EDIT: I now have 138 hours in DST and 11 in Don’t Starve, still using the strategy laid out in this guide. My longest run is somewhere between 100-200 days including deep caves (which I might add to this guide soon but still figuring out).

EDIT 2: I now have 258 hours in this game. Most of the fundamentals here still make sense. There’s more new content than when this was initially written, but it doesn’t have an impact on the fundamentals. Bonus tip: when playing with more than one player, having a Wendy is useful - Abigail (her ghost) does a great job of cleaning up large swaths of enemies (like tier 3 spider dens).

I’ve been playing DST for about two months now. In that time, I’ve learned how to pretty consistently make it through one entire year.

This is absolutely not the only way to play (which is the beauty of the game) but it’s a very linear and consistent direction for making sure you survive at least one year. My longest time with this strategy is day 78 and just destroyed the Bearger… doing pretty well!

How to use this guide

Consider the main section of this guide a walkthrough of the first year rotation. Read through the entire thing so you get a sense of what the goals are and then refer to it as you play.

If you’re unsure about an item, how to get something, or I fail to be explicit somewhere please refer to the Don’t Starve Wiki: http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Don%27t_Starve_Wiki ​ ​

This guide will assume you’re playing as the classic man himself -- Wilson.

I’ve suggested some mods that you can find at the bottom of this guide. They’re very optional but make the experience marginally easier while you figure out the game.

Anyway, here we go!

Basics ● Biome: A type of environment in Don’t Starve. ○ Examples: Forest. Swamp. Savanna. Rock. ● Durability: How many uses and item has (or how long it will last). ○ Example Uses: Butterfly net costs 10% durability each swing. ○ Example Time: While wearing clothing, the % will tick down. ● Food Spoilage: The state of a food item. ○ Green: Fresh = Eat ○ Yellow: Stale = Eat, but loses a lot of bonus ○ Red: Spoiled = Don’t Eat ● Set-Piece: A rare and naturally spawned set of items or structures that behave in an unexpected way. ○ Example: The Icebox trap (which destroyed me in one game)!

Pre-Game It’s important to remember that you cannot survive at night without being near a source of light. A foe named Charlie will attack you if you remain in darkness.

How to survive this: in your pre-camp stage, you’ll want to use campfires (or if you’re unable to make those, have a couple torches on hand).

Fun Fact: The portal you spawn at in the beginning is a source of light. Use that as a last resort.

Pre-Camp

Day 1: Find Flint Why? Flint is used in all the basic tools. Think of getting flint as opening the door to all the other ​ important resources in the game. Where? Flint is often laying on the ground in certain types of Biomes. ​ Notes: If you don’t find Flint by Day 3 you’re not looking fast enough. Gather berries and carrots ​ as you travel to stay healthy but remember your priority is flint. Best case scenario: You find flint very quickly. Then, spend the day picking food and ​ grass/twigs.

Pro-Tip: During pre-camp, find dense areas of trees at night to camp by. Spend the night time logging for wood. This is a great way to maximize your time. If you can’t find trees, you’ll still want to spend the night near some resource -- whether that’s 6 twigs, 3 rocks, or whatever. Using your time in DST wisely is important.

Bonus-Tip: Camping in swamps is a little dangerous early on so I’d recommend staying away from them at night. This is only because you may be unarmed and tentacles are a pain in the butt.

Camping near spiders is also not recommended because they move about at dusk and night.

Day 2-7: Explore the map (Look for the best spot to camp). Also Puppies Why? Because of the problems and encounters that Don’t Starve throws at you, there’s some ​ specific things you’ll want to create your base near. Where?: The primary thing you’re looking for is Beefalo. You also want to hopefully come ​ across spiders, gold rocks, the “chess” scene which has mechanical looking creatures, and a Swamp biome. Other bonus things to find early are the Pig King, Glommer’s Statue, Set-Pieces, and Bees. Note: The reason we want to find all of these is they provide very specific and important ​ resources. ● Beefalo ○ Beefalo wool, horns, and poop. Also protection from puppies. ● Spiders ○ Silk. ● Chess Scene ○ Gears ● Swamp ○ Reeds ● Gold Rocks ○ Gold ● Pig King ○ Gold ● Glommer’s Statue ○ Pan Flute ● Bees ○ Honey Also during these days, you want to prioritize exploration over food. Find enough berries, carrots, and such to keep yourself from starving but not so much that is slows down exploring. You want to know your map.

Doing this with multiple players makes it a lot easier too!

Finally, don’t forget to use roads while exploring. In fact, you should spend about 70% of your time on road while exploring -- only venturing off to find food.

Bonus Tip 1: If you find a lot of Gold Rocks, feel free to begin mining about 3-6 of these. Use the gold to build a science machine backpack ASAP so you can hold more items. You may also ​ ​ want to build a spear and a log suit if you do this in case you decide to engage in combat. ​ ​ ​ ​

Bonus Tip 2: Make and keep a garland on at all times to keep your sanity up (helps early on but ​ ​ after you start developing your camp it’s not worth it). Keep in mind that simply picking a flower gives you about 5 sanity. If you get low, go pick some flowers. Low sanity means you start seeing creatures (other players may disagree, but I like to keep my bars up). That said, no need to panic until your sanity is getting below half.

EDIT: I no longer use the garland. Doesn’t seem necessary. Picking flowers restores sanity, so I just leave them be until I need the brain juice.

The sexiest tips If your sanity is low, cooked green mushrooms will restore 20 sanity at the cost of 1 health. ​ ​ ​ ​ Very, very worth it. If you’re at your wits end, you can even dig up mushrooms with a shovel (but they won’t grow back there). These are found mostly in the deciduous biome. Good to have a few in stock.

Cooked blue mushrooms also restore 10 sanity at the loss of 3 health. ​ ​ ​ ​

Note that this will not work for Wigfrid since she only eats meat.

Puppies After getting the basics of not dying at night and keeping your stats at bay, the first thing that will probably kill you is a hound attack.

At some point, you’ll hear barking and your character will claim that puppies are coming (I forget what they say exactly but it’ll be unprompted dialogue).

Hounds will spawn and chase after your character. This is where living near Beefalo is awesome. Hounds will occasionally bark and when they do, there is a chance they will switch targets if another target is nearby. In this case, Beefalo. The whole Beefalo herd will then turn on the Hound and kill it.

So to reiterate -- when you hear the barking and your character says the puppies are coming, go find the Beefalo you’ve camped near.

You should have at least a Log Suit and if you can, a Football Helmet and Spear ready for ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ when the Puppies come. You can kill a small number of them by yourself with proper kiting (read combat section later which explains this).

If you’re away from camp and this occurs, remember that Hounds can also target other creatures like Spiders and Pigs.

Lastly, you may be thrown off if the hounds come at night. Three ways I recommend dealing with this:

1. Make a Miners Hat ASAP which lets you see at night by wearing it on your head. This is ​ ​ a bit advanced though, especially if you’re going to rush it. 2. Create a campfire near the Beefalo. You could even make two that are somewhat spaced from each other. This creates a large zone of light safety. 3. Carry some torches and use that to keep yourself lit while using the Beefalo for safety.

If you opt for number 2, I still recommend having one-two torches at this moment in case your fire dies (such as a shadow hand).

Day 7-10: Gather important resources and begin camp (Pan Flute) Why? Now that you know where things are, you need to get them! Beginning a camp lets you ​ create structures that help you survive (in a centralized location). Where? The best place to set up camp is one biome removed from Beefalo (this is because ​ they will become aggressive in Spring when they are in heat). The more Beefalo you camp near, the better.

Other things to have within 3-5 biome range are Spiders, a Swamp, and a Rock biome. This is because you’ll want Silk, Reeds, and Rocks easy to obtain.

EDIT: Living near a desert is pretty sexy too, since tumbleweeds are an awesome source of both twigs and grass. Now that I’m better at dealing with puppies (since first writing this guide), I prefer living near desert rather than Beefalo. Both is best ;).

Note: After Flint, the most important resources is Gold. You’ll want to get a handful of it early if ​ ​ ​ possible (to make a Science Machine, Alchemy Engine, Ice Box, Miners Hat, Bird Cage, and opulent tools if you find enough).

Gold is found in following ways: 1. By mining Gold Rocks (Reliable but non-renewable). 2. On the ground in Graveyards. (Unreliable) 3. By giving certain items to the Pig King (Reliable and Renewable).

Early on, Gold Rocks are easier to find than the Pig King and you wanna save your food resources for yourself in the beginning. Because of this, I lean towards Gold Rocks as your first source of Gold. That said, the Pig King is awesome and is a great way to get Gold too. The trinkets you see that get a lot of gold from him are acquired primarily from tumbleweeds and digging up graves.

Another reason why Gold Rocks are better early on is because mining them will provide you with other resources: Rocks and Flint. Mining non-gold rocks will provide you with Nitre (which ​ ​ you will want later).

If you find chess pieces, try and kill one or more Clockwork Knights for gears. Careful of ​ ​ Clockwork Rooks though, they’re basically mini-bosses. I explain how to do combat correctly ​ further in this guide.

Pro-Tip: You can have the Rook run into other enemies to damage them. The Rook will also knock down trees and other resources for you to pick up. I don’t usually do this unless it happens to happen.

Setting Up Camp

The reason you want to set up camp is so that you can leverage your resources better (through structures and cooking).

To “officially” designate a campsite, place down a Fire Pit. Fire Pits are like campfires except ​ ​ they don’t burn out. This means you only need to refuel it at nighttime rather than make a new one (logs, grass, twigs, and a variety of other items work as fuel. Four logs will create a full fire). You’ll build your camp around this.

Next thing to set up is a Science Machine. This opens up a much larger variety of things for ​ ​ you to build.

As soon as you can, you should also build a Crock Pot. Crock Pot is basically cheating. It turns ​ ​ food into super food and with some tricks I’ll explain later, you’ll come to love it.

I hope you got a lot of gold, because next you’ll build an Alchemy Engine right next to your ​ ​ Science Machine. This opens up everything you’d want to build (excluding Magic). Edit: You can ​ click to build your Alchemy Engine in the menu but don’t place it. Then, hammer down your ​ ​ Science Machine and replace it with the Alchemy Engine. There’s no value in having both.

The Crock Pot (and Drying Racks which you’ll want a handful of) requires Charcoal. Charcoal ​ ​ ​ ​ is easily obtained by burning down trees. Careful though -- fire can spread, so unless you want to start a forest fire make sure you keep it contained by burning trees that are spread apart (unless you want a lot of charcoal. Then go ahead and burn trees).

Remember that burning trees means they don’t drop a pine cone which means you’re permanently using up that tree resource. Once the tree is burnt, chop it down with an axe to get the Charcoal.

Finally, you’ll want to build an Ice Box preferably near your Crock Pot. Putting food in an Ice ​ ​ Box will keep it from spoiling much longer (and maintain Ice indefinitely). ​ ​

Start building Chests which let you store more items. ​ ​

Once you have your Fire Pit, Science Machine, Alchemy Engine, Crock Pot, Ice Box, and a Chest or two, consider yourself at home!

Pan Flute

Somewhere in one of the red birch tree forest biomes in your world will be Glommer’s statue (it’s usually visible by a Road). In DST, you’ll find a Pan Flute lying by the statue. You can use this ​ ​ item 10 times to put all enemies on your screen asleep. THIS IS AWESOME and can save your ​ ​ life in tight situations.

Furthermore, they’ve now added Mandrakes to DST which means you can make more pan flutes per world. Check the wiki for more info on this recipe.

Day 11-21: Winter is coming Why? Don’t Starve has four seasons. You start in Autumn, and then it goes Winter, Spring, ​ Summer. Winter is the first one and poses some gameplay changes that you must be prepared ​ ​ for. Winter lasts from day 21 to day 36.

The “Terrible Three” are the most important things to prepare for: ​ ​ ● Freezing ● Increased Sanity Reduction ● The Dreaded Deerclops ​

The following also occurs: ● Bees don’t come out of their hive (less honey) ● Butterflies won’t spawn ● Frogs won’t spawn (ponds become frozen -- no fishing!) ● Mosquitos don’t spawn ● Crops on Farms don’t grow in winter ​ ​ ● Berry Bushes, Grass Tufts, and Saplings regrow much more slowly.

There are some positives though! ● Food spoils much slower ● Pengulls will spawn (though I don’t recommend fighting them). ● More glaciers (ice ice baby!)

Let’s dive into how to survive the “Terrible Three” ​

Freezing During winter, a player must remain warm or experience Freezing. Freezing is obvious as your ​ ​ screen will display an icy effect and you will shortly there-after begin to lose Health. This is no good.

The simplest way to overcome freezing is to acquire a Beefalo Hat before winter. ​ ​

While you can shave Beefalo while they’re sleeping for Beefalo Wool, you still need to kill them ​ ​ ​ ​ for the Beefalo Horn. ​

Because of this, I don’t recommend spending time shaving them (with the Razor tool) unless ​ ​ you manage to get a horn without enough wool. You want to be very conservative with murdering your Beefalo buddies.

EDIT: I’ve done many winters now with ye ol Winter Hat instead of the Beefalo Hat. It’s not ideal ​ ​ but absolutely doable, and if you’re not ready to slay Beefalo then just use the Winter Hat.

The second thing to acquire is a Thermal Stone. This is simple and requires nothing but Rocks, ​ ​ Flint, and a Pickaxe. Simply make one of these before winter and you’ll be pretty good to go.

To use the Thermal Stone, stand near a fire with it. The icon will change color representing it’s heat level (the percentage number on ANY item icon is just how long it will last (see: Durability) not the heat level. This confused me initially).

While the Beefalo Hat and Thermal Stone should be enough, it’s worth noting that Wilson’s Beard will provide further insulation (which, as we’ll see, is not good in summer). ​

Finally, standing near fire will warm you up. Careful -- wearing too much insulation and being near a roaring fire can actually make you overheat.

Pro-Tip: Burn-Hopping If you’re out wandering and find yourself getting frozen, use a torch to burn something (like a tree, sapling, or grass tuft). Standing near the burning object is the same as being near a flame. In fact, you can hop from one burning object to another to travel distances and avoid freezing. I don’t recommend this as a permanent solution though!

Increased Sanity Reduction Sanity goes down at night, and Winter has longer nights. Thus, you’ll naturally lose sanity at a faster rate.

This isn’t as big of a problem as Freezing and much easier to prepare for but it can catch you off guard if you’re not prepared.

Because flowers are not around so much during Winter, I recommend relying on cooked Green ​ Mushrooms and Jerky (20 and 15 sanity, respectively) to keep your sanity up. You can save ​ ​ ​ both of these in your Ice Box to keep them good for a long time.

Other good options are cooked Blue Mushrooms (10 Sanity) and Small Jerky (10 Sanity).

I recommend making a few Drying Racks quickly after you’ve started your base camp to begin ​ ​ making Jerky (six is ambitious but a safe number). In my current game, I had eight (for two players) for winter.

Most Crock Pot dishes will provide about 5 sanity. A few will provide a lot more. Refer to the Crock Pot section for these.

Smart Tips: Making a recipe for the first time provides 15 sanity! ​

The Dreaded Deerclops Each Season in Don’t Starve has a unique Giant. These have special behaviors, movement patterns, and are incredibly durable. In Winter, the giant to fear is the Deerclops.

The Deerclops will spawn around day 26 and head towards the player with the goal of destroying your buildings. If you manage to hit it before it does this, you can change its focus to you.

Because of this, I recommend pulling it away from your building as fast as possible to minimize the damage it will do.

Once you have it’s attention, there’s three ways you could deal with the Deerclops: direct combat, assisted combat, and the Gunpowder Technique. ​ ​

I recommend fighting it directly but let’s look into the Gunpowder Technique first.

The Gunpowder Technique Gunpowder is an item that requires Rotten Eggs, Charcoal, and Nitre to make. Gunpowder ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ can be placed on the ground and lit with a Torch to ignite it. After a short delay, it will explode ​ ​ and deal 200 damage per 1 Gunpowder. It can be ignited in stacks (so a stack of 10 will deal 2000 damage).

Because of this, a popular technique for dealing with literally any of the giants in Don’t Starve is to: 1. Put them to sleep (with sleep darts or the Pan Flute) and then 2. Blow them up with Gunpowder.

A more nuanced version is to only use enough Gunpowder to deal 95% of the damage and then finish them off with something else. This is because the Gunpowder will burn the loot that the Giant will drop (the Dragonfly is an exception -- it’s loot won’t burn).

The reason I don’t recommend this technique is because you need Rotten Eggs and if you’re not fast enough you may not have the eggs by the time Deerclops arrives. This process also requires you to give up some food resources in exchange for the eggs.

For those wondering how to get Rotten Eggs before Deerclops shows up, do the following: ● Make a Bird Cage ​ ● Catch a bird with a Bird Trap ​ ● Put the bird in the bird trap ● Feed the bird meat ● Collect the eggs ● Let them rot in a Chest (not the Ice Box since that will slow the decay). ​ ​

Fortunately, fighting the Deerclops is actually pretty simple (once you get the hang of Kiting ​ which we will go into further in the Combat section later).

EDIT: Turns out, the Giants in DST have more health than their counterparts in the single player game. So, my above math for the gunpowder may be wrong. In practice, I just kite and fight as described in the combat section later.

Double Edit: New strategy is - make 3 Spears, Log Suits, and Football Helmets for each player. Stack food that heals you like Pierogi. Then, each player simply wacks the Deerclops and heals as necessary. No kiting involved but requires more prep. Maintaining light at night is the only issue with this strategy because Deerclops’ destroys nearby structures with his swipe attack.

Triple Edit: If you’re too scared, hide in Caves during winter and you can skip Deerclops spawn.

Direct Combat Because of the way the Deerclops attacks, you can actually Kite it and kill it without taking any ​ ​ damage. Edit: this is harder than it sounds and you’ll likely lose all your sanity. Prepare for low ​ sanity with Cooked Green Mushrooms and Jerky. ​ ​ ​

That said, there are three specific things you need to do to prepare for direct combat with the Deerclops.

● Learn and understand proper kiting technique ● Gear up ● Stock up

Kiting will be discussed in the Combat section later. So let’s go over the other two points.

Gear Up For armor, you should have the following in your inventory:

● One equipped Log Suit with 80%+ durability (Marble Suits slow you down. Grass Suit ​ ​ not good enough). ● One unequipped Log Suit with 100% durability (two or three if you’re not confident in your kiting abilities). ● One equipped Football Helmet with 80%+ durability (get Pig Skins by using a Hammer ​ ​ ​ on a Pig House during the day or the Pig Heads on a Stick). ● One unequipped Football Helmet with 100% durability (two or three if you’re not ​ ​ confident in your kiting abilities)

For weapons, the best option is to have found one or more Tentacle Spikes in the swamp (the ​ ​ Merms and Tentacles will fight each other occasionally resulting in a Tentacle Spike). Try and find these before Winter.

Alternatively, make a Ham Bat or a Spear. Ham Bats do more damage when fresh but less as ​ ​ ​ ​ they spoil. Because of this, they’re a little less reliable (since you don’t really know when the Deerclops comes). I recommend Spears.

Have any one of these three Equipped at 100%. Doesn’t hurt to have a back up but you shouldn’t need it.

Stock Up Being near a Giant in Don’t Starve causes a rapid Sanity drain. This is less scary than it sounds as long as you prepare for the long-fight.

To mitigate this Sanity loss, I recommend having five to ten cooked Green Mushroom and five to ten Jerky. This is conservative. You could probably get by with three of each if that’s all you had.

Remember that you can’t eat and run at the same time so make sure you time things appropriately. Worst thing is getting whacked while trying to down a mushroom.

If you’re well equipped with armor and start with a lot of Health to begin with, you probably won’t need much healing items. To be safe, you could carry 1-4 Honey Poultice (30 Health) and/or 1-4 Healing Salves (20 Health).

These also require you stop moving, so time them wisely during the fight.

With all of that equipment and items in your inventory, you should be prepared to take on the Deerclops head on without much or any loss.

Variables Two things can happen to screw everything up

1. Hounds attack while you’re fighting 2. Deerclops fight happens during Night.

If the Hounds come, disengage from the Deerclops fight and just chase it around with the Hounds. The Hounds should turn on the Deerclops eventually which will end with the Deerclops killing the Hounds and the Deerclops taking a little damage.

On second thought, this occurrence may even be beneficial!

Fighting at night is definitely an issue if you’re unprepared. We don’t want to fight the Deerclops near our base because it will destroy our structures, so what do we do?

The safest thing, if you’re good at kiting, is to have built a Miner Hat. This will let you run around ​ ​ freely during the dark without a concern (as long as the hat remains fueled). I recommend this strategy first and foremost, although it means you can’t wear a football helmet too. Just don’t get hit ;).

Other less effective options are to have a lot of Logs and Grass available so you can run around and place Campfires as you go. This is kind of sloppy though because it can be a lot to manage and you still need to remain within their ring of light.

The jankiest method is to have a handful of Torches and just run around while you wait out night. In any scenario where you stall during the Deerclops fight, you risk losing too much Sanity. This is why I recommend having a lot of Green Mushrooms in your inventory.

Assisted Combat A slightly easier way to deal with the Deerclops is the same way you deal with Hounds -- have other things kill it.

The best creature for this job is a Treeguard. Run near a Large Treeguard so that the ​ ​ Deerclops will deal damage to it with an attack. The Treeguard will then fight it and, slowly but surely, the Treeguard should kill the Deerclops.

Another effective creature is a Walrus Camp with Mactusk. Mactusk uses a ranged attack and ​ ​ ​ ​ can eventually kill the Deerclops while dodging attacks. I’ve never used this strategy but it makes sense.

If neither of those two are available, you can try using Spiders, Pigs, and Beefalo. Be careful about using your near-base Beefalo Herd though, because the Deerclops can easily kill small to medium sized herd without dying itself. Spiders will eat the meat dropped by the Deerclops, so make sure to pick that up quickly. Make sure you get the Deerclops Eyeball too.

Day 21-36: Winter Most of what I covered in the previous section is all you need to know for Winter. Once you’re prepared, you can spend most of Winter just gather food and further preparing for Deerclops.

Run along coastlines during Winter to cause Pengulls to spawn. This is useful because they will leave Rotten Eggs behind in Spring and cause Glaciers to spawn where they nest.

Finally, gather as much Ice as you can. Ice can be used as filler in many Crock Pot recipes. I’ll explain further in the Crock Pot section.

Spring doesn’t pose too many challenges. The preparation for Spring should be the following:

● Make an Umbrella. Have enough resources for two. ​ ​ ● Create a Lightning Rod in your base. ​ ​

The rest of this guide will be a bit briefer. Understanding how to survive Winter properly teaches you the fundamentals of how to thrive in Don’t Starve.

To be explicit, surviving Winter means

● You know how to maintain Hunger, Health, and Sanity ● You understand Combat and how to deal with Hounds and Giants. ● You understand how to maintain an appropriate Temperature for your character.

And at its core, that’s the game. If you can keep your three bars healthy and prevent your character from dying due to nature or beasts, consider yourself a great Don’t Starve player. ​

Even if you encounter something you’ve never seen before, be confident knowing that you can handle anything. It’s just a matter of learning the nuances, behaviors, and patterns of what you’ve yet to discover.

Day 37-56: Spring Spring is similar to Autumn in that there’s no temperature concern. The differences to note are the following:

● The Giant Moose/Goose. ● Rain ● Wetness ● Lureplants ● Frog Rain

Other things to note: ● Rabbit holes close during spring. No more bunnies! ● Bees will all turn red. ● Flowers will spawn during spring. ● Glaciers will melt. I hope you got your Ice! ● Beefalo will be in heat and aggressive towards you (wearing a Beefalo Hat will trick them and stop this). ● Ice Hounds can spawn with Hound Waves.

Let’s dive a bit into the first five.

Moose/Goose The Moose/Goose, unlike the Deerclops, is not unique. There can be more than one during Spring. That said, they do not seek you out like the Deerclops does.

Bonus tip from Griver: Moose/Goose does not have a Sanity drain aura.

Knowing that, you could actually just ignore the Moose/Goose. If you’re itching for a fight, the same strategies for the Deerclops work on the Moose/Goose (with more Gunpowder though).

The Moose/Goose has two behaviors I’d like to point out.

One, it can honk at you and cause you to drop your weapon. Just look for this and pick your weapon up if you lose it.

Two, the Moose/Goose does not have any Area of Effect attacks like the Deerclops does. Because of this, it’s even safer to do assisted combat and use other creatures to deal with it.

Rain Spring is rainy! This results in a handful of things:

● Farms grow faster ● Berries, mushrooms, and other plants regrow faster ● Tracks are harder to follow (for Koelefants) ● Fires will die faster (this means you need more fuel) ● Lightning occurs way more often (build a Lightning Rod)! ● Wetness occurs

Wetness Rain can cause the player, the environment, other creatures, and items to become Wet.

Under your Health, Sanity, and Hunger, you’ll see a Wetness bar appear when you’re beginning to get wet. This will disappear when you’re completely dry.

Things to note about wetness:

● From the Wiki: “when the Wetness meter reaches 35, held items become Slippery, items become less efficient, worn items drain sanity, and the player will begin to Freeze.” ● Soggy food spoils faster. ● Fuel is less efficient. ● Tools and weapons become Slippery and can literally fall out of your hand on the ground. ● Wearing soaked clothing will rapidly reduce Sanity.

The most effective ways to reduce Wetness and dry yourself are:

● An Umbrella (90% effective) ​ ​ ● A Rain Coat (100% effective but requires Tentacle Spots so not the easiest thing to ​ ​ acquire). ● Standing near a fire will dry you.

I always get by on an Umbrella alone and making sure to dry off near a fire if things get too moist.

Lureplants These deserve a note because they’re frightening at first glance yet extremely easy to deal with.

Lureplants are bulbs that spawn Eyeplants around them. Eyeplants are aggressive and will fight anything that comes nearby AND consume any items on the ground.

You only need to deal with the center bulb to completely clear a Lureplant. Use a spear and fight a way through the Eyeplants directly to the Lureplant. Eyeplants should take one or two hits before falling. It’s very simple to do this.

The Leafy Meat that drops is not usable in the Crock Pot. Either feed it to a bird, give it to the Pig King, or cook it and eat it by itself.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t found a good use for the Bulb yet. Planting it will spawn a Lureplant and I’m currently experimenting with the best use for that.

Frog Rain This tends to be a difficult event for me. Arguably the most difficult event in the game from my ​ ​ perspective. I’ve yet to find a non-sloppy way to deal with it. EDIT: Thanks to Reddit, I’ve ​ ​ learned that Frogs can be trapped in a standard trap. Placing a lot of traps when Frog rain occurs will then result in a lot of frogs and meat. This sounds like it’d be the best way to handle this event. That said, I haven’t tried it yet but it sounds legit.

Frogs will literally rain from the sky, and more will spawn as you run around. The recommended strategies for dealing with this is to very quickly run towards another creature like Spiders, Pigs, or Beefalo and use their assistance to deal with the Frogs. You should be prepared to fight them yourself too.

EDIT: In practice, I end up just running away from my base and keep moving until it stops. Yelling is involved. I hate frog rain.

---

It’s worth mentioning that you will need Nitre to build an Endothermic Fire during Summer. ​ ​ Make sure you acquire this during Spring.

Day 57-72: The Summer Heat

The main threats of Summer are Overheating and Drought.

Overheating and Drought Overheating is the opposite of Freezing in Winter, yet the actual gameplay effects are the same.

Drought causes your flammable structures, plants, and creatures to catch on fire. This can be contained by building an Ice Flingomatic (which is mandatory). ​ ​

The Ice Flingomatic can be turned On and Off by right clicking it. The bar on it indicates it’s fuel level. You can refuel it the same way you would refuel a fire. I recommend turning it off at night if you’re at your base.

To stay cool:

● Use the Deerclops Eyeball you got from Winter to make an Eyebrella. ​ ● Put a Thermal Stone in the Ice Box to cool it down. It will hold a chill. ● Build an Endothermic Fire Pit (behaves exactly like a Fire Pit except it cools instead of heats). Make sure this is out of range of the Ice Flingomatic. The Flingomatic will put ​ ​ it out otherwise!

On top of those, you should then consider:

● Seeking out a Desert Biome (if you haven’t found one yet) for Cactus Flowers. These ​ ​ can be used to make a Floral Shirt which is a top tier cooling item (along with the ​ ​ Eyebrella you already have)! WARNING: Picking cactus flowers will deal damage to you ​ ​ which can be reduced by wearing armor (log suit for example). ● Make a Pretty Parasol for further cooling. ​ ​

Besides staying cool and preventing fires, there’s not much more to Summer.

You might be wondering… what about the Giant? Fortunately for us, in Don’t Starve Together, the Dragonfly is always at one specific spot in the map at all times (a Desert area near lava pits). It will actually be there as soon as the game starts and you are free to engage it whenever you like. It will not seek you out.

I recommend the Gunpowder Technique for the Dragonfly, as you have unlimited time to prepare and the loot from it is immune from fire and will not burn if you destroy the Dragonfly this way.

EDIT: I’ve successfully killed the Dragonfly once with another player and it took a lot of preparation. We used a strategy like the one in this video. I don’t recommend fighting the ​ ​ Dragonfly until you’re familiar with the game.

Autumn Round Two The last thing to note is that in this Autumn and any future Autumns, you’ll encounter a new Giant called the Bearger. Bearger can be kited much like the Deerclops. Visit the wiki for more details about his attacks.

EDIT: In practice, I’ve found Bearger easier to kite than Deerclops. If you can manage Deerclops you can manage Bearguy.

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Appendix A: Combat I recommend fighting exclusively with a keyboard. Use “F” to attack and then the “WSAD” to move around during combat. The mouse is too unreliable in my experiences.

Certain enemies can be Stun Locked. When you hit them, they will be stunned for a moment ​ ​ and will not attack you. This means you can just continue hitting the enemy over and over and it cannot fight back. Black Spiders and Bees are an example.

Most enemies have an attack pattern which essentially means they will issue an attack every X ​ seconds. X is different depending on the enemy. For example, Hounds do it every ~three seconds while Beefalo are about every ~six seconds.

Learning the timing for different creatures will allow you to Kite the creature. To effectively Kite a ​ ​ creature, you will hit it a number of times and then move away from it right before it attacks. ​ When the creature attacks, it will stop moving. This means you will dodge the attack. Once the creature finishes attacking, you will return to hitting a certain number of times before running away once more. This process is called Kiting. ​

Here’s a good video of someone kiting a Deerclops and killing it while only getting struck once https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVnvDIxqyEM

Appendix B: Crock Pot Having a Crock Pot makes all your food basically five times as useful. Cooked meals provide much larger bonuses than most normal food. For a full list of recipes, check out the Don’t Starve Wiki.

Why did I have you collect so much Ice in the Winter? Because 1 Meat and 3 Ice = Meatballs. Ice can be used as filler in many Crock Pot recipes.

Furthermore, in any recipe that requires Meat, you can use up to 1 Monster Meat without tainting the dish (any more results in Monster Lasagna which is bad for you).

What this means is, you can use 1 Monster Meat and 3 Ice to restore 62 hunger. This is an incredibly effective way to survive. Meatballs rocks.

Finally, you can use stale or spoiled food in the Crock Pot. This is a great way to get some more life out of your spoiling resources.

Assorted Tips Here’s various things worth knowing:

● Uncooked meat will reduce your sanity. Always cook meat before eating. ● Ice does not decay in an Ice Box (awesome for Crock Pot usage). ● The shadow hands that cause music-box to play can be “killed” by chasing them deep into darkness or by suddenly creating a lot of light. ● Full Moons occur on Days 11, 31, 51, and I’m guessing every twenty days but I’m not 100% sure. ○ You can walk around freely without a light source during a Full Moon. ○ Pigs will become hostile Werepigs. ○ Glommer will appear at his statue (where the Pan Flute is). Check Wiki for his use. ● Night is colder than Dusk which is colder than Day. ● Day is hotter than Dusk which is hotter than Night. ● You move faster on roads. ● Each type of mushroom shows at a different stage of the day. You can hover over a Mushroom on the ground to see what kind it is if it’s not sprouted. Green and Blues are found mostly in Deciduous Forest and Swamps. ○ Red are up during Day. Reds are really useless except as Crock Pot filler. ○ Green are up during Dusk. ○ Blue are up during Night. ■ Blue are best gathered with a Miners Hat. ○ There is one Pan Flute in the game. Use it wisely. ■ EDIT: Mandrakes are now in DST! You can craft some Pan Flutes now!

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TL;DR

Autumn 1. Find Flint. 2. Camp near trees at night and acquire logs. 3. Find Gold. 4. Find Spiders, Beefalo, Swamp, and Chess Pieces. 5. Build a Fire Pit one Biome from Beefalo. Have Rocks, Spiders, and Swamp 3-5 biomes nearby. 6. Build a Science Machine, Alchemy Engine, Crock Pot, Drying Racks, Ice Box, and Chests. 7. Make a Beefalo Hat. Make a Thermal Stone. Winter 8. Have Jerky, Green Mushrooms, Armor and Weapons for the Deerclops encounter. 8a. Have the Gunpowder Technique ready for the Deerclops encounter 9. Kill the Deerclops 10. Gather as much Ice as you can. Store it in an Ice Box. Spring 11. Make a Lightning Rod near your base. 12. Make an Umbrella. 13. Don’t die to Frogs 14. Ignore Moose/Goose 15. Find a Desert Summer 16. Build Ice Flingomatics to prevent fires. 17. Shave your Beard if you have one. 18. Build an Endothermic Fire outside the range of your Flingomatic. It will put the fire out. ​ ​ 19. Make an Eyebrella, Thermal Stone, and just in-case, a Pretty Parasol. 20. Gather Cactus Flowers to make a Floral Shirt. Second Autumn + 21. Deal with Bearger through any Giant killing method.

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But I’m Still Starving! You’re not using your Crock Pot effectively. One Monster Meat (or Meat), and three Ice = meatballs. I’m low on Health! Blue mushroom. Pierogi. Trail Mix. Dragon Pie. Fish Sticks. Healing Salves and Honey Poultices. Jerky and Bacon and Eggs are good too. Use the wiki for exact recipes (you can sort by the different stats to see what recipes have high yield). My Sanity is Low! Cook up some Green Freakin Mushrooms. Pick some flowers. Eat some Jerky. Wear dapper clothing (Top Hat for instance). Stand next to Glommer. Prototype some things (restores some sanity)! ---

Suggested Mods (Optional)

Server Mods 1. Backpack/amulet slot. This allows you to wear a backpack and clothing at the same time. ​ Purists don’t like this but I find this makes the game more enjoyable.

2. If playing with friends -- permanent player map icons. One of the most annoying things is ​ playing with friends and spending 3 days trying to find each other (less relevant once you set up camp). This mod shows you where all players are at all times on the map.

Client Mods 1. More Detail. I have a mod that shows you all the stats you’d ever want to know, but I’ve ​ adjusted it to do nothing more than have a number on my screen at all times showing my health, sanity, and hunger. Lets me just glance over and see how I’m doing rather than hovering over the icons. Not hugely important -- just makes the experience marginally more fluid.

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Thanks for reading! It’s really fun for me to hop into this guide once in awhile and see people reading it. Stay safe out there. I’m @zaccitron on Twitter if you have any questions.