and hermits,

Keep exploring.