Eatin’ Good in Don’t Starve Together: A Feasible Guide for Mediocre Players

Are you struggling to keep your sanity (or health or hunger) intact while navigating the curious biomes of Don’t Starve Together? Are other survival guides too difficult to keep up with? Then let me offer a warm welcome from one mediocre player to another. Let’s survive together!

Below I’ll be sharing all of the items that I have found to be the easiest to craft for all of our essential needs: surviving day one, building a base, food, and temperature/weather regulation--as well as the materials necessary to craft all of the above. Any tips that I’ve picked up over time will also be included. At the bottom, I will also explain where and how to find each of the necessary crafting materials with the least amount of suffering involved.

This guide is intended to be useful for a single player’s survival, though surviving together with any larger number of players should only make gathering resources easier! Bosses won’t be addressed in this guide, but if that is something you would like to see in the future please leave a comment to let me know (...and allow me some time to defeat them myself).

Day One

Items (and materials to craft them): torch (2 cut grass, 2 twigs), axe (1 flint, 1 twigs), pickaxe (2 flint, 2 twigs)

Your first few days should be spent exploring and stocking up on essential crafting materials like flint, twigs, cut grass, logs, and rocks--hopefully at least one gold nugget too. You’ll also want to grab food supplies like berries and carrots, which can conveniently be eaten without cooking them first. You can keep an eye out for spots to build a base as you explore, but even if you find your ideal location on day one or two, uncover more of the map and circle back later on. Early Autumn is the best time to explore without challenges like poor weather. 

On day one, your minimum goals are to gather materials for (and craft) a torch, an axe, and a pickaxe. The torch will help you see while exploring at night, and the other two tools are necessary to chop trees for logs and to mine for rocks, flint, gold nuggets, and more.

Depending on which character you play as, you may have to tweak the above goals. For example, Wigfrid can only eat meat, so rather than collecting carrots/berries, you might substitute that action with looking for moleworms to collect morsels. Personally, I play as Willow because she makes my day one goals even easier; as one of her starting items is a lighter, this eliminates the need for a torch so early on.

Shelter / Camp

Items (and materials to craft them): fire pit (2 logs, 12 rocks), science machine (4 log, 4 rocks, 1 gold), alchemy engine (4 boards, 2 cut stone, 2 electrical doodad), chest (3 boards), cooking items [see next section]

After a few days of exploring the map, it’s time to think about setting up your base. (You can have multiple bases--I like to build a few camps across the map with at least a science machine and a campfire, but I always have a main base that I invest the most time into.) So where is the best place to set up your base?

When deciding on a location, I factor in many of my surroundings: the biome I’m in, nearby biomes and mobs, and proximity to wormholes. Generally, I like to build my base in a deciduous forest near a pig king or pig village. The deciduous forest is great for cutting down birchnut trees, digging up mushrooms, and finding catcoons. Ideally, I want this base to be near other helpful biomes (grasslands, savanna, rockylands) so resources can be easily gathered during day trips.

Proximity to mobs matters to me because I like to make sure nearby mobs are working in my favor rather than against me. Building a base near too many ponds will be a froggy nightmare, but building a base near just one pond and some catcoons or pigs can be advantageous if those mobs (frog vs. catcoon/pig) fight each other and I get to gather the materials that they drop. Building a base near pigs can be especially helpful because feeding a pig meat makes them follow and help you for the duration of that day. I love it when the pig village does my bidding!

When setting up a base near mobs, keep in mind that even helpful ones can be difficult to live near at times. On full moons, pigs can turn into werepigs! Another example is living near beefalo--I love those guys, but they attack unprovoked when they are in heat, so I prefer them as distant neighbors rather than roommates. Basemates? Anyways…

Lastly, though not mandatory, it feels safer to set up a base near a wormhole because it can be used as an escape route that enemies cannot follow you through. Plus, it’s just convenient for easier traveling around the map.

Now that you know where you’re setting up your base, let’s discuss what items will make this place your home sweet home… or base sweet base. The essentials for your base are a fire pit, a science machine, and an alchemy engine. Campfires turn to ash, but your fire pit will stay intact after burning out; it can be relit each night or as needed. The science machine and alchemy engine are necessary to craft a larger variety of items.

Next, you’ll want to build some chests to organize your items and free up some inventory space. Cooking items such as the crock pot and drying rack should also be prioritized at this time (the next section of the article will go into detail about these items).

Once your base is filled with fiery warmth, sciencey machines, and, um, crocky pots, you might consider building walls and gates around your base for additional safety or taking the time to dig up berry bushes and grass to replant near your base. It’s a great time to start farming crops as well!

Food

Items (and materials to craft them): Crock pot (3 cut stone, 6 twigs, 6 charcoal), drying rack (3 rope, 3 twigs, 2 charcoal), ice box (2 gold nugget, 1 cut stone, 1 gears)

Any good base needs items for cooking and storing your food. A fire pit and a chest are an okay starting point, but ideally you want a crock pot for a wider range of recipes and an ice box to refrigerate food, thus avoiding it turning into rot for longer periods of time. Drying racks are also helpful as they turn meat into jerky, which you can carry with you for twenty days before it spoils.

Of these items, the ice box will likely be the most difficult to craft because it requires gears to build. (I hate collecting gears… but there are tips below in the “Gathering Resources” section.) Don’t be discouraged if crafting an ice box takes time--it’s usually one of the last items I get to despite considering it essential for my base. Focus on crafting one or more crock pots first.

Discovering new crock pot recipes on your own can be a fun challenge, but I’ll start you off with one of the best
and most basic recipes: Meatballs. The recipe for meatballs is one meat item (like a morsel or frog leg) and three filler items (like berries or mushrooms). One monster meat can be used in this recipe as the meat item, which is a great way to use it up without negative effects. Careful though--putting two monster meats into the pot at once will create monster lasagna, which has some downsides. The crock pot is amazing for utilizing food items that are otherwise harmful, as long as you know the right recipe.

Temperature and Weather Regulation

Items: thermal stone (1 pickaxe, 3 flint, 10 rocks), cat cap (1 cat tail, 4 silk); straw hat (12 cut grass), umbrella (6 twigs, 2 silk, 1 pig skin) or pretty parasol (6 petals, 4 twigs, 3 cut grass), endothermic fire (2 nitre, 3 cut grass)

Outside of eating, dealing with the elements is another major part of your survival in Don’t Starve Together--though I can understand why the creators left that part out of the title. Don’t Starve or Freeze or Overheat or Go Insane or Get Attacked Too Many Times is a bit of a mouthful. Your first few weeks of gameplay should be fairly easy temperature- and weather-wise, but once Autumn passes you’re faced with the chills of Winter, the rainfall of Spring, and the heat of Summer. Below are the items that I use to combat these elements, which I believe are the easiest to craft.

To deal with Winter’s harsh temperature drop, you’ll want to craft a thermal stone and a cat cap. The thermal stone can be warmed next to a fire source and carried with you to keep your temperature up while you explore. (When the stone cools, start another fire to warm it back up!) From my understanding, it’s good to pair a thermal stone with insulated clothing because the insulation will slightly slow the rate at which you freeze, giving you a bit more time to heat your thermal stone back up.

The cat cap does not offer as much insulation as other items like vests, but it is much easier to craft in my opinion. I also prefer the cap over the vests because I like to wear a backpack for extra storage, which I can still do with the cap versus swapping the backpack for a vest.

When the weather turns rainy, things start to get really annoying. As your character gets wet, so do the items in your inventory: wet food spoils faster, wet tools slip out of your hand, wet clothing drains your sanity. Being wet can also freeze you! It’s the worst. As soon as it starts to rain, you’ll want to equip an umbrella and a straw hat. (A pretty parasol offers some water resistance if you don’t have the materials for an umbrella, but it is not as effective.) You can also stand under a tree for slightly more protection from the rain!

If you find yourself surviving all the way to Summer, it’s time to avoid overheating. To stay cool, we’re bringing back our good ol’ pal, the thermal stone. Better yet, get yourself TWO thermal stones. They keep you warm in the Winter, and they keep you cool in the Summer. You’ll want to stay near an ice box so that you can keep one of the stones inside cooling while holding the other so that it cools you. When the stone you’re holding gets too warm to help you, swap it with the other one in an ice box. (If you don’t have an ice box yet, you can also use an endothermic fire.)

Gathering Resources

Here’s an alphabetized list of crafting materials mentioned above, explaining where and how to find them all!

Boards: Can be crafted from (4) logs while near a science machine.

Cat tail: A cat tail has a one-in-three chance of being dropped when a catcoon is killed. Catcoons spawn from hollow stumps found in deciduous biomes. They can be killed by six hits from an axe. If you’re scared of this encounter, feed a pig meat to befriend it before attacking a catcoon--then your pig friend will help you fight!

Charcoal: Use a torch or lighter to burn down a tree. After the tree has burned, chop it with an axe to drop charcoal. Forest and deciduous forest biomes have plenty of trees.

Cut grass: Can be harvested from grass tufts that are often found in savanna and grasslands biomes, or collected when dropped by grass gekkos that can be found in rockyland biomes.

Cut Stone: Can be crafted from (3) rocks while near a science machine.

Electrical doodad: Can be crafted from (1) cut stone and (2) gold nuggets while near a science machine.

Flint: You will often find them scattered on the ground. They can also be collected by mining boulders with a pickaxe. Boulders are most often found in rockylands and savanna biomes.

Gears: Killing clockwork creatures will always drop gears. There is also a 3% chance of finding them when digging up a grave with a shovel (though you will lose sanity when digging up graves, and there is a higher chance of spawning an aggressive ghost than digging up the gears themselves). The safest option to collect them is to grab tumbleweeds, but they have a very low chance of giving you gears. All things considered, killing the clockwork creatures is my preferred method for their guarantee of gears dropping. I’m not fighting them on my own though; this is another situation where you may want to feed a few pigs some meat so they will follow and fight for you. The clockwork knights and bishops shouldn’t give your pigs too much trouble. I’ve noticed that the rook is more likely to kill my pig friends, so be careful with them, but even a defeated pig friend is worth some materials (and the pig will respawn in its home a few days later).

Gold nugget: Can be collected by mining gold vein boulders with a pickaxe, or found scattered around graveyards. Boulders are most often found in rockylands and savanna biomes.

Log: Cutting down trees with an axe yields 1-3 logs depending on how big the tree is. Digging up the stump with a shovel yields an additional log. Forest and deciduous forest biomes have plenty of trees.

Nitre: Can be collected by mining boulders with a pickaxe. Boulders are most often found in rockylands and savanna biomes.

Petals: Picking flowers will give you petals. Flowers can often be found throughout grasslands, savanna, and forest biomes.

Pig skin: Pigs have a one-in-four chance of dropping pig skin when killed, while werepigs will always drop it. Pig skin can also be acquired by destroying a pig house with a hammer. My preferred method is to kill pigs rather than destroy their houses because pigs will respawn in their house several days after being killed, and that’s a new recruit for my pig army. Rather than attacking the pigs myself, I usually feed them meat and lead them to other tough mobs so I can pick up whatever materials are dropped by them killing each other.

Rocks: Can be collected by mining boulders with a pickaxe. Boulders are most often found in rockylands and savanna biomes. You will also find them scattered around on the ground at times.

Rope: Can be crafted from (3) cut grass while near a science machine.

Silk: Spiders have a one-in-four chance of dropping silk when killed. Destroying spider dens will always drop silk as well, with the amount dependent on the size of the den. I find it easiest to collect silk in early Autumn before the spider dens get bigger. Feed meat to a few pigs and lead them to the spider den you want to destroy. Let them kill the spiders while you attack the den with an axe or spear, and reap all the benefits--or take on the spiders yourself if you’re feeling brave.

Twigs: Can be collected from saplings most often found in grasslands and forest biomes. Twiggy trees sometimes drop them on their own, or you can cut them down to gain twigs. Saplings replenish after several days, making them the best renewable resource. There are other twig sources like spiky bushes, but those cause you damage, so I stick to saplings.

This brings us to the end of our mediocre player’s guide to Don’t Starve Together. You may not be thriving with these tips alone, but I hope you will at least be surviving! If you have any questions about this guide or aspects of the game that are not covered here, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Before we part ways, I have one last piece of advice. Worst case scenario, if you still find yourself in an unsurvivable situation, don’t forget that you can rewind the server to the previous in-game day in the pause menu by selecting “Server Commands” and then the “Rollback” option. That is probably the most helpful tip I can offer overall! Now, get back out there and don’t starve (or freeze, or go insane, etc…).