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Card Survival: Tropical Island is an indie survival game that is being made by Winterspring Games, and is a darling of the SA Survival Simulation thread. Played entirely though a card-based interface, the deceptively simple appearance hides a very deep and complex game that tracks everything from the number of callouses on your feet to the total number of birds left on the island. It is a very difficult game and it requires a lot fo exploration and diving into how all the mechanics work together to allow a character to just barely survive, or in many cases die by a thousand little cuts. CS is currently avalible on Steam and Android, although there is not cross-platform cloud syncs and Android versions cannot share saves between devices. The game is very detailed, and a lot of mechanical oddities are really critical to know about in order to be successful at the game. However, as a lot of the game revolves around exploration and finding new, cool areas to loot for twigs and lizard poo poo I ask that tips that involve specific locations be spoil tagged, including Bird Island, copper sources, the Volcano, and other special spots you find later in the game. This rule can be revoked by community request if it becomes burdensome. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 16:18
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Reserved for tips Day 1 Starter Tips - There's no shame in running with Safety Mode on for your first runs. It won't save you from dying of dehydration but it'll prevent you from ruining a run because you got unlucky on a roll and broke your legs. - Coconut water can sustain you for a short time but you can only drink it in moderation, as it will increase your stool liquidity and make you lose water faster than you gain it. The same applies for the meat. - Read the help entries for items (question mark on their detailed cards) and pick them up to see what other items glow. There's a lot of surprising interactions that can help you down the line. - Use a small rock on a large rock to sharpen it into a blade. This can be used directly or used with wood to make an axe, which can be used directly on the area card for wooded areas to get wood and sticks. - Your primary source of water is rain, and it can be collected in any container you have on hand. Early on this will be coconut shells, which you can set to collect rain using their pop up menu. The Hunter also starts with a water bottle in his equipment (click on his face on the UI) that he can drink from. Partially filled containers will automatically gather rainwater, including carried containers. - Water is a flat dehydration level, if it gets to zero then you die. Food is a hunger level that makes you extremely stressed if it is at zero, but it instead causes you to start burning through body weight very quickly. Managing your weight is a long term goal, and if you are really active without resting while also eating low calorie (but stomach filling) foods then you will shed valuable weight really quickly. A 15 minute rest when the game says that you are feeling tired is invaluable over time. - Food satiation is how sick you are of eating one food. Having five bananas in a sitting might fill your stomach but you will get really nauseous and throw up afterwards. Space foods out and get a variety. Satiation goes down over time, and is accelerated if you are really hungry. - Every stat that is tracked can be seen in your character menu via the tabs. It's worth looking through them to see what you need to keep an eye on. Stats can be pinned from this menu to keep them on your sidebar view. - The game year is around 90 days long, and it is broken up into three seasons 30 days each. The first is a balanced season without storms and with a decent (but not necessarily frequent) rain. The second is a storm season with tons of rain which will batter you around on the coasts and chill you if you spend too much time outside. It'll rain almost every day. The third season is the dry season, and this is the run killer. Around 30 days with nearly no rain whatsoever, where you will have to live off what you have collected and built aside from small pools that can be found around the map. You'll lose a lot of water to evaporation, and it's not uncommon for people to make it through with their characters on the verge of death, sucking water from whatever plants they can find. These seasons are not strict; it isn't guaranteed to rain on the 91st day, and sometimes the first several days of a run will see little to no rain. But the long game is to prepare for the dry season in any way you can. - Encumbrance is largely an issue for tasks that require you to walk around, ie exploring and moving between areas. A yellow warning doubles the time it takes to move and drains more stamina, a red warning is 4x or more. Try to stay under red as much as you can, as two trips without yellow encumbrance is the same time as two with. Containers like backpacks and travois add to your total weight just by being in your inventory, but they also offer a heavy weight reduction on the items inside to cancel it out. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 16:19
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There are tons of tips buried in the survival simulation thread https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3655873, do a search there. I would recommend installing some of the quality of life mods especially detailed card progress. I've played a ton of card survival, largely without them but installing that stats mod really showed some important things I wasn't aware of. Devs say there are no more planned patches beyond bugfixes from the devs, so the only game improvements are going to be from mods. The general theme of this game is "lack of meta knowledge will get you killed." and you gradually get better and die less as you discover/understand more mechanics. It is an absolute must to understand there is a 4 hour linear soft cap to powerleveling skills. If you do two of the same thing right after each other you will not gain a skill for the second action, after 2 hours it's a 50% chance, and after 4 hours you will always gain skillup for both. Each "action" has a unique counter that is tracked separately, and that "Detailed Card Progress" mod will show you these as cooldowns. Second most important thing to understand is this is a time management / optimization game, so always be aware of the opportunity cost of doing a thing. You are racing the clock for the majority of the game so be time efficient in all actions when possible. One of the strongest mid-game investments is making paths, even if it only saves you an hour a day in travel time your break even time is only a few weeks. Two tips that haven't been mentioned in a while: Making bone needles takes 15m and increases crafting by 1. You can also make bone hooks for more xp but bone needles can also be put in the fire as fuel (+5% stove) and 3 of them make enough burn time to get 100% charcoal (which you should scrape and save early game for kiln, and save the ash for farm plots). I disagree that you have to (or even should) rush cistern, a reservoir is less than half the price in materials and is much sooner in the tech tree - if you're worried about running out of water, you can build two of them for less effort than a single cistern. IMO the most critical things in any run are gated by skills, and so unless you are doing some copper tool or hut speedrun trying to work skill gain 1-2 times a day if possible (morning and night) is the way to consistent success. You can do it every 3-4 hours if you are stuck inside but best times are from cook light just before sleep (eat in darkness, esp 15m low-calorie eats like seaweed) / just after you wake around 4a. Skills to train every day, if possible - Critical Unlocks - Best way to daily level. Sorted by importance Crafting - Travois, Stone Hut, Basically everything. - Bone needles+hooks every 4h, cheap blueprints like Hand Drill, Bone Flute Woodworking - Wooden Figurines, Chair, Table, Bookshelf, Drum, Bow, Shovel - Cutting firewood, Wood Shavings with sharp knife (can be done in darkness!!!), Wood Carving for figurines for entertainment Herbology - Aloe, Crop Plots - Harvesting plants, grinding them. Just avoid harvesting/grinding same plant multiple times in a row and harvest+grind 1-2 plants every day Tailoring - Sack, Spindle, Hammock - Making Fiber cords, ropes, loom weaving. Like Herbology, spread out your fiber cord making to maximize levels and work it into daily routine Swimming - For getting out to the shipwreck for scrap+jerrycan - "Dive" 1-2 times a day for entertainment and sometimes food Trapping - Partridges for eggs + feathers, Trapping pits - Resetting traps, trap triggered. Use fish scraps > worms (search wetlands cave) > rotten remains > Seaweed, but seeds best to capture birds in snare. Use least durability bait for most trap triggered xp. Spearfighting - Hunting+Defense - You can train with anything with a handle including the broom, you should try and work this in every day until 25-50% to avoid a run ender Archery - Hunting+Defense, combat opener - You can hunt in the bat cave for 30m instead of an hour but this takes forever to level regardless. Optional skills: Knapping - Obsidian Knife - Obsoleted by copper so only really useful for Obsidian knife. Only worth for hunter who starts with some knapping, since you can get a copper knife fairly early if you know how. Fishing OR Spearfishing - Harpoon or Fish Trap - Pick one to initially focus on. Spearfishing is twice as fast but risks shark bite, Fishing gets you the fish trap for free dry season food. Both are useful during most non-farmer runs. Do it in the Mangroves for the chance at king threadfin. I've never tried a sling focused run, I have no idea if it's viable. The rest of the skills you get by just playing and aren't worth working into your "dailies". Bhodi fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 16:45
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Bhodi posted:I disagree that you have to (or even should) rush cistern, a reservoir is less than half the price in materials and is much sooner in the tech tree - if you're worried about running out of water, you can build two of them for less effort than a single cistern. Cisterns are mostly good for not evaporating during dry spells. They are admittedly pretty intensive to build, especially if you are far from a source of sand, but with the reservoirs you end up evaporating a gigantic percentage of your water over just a few dry days. However, if you are diligent then a well can sustain reservoirs some and takes less materials to build, aside from the effort of still having to dig. I wouldn't say you have to necessarily "rush" them but they are very helpful, and I would absolutely have one by the time the dry season starts. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 17:10
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There's no way you're going to have a cistern built by day 60, it's not happening without extreme effort nor is it necessary. Maybe by the second dry season, it's a very "nice to have". You're wrong and giving bad advice to people who aren't experienced in the game to suggest they push for a cistern that early. Consider: Water Reservoir: 12 TP + 36x Mud Brick + 6x Clay Mud Brick: 1 TP + 1/3rd TP for mud + 1/3rd TP for sand Clay: 2 TP + 1/3rd TP for gathering mud Total cost: Access to mud+sand, Excluding travel time/costs, minimum time to craft: 12 TP + 36x Mud Brick (60 TP) + 6x Clay (14 TP) = 86 TP = 21.5 hours Cistern: 104 TP + 1x Shovel + 40x Stone + 24x Mortar + 12x Quicklime + 3x Clay Vase (75% Water) + 3x Long Stick + 6x Fiber Cord + 2x Rope + 1x Bowl Mortar: 3 TP + 4x Sand (1/3rd TP) + 1x Quicklime Clay Vase: 3 TP + 4x Clay (9.3TP) + 2x Temper (.2TP) = 12.5 TP Long stick: 2 TP Fiber cord: 2TP ( 3TP extract + 1TP makes 2 cords w/ spindle) Rope: 4TP (2 yarn is same TP as above) Wood Shovel: 16 TP + 1x Long Stick (2 TP) +2x Fiber Cord (4 TP) + 1x Half Log (4 TP Felling, 4TP strip, 8TP split in half) + 1x Axe = 38 TP Total cost: Access to 40 stones (this is a lot for early game), built kiln, fired stones, Scrap Axe (Add 16TP with basic axe) woodworking OR scrap/copper shovel 104 TP + 1x Shovel (38 TP) + 40x Stone + 24x Mortar (20 TP) + 12x Quicklime (2 TP) + 3x Clay Vase (37.5 TP) + 3x Long Stick (6 TP) + 6x Fiber Cord (6 TP) + 2x Rope (8 TP) + 1x Bowl = 221.5 = 55 hours And that's not including build/gather time for the kiln or the axe. I'm not telling people how to play but there's a clear investment here that's only useful during the dry season and you're paying twice the TP for what is essentially 0.5 reservoir's worth of evaporation. You can already survive dry seasons quite easily on puddle water and a single reservoir, or, if you're experienced using the cave puddle, the 2 wetlands puddles, filling up your containers and maximizing the likely single rain you'll get during the dry season to refill as much as possible, and in an emergency drinking nipa palm sap and banana stems. I would rather have 1 reservoir and 8 sealed pots (10 TP ea) and drawing down the reservoir as fast as possible rather than putting so much time into a Cistern which is really only going to be useful in the dry season. Sure it's nice to have eventually but if you're rushing to get ready before that dry season you should be spending that build time leveling skills, growing/harvesting crops, making shelter, and getting access to shipwreck and/or copper instead. That's a much better use of your time overall. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 18:26
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Bhodi posted:There's no way you're going to have a cistern built by day 60, it's not happening without extreme effort nor is it necessary. Maybe by the second dry season, it's a very "nice to have". You're wrong and giving bad advice. I mean it might not be the best use of your time but you can absolutely do this before the dry season, I did it on my last run as the Hunter and it's easy for the Farmer, whose biggest concern is mostly getting sand. It's largely a matter of collecting stones as you go around and (for the former) regularly chopping wood to get your woodworking skill up. VVV All depends on your priorities I suppose. My hunter was pretty set in a mud hut with copper tools, a cistern/water cleaning system, and was set to expand his grassland farm with a good amount of time to spare when a boar broke my leg and I went insane. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 18:33
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That's called rushing and you're giving up a lot of other things to get there. All that to prevent the loss of 1-2 week's worth of drinking water from evaporation that you can scrounge elsewhere. There are valid reasons to rush shelter, forge, crops, but cistern? No. It can be done but there's little advantage in doing it.
Bhodi fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 18:34
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CuddleCryptid posted:VVV All depends on your priorities I suppose. My hunter was pretty set in a mud hut with copper tools, a cistern/water cleaning system, and was set to expand his grassland farm with a good amount of time to spare when a boar broke my leg and I went insane.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:41
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Bhodi posted:That is not a remotely typical run for a moderately experienced person reading this thread for advice. This is a fully-optimized moderately lucky run from someone who knows exactly what they are doing in the game. That's why I'm saying it is bad advice for the target audience. You're giving speedrun strats with a narrow execution window and no safety buffer to someone just trying to survive their first 90 days I was responding to a part of your post that you had left in when you copied it out of the Survival Sim thread, I'm not saying it is critical to new players coming in for the first time. I think you're overestimating the difficulty of doing it, but whatever. Let's just say it's something you need to know where to go to do, not 100% optimized, and not for new players, and let the topic drop. VVV Agreed CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 18:48
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I agree that there's no "wrong" way to the play the game if you can get to the end of the run, and people can and will find their own path
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Sep 5, 2023 18:54
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Anyways, I would reiterate for new people what Bhodi said about skill gains and their four hour cooldown. Sitting down and doing a task ten times in a row is hellishly inefficient at training skills compared to spreading it out. Sometimes it is unavoidable, you just need to have several of something to survive, but if it is a long term task then you really want to space it out to a handful of times per day.
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Sep 5, 2023 23:38
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As long as you're not doing custom-tailored challenge runs the game is very forgiving if you do the minimum of preparation. With that said you can stack challenges to the point of absolute brutality that requires near-perfect timing to survive if you really want to use every mechanic.
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Sep 6, 2023 00:05
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Some early-game tips off the top of my head (mostly Hunter-oriented, some of this may be more or less relevant depending on your starting character): - Processing snakegrass or coconut husks gets you fibres, combining two fibres gets you a fibre cord. You'll need a ton of these down the line, but making your first one gets you the Coconut Sandals recipe which should be one of your first priorities for research. Having shoes of any kind equipped significantly decreases the wear and tear on your feet for travel and exploration, and protects you from sharp stuff on the ground. - Eating too much of any one kind of basic food causes Nausea, which makes you stressed and causes you to throw up if it gets too high, so try to vary your diet. Bananas, puffballs and lemongrass are easily harvestable from plants, and miscellaneous crustaceans can be harvested from foraging pools for decent early-game sources of food. The Hunter also has a decent chance of successfully spearfishing and taking down birds even from day one, so try to put together a rustic or fishing spear once you can. - You can explore areas even after you've hit 100% exploration rate, and still have a chance to discover new things. You'll always discover small and large trees after a few explorations if you've cut down any that are currently in your area, so you'll never have to worry about running out of those. Food-generating plants might be a little rarer, though. - When the % meter on a campfire hits 100%, you can harvest it for ash and charcoal once it's out. Do this early and often, you'll need a fair amount of ash for crop fields down the line. - You can get wood and sticks by directly dragging the axe card over the jungle card. - Macaques can and will raid you with impunity to steal your stuff, they generally target food and small items. You can protect your most valuable items by keeping them in woven baskets or other containers. If you're confident you can try attacking them, the Hunter has a decent shot at taking them down and the worst thing they can inflict on you is macaque bites, which are relatively easily treatable. - You can view any wounds you have on your status screen, each one shows up as a separate card. Keep them washed consistently to keep their infection rate down, and make bandages from Weevil Lily leaves to cover them. Once your herbology is high enough, you can make Aloe Vera Gel, which disinfects and speeds up wound recovery significantly. - The Wetland Jungle contains two Puddles, which are probably the most important resource location for early-mid game survival. You can collect Unclean Water from them with a water container, and boil it to create drinkable water. You can also dig them up for Mud, which can be combined with a variety of temper objects (the easiest one to gather is probably Sand) for Mud Bricks, or processed into Clay. Mud Bricks are required for basically every major structure, and Clay can be moulded and baked in a kiln for useful containers. The puddles fill up with rain but dry out over time, or when you gather water or mud. You can still dig up dirt once they're dry, which can be combined with salt water from the sea for Mud. - Do not mess with boars or lizards unless you're very confident (or willing to savescum bad results on Safety Mode). A fracture or deep laceration is very bad even for established characters and will probably outright kill you in the early-game.
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Sep 6, 2023 06:41
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Inadequately posted:- You can get wood and sticks by directly dragging the axe card over the jungle card. Sidenote because I never see it mentioned: You can also use a shovel on the area card to get dirt. This is important during the wet season and so you don't have to wait for mud to dry.
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Sep 6, 2023 07:55
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Oh hey, this game. Someone (possibly OP, it's been a while!) sold me on it in the Steam thread last year-ish and I picked it up in the winter sale. Taking a bit of a break from it at the moment but it definitely scratches an itch. Learning mostly on my own through multiple Hunter games, I've had a fair number of "I am a genius!/Oh no!" moments, but trying to follow alongside the journal milestones gave me enough to get the essentials mostly down. An early game I thought I was being clever to avoid having my poo poo wrecked by the storms before I'd gotten a solid home built by making my main hideout in the Beach cave, only to be pressed for some essentials and freezing trying to make it back. Another time I was doing great until I fell out of a banana tree and broke my leg and everything snowballed all at once. Another I finally lost the dice roll to a boar. Learned plenty about risk management and what to keep on hand from all that, though. Of course, I think the biggest thing to come up was triumphantly weathering the first year with good supplies and a house and reservoirs and everything going and really having to start managing my sanity. It's pretty easy to make much more efficient starts the more you learn about where things are and how to get them.
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Sep 6, 2023 08:16
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Managing sanity long term is really tricky because it's something that comes apart really, really slowly. Isolation is the trickiest one because there's really no solving it, you just have to stack enough comfort bonuses that it overcomes the negatives from loneliness.Inadequately posted:- When the % meter on a campfire hits 100%, you can harvest it for ash and charcoal once it's out. Do this early and often, you'll need a fair amount of ash for crop fields down the line. If you have excess tinder then you can do this by lighting the tinder by dragging it onto a lit fire, extinguishing the fire and taking the ash out, and then re-lighting it with with lit tinder. Saves on having to wait or breaking out the hand drill. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Sep 6, 2023 |
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Sep 6, 2023 12:49
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Rynoto posted:Sidenote because I never see it mentioned: You can also use a shovel on the area card to get dirt. This is important during the wet season and so you don't have to wait for mud to dry. One tip related to this: Both digging up dirt/mud and then crushing into fine dirt (30m) can be done in darkness. Fine dirt converts to clay in 3 minutes so it's almost as good a path as taking 30 minutes in the light to make mud into clay. Digging up mud is a good evening activity before sleep since you need a lot of clay for all sorts of things, so dig up a bunch of mud so that it can dry over a few days. You'll need 20-30 mud/fine dirt to get your basic set of jars, vases, and cooking pots so dig it up when you don't have anything else going on. You do get dirty but you can take 15m to wash yourself before bed which helps with temperature/hydration. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 6, 2023 |
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Sep 6, 2023 14:39
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Bhodi posted:You can do this with your hands as well, shovel just gets 2x when digging sand and dirt. Can you do that with area cards or just dry puddles? You can use a shovel on the areas but AFAIK there isn't an option for hand digging.
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Sep 6, 2023 15:54
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Yeah, I'm thinking of dry puddles In the wetlands. Edited to make that more clear, since that's most useful early before you get a shovel
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Sep 6, 2023 15:58
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Does anyone know if there's mouse support for the Android version of the game?
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Sep 6, 2023 16:15
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gottagotowork posted:Does anyone know if there's mouse support for the Android version of the game? As far as I know not officially. But tbh I prefer touch controls for it since the cards are so large and easier to move around. I only really do it on PC for mods and because it can suck up phone charge.
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Sep 6, 2023 19:00
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The mangrove forest spawns mud pits at a reasonably high rate and they give a lot of mud each without spending any water. Krait venom is annoying but not serious. If you get bit just stop gathering mud for the day and come back later and you won't have any ill effects. Feathers and snake grass can both be used as clay temper. Sand is free but snake grass is plentiful and I frequently find I have more feathers than I have a use for. If your spear skill is high then you can farm bird meat and feathers by just leaving rotting food on the ground somewhere you go regularly. Birds will be there every time you arrive and you can kill them.
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Sep 6, 2023 22:12
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CuddleCryptid posted:As far as I know not officially. But tbh I prefer touch controls for it since the cards are so large and easier to move around. I only really do it on PC for mods and because it can suck up phone charge. Turns out it does! I tried the demo available on Android and my Bluetooth mouse worked correctly, even the scroll wheel. Always appreciate when a developer implements that (I'm the one person who plays games in DeX mode).
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Sep 6, 2023 22:28
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This is a really good game and deserves a lot more love.
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Sep 7, 2023 05:20
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The premades are a pretty neat ramp up, all things considered. Hunter - the most tutorial character, starts with hand/foot callouses so you don't really have to worry about pains for walking around and using/making tools, is good at a variety of physical skills from the get-go, is more or less immune to any seriously debilitating diseases, sleeps easily even on the ground, doesn't really get bothered by bugs or worry about sunburn, and is an optimistic loner which helps with mood management. Farmer - has some similar perks - everything after "is good at a variety of physical skills from the get-go" from the Hunter also applies here. However, the Farmer isn't quite as ready to go it alone - no Islander trait so none of that starting gear, and the skills aren't as primed for exploring. On the plus side, the Farmer does start with plant knowledge and is good at trapping, cooking, and woodworking (all things the Hunter doesn't start proficient at), so there's some different angles to take early on. There is the small problem of caring for your sick grandfather as well, though. Tourist - definitely meant to be the Hard Mode culmination of what you've learned before - you've got NONE of the inherent physical or mental advantages of the previous two, and in fact you're extra susceptible to sunburn, diseases, and insects. You're also slower to move, get hungry faster, have poor eyesight, and... oh yeah, you start with multiple wounds including a bleeding laceration. Looking for any bright sides, the plane crash provides an early shelter with luggage (including clothes that you can scavenge for quick materials), first aid supplies, and some seats for a bit of comfort (and also scavenging once you have an axe), and you're at least good at fishing...y'know, once you find a place to do it and can make yourself a fishing line. It's not an impossible start but you're definitely going to have a rough time of it, and even after you stabilize you're going to have to make considerations that the others didn't (suddenly, you need to worry about bugs and back pain). You're also plagued by macaques (so you'll really want to guard important supplies), but that's not necessarily all downsides. Mermaid - while still a hefty challenge, it's also a more unique challenge to the other three in that the Mermaid has entirely different conditions - she is a thoroughly nocturnal creature (perfect night vision, but is allergic to the sun), can drink sea water but has to keep her skin hydrated, has land sickness so it's hard to move away from coastal areas, has an enhanced appetite AND starves quicker (she's pregnant, too!) which is exacerbated by being a carnivore (so vegetables are no longer a useful food source) and being hunted by seahounds in the coastal areas she has to largely remain near! It's such a weird change in playstyle that it's no wonder that this start is locked off by 3 Moons. Right, you get Suns and Moons to unlock characters and perks - Suns are earned in-game for every day of survival and tend to unlock more basic options, Moons are earned in-game for every 30 days of survival and tend to unlock advanced options. It's not actually overwhelmingly expensive to get everything, but you'll need some in-game years overall to get enough Moons for everything (though most of the Moon unlocks aren't generally things you'd want to use until you're familiar with the game anyway - do you really want killer drones hunting you while you learn the ropes?). You can recreate all the premade characters in Custom (well, mostly - you can't set yourself up with a Grandfather outside Farmer), but the Journals, which have custom objective lists leading to endings, are only unique for the premades. (All of the options are shown at creation so this much isn't spoilers.) Hogama fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 06:59
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Taking care of Grandfather as Farmer is a little tricky because the mechanics aren't entirely clear. I ended up looking at him in debug and it seems like his health is more tied to tending rather than his actual stats. This means that if you fill him up with food and water to 100% (easy to do since any food he'll accept increases his meter by 50%, thank you bananas) he'll still be losing health by the time he hits 80% despite being very well off on his stats. He's nice to have around though because he's a cheap guest and you can sit with him for entertainment and mood. gottagotowork posted:Turns out it does! I tried the demo available on Android and my Bluetooth mouse worked correctly, even the scroll wheel. Always appreciate when a developer implements that (I'm the one person who plays games in DeX mode). I honestly didn't know this was a thing in general for android, I might have to try it for some other games.
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Sep 7, 2023 13:39
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I have an abrasion that will not seem to heal, infection is at 100%. I see ground spider lily supposedly can be made into a brew to help but the game won't let me add it to boiling water and eating it by itself gives me the shits.
Panfilo fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 14:55
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Panfilo posted:I have an abrasion that will not seem to heal, infection is at 100%. I see ground spider lily supposedly can be made into a brew to help but the game won't let me add it to boiling water and eating it by itself gives me the shits. In my experience usually when something like that is having issues it is because the water is either in the wrong container size or there isn't enough in the cup. Usually you need at least a half full bowl of water for soaking and i assume close to fill for teas, do you have that? If it's the normal % infection without additional markers I would try to just wash it with water directly and see if that helps. Salt water also works but it gives a mood hit. Spider Lily is more for if you get sometime like camp fever iirc. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 15:33
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Panfilo posted:I have an abrasion that will not seem to heal, infection is at 100%. I see ground spider lily supposedly can be made into a brew to help but the game won't let me add it to boiling water and eating it by itself gives me the shits. If it's the splat sign, that's overall infection chance which is implemented through a hidden "bacterial fever bar" which is influenced negatively by your immune system and positively by environmental effects (dirt/wounds) each tick. If you find your immune system you can click through and look through the "influence" tab to see it'll have an up arrow. You won't be able to see this hidden bacteria bar except through stuff like immune system and fever bars influenced tab. You can't see immediate effects but it simulates getting sick by influencing fever and nausea bars which you CAN see and will show up by default it's over 25% with that "I have a fever!" status bar. Fixing the base issues and your immune system will cause it to eventually drop it back down, and you can augment your immune bar with spider lily as you saw. There's no wound festering. You can clean it with drinkable water or salt water if you're OK with a morale hit; IMO clean it if it's in the double digits and keep it covered with a bandage. One full portion (bowl) of water can clean 50% of infection chance. Boiling already safe water does nothing, water is either safe or unsafe. It's a bit weird; Unsafe water can be combined in a bunch of foods that are going to be boiled anyway (rice, yams) and of course be boiled into safe water. Spider lily can only be added to boiling water if you put the boiling water into a bowl (coconut or clay) because that's how it "auto-portions" the ratio. There's no "brew strength" mechanic so you can use less water but it'll just make less brew and have less of an effect. This is the same for all brews and can then be poured back into any vessel to drink later. Kava is special, you don't need to boil the water first. Parasites are another bar that matters before it hits 25% and gets naturally displayed, which is why I pin it and my immune system if I'm riding that line and know I need to boost it before I develop a fever. Mostly if you're playing the tourist who has a weak immune system. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 16:33
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OK yeah none of that feels very intuitive. What determines how long it takes me to do things? Why can I weave palms in 45mins sometimes and 60 minutes other times? It feels like a losing battle keeping my campfire fueled, even learning obtuse methods like making bone hooks, never feels like there's enough fuel. And it takes an HOUR just to start a fire which is ugh. Is there a reason seagulls/macaques stop visiting? At one point I had more corpses than I know what to do with and now they never come by. Is there a point where everything doesn't become a massive time sink? Feels like everything takes forever. Gathering materials, traveling, assembling things, repairing things, and even in the most forgiving scenarios the game rarely throws you bone.
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Sep 7, 2023 17:30
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Panfilo posted:OK yeah none of that feels very intuitive. Are you trying to keep your campfire lit and active 100% of the time? I usually just extinguish it whenever I don't need it. I don't run into fuel problems that often, whenever I run low I just set aside some time for chopping wood from the jungle. You get more wood and sticks the better your axe is for this, so if you stick with the basic stone axe you won't get that much out of it. Candles are usually better for late-night tasks if you need light. Improving your woodworking skill also lets you carve a bow drill, which speeds up firestarting by quite a bit. There's a hidden 'animal fear' stat, as well as an animal population. The more animals of one kind you kill, the more you'll boost that animal's fear stat, and the less often they'll raid you. Killing them also decreases their population, so you're less likely to encounter them in the wild too. There are some things you can do to save time on some common tasks, but plenty of things will still be a time sink. Crafting paths between areas with an axe and shovel speeds up travel time, for instance, and getting better at weaving lets you build a spindle for more efficient fibre usage and quicker cord assembly.
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Sep 7, 2023 18:00
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Panfilo posted:OK yeah none of that feels very intuitive. All animals including seagulls and macaques have a tracked population and become less and less of a chance to occur and will eventually stop visiting because you hunted them to extinction (though if it's just low it will eventually recover). There is a place where macaques live live where if it's empty you've made them extinct. The base fire start chance is 30m, later becomes 15m when you unlock a better tool. Things suck when injured/sick and you can easily spiral for sure, basically: don't get hurt and don't be sad. Depression via Pain is a real killer, so keep that kava flowing. Build sandcastles and dive every day to give mood that entertainment bonus. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 18:45
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How do you put on weight exactly? That's another obtuse mechanic. You can eat and eat and eat and still waste away! Is it worth bothering with traps? Anything that operates passively seems like a good bet. I haven't seen the fishing mechanic in the game at all so far-even though I have a harpoon and swim in the ocean a lot I never see fish to spear. I've also yet to find flint which would make chopping trees significantly less tedious. Panfilo fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 18:58
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Panfilo posted:How do you put on weight exactly? That's another obtuse mechanic. You can eat and eat and eat and still waste away! Eating any kind of food will cause your weight to go up, although some are better at it than others. Eating nothing but seaweed isn't going to make it go up much while actual meals are a lot better. You gain weight over time as your intestines digest the food. However it is counterbalanced by the stamina mechanic. If you are one step below full stamina then you generally are losing as much weight as you are gaining. Anything below that and it doesn't matter how much you ate, you're losing weight. If you want to gain weight then make sure you are regularly resting to keep your stamina up. At the start of them game you're going to lose weight, and that's fine. Traps are good, especially the later ones that can passively catch fish and larger creatures. The caveat is that you need to keep them baited. It's a good idea to have a couple deadfalls around just to get xp from resetting them, and rotten food can be a decent bait for that. Later on seeds work just as well and don't spoil. Diving and fishing are two different things with different loot pools; diving uses swimming and pulls up clams and is done by the dive button in the sea card details, while seaweed while fishing/spearfishing is done by using the tool on the sea card itself. If you want flint then you'll want to start exploring outside of the starting area. Off the beach you have to go at least a few zones deep to find it, and they will be in more rocky areas. Be forewarned though that flint *slabs* for axes are harder to find than flint for knives.
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Sep 7, 2023 19:53
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Panfilo posted:How do you put on weight exactly? That's another obtuse mechanic. You can eat and eat and eat and still waste away! So in this game Fullness doesn't always equal Healthiness. Many time, especially early game, when you're eating simple foods like bananas and such you're only going to be staying half-full-to-mostly-full which will, at best, only keep you at the same weight and cause your appetite to fall while any lapses in eating, illnesses, or bites will cause a rapid loss in weight that even a normal appetite will struggle to counter. To effectively put on weight you have to be always eating to-full over overfull in order to boost your Appetite stat to at least normal and preferably high so you can stuff more in your gullet per day without getting sick. Cookpot recipes are your ideal way to achieve this and especially rice and meat dishes. Traps are absolutely 100% worth grinding as it eventually lets you capture live goats which is then infinite free milk and meat. Also a good way to safely eradicate the island's lizard population. To spearfish you use the spear on the ocean. Swimming is for foraging and finding sharks. Flint is found abundantly in the highlands
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Sep 7, 2023 20:05
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Rynoto posted:To effectively put on weight you have to be always eating to-full over overfull in order to boost your Appetite stat to at least normal and preferably high so you can stuff more in your gullet per day without getting sick. Cookpot recipes are your ideal way to achieve this and especially rice and meat dishes. Yeah this is the other part of it. The nagging food stat you have is your appetite, not how much food you actually need. If you eat light for a long time then your stomach shrinks up and you can end up not being able to eat enough to keep your weight on without throwing up. You can generally eat to for two warning levels above full and be okay, if a bit nauseous. That's also why it's important not to just eat lemongrass all day, it fills up your stomach without actually giving you many calories.
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Sep 7, 2023 20:34
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OK I'm starting to get the hang of it (right when the first storm just annihilated my poo poo because I built everything on the starting region  ). What DOESN'T the storm blow away?Is there a big distinction between the three tiers of shelter? Tried making mud hut in the jungle last playthrough and it was onerously difficult to get all the materials together. This time I got a basic shed+stove and it was a lot easier. I like how stove actually smokes food. Skills are annoying to level up as there's an inbuilt mechanic that won't give more points if you do a task too often in a time period. Wish it was easier to get a shovel since it's needed for cisterns and wells later on critical during drought. I'm going to see how far I get in this run but know I'll blast past it on the next try-feel like I figured out fishing and flint really late in the game. Thought drying rack would be good but it is very slow, seems like the strategy is to use it mainly in the dry season. Weird how transferring water between containers takes zero time, but transferring water into your gullet is 3mins no matter what.
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Sep 7, 2023 21:23
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The tiers of houses mostly come down to their size, improvements, and comfort level. A mud hut is significantly roomier, more comfortable, and has the ability to fit things like windcatchers and whitewashed walls. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of the drying rack in general. It's fine, but as you said it works best in the dry season and by that time you should be able to either smoke, salt, or make meals out of most foods. I rarely have meat that sits long enough that drying becomes a necessity. Storms are rough, setting up a base on the coast is not the best for that reason. One tile in on the jungle is a pretty solid location. If you're having trouble with woodworking then just building a few reservoirs is perfectly fine, one isn't going to sustain you for a drought season but two or three is very manageable. Cisterns are great but you do have to put in the work to get that shovel. CuddleCryptid fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 21:28
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You'll need to repair the roof occasionally on the Shed and Mud Hut. It doesn't necessarily have to be immediately if there's damage in the middle of the night but you don't want to leave it unattended too long or it will collapse entirely needing more in-depth work. After the added improvements of the Mud Hut, it will also not need cleaning as often as the Shed. Shed's chief advantage is mostly in being relatively inexpensive time and materials-wise to set up. You can put some up as outposts/emergency shelters in locations that are far from your main base but still need to be frequented and/or are in potentially dangerous zones for exploration so that you have a place to recuperate should you take a nasty injury out in the field without first dragging yourself halfway across the island. To expand on storms blowing things away, there's some modeling of wind exposure by location, too. Stuff left sitting out on the coast is way more exposed than inland wooded areas.
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Sep 7, 2023 21:49
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| # ? May 9, 2024 04:10 |
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The big difference, besides size, between the houses is that the shed will quickly get destroyed by storms, even inland, while the mud hut will have a roof problem every few days (of constant storm) while a brick hut is completely immune. Personally gotten to the point that I'll never build a shed and instead jump straight to mud hut with every character. A big thing is that for the first ~30 days your character can quickly recover from a bad mood with a few sandcastles/carving/cleaning so making the most of it by stuffing your face with kava and coffee and using candles/torches for night work will let you achieve enough early to coast through the rest of the run. If you know where things are you can have a mud hut, cistern(s), well, and all of the major food and medical crops growing before the end of the first wet season while starting with a zero skill and equipment character. Rynoto fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 22:07
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