Let's all not starve (Don't Starve Together)

[GasBandit]

As referenced in the "What are you playing" thread, I'm interested in setting up a server and playing Don't Starve Together with other halforumites. But I need to get an idea of how many people are playing, because I plan to get a commercially hosted server and they charge by the slot. I'm thinking 6 slots at the moment, but if we have enough interest I could easily go 10 or more.

So how about it? Anybody interested in trying not to starve with Gas Bandit? Sound off!



About "Don't Starve Together":

Don't Starve Together is the multiplayer version of Don't Starve, a quasi-lovecraftian survival horror sandbox game with distinctive cartoony artwork.

The point of the game is straightforward: Survive (ie, don't starve). Dumped into a nightmarish isometric world, we lucky few will have to forage, garden, trap, fight and build our way into safety and sustainability as forces both natural and supernatural conspire to shuffle us off this mortal coil.

There are multiple protagonists to choose/be unlocked, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

There are three needs to satisfy - hunger, health, and sanity. If you get too hungry, you starve to death. If your health runs out, you die of your injuries. As your sanity drains away, you will begin to hallucinate, and as your sanity slips further away, your hallucinations will start to become real to you, and will attack or otherwise cause you harm. And if you're ever caught at night in the pitch black without a light... the terrible monster that stalks the darkness will surely devour you faster than you can call for help. And to make matters worse, winter is on the way... we will need shelter, warmth, and enough food to last when the snows come and foraging becomes literally fruitless.

The key to survival will be in a cooperative mixture of science, sorcery, brain and brawn, braving the mundane dangers of the natural world and the horrifying dangers of the unnatural world.

It won't be easy.

We're likely to starve.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

I'm in to starve with you guys! I've got a number of hours under my belt, so I actually know quite a few survival tricks. Not all of them, mind you, but some. I'm not so good in the later part of the game, like winter or brewing magic. But yeah, I'm in.

As I said in the Castle Crashers thread, I work until about 6 PM my time (Atlantic) and have Sundays and Mondays off. Most nights, I'm home by myself, so I'm good for most game nights.

 

[GasBandit]

I'm in to starve with you guys! I've got a number of hours under my belt, so I actually know quite a few survival tricks. Not all of them, mind you, but some. I'm not so good in the later part of the game, like winter or brewing magic. But yeah, I'm in.

As I said in the Castle Crashers thread, I work until about 6 PM my time (Atlantic) and have Sundays and Mondays off. Most nights, I'm home by myself, so I'm good for most game nights.

Part of the rationale behind me getting us a dedicated server is so that, while I'd LIKE us all to be on at the same time for better video-making, we can conceivably have anyone get on at any time - much like a minecraft server.

 

[Dave]

Hey! I've got that game! I've never played it. I think I got it in a Humble Bundle. This might be a good time to fire it up.

Let me know when you gots da server.

 

[AshburnerX]

Part of the rationale behind me getting us a dedicated server is so that, while I'd LIKE us all to be on at the same time for better video-making, we can conceivably have anyone get on at any time - much like a minecraft server.

We're going to need to examine the mechanics of how multiplayer works first. I know that if everyone on a server is dead that it resets but I don't know if that includes people who are offline or not.

 

[GasBandit]

We're going to need to examine the mechanics of how multiplayer works first. I know that if everyone on a server is dead that it resets but I don't know if that includes people who are offline or not.

I think that's configurable. I know it's configurable whether time passes when nobody is on the server or not (and I think we should definitely keep that set to NO).

 

[Dei]

I don't think I own the co-op one yet, but I'd get it if we were playing together.

 

[GasBandit]

I don't think I own the co-op one yet, but I'd get it if we were playing together.

If you own the single player one, supposedly you should have the multiplayer version, too. Might check your library when you get home.

 

[Dei]

I indeed do. Set up remote install because who shuts off a computer anyways. [emoji14]

 

[AshburnerX]

If you own the single player one, supposedly you should have the multiplayer version, too. Might check your library when you get home.

And if you buy the multi-player version, you get a free beta access to toss out to your friends (or maybe it's the full game, I dunno).

 

[Ravenpoe]

I own this game!

 

[PatrThom]

I…might own this game? I'm not sure.

--Patrick

 

[Dave]

So how does multiplayer work in this game? Can you build villages and shit? Can we plant stuff so that we won't clear out the surrounding areas and starve?

 

[GasBandit]

So how does multiplayer work in this game? Can you build villages and shit? Can we plant stuff so that we won't clear out the surrounding areas and starve?

To a degree. You can build walls and shelters, build "farm" plots where you can plant seeds to grow vegetables, and you can use shovels and pitchforks to move and replant turf and plants. So, conceivably, we could build our own "village" type enclosure consisting of the fixtures we need (science machine, alchemy engine, chests and iceboxes for storage, a crockpot, and of course the all-important fire pit for warmth/light in the center), maybe even put up some tents and bedrolls in there though really sleeping through the night isn't mandatory and is often counterproductive unless your sanity is critically low. At the same time we can scour the map for things like berry bushes and transplant them closer so that we can regularly pick berries.

To get all this going we'll need a lot of resources. Not just stone and wood for the walls and buildings and fire, but we'll need poop. A lot of poop. For fertilizer. Farm plots occasionally need to be fertilized, and when you transplant a berry bush it needs to be fertilized after planting or it won't bear fruit. The best source for manure is from a herd of Beefalo, so if we can find a herd that would be ideal - just got to be careful around mating season, they get aggressive. But if we're in a pinch, we can also get manure from pigmen (pigmen villages are fairly common) by giving them food then grabbing the manure they leave behind. It's less economical but better than having no manure. Also, you can fertilize things with rotten biomass - IE, just leaving something out to rot until it becomes suitable.

To start, we'll need these basic resources in large amounts.
Grass (from tall tufts of grass)
Twigs (from saplings)
Flint (found lying on the ground in rocky areas)

These are fairly common and can be found easily - they require no tools to harvest, and are the basic building blocks of simple tools, traps, etc like axes, picks, and snares. Also with a little ingenuity, you can make backpacks and spears. Our tools will wear out and break with use, too, so we'll need a steady supply of the above to manufacture replacements.

The next thing we'll need is large amounts of

Wood (from trees, the larger the tree the better, you get more wood from cutting them down)
Stone (from boulders)
Silk (from spiders and spider nests)

These resources are slighly more involved, as they require tools (or combat, in the case of silk) to harvest. Can't cut down a tree without an axe, need a pick to break up a boulder, and if you're going to attack a spider nest, you'd best have a spear and some manner of protection, even if it's a log armor vest. Maybe bring a friend to help, too.

The wood is used both in building things and as fuel for fire (and being caught in the dark with no light is almost instantly fatal, there's a Grue in this game whose name, ironically, is Charlie). Stone is used in a lot of emplacements - the fire pit, some of the crafting stations, our crockpot for cooking, and of course, it'd be best to build our walls out of stone instead of grass or wood - those things burn like crazy. Silk is also important for making clothing, shelters, snares and other things that need fabric. Killing spiders also drop spider glands, which can be used as healing potions, or can be refined into "Telltale Hearts," which are used to restore dead players to life, for a cost.

All the while we also need to be on the lookout for gold, nitre, and whatever other resources and items we can find that might be useful. It's not just the natural elements trying to kill us, there will be fearsome creatures that will begin to hunt us a week or so in, and we'll need to be ready to fight them (or at least hide from them). And then winter will arrive, and food will be extremely scarce. So in addition to doing all the above, we'll need to be constantly foraging for enough food not only to keep us from starving in the short term, but also to enable us to last the winter.

 

[AshburnerX]

Something that Gas forgot to mention: the entire first part of the game is essentially "eating stuff off the ground until we find gold for the science machine". In order to build more advanced items and such, you need workshop machines like the Science Machine and the Alchemy Machine... and the number one thing you are building towards in the early game is getting those up and running and then getting some gears for at least one icebox before Winter hits. Winter makes getting food hard, so you ether need to be good at hunting by that point or have built a stockpile.

 

[GasBandit]

I might as well go over the available characters, as well.

Wilson:

Wilson the Gentleman Scientist is the first available character in the game. He requires no playing time to unlock, has average stats across the board, and no significant disadvantages. His primary advantage, pragmatically speaking, is that he is the only character that can grow a beard. If you do not shave the beard, in 16 days it will grow so large as to cover his entire body and give him good added protection from the cold of winter. Shaving the beard at any stage of growth provides a small boost to sanity.


Willow:

Willow the Firestarter is the next character unlocked after gaining 160 exp (surviving a full day gets you 20 exp). This young pyromaniac has the advantages of being immune to fire damage, and starting with her own lighter which functions as a weak but inexhaustable torch - which can be used for light or for setting things on fire. However, her max sanity is much lower than Wilson's, and the further her sanity drops, the more likely she is to start fires at random.


Wolfgang:

Wolfgang the Strong-Man unlocks at 320 exp. When his belly is full, he moves faster, hits harder, and has more max health than any other character. However, Wolfgang is terrified of the dark, and things that go bump in the night - he loses sanity 10% faster where darkness or monsters are involved. Also, he gets hungrier faster, and if he goes too long without eating, he gets wimpy.


Wendy:

Wendy the Bereaved unlocks at 640 exp. She had a twin sister, Abigail, who died, and subsequently she is a very morbid little girl. She has the same basic stats as Wilson, but loses sanity more slowly when dealing with the dark or the supernatural. She also carries a wilted flower in her inventory which takes a few days to bloom, and when it does, she can use it to summon the ghost of her sister, who will then follow her around and assist her in combat. To balance this, Wendy's own attacks are 25% weaker than most others.


WX-78:

WX-78 the Soulless Automaton unlocks at 960 exp. It starts off extremely weak, but by eating gears, it can upgrade to become very strong, eventually even stronger than Wolfgang. WX-78 can eat spoiled food with no adverse effects. It is damaged by being out in the rain, but if it gets struck by lightning, it will instantly heal it to full, give it a 50% movement speed buff, make it a light source and make it immune to freezing, all of which lasts roughly 1 day.


Wickerbottom:

Wickerbottom the Librarian unlocks at 1280 experience. Being a knowledgable person, she can craft items at 1 tier lower crafting station than would normally otherwise be required, has extremely high maximum sanity, and can write books that have various effects when read. However, she is an insomniac and cannot sleep. Also, she is extremely adverse to food spoilage - eating any food that is not fresh will have severely reduced benefits, and if the food is spoiled it will lower her sanity as well.


Woodie:

Woodie the Lumberjack unlocks at 1600 exp. Being a lumberjack, he's extremely adept at chopping down trees, and even has a special named axe which never degrades or breaks. However, he suffers from a bizarre curse... whenever the moon is full, or he gets too carried away with chopping wood, he will turn into a Werebeaver. That... can't be good.


Wes:

Wes the Silent... just... don't bother. Wes was put into the game as a challenge to people who thought Don't Starve was too easy. He can't talk, his stats are awful, he does less damage, loses sanity faster, gets hungry faster, and overall just is awful. His only advantage is that he can make balloons which act as explosive decoys. He's unlocked by performing certain tasks in single player Adventure mode.


Maxwell:

Maxwell the Puppet Master, aka "William Carter," is also unlocked by performing certain tasks in the single player Adventure mode. He is dapper, but frail, and can fragment his own mind to make shadow puppets that do his bidding. He also starts with very powerful items in his inventory to give himself an advantage early on. His dapper style makes his sanity regenerate quickly, though he has the lowest max health in the game.


Wigfrid:

Wigfrid the Performance Artist unlocks at 1920 exp. She looks fearsome, but is actually a method actor immersed in her role as a Valkyrie. She has high health, starts with good combat equipment, has good damage and defense bonuses, and gains health and sanity from killing things. However, she can only eat meat. Foraging for berries and veggies, or food grown in farming, will be useless to her.


Webber:

Webber the Indigestible is unlocked from performing certain actions in the Reign of Giants DLC. As a monster, he can befriend spiders in the world by feeding them which will convince them to follow and help him in combat, but other creatures which would be hostile to spiders are also hostile to him. He can also grow a beard made of silk. It grows faster than Wilson's beard but only provides 3/4ths the warmth in winter, and shaving it provides silk instead of beard hair. His max sanity is also on the low side, so you have to be careful about not going insane quickly.

 

[GasBandit]

I recommend giving the game a try in single player mode first, to get a feel for how things work. I probably won't have the server set up until sometime next week, as the beginning of the Cowboys football season is kicking my ass here currently (I'm actually still at work, working on that very thing, right now). Couldn't hurt to get a basic familiarity with the game's mechanics in the meantime.

 

[Dave]

I played a little last night to test it out and actually made it to day 5 before I stopped playing. I never starved, nor did I die. I learned a lot about the early game including trapping and MURDERING cute little fluffy bunnies. I also found poop but got rid of it because I didn't know what it was for. I do have a few questions.

• Eating berries and cooked food makes you less hungry, but what exactly helps your health? I saw some benefit from eating leaves, but only a minuscule amount.
• You run out of inventory space really fucking fast. Is there a way to store stuff?

That's it for now. I did get a science thing and learned how to get new recipes. So in the 5 days I played I found the beefalo and gold so I guess I got lucky or did okay.

 

[AshburnerX]

Notes on the Characters... also, ignore the XP requirement thing because everything is unlocked in Don't Starve Together, probably to facilitate the ongoing beta.

Wilson - The Beard is very helpful in winter, but an issue in Summer. Shaving the beard also gets you a rare ingredient for making something that acts sort of like an extra life.

Willow - I believe starting fires also increases her sanity? Not sure about this one.

Wolfgang - Completely straight forward.

Wendy - I like Wendy a lot. To summon her sister, click on her flower to see if it's fully charged. If Wendy says that Abigail is near then it is fully charged. Then you summon Abigail by dropping the flower on the ground and killing a creature close to it. Abigail doesn't do a lot of damage but she can tank pretty well.

WX-78 - Gears are always at a premium and rain is a constant issue in Spring. This makes WX-78 a great way to piss off your friends.

Wickerbottom - She's straight forward.

Woodie - Werebeaver is absolutely worthless in Don't Starve Together. The Axe is nice though.

Wes - Don't play Wes.

Waxwell - He's not in Don't Starve Together or at least he wasn't when I checked.

Wigfrid - The only real problem with Wigfrid is stocking up enough meat without other players. Fighting is a bit tougher in DST.

Webber - Webber is a bit like a more reasonable hard mode than Wes. Having EVERYTHING aggro on you sucks.

 

[GasBandit]

I played a little last night to test it out and actually made it to day 5 before I stopped playing. I never starved, nor did I die. I learned a lot about the early game including trapping and MURDERING cute little fluffy bunnies. I also found poop but got rid of it because I didn't know what it was for. I do have a few questions.

• Eating berries and cooked food makes you less hungry, but what exactly helps your health? I saw some benefit from eating leaves, but only a minuscule amount.
• You run out of inventory space really fucking fast. Is there a way to store stuff?

That's it for now. I did get a science thing and learned how to get new recipes. So in the 5 days I played I found the beefalo and gold so I guess I got lucky or did okay.

Eating fancy crockpot cooked food also restores health. Using spider glands restores a small amount of health. They can be made into healing salves which heal more. Honey poultices also can do that, if you get a bee box going. Eating butterfly wings restores 8 health (same as spider glands), though if the butterfly drops butter (rarely), that can heal 40.

More info: http://dont-starve-game.wikia.com/wiki/Health

As for inventory space, you can make a backpack almost immediately out of grass and twigs. That will give you 8 more carrying slots, and you can also drop them on the ground to use as storage that way. Once you get a science machine up and running, you can then refine boards from wood, and use the boards to make storage chests. If you're lucky, you'll find Chester during your explorations, a living friendly chest who will follow you around (but not fight, and can be killed). You can have him follow you to be a pack mule, or leave him at base to act like a regular chest.

 

[AshburnerX]

I played a little last night to test it out and actually made it to day 5 before I stopped playing. I never starved, nor did I die. I learned a lot about the early game including trapping and MURDERING cute little fluffy bunnies. I also found poop but got rid of it because I didn't know what it was for. I do have a few questions.

• Eating berries and cooked food makes you less hungry, but what exactly helps your health? I saw some benefit from eating leaves, but only a minuscule amount.
• You run out of inventory space really fucking fast. Is there a way to store stuff?

That's it for now. I did get a science thing and learned how to get new recipes. So in the 5 days I played I found the beefalo and gold so I guess I got lucky or did okay.

Eating food gives you health, but not all food is equal. For instance, flower petals only give you 1 health. Cooking and eating one of the mushroom varieties can give a bit more health than normal but I think it's also a great way to get yourself killed too.

As for inventory space... you can dump stuff on the ground but some things (like food) can be eaten by enemies, including things like pickaxes, gears, and gold. You can build boxes to hold stuff by turning lumber into boards and then boards into boxes.

 

[GasBandit]

Eating food gives you health, but not all food is equal. For instance, flower petals only give you 1 health. Cooking and eating one of the mushroom varieties can give a bit more health than normal but I think it's also a great way to get yourself killed too.

Eating a raw blue mushroom restores 20 health, but costs 15 sanity.

 

[AshburnerX]

Eating a raw blue mushroom restores 20 health, but costs 15 sanity.

Right... which is why it's a good way to kill yourself: low health often means low sanity, which means healing this way could kill you.

On that note, don't make Telltale Hearts at low sanity. It's possible to go crazy.

 

[Dei]

Yes, feel free to wait a week, when I will actually be home!

 

[GasBandit]

Yes, feel free to wait a week, when I will actually be home!

Well, I don't know if an entire week will go by, but I definitely won't be ready to get anything started before the end of this week.

 

[Siska]

Oooh, I haven't played this game in forever!

 

[GasBandit]

Alright, I've procured a server, and I'm getting the basic idea of how to set it up.

We need to decide... what game mode do we want to play?

Endless - players who die become ghosts, and can resurrect themselves at the server's entry portal (in addition to the usual means). Even if all players die, the world continues.

Survival - players who die become ghosts, which cause sanity drain for other players around them. They can not resurrect themselves at the entry portal (only though in-game means such as touchstones or being fed a telltale heart by another player). If all players die, the world resets.

Wilderness - there is no portal, players start randomly dispersed throughout the world. Players who die are kicked back to character selection (no ghosts).

Also, if anybody has any input about tweaking how many of what is spawned, I'm willing to listen. Also, bring up any mods you might want. My inclination is to keep it vanilla, but we can talk about adding a mod if it's reasonable and not unbalancing.

 

[Dave]

Don't know. Don't care. I'll play whatever.

 

[GasBandit]

Alright, if anybody wants to fool around on the server while we work all this out (currently it's in endless mode with vanilla parameters), just search for "halforums" in the server list, server password is gasbandit (one word, all lower case).

I've got a rudimentary camp just south of the entry portal, feel free to take what you need but try not to burn the place down, and if you harvest anything (trees, farm crops) try to replant it for the others.

I'd like to organize a group "don't starve" session sometime in the coming week for us all to get on at once, possibly with the server reset to survival mode instead of endless. Using backups of the saves, I can swap between worlds, so the server can run the endless map when we're not doing anything, and for group (youtubed) play sessions, I can swap out the save to the Survival world, or something like that.

 

[Dei]

I'm getting home in a couple of days, but I think I'll be busy Wed/thurs/Fri this week

 

[Dei]

Also I'd rather people be able to continue playing since death is pretty inevitable.

 

[Hailey Knight]

As entertaining as fear of death would be for Wilderness mode, the scattering and perma-death sounds a little harsh, plus there's no guarantee the different characters will actually meet up in that case.

 

[GasBandit]

Also I'd rather people be able to continue playing since death is pretty inevitable.

As entertaining as fear of death would be for Wilderness mode, the scattering and perma-death sounds a little harsh, plus there's no guarantee the different characters will actually meet up in that case.

Yeah, I don't think wilderness mode is for us. So it comes down to survival or endless. There's resurrections available in both, just one is easier than the other (endless is easier).

 

[Dave]

I got an error message when trying to log in. *sigh*

"[string "scripts/saveindex.lua"]:109: blah blah blah

 

[GasBandit]

I got an error message when trying to log in. *sigh*

"[string "scripts/saveindex.lua"]:109: blah blah blah

From what I read, it's a windows 10 problem.