Came back to BTW with strategies

[jkievlan]

Make that two iron ingots ;) As soon as it becomes morning, im taking my shovels and making a farm plot by the water. Since im in a swamp the squids arent a problem, plus there should be a chicken or two somewhere to lead back... But the witchs are almost an issue. I've seen 2 so far but both have been under safe circumstances.

Yeah...those witches will kill you really fast if you get caught by one of them. I'd move to the edge of the swamp if possible.

[Gunnerman21]

I'd move to the edge of the swamp if possible.

I'm pretty much as edge as you can get. I'm almost right next to the ocean. i guess i should build a dirt wall and light up the area too. Now that i have a hoe i can get a stable food supply :) I guess those golden poos really are lucky!

[Mud]

I'm pretty much as edge as you can get. I'm almost right next to the ocean.

Oh boy... you're in for a treat.

[Gunnerman21]

Don't worry the hats are few and far between ;) I fished just recently, saw some hats, but they weren't close enough to become an issue

[Dorugami]

I find it better to kill the animals the first day rather than burying them, and then you don't run into issues with food the first night.

As long as you don't live in the dessert I find animal-based sustenance a non issue on the first five days. And as long as I have somewhere I can fish at dawn and dusk, burying the animals becomes as much a defense as long-term planning, considering the mobs aim for them first and the resulting early morning loot fuels my fish supplies. Caged* sheep and cow also give early game renewable armor and food, which is always a bonus for the simple price of a bucket and shears.

[Mud]

New strategy: Not setting up my first hiding hole near/under a body of water.

"Oh look, clay!"
*dig dig dig*
"Oh, I hit the water, better just plug that up with some dir.."
A WILD HAT APPEARS!
You Have Died.

[Gunnerman21]

Somehow I'm still at the first hidy hole i started with, i have a hemp farm going with 9 plants, a tamed wolf, a chicken (soon to be 2), and a steady supply of fish.

I'm sorry for everything I've done/said in the past FC! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!! This is the most fun I've had playing a game in sooo long! I don't care if you have spiked tentacles, I wanna give you a hug...

Back to topic.. my base is directly next to the ocean. Idk why all you are having hat trouble, I always check the water before fishing or swimming or something. So far the hats haven't been too close to shore so I tend to use up all my bait for fish. I have a makeshift dirt wall set up around half my peninsula and I'm planning to light it up someday soon.

Actually, considering the bait for fish comes mainly from zombies, I won't light up anything on the surface for now. Cause I'm relying on that morning sun to bait my hook :)

[FlowerChild]

ZI don't care if you have spiked tentacles, I wanna give you a hug...

Whoa, whoa whoa!!!! Human contact burns my enderflesh. Back off cowboy :)

Glad you're enjoying it man. Good stuff.

[Gunnerman21]

When I get enough materials, I'm gonna construct a big monument to the golden dung i started with :) I have no clue if you were joking about its luck, but one thing is for sure: It's a lucky son of a turd. I keep my golden poo with me everywhere and its seriously been paying off.

[FlowerChild]

I have no clue if you were joking about its luck

I think the fact that you have your doubts about the above is the strongest indication so far that you're losing your "noob" status :)

[Gunnerman21]

I think the strongest indication is that i havent died one single time in my most recent world :)

All thanks to the power of the lucky golden poo!! I really am gonna build a temple/shrine thing for it later ;)

[DNoved1]

Don't forget to keep it in your hotbar as much as possible. I've noticed a correlation between time spent anywhere else and occurrences of bad luck.

Based on this I can only conclude that golden poo's luck derives from its shininess, and keeping it in your inventory constantly allows the player to constantly polish it.

[FlowerChild]

I think it has to do with harnessing the inherent evil power of wolves, and then using a reflective material to both contain and focus it.

[dawnraider]

Of course, rubbing it incessantly does help.

[Gunnerman21]

I cant remember the last time i removed it from my hotbar, and yes i do wave it around in the air after a good day's fishing ;) One day I had caught 9 fish, all before sunset, no rain at all. Whats the usual amount of fish people get per day? (of those who rely on fish)

[jkievlan]

I cant remember the last time i removed it from my hotbar, and yes i do wave it around in the air after a good day's fishing ;) One day I had caught 9 fish, all before sunset, no rain at all. Whats the usual amount of fish people get per day? (of those who rely on fish)

I rarely fish unless it's a full moon -- but remember the hats are active at night so it's important to have a raised fishing pier if you're going to do night fishing. During a full moon I can collect 1-2 stacks (16-32 fish). If I'm short on food, that's easily enough fish to get me by till the next full moon.

[jkievlan]

A note, though: I find that if I collect chickens/pumpkins early on and combine their eggs with pork chops to make ham and eggs, I can easily sustain myself with no fishing and very little hunting (considering 1 egg+1 chop=6 hunger pips).

EDIT: To clarify some numbers, my last hunting trip netted me enough chops to make 80 ham and eggs, which works out to 24 full hunger bars. It takes an awful lot of time to use up that much hunger :)

[Gunnerman21]

What about mushroom omelets? You can easily dig out space for a mushroom farm in a few days time, plant a couple shrooms, and make mushroom omlets with those eggs. Both are early game renewable and you get to save the porkchops for another day.

Ingredients by themselves are 0.5 for the 3 mushrooms, 1.5 for the egg, and 2.5 for the porkchop.
Making the omelet gives 4 pips and 2.5 left over. Making the ham n eggs gives 6 pips and 0.5 left over... wait a minute...

Oh FC you sly master of game design you ;)

[Crazylemon64]

Ingredients by themselves are 0.5 for the 3 mushrooms, 1.5 for the egg, and 2.5 for the porkchop.
Making the omelet gives 4 pips and 2.5 left over. Making the ham n eggs gives 6 pips and 0.5 left over...

The hunger value for the ingredients of a mush. omelette is 1.5 (egg) + .5 (mushroom), for a total of 2. Thus, creating a mushroom omelette results in a net gain of 4 (produced) - 2 (ingredients) = 2 gained hunger points.

For ham and eggs, the hunger value for the ingredients are 1.5 (egg) + 2.5 (porkchop), making the ingredient cost 1 + 3, or 4. Therefore, the net hunger gain for ham/eggs is 6 (produced) - 4 (ingredients) = 2 gained hunger points.

However, this concerns only the efficiency of investing eggs in existing food supplies; for me, egg was rarely a limiting factor in food production, as pumpkins produced more than enough seeds to keep my chickens fed and producing many eggs. Making ham and eggs is not a waste of ham nor eggs, as regardless you extend a limited food resource (ham) to a twice as plentiful and slightly more effective food source that feeds you twice as quickly as eggs on their own do. Mushroom omelettes are also a good investment of eggs, but then again eggs do not limit the production of mushroom omelettes, rather, the mushrooms do.

Mushroom omelettes have the advantage of allowing you to stay local, saving time spent on traveling hunting as all the food can be made in your base.

However, Ham/Eggs have the benefit of not requiring a sizable chamber dug out for the production of mushrooms, which spares you the time cost of excavating such a chamber.

Frankly, it comes down to your playstyle, as there isn't really a "best" solution to this. Heck, you can even do both! It's not a binary choice.

Other foods... There's chicken, there's fish, there's cocoa, steak, the occasional sandwich if you find bread in a dungeon... I suppose you can also make chowder and chocolate, if you can find and shelter a cow, but that's a bit into the early game.

[FlowerChild]

Frankly, it comes down to your playstyle, as there isn't really a "best" solution to this. Heck, you can even do both! It's not a binary choice.

Which makes me happy :)

Obviously, if there were a clear cut winner, it would tend to indicate the balance of the early game foods is off.

[MaxAstro]

My roommate and I spend basically our entire game so far working towards a single goal: Renewable ham and eggs.

I am happy to say we recently achieved it, and it's definitely something worth working towards in the early-ish game.

Sugar is really easy to grow in large numbers, and eggs of course are quite easy, too. A daring jungle raid resulted in a modest cocoa farm, which produces cocoa ~just~ fast enough. Meanwhile, I managed to rescue a half dozen cows and two pigs... and ~bam~, suddenly we are set for food.

Even counting the fact that I am manually grinding the sugar and cocoa, and using logs to heat our cauldron (which is just annoying enough to be fun), we produce enough chocolate to breed enough pigs to make enough eggs and ham to keep ourselves well fed.

Now to just get a windmill and some netherrack to make the process a bit simpler...

[jkievlan]

Frankly, it comes down to your playstyle, as there isn't really a "best" solution to this. Heck, you can even do both! It's not a binary choice.

Oh, I do. I plant mushrooms as soon as I have any, and make omelettes as well to cut down on time I have to spend hunting. However, it takes a bit of time to get a good mushroom farm growing so in the very early game it's much easier to get pork chops than mushrooms (especially since you need three for each egg).

[DaveYanakov]

I usually make the highest caloric value food I can in order to cut down on stack sizes. Ham and eggs allows me to only eat when I get down to peckish which means much less time spent scarfing in the field and half again longer range per inventory slot away from the home base.

[EtherealWrath]

When I'm close to home, I've usually got a stack of whole melons in my inv- fairly good for filling yourself right before dawn. Usually lasts most the day. Night time is good for chewing stuff.

If I'm out in the field, I carry the ingredients for the higher foods- take raw egg and hopefully find a few pigs/shrooms en route.
Flour is a godsend if you get it; 2 stacks= 256 sandwiches.
-At night prepare enough for the next day, and a little extra left in a chest with cobblestone and wood.

[Gunnerman21]

That sound pretty efficient. One melon is equal to one porkchop or steak, even though it does require more chewchewing