Early Survival in Sandbox
By FireManeDavy.
Are you struggling to survive in the sandbox on higher difficulties? Do you need a general template to have a decent start because you are completely new? Then, I hope this guide will help!
First Thing Is First!
Once you get out of the tutorial area, you’ll need to prioritize a couple of things, you need a weapon and protection. As soon as you can, craft An oaken shield and an improvised axe.
You’ll find in the sandbox, they’re a lot of enemies roaming around and they do call for reinforcements more often. Bash with your shield to knock enemies over to help you control the space. You can jump and attack to do an uppercut that knocks them over and partially charge your attacks to do some more damage. The oaken shield at the time of this writing has a cheap build cost and is pretty resilient to give you some basic protection.
Find Iron and Coal
Mine a stack of iron and coal (it’ll amount to about 30 each). You’ll need the coal to build a small hearth that’ll help you in securing your encampment. A stack of each will give you a bit more than enough to build it and won’t take you too much time either. Save your stone too.
Gather Food
A lot of the early-game stuff will need hide scraps. You can get this by killing the boars & wolves. Boars, wolves, and snack rats will drop meat too. Gather mushrooms as well as cranberries to ensure you have food for all of the game’s main buffs (Early bird in the morning, Renewed for Lunch, and Productive for the Night) – the recipes that call for these buffs will need cranberries, mushrooms, and meat. Eat them at the right time to get the buff. The strongest of these is early bird and second breakfast (2 helpings of breakfast).
Set Up Camp Near Resources
Find an area, preferably near cranberries in an RNG building to set up a camp. Your inventory space is limited, so keep that in mind when you’re picking up items early in the game. An optimal starting base location will be in the Westgate, next to an elven quarter tile. It will also be one that is near or has some cranberry plots. Once you fortify your base with stone walls at the entrances, set down your bedroll, build a furnace, smelt iron ingots, and build the forge. Build a chest to dump items you don’t need. I like to separate a food chest and an everything-else chest at the start. I highly recommend prioritizing the repair smithy before other weapons.
Get More Resources
Get enough iron, coal, cloth, and hide scraps to make some new weapons and gear. Build the hammer and carry the stone on you to discover new recipes. When you have the Iron Hills chest, gauntlets, and a good shield head into the elven areas to gather some elven wood (gathered by chopping down trees in elven rooms). Make yourself a bow and some arrows by building the workbench. You do not have to wait to have armor before going into the elven areas, but, I would recommend it.
Do Not Be Afraid to Be Nomadic
Don’t stay attached to one location too much. Sandbox is vast and until you can fast travel, you’ll often find yourself far from your base. Bring the materials with you to build a campfire, a repair smithy, and some basic food to sleep to prevent the exhaustion/ tired buff from eating your stamina bars.
You Might Have to Travel Through Harder Areas to Get to Where You Need to Go
If this is the case (it should be rare), sneak around or kite enemies to fight one by one. Or hit them from a high spot with your bow. Use the game’s Abakh buffs to help you a little more if you do find yourself in situations where you have to fight through harder areas. Some armors help you with certain things. Such as the new Blue Mountains gloves that make you fire arrows faster. Pay attention to armor descriptions.
These tips together should get you a decent start almost every time in the sandbox. Refer to my other guide, “A Quick Guide to Sandbox” if you need help with navigating sandbox mode.
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