Help with Starting Out

[Guest LittleBearI]

Hi. Since the recent changes to hunger, I'm having a really hard time when I start a new game.  I used to just make my first shelter on the first day and wait until subsequent days to find food and expand it.  Now I'm really struggling to both make a shelter and find food, even on a decent starting area.  And when I am missing one element (like trees or grass or a nearby food) because of the biome I spawned in, I honestly just end up dying.

 

I'm hoping that someone can share a tip on how to build a fast shelter without grass for thatch.  I've tried using wood, but it's just so slow to chop all those trees and if you make a mistake in placing a block it's even slower.

 

Can you burn anything besides wood?  I can't cook the food I find unless I'm near trees, which is not a biggie if I found a ripe veggie patch, but what if all I came across was a chicken? (as was the case in a recent game that ended in early death)

 

And finding food... jeez.  There's gotta be a better way than crossing your fingers and hoping you'll run across a ripe fruit or vegetable in that first day.  Animals at least make noise.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy the challenge of having to forage for foods, then move my way up to farming the seeds, etc etc... but it's the first day that makes it less of a challenge and more of a game-breaker.

 

Ack all this whining makes me feel like I'm not being appreciative.  I really love this mod. I read about it in PC Gamer, thought I'd give it a try and haven't looked back. I want to keep playing with it.  So thanks to the developers, and anyone who can assist me.

 

Happy terrafirming.

[Euphoric 48]

I always dig under clay. It provides solid ceiling with 2-4 blocks of height from stone.

[Dano6655 7]

start the game by making two knives at once since you can. Run around and cut all the grass while looking for crops/animals for food. Cut down enough logs for a kiln + fire if you need to cook food and make vessels and jug during first night. You should easily get enough thatch to make a basic hut. if not just dig down and cover the roof only

[Guest LittleBearI]

I always dig under clay. It provides solid ceiling with 2-4 blocks of height from stone.

 

Ah ha!! I knew somebody had to have a solution to a quick shelter besides thatch.  I will try this out next time!!!

 

start the game by making two knives at once since you can. Run around and cut all the grass while looking for crops/animals for food. Cut down enough logs for a kiln + fire if you need to cook food and make vessels and jug during first night. You should easily get enough thatch to make a basic hut. if not just dig down and cover the roof only

 

Thanks for the tips!  I'm not criticizing, but perhaps you didn't get the gist of my post... perhaps I was unclear.  I find it un-enjoyably frantic on the first day when all resources are present... but I find it impossible if I'm missing one of the resources you listed: grass, animals, crops, or trees.  I'm hoping for alternate solutions to the needs of shelter, food and fire.

[PanRouge 5]

I find that food and fresh water are the most annoying things to find. I believe that you will starve to death 24 hours after spawn if you can't find food. Even in real life you can survive a couple of weeks. Water is a different issue and can last less than a week. It would be nice if TFC could modify the times to be 2 days without food and 1 day without water.

 

On a different note, my early survival has been more of an issue of not falling into a crevice. I actually got my first pickaxe in one game, went to dig down for copper, and fell to my death when the ground gave way after removing the second layer of dirt. Two other times, I landed in water below and had to delete the game (hardcore mode). Anyone know a way to reduce the number of mines?

[Guest LittleBearI]

I found a mod that can increase daylength.  I'm not sure how this will mess with decay and all that, but I think for now a slightly longer day will help me for the first days.

 

 

I find that food and fresh water are the most annoying things to find. I believe that you will starve to death 24 hours after spawn if you can't find food. Even in real life you can survive a couple of weeks. Water is a different issue and can last less than a week. It would be nice if TFC could modify the times to be 2 days without food and 1 day without water.

 

On a different note, my early survival has been more of an issue of not falling into a crevice. I actually got my first pickaxe in one game, went to dig down for copper, and fell to my death when the ground gave way after removing the second layer of dirt. Two other times, I landed in water below and had to delete the game (hardcore mode). Anyone know a way to reduce the number of mines?

 

 

Isn't it an option in the config file??  I'm not sure, but worth checking out maybe.

[Atharsea 13]

Unless I have time, I don't usually worry about actually chopping down trees the first day (sometimes because there were none nearby), I focus on food, sticks, water and grass.  I like clay shelter idea though!

[csiler2 3]

I have a similar problem starting out. Before 78 I would gather a few rocks and sticks, then chop down a tree or two, then find a halfway decent spot with good metal nearby before making a small shelter for the night.

 

My most recent game landed me in a large area of Chert plains with no starting minerals, minimal food, and minimal tree coverage. I started heading south, towards the equator and completely ignored a large crevice with a large deposit of copper. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should double back and try to quickly collect the copper before I starve to death :-/

[Omicron 62]

I found a mod that can increase daylength.  I'm not sure how this will mess with decay and all that, but I think for now a slightly longer day will help me for the first days.

 

That will severely screw with a lot of things. TFC itself had it as a config option for a while but it was removed due to the number of issues it caused.

[TomatoThief 53]

Keep at it for another week. By then you'll be experienced enough with TFC that you'll be annoyed with just how much food there is and can't carry.

 

That said, if your sample size is limited to one or two worlds, it's possible you got unlucky. In temperate regions you can't walk for more than a minute without tripping over patches of wild vegetables and fruits. There are cold high hills and mountain areas that can be utterly barren.

 

For shelter, first of all don't place log "trunks" on the ground. Shift right click to create log piles that are easily removed. Make your first course of walls out of dirt on a flat surface (so the dirt doesn't fall), then a course of logs above that. That protects you from everything but spiders. You can place a ring of thatch around the outside as a spider blocker if needed.

[mdtexeira 18]

My general strategy is pretty much as Tomato has said above but with the caveat that I try to find a clay area (marked with the Goldenrod flowers) for my first temporary setup.  That way I can gather clay at night while safe in my shelter, and start baking my first two vessels and jugs.  I usually leave that temporary shelter in place for the first day while I range around looking for food sources.  If I can't find any crops, I'll kill an animal and spend my second night cooking up the meat and making torches.  After that, I take my vessels of food, my jugs of water, pack up my logs (from log-pile walls) and my thatch (usually around 12 pieces...enough for a decent roof and to block the doorway) and head out to scout for a more suitable area.  Until I find a place I'm happy with, I repeat the above.  Basically, at around 1700 hours I begin looking for where I'm going to set up my shelter.  If I can't find clay, I'll set up near a stand of trees such that I can chop wood and retreat inside if necessary.  Otherwise I'll collect more clay.  The first thing I do after setting my walls and roof is digging the pit kiln and starting some more vessels.  By time I find a place I really want to settle (flat, near fresh water, trees, and surface copper if possible) I usually have a few vessels full of various food items, and a bundle of seeds.  

 

That all being said, there are definite conditions that to me warrant a world delete and restart.  There are plenty of places in the world where, were you set down with no supplies, you would not be able to survive.  I went through about 4 worlds before I found the one I'm playing on now.  One was an island (big though it might be) with only a few trees, and they were the kind that don't drop saplings.  Another was another big island (all beach biome) with plenty of food and wood and such...but no copper.  I looked until the end of summer, and I still hadn't found any.  I can't stand panning for metals, especially when the lack of surface ore suggests that having a pick might be fruitless anyway.  There is no shame in deleting a harsh world.

[Guest LittleBearI]

I do fine when I spawn a world with plenty of food nearby, it's when I don't that I'm looking for help with.  I've got quite a few hours of TFC under my belt and yet I struggle in the unbalanced environments.  But thanks for the help anyway.   I do think I need to change my thinking from looking for shelter first, to finding food first.  And be more ready to give up on worlds that are just too hard.

 

But I remembered another trick I had for shelter: pumpkins!  They break easily, but aren't gravity-affected, so they can be stacked into walls.

 

PS thanks Omicron for warning me about changing daylength!  Mod removed!

[Guest LittleBearI]

Sorry to double post... but since I've been playing with this latest release and watching some of the let's plays I wanted to share my insights.

 

I've come to the conclusion that shelter is a luxury on the first day, even the first couple of days.  I've taken to just finding food.  Food food food.  At night I either swim out into the ocean and tread water until dawn, or hide in some tree branches where the mobs apparently can't attack me.  Food is way too easy to find on some maps, and way too difficult on others.  So I turned up the decay rate to x3..  For me this balances things since if I have plenty of food it doesn't just build up, and if I don't have plenty of food I'm eating it faster than it rots anyway.  Once I have a couple of days worth of food I build shelter.  Then dig clay and start my kilns.  Then it's off to the races searching for ores and panning.  I miss sluices, they were so much fun!  

 

So thanks for everyone's tips and especially thanks to those let's play-ers who share their methods.  (Mayaknife comes to mind, among others).

 

[Omicron 62]

It's generally a good idea to make yourself some knives from your first few rocks and then just cut grass as you run along looking for food. That way you may be able to afford shelter even on the first night... even if it's just a 2x2 thatch heap

[TomatoThief 53]

Don't be afraid to roam thousands of meters. Waypoint (use a map mod) features of interest as you go. No matter where you start, something will be scarce. It is more apparent when food is scarce because it is your first critical need. So if you spawn and don't see any food, start running. Craft some knives and cut thatch on the move. Waypoint ores, forests, clay deposits, fresh water ponds, whatever your experience tells you you will need in the future. Stuff is just far more spread out in TFC than your Vanilla instincts will allow you to think is acceptable. 

[Guest LittleBearI]

@TomatoThief: Very good point about roaming. One of my favorite things about this mod is that it forces you to really explore, but even with that I find I'm uncomfortable doing so.  Gotta work on pushing my boundaries.

 

@Omicron: Good thought!  Will do!

[Miner239 47]

Hunt squids if you're really hungry. They drop meat too. I usually settle near a forest or jungle. Spelunk caves for easy ore.

[Doctor_Kisses 0]

Hey folks,

I have a question as a new player starting out too. Figured I would post here before starting a new forum topic on a more or less related subject.  I'm new to Minecraft and TFC.  Got turned on to TFC by Etho's Lab and loving playing the mod!  In my first world I managed to build a miserable hut, barely stave off starvation and thrist for a week, before accidentally immolating myself trying to light my first pit kiln and dying.  Good times!  I started a new world for my next game and have found something odd- It seems that no matter how far I travel I am stuck in the same biome.  I've been playing for at least an in-game week, or several hours of realtime, and have progressed from the starting point to around 1318, 150.  The whole time I have been in a dry plain biome with no end in sight.  Literally have not seen a tree yet.  I've been moving significantly to the east each day and rebuilding my settlement nightly.  Is this unusual?  Did I accidentally click the "only plains in this world" box?  Would changing the direction I'm traveling in help?  I picked east at random to make sure I wasn't running in circles.  Should I start a new world?  I appricate the advice.  Thanks,

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Hey folks,

I have a question as a new player starting out too. Figured I would post here before starting a new forum topic on a more or less related subject.  I'm new to Minecraft and TFC.  Got turned on to TFC by Etho's Lab and loving playing the mod!  In my first world I managed to build a miserable hut, barely stave off starvation and thrist for a week, before accidentally immolating myself trying to light my first pit kiln and dying.  Good times!  I started a new world for my next game and have found something odd- It seems that no matter how far I travel I am stuck in the same biome.  I've been playing for at least an in-game week, or several hours of realtime, and have progressed from the starting point to around 1318, 150.  The whole time I have been in a dry plain biome with no end in sight.  Literally have not seen a tree yet.  I've been moving significantly to the east each day and rebuilding my settlement nightly.  Is this unusual?  Did I accidentally click the "only plains in this world" box?  Would changing the direction I'm traveling in help?  I picked east at random to make sure I wasn't running in circles.  Should I start a new world?  I appricate the advice.  Thanks,

 

If your Z coordinate is 1318 or 150, and you are travelling East (meaning the Z coordinate stays the same, X changes) you spawned basically at the equator. You are only seeing dry plain because it's too hot for anything to grow there. The Z coordinate in TFC roughly represents latitude, with 0 being the equator and +/- 30,000 basically being the poles. 

 

If you want to move to an area where trees and everything can spawn, and perhaps actually witness the seasons change and everything, you should head North or South into more temperate climates. I'd suggest a Z coordinate of about 8,000.

[Doctor_Kisses 0]

Fantastic, thank you!  Also, the video you made on how to instal the TFC mod was a great help.  I was totally confused until I found it. 

[lordbufu 7]

A lot of the reply's here helped me out a lot to get started in TFC in general.

 

But the last world i made i took a challenge upon myself, due to being unlucky with world seeds 5 times in a row (mainly having hard time getting into bronze due to lack of the right minerals with in a reasonable travel distance, tons of iron around though and every type of unused ore (Platinum, Galena, jet etc) :S), that has really helped me master the art of TFC survival.

 

I took the map seed as it was, forgot everything i learned so far and set out on a journey to the cords 0 , 0 , the goal was to arrive alive without building a shelter and while collecting crops and other important resources managing not to waste to much due to lack of space.

 

I arrived at location only barely alive taking dmg due to lack of fresh water as i was swimming the last few blocks.

Ending up on a island with no trees (:facepalm:), only 2 chickens that i have seen so far, but loads of space (possible connects to land mass dint fully explore it yet) and basic ores, sea and jungle islands close by with some good alloy minerals (that i forgot to bookmark :facepalm: again hehe).

 

Now right before the winter is going to hit me i have a agri skill of nearly 200, as its my only source of food, a huge thatch hut as i only collect a few saplings along my way so i have to wait for trees to grow and my fruit trees are starting to produce now aswell (im hapy i picked up some pine saplings on the way, they multiply nicely it seems).

 

Any world ill start after this one is going to be a breeze in terms of survival, there is nothing quite like traveling ~7000 block true land and ocean without a boat and good weapon to defend yourself.

 

Iff every thing else fails this seems to be quite a good way to master the art of survival, and quite a challenge if you dont have a bed of some sort. If i die this winter it will be a harsh travel back to my house so to speak hehehe

Edited 26 Jun 2014 by lordbufu

[TonyLiberatto 364]

If your Z coordinate is 1318 or 150, and you are travelling East (meaning the Z coordinate stays the same, X changes) you spawned basically at the equator. You are only seeing dry plain because it's too hot for anything to grow there. The Z coordinate in TFC roughly represents latitude, with 0 being the equator and +/- 30,000 basically being the poles. 

 

If you want to move to an area where trees and everything can spawn, and perhaps actually witness the seasons change and everything, you should head North or South into more temperate climates. I'd suggest a Z coordinate of about 8,000.

I wish the equator was more closely related to real world since most of the rain forests are actualy located on the equator Like Amazonia, Congo, Indonesia and so on. Most of the deserts are actually on the tropics of cancer and Capricorn like north Africa and Australia.