FIRST PLAYTHROUGH SHOULD BE SINGLEPLAYER TO LEARN THE BASICS. I STRONGLY suggest you create a singleplayer world in both maps, just to have a feel for the lay of the landscape, and generally one singleplayer world at least to understand the basics of the game!

I also suggest reading at least a guide, not necessarily this one, but something to have a general idea of the progression of the game before playing.

So, this first part is a TL;DR. It's barebone and doesn't explain a lot but already provides a BIT of a guideline for what to do... but I suggest reading more than only this first chapter!

The general progression of the game (the order of things you should obtain) is:

1) Some Wood from Trees. Mainly to craft and power your first Campfire and Furnace
2) Some Stone, same as above.
3) Optionally, enough Stone (from the mines on the ground) to craft some Flint, and enough Wood and Fiber (also from trees) to craft the necessary Strings to finally get some Stone tools (especially the Axe, you need quite a bit of wood early on).
4) Iron Ore to craft your first Totem, Campfire with Pot (AKA Campfire 2) and some Doors/Door Locks. Also Arrows and a Bow might help survive against your food!
5) Hunting for some meat, also some Snow to get Water from a Campfire 2. Now you're surviving two of the five things that can kill you. Hunger and Thirst.
6) Ice to make a Base (the reason you first want to make Totems and Doors is that it's useless to make a base if anyone with a Mallet can tear it down. Secure what you build with a Totem!)
7) Eventually enough Gold and Sulfur to start making some real weapons. At this point you're officially out of the early game!

Keep in mind this order for your first playthrough. More or less 50-60 Wood, 50-60 Stone, 100 Iron Ore, Food&Water, a stack of Ice for a base, Gold&Sulfur (optional).

Somewhere between your first Shovel and getting Food I also suggest making a Mallet from 10 wood and an Igloo from 100 Snow. it's worth it as a temporary base and as a hunting implement (More info in the food section).

The game is still Early Release and both PVP and PVE aren't safe from being stolen, griefed and killed. You have been warned.

You start your adventure with a bottle of water, a trusty Ice Pick and your clothes (which aren't an item, but it's nice not to start the world the RUST way...)

Find yourself a couple of trees, whack them with your Ice Pick. Have about 40 Wood before moving to a Stone Node (you can't miss the lumpy things, brown on white background!). I suggest, at this early stage of the game, to simply leave the tree stump behind. the 2-3 Fibers and 4-8 Wood you get from it is not worth the 10+ swings it takes to break it.

Gather enough to make a Furnace (20 Wood and 20 Stone), craft it and place it down. Craft a Mallet too, whack the Stone Node some more with your Ice Pick. If you're lucky, you just got some Iron Ore. You'll need to gather at least 30.

2 Ore makes one ingot, and you'll need 5 each for a Metal Axe, Metal Pick and a Shovel. Don't bother making a Stone Axe or Shovel, seriously. It's way faster to get the Iron ones and call it a good day's work!

Once you have your first 5 Iron, make an Iron Axe to gather Wood faster. You'll need it to burn your Iron Ore right now.

Second comes the Picaxe and last the Shovel (arguably, you could use the Stone Shovel too, it's not like the Shovel tier makes a difference). Once you have all three pick up your Furnace and possibly Campfire with the Mallet (right click, move Up to "pick up", left click) move to find your first home.

If you see some Ice/Snow formations that just comes out of the ground, it might be one of those breakable ones. They drop Ice, and you need Ice. You need a LOT of it.

Just putting this here, but the broken tools can't be repaired... yet. You need a Repair Kit for that, which requires more Iron and Ropes, which you can't spare right now. Throw away your Ice Pick once it's depleted, and any other tools which aren't your Metal Tools. Not worth repairing those.

You could even sell them at the Market if you're close by.

Only repair that which you want to keep. Only the best tools and weapons get repaired.

In other words, the Metal Axe, Metal Pickaxe and the Shovel. Later weapons too, but I'm getting ahead of myself...

If you did craft a Stone Hatchet instead of going straight to Metal, well, don't bother repairing them. Sell them or throw them away. Not worth it, to consume iron for those!

To build a decent base, you would need at least 200+ Ice as a bare minimum, and that for a very barebone, unsecure base.... and let's not talk about a base that also hosts a Greenhouse!

So we won't be doing that just yet.

There are two ways to make a decent pre-ice foundation base.

The first is the Igloo. You can even completely secure it with a Furnace or a Campfire. That way nothing that isn't a player gets in and kills you.

The second is the cool way.

If you're in the Snow Village (for a first play I suggest it) with tons of wooden cottages, just pick the one really close to the shop and set up your base inside. Or, if that one is occupied in multiplayer, another one.

Craft 15-20 Planks and 10 Cloth and use them to make 2 Fence Gates and some Fences. Place a Gate each side where there's a Door with a bit of a distance so you can jump over. Fences as needed from the Gate to the Door, or the walls around the door, whatever will work with the placement restrictions! This is just for the wildlife. Later when you get more Ice, you could block one of the two entrances off with an Ice Wall... And the second entrance with a set of Ice Walls plus an Ice Gate! And remember to put a lock!


This is how it looks like from the inside. And yes, you can place stuff on some walls sometimes...

If you're in the Frozen City, you have it more tough. You MIGHT need to look around for some time, but eventually you'll find something you can call a base.

Fallen Airplanes? Could work! Big Rock with a hole on two sides? Works for me! Top of a rock which can only be scaled with some foundations? Sure! Rememer, your base can be easily accessed by simply logging out. For others, you can make it impossible to enter or reach it if you want. As long as YOU can get out, that's fine.

Find something easily defendable. Ideally two entrances in case you need to run away from something that really doesn't want to go away.


This is a perfectly fine base for the beginning. Just shy of some walls and you could call it an Igloo!!!

To place down those Buildings, you'll need to put them on your hotbar, select them the way you would a Tool (press the right number) and work around the finnicky placing mechanics for a bit. You cannot take them back after you place them. Only destroy them! So be careful!

After your base is more or less secure, make yourself a Campfire, just in case the weather doesn't play nice.

Place down your Furnace from before (You DID pick it up with the mallet right) and go get enough Iron. The rest is repetitive mining/smelting. You need at least the 30 Ingots required for a Totem to have a modicum of security

Now you're probably hungry and thirsty. Thirst isn't too much of a problem. Make a Campfire with pot (requires more Iron, so I hope you got enough before!) and shovel the ground for some Snow, cook it on the Campfire. Easy Water! Even better would be to use Ice, but you're still saving for an actual home. You CAN stay in the overgrown Igloo or the wooden Cottage secured with some walls, but you'll need an actual base for some of the more advanced stuff. Like... the space for the 10 Furnaces you'll end up needing, or the Greenhouses...

Food is another matter. You COULD, in a pinch, go to the Trader and buy either Raw Meat or Fish, and cook it. Or you could hunt.

I go over how to hunt safely over the "Tree Cutting, Mining, Hunting. Some Tips." Part, but the gist of it is:

• Craft an Igloo and make something to block the entrance.
  
• make enough arrows and a bow.
  
• Shoot targets from inside. They can't attack back!
  
• Profit.

Food and water are the only sources of healing. It heals over time, so it's not a health potion. Be careful!

Right now food might be scarce, but later on, you'll have more than enough.

Fishing might be fun, IF you like to stay in one place, without doing nothing for about 20-60 seconds...

You know what? Fishing requires an extra section to explain how bad it is...

I will put a TL;DR at the end for this.

Fishing requires:

- A Shovel, to dig into the Ice over bodies of water
- Bait, made from Meat. One meat, three baits.
- Fishing Rod.
- A lot of patience.


You first dig into water with your trusty shovel, then craft a couple baitsm you then use your fishing rod with the Left Click. Now the fun begins...

- If you're aiming right at the water, you'll miss.
- If you aim a little behind the water you have a chance of getting your bait in the water.
- If you aim JUST a couple centimeters to the left or the right, you'll miss.


Once you get the bait in the water, doing anything will stop your fishing animation. I didn't bother to check if that also wastes your Bait... You'll stop fishing if:

- you walk
- you open your inventory
- you change handheld item to eat a bite because you're starving after staying in place for so long and damn that meat is good!
- you crouch, or you get up (you can first crouch and then cast your fishing rod, that's not a problem... but aiming will be more difficult...)
- You sneeze or look at the screen the wrong way (ok, I made this up. But you get it. DON'T do anything while fishing!)


Fishing grants:

- no experience (...seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?!?)
- one crab for each bait, every 20-60 seconds (maybe fish too, but until now I got crabs). This means you're basically tripling your food, at the cost of your sanity.
- no tactical advantage whatsoever, just like engravings on a revolver.
- extra food with no risk of getting attacked if wildlife is nearby and you have properly secured the area with, say... an Igloo or some fences...


Fishing is useless because:

- Hunting is a faster (although riskier) source of food. Also, you get bones, which can be sold for good money.
- There are ways to improve hunting speed and decrease the risks with better weapons and Skills or by having higer Characteristics. Fishing? It can't be improved at all.
- Taming can only be done with meat or cooked meat as far as I know. It would be cool if Polar Bears were tameable with fish instead... that's what they'd eat in real life!
- It's boring.
- Cooked Meat, Crabs and Fishes have the same nutritional values, but Cooked Meat has a higher Stack (30) compared to Crabs and Fishes (25).
- It sucks donkey's balls. Seriously. Don't fish. There's no reason to.


TL;DR
Fishing is not fun, grants no advantage over other food sources and gives no experience while also not being improveable by using better tools, Skills or Characteristics. It doesn't even offer a decent or better source of food. Actually... it's slightly worse.

After you have enough Ice, you might consider finally building an actual base. As in, place down foundations, some walls, all that nice stuff.

Don't.

First, craft a serious amount of Ice Spiked Walls (you could go with normal ones, but they're less secure... you don't want people to break in simply by punching your base, do you?) and at least two Gates and two Locks. The one with the Key has the disadvantage of you needing to carry your Key at all times, which could be stolen by killing you. The one with the Code has the disadvantage of being bypassable by brute forcing all 10000 possible codes. Pick your favourite poison.

Find a spot you want to build in.

CHOOSING A LOCATION

There are different factors to choosing your location. I'll list them in order of importance.

1) Vicinity to resources and their abundance. You see a group of Polar Bears or Tigers in the vicinity of a bunch of Ice and Stone and Wood? Somewhere in the vicinity is a GREAT place to plop down a couple of foundations and walls and a Totem right away! Because resources, including animals, respawn. If you see Bears there, after you kill them and enough time passes, you'll have more Bears. You could even go the extra mile and place a bunch of walls and Totems and claim the whole area as your garden. Don't be TOO near wild animals though, as they will become aggressive to your base and might destroy your walls! Spiked Walls help there.

2) Defensibility. This only really matters if you're in a PVP server, but why hold back in PVE?

If you build your base on an open plain, it's easy to spot, and attackers can decide which side they want to attack. Depending on what the map has to offer, there are some well hidden areas, or areas that are harder to attack. Hiddenness isn't as useful as you think though, because bases show on the Map right now...

A base on frozen water is perfectly fine too, if you're on a PVE Server, or even if you're in a PVP server and you're confident you can make it pretty big really fast with a couple other people.

Some examples of good defensible positions are:

• The top of a mountain (which is also not so easy to spot if you don't go too high), especially if there's only one or two paths to it.
  
• The area between two building ruins (which provide indestructible walls in multiple directions) or even just one building at the back is enough.
  
• The Snow Village has multiple indestructible wooden cottages, which, while serving as a nice beginner bases, can also be kept and built around providing an indestructible core to an otherwise normal base.
  
• The edge of the map. This has a bunch of drawbacks, such as having absolutely no resources. Even normally easy stuff such as Snow are now far away...

There's endless possibilities! Be creative!

A well hidden base that is also easily defendable is everyone's wet dream. You can't usually have both, but if you can, go for it.

3) Vicinity to Market. The furthest you are from the closest market, the more likely you are to die and be robbed of your keys (if you use that) or your precious stuff when you go to sell it. The journey back to base isn't that bad, because you can simply log out and back in!

Or travel normally and not care of dying because money isn't on your character's death pouch (this might also change). But if you have a good mount that distance isn't all that bad, really.

ACTUAL BASE BUILDING

• Base Building needs a TON of ice. Really. A Large Box full of it might be enough, or not. Depends.
  
• Every piece of a base can be upgraded two times. Ice to Wood, then Wood to Stone. If you don't plan on upgrading to Stone, Ice is ok. It's as durable as Wood right now.
  
• Right now slanted ceilings need to be supported by walls. Flat ceilings can support each other. Three ceilings can support a fourth. You can build a bunch of walls, the ceilings, and then destroy those walls! Not sure about this, but it seems Triangle Ceilings only need two nearby to be supported.
  
• Going up and down on Stairs will require more place than using slanted ice roofs (NOT upgraded to Stone or Wood, or it won't work as stairs!)
  
• A 2x2 Square of square foundations with some triangle foundations around it is a good starting figure. You can then alternate square foundations where triangles wouldn't work, and repeat with triangles again. Until you feel there's enough walls between you and your possible raiders.
  
• For each layer, remember to include a bunch of Totems to secure the surrounding area to stop others from simply building a staircase to jump on your roof! And maybe a way to get to the Totems from the inside too, to check on their range if you expand.
  
• Having your valuables on the first or second floor is a good way to get robbed. Think about the shortest possible path an enemy might take, and reinforce that path with extra walls/floors.
  
• Spiked walls are a nice way to stop enemies from simply punching your walls down or usng melee weapons. Let them waste some resources! Also, they stop wildlife from attacking your base.
  
• There's ways to place one door to block entrance even when open. Same for gates actually, but it's more difficult.
  
• It's also possible to make a an airlock with two consecutive doors. Open inside door, get in the airlock, close the inside door. Open the outside door. Even if you're killed, enemies won't have access to your base.
  
• If you do both, it's even better! If an enemy waits outside, and you open a door and they kill you? They have now access to your base until you respawn. If you don't like the direction a door is opening, you can rotate the Door Frame.
  
• Stairs can be used to block a Door Frame. The nice thing about stairs is, they have more hit points than doors, and as long as the Totems are in place and stopping people from messing with them, only YOU can rotate them when you want to enter and exit! Downside is, it's a pain to enter and exit. But they don't have the same drawbacks of locked doors. Stolen keys is a problem, a stolen Mallet isn't, and good luck figuring a code for a code lock that doesn't exist!

There's much more we could talk about, but the game is in its earliest stages, so it's not worth to go indepth on something which might change drastically in the future...

Crafting can be done on the fly, that means, you set up your crafting queue, and go on doing other things! The only piece of wearable equipment right now is the Backpack. There's two. Don't bother crafting the smaller one, go for the large one right away.

Fiber is hard to come by in the beginning, being only gatherable by cutting trees, but after a while you'll have enough. Trust me.

After the Backpack, I suggest making 20 Cloth for a Bed, and an extra 8 Cloth for the Assault Rifle, later, when you have the necessary resources to craft it.

All your extra Fiber will be crafted into Ropes and sold. Why? Because Fiber can't be sold, and Cloth requires 3 instead of 2, while still being sold for the same amount of money.

I guess enough Rope for a Bow would be nice too.

Later, once you have the means to secure it, you want to make pots for the Greenhouse. That will also require Cloth, but by then you might just decide it's worth it to buy it. Or maybe you go on a deforestation spree! That is also fun, with the right tools and skills.

After that, just continue to gather wood to run your campfires, collect the resulting charcoal and use THAT for your furnaces. Or... you buy it. Whatever works best.

CAMPFIRES

Let's talk about Campfires first.

10 Wood cooks 13 Meat perfeclty, with no extra heat. There's a maximum output of 4 slots, and Cooked Meat stacks to 30, so one would assume that putting two stacks and 20 Raw Meat would be fine, right? Wrong. Consider that while a Stack is burning, the other needs to stay there! The max you can put into a Campfire at once is 91, and you need to put the stack of 41 into the first slot so that it may be consumed first. This means the ideal way to set up a Campfire before going away from base is a Stack of 41 Meat on the first input slot, a second stack of 50 on the second slot, and exactly 70 Wood. This will waste no wood at all.

Melting Snow doesn't present any problems because one stack of Snow isn't nearly enough to make one stack of water. Three Stacks and some wood (I didn't figure out the amount yet, but just put a whole 200 wood and when you come back it's still burning and snow is not completely melted)

Melting Ice should never be done. Period.

FURNACE

First rule of Furnaces. Charcoal burns longer than Wood.

Second Rule of Furnaces... nah ,that's it!

Burn your wood in Campfires for cooking Meat and obtaining water, then get more smelting time with the Charcoal. Straightforward, no strings attached or drawbacks to consider.

One Campfire always lit seems able to produce enough Charcoal for Two Furnaces.

For both Furnaces and Campfires, Planks can be used to burn too, but it's overall less efficient. They burn for the same time as normal wood while requiring two wood to craft. And give one Charcoal from that two wood. You're losing resources overall.

ICE MAKER

This should be avoided at all costs... is what I want to say... The only way to obtain Snow is Shoveling, and I'll talk about the problems with Shoveling later, but mainly, it's just not worth it for Snow. You DO need Sand though, and the only way to obtain it is through Shoveling...

For ice though? Go mine that ice, it's everywhere. Forget that snow. Make a Stone Shovel to get 100 Snow for ONE Igloo, because they're useful houses in a pinch and protect against most enemies.

You could make this your primary source of Ice, but Ice Maker is slow, and you'll need a lot of space for a decent array. Buying or mining it is the better option

Later in the game, when you have a Greenhouse? You'll be able to make a lot of money from farming. At that point, you might want to buy water and put it in several Ice Makers. It's cheaper than buying that ice directly.

MILL

Nothing much to say here. You put stuff in it, you press Grind. Only thing, maybe you want to craft Gunpowder in batches of 10, because you need 10 for the Assault Rifle Ammo... But really no reason to do that.

CRAFTING BENCH

Here, again, you just craft stuff, period. No energy or fuel you need to watch out.

SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTICE

• Crafting gives Exp, but only if you're NOT riding. Don't ride when crafting.
  
• Having a huge Crafting Queue can come bite your back later. If you need something right now, you first need to wait that the queue is done, if the game breaks and you get logged out or for some reason you stop playing, the whole materials from the queue get deleted.
  
• Crafting can be a useful way to transport insane amounts of materials somewhere (like... the market and back for example). Craft a bunch of, say, planks. Then go where you need to go, and delete the Crafting Queue to have all your planks back. You have to watch out that you don't go over your item limit, but you can simply delete only part of the crafting queue and sell and do it again.
  
• Try to always craft something. Watering Cans, Planks, Boxes, Locks, Doors, Walls, whatever you think you'll need later. If you don't need anything righ now, get some Wood and craft it into planks and some Fiber into Cloth or Ropes. Continue crafting, it's a source of Exp and you only have yourself to craft stuff. Craft craft craft.

WOOD

In the early game, when you still have the Ice Pick? Don't bother with cutting down the Stump. It has the same amount of hit points (200) of the Tree, and only gives about 6 Wood. Just go on another Tree.

Later, with the Stone Axe, it's questionable if it's worth it. But you could hit the Stump while circling it and hitting E to collect the various Wood and Fiber, and if you're slow in doing so, the Stump is gone by the time you've collected most of it.

The Metal Axe is a clean cut choice, especially if you have already invested 3 points in Tree Chopping Mastery (which... you should, really). You need only two hits for both the Tree and the Stump.

The ideal way to collect wood is cut a Tree down, then start collecting some wood between the two axe swings required to cut the Stump and however much is left gets collected between the two swings you need for the next tree. Once you get it down, it's fast and easy.

STONE, IRON ORE, GOLD ORE, CLAY, SULFUR

First things first. Clay should be collected here. Not with the Shovel. Whatever you get from the Shovel is a useful extra. This here? It's faster.

One golden rule of mining is, each time something drops be sure to be facing downslope. If you see something rolling down, chances are it's Gold Ore. You want it. Follow it and get it. Otherwise... Finish mining that Stone Node until the end, start mining the next, or eat, or chop down for wood, or whatever else you need to do. Wait until the aesthetic stone clutter despawns and THEN you can collect everything without needing to spam E for things that aren't collectable!

Most of the time you'll have way too much stone on your hands, and abundant Clay. Although you'll be tempted to sell all that Clay, don't. You'll need a lot for later. Like, full inventories. Stone? You can totally sell it. There's way too much! Maybe you could even craft something with it to get some Exp before selling it.

Sulfur is a resource you'll have MORE than you want. You can definitely sell some. Especially because the only thing you can do with it is Gunpowder, and you're not going to produce enough Charcoal for the quantities of Sulfur you'll mine... Unless you have, like 10 Campfires and you're going around cutting one forest after another... or you buy it...

FISHING

Don't... I mean. I already told you why.
You do what you want to do, but I suggest not to do it!

ICE

My suggestion is to go around mining it as soon as you get a Metal Pickaxe. Mostly because it's faster than using a Shovel, making Water from Snow, making Ice from Water... With a Metal Pickaxe and 3 levels of Mine Skill? Four or five hits and the Ice Node is destroyed. It's that fast.

MEAT AND BONES

What you really need is the Meat. Bones are only useful for crafting the Crossbow... and I suppose there's some merits to it... but the Bow is superiour in basically everyhing. Bones can be sold for good money though! I wish we could make... I don't know... Arrows or something with bones...

Anyways. Meat. Animals are, most of the time, dangerous. But also, most of the time, they're bigger than the entrance of an Igloo. And Igloos are completely portable! You can place them, pick them up, and again and again! Just place one down, aggro the animals. Fire away with the Bow, or get just a little in range for them to try and attack, and after the attack, you strike back! Easy peasy. Even better with ranged weapons, because you don't need to wair for them to attack at the empty air.

For smaller game, you need one extra step, which sadly isn't as portable, but it's quite cheap. "Large Fence 3" costs you exactly 4 Wood. Two normal woods and one Plank. Just ilke before you hide in the Iglo, but you need to put it just high enough that you can jump and fit between an Igloo entrance and a Large Fence. Maybe the first couple of times you'll fail, but after that, it's great.

SNOW AND SAND

Sadly, there is no way to obtain Sand in any other way but with a Shovel. Snow, after the first 100 for your very useful Igloo... I wouldn't bother too much... But Sand? You'll need a lot. Later. For the Greenhouses. Actually, ONE Greenhouse might be more than enough, but I'm still testing that. I don't know what's too much or too few Greenhouses!

Anyways. If you're aiming at the best drops, shovel three times then collect. Shoveling fifty times and then collecting will grant you roughly the same drop table than three. If you're aiming to get more experience you could take every one sholvel, but there's better ways to obtain Exp, so just go with the three! Shovel only if you need Sand or Snow. And I'd seriously suggest not using Snow to make Ice. Like... make water if you really have to, but Ice is so abundant by mining...

• MELEE WEAPONS

After extensive testing, the Heavy Iron Sword seems to be the best. Best Range and best DPS. Metal Axe is second and Cutlass is third, but there's no reason not to get the best one for the couple extra Iron!

• RANGED WEAPONS

Of the various categories, I've only tried the Golden Blunderbuss, Rifles and Bows. On the chart, Pistols and Blunderbusses are inferior to Rifles. That is true for Pistols (Less damage, less DPS, less Damage per resource consumed, less range), but oh boy was I wrong about the Blunderbuss! The Golden one is the one I tried... I didn't try the Grenade Launcher yet either, because although it is supposedly great (AOE damage and possibly the highest damage in the game), each ammo requires GOLD! Which is QUITE expensive and rare to mine... not a fan of that myself, but it might be great for raiding instead of Bombs.

• RANGED WEAPONS/Bows

So.. of the two categories I've tried, Bows are my favourite...

Bows (including Crossbows) have the advantage of using Arrows/Bolts which can be retrieved most of the time. Shoot your target, take the arrows back! Minimal Waste!

The bow has the highest DPS, it has a faster shooting rate, especially once you get proficent at releasing and holding back the mouse button at the right time.

The Crossbows have lower DPS overall. Yes, even the Heavy Crossbow. Shooting is slower, and the Light Crossbow even has less damage per shoot, but the bolts are less costly in terms of Iron, which means you can carry more and thus more easily kill stuff before having to resort to melee or other weapons. The Light Crossbow can be recharged while moving, the Heavy Crossbow... cannot. Make your assumption on how good that makes it...

It's more of a Light Crossbow vs Bow thing. And the Bow wins hands down right now.

• RANGED WEAPONS/Rifles

There are three Rifles.

We won't talk about the Simple Rifle. It's trash compared to the other two.

Here there is an Assault Rifle Vs Long Rifle argument.

ASSAULT RIFLE

• The Assault Rifle has higher DPS. That's it for this one.

LONG RIFLE

• Long Rifle bullets cost LESS
  
• Each bullet deals MORE damage per bullet shot.
  
• This means MORE damage per Iron spent on this rifle.
  
• The bullets don't require gunpowder, which simplifies the crafting greatly.
  
• The Range is higher too, but that doesn't really affect gameplay right now as far as I could tell.

This seems like an easy win for the Long Rifle, to be honest, but If you have a steady supply of Iron, charcoal and sulfur, the Assault rifle is better. But really, you need wood for the charcoal, sulfur, more iron... is it worth it? Maybe. Use sparingly in difficult encounters. The Long Rifle is better suited for hunting from a distance on your own terms!

BLUNDERBUSS

• HIGH Damage at close range, but progressively less the further you shoot.
  
• HIGH Damage per resources.
  
• Lower DPS than an Assault Rifle but higher than Long Rifle
  
• ABISMAL Range. Really.
  
• ABISMAL Reload time, thus really low firerate.

This thing packs a punch. I think most players would die with one shot at really close range. Even including Armor in the calculations... it would take two shots, tops.

Range is... questionable. It's more of a Melee weapon than anything, even if you take the related Skill. But oh boy. The gold one can deal almost 500 damage at point blank range WITHOUT the Skill. I don't know what the DPS is, because it's QUITE slow to reload and it's ONE shot. The DPS is quite surely less than the Assault Rifle, but higher than the Long Range one. At least, that's the feeling I got. Killing most enemies with two or three shots is quite powerful. It took less time to kill stuff with the GBB than with the LR, and it took LESS bullets, which means each Iron spent on a Blunderbuss is definitely dealing more damage! I think I counted 12 Bullets that deal more or less 25-40 damage, but I'm not sure. Things happen too fast.

I think I prefer the Assault Rifle for anything that moves, but if it's immobile, or you can trap it? GBB is badass! Actually, it's badass even if you can't trap it. Most stuff is dead in two or three shots, and the rest is cheesable. And players, even high level ones, at most 5 shots.

KUNAI

I mean... throwable daggers... but yeah. Those are negligible at the beginning. Once you reach really high levels, they're great for everything, from mining to hunting. Once you have all the skills plus 15-20 in all attributes it performs very well as a mining tool (fastest swing rate in the game, plus no durability), and once you have enough base damage plus some Crit chance and Crit Bonus Damage it gets ridiculously easy to kill stuff in Melee. It isn't a ranged weapon (your throw is way less than a Blunderbuss range to get the full shot. Not much), but it can perform well as an opening I guess...

Now, my stance on Melee weapons is the same as my stance on killing puppies. Namely, don't do it. But one of those in the later levels might just be worth it for the mining and chopping, and it might be deadly as a weapon as well when you inevitably reach high enough levels that your Melee is suddenly doing much more damage than your ranged... But really. At level 70 I'm still preferring the Blunderbuss.

There is one more weapon type we should talk about... and that is...

Yes! That's right! Wildlife.

This is the best melee weapon in the game. As soon as you're ready for it, an army of Polar Bears, assorted wolves and tigers is your best melee weapon. They're great against wildlife because usually they'll be the target of their attacks; moreover if you're using ranged weapons. They're ok against players too, because they either soak up damage while you kill them, or you try to avoid being hit while your minions follow and harass them and possibly kill them for you!

Another great thing is, you can't currently hurt them with your attacks! Don't be afraid to hit them!

Now, how do you tame?

STEP ONE

Bring them to low health. This is sometimes difficult, because you can't exactly know from a distance when it's time to stop shooting, but you don't want to hit them too many times from the melee too. If there's a group of the same enemies, I suggest aggroing one of them, bring them a bit away, and start counting your shoots.

If you kill them, you know that you shot at least one too many times. I suggest to shoot even 3 less, as damage is randomly distributed between a min and max, with criticals between. After that, take a low damaging weapon and use that to whack them some more until the prompt to tame appears. You might not have enough Meat or Cooked Meat. In that case... kill them. No point leaving good meat behind for other players!

Once you have one tamed animal, if you want to tame more, you'll have to keep your tamed animals away from the wildlife you're trying to tame. Otherwise they'll kill it. Good for meat, bad for minion count!

STABLES

You can't simply bring your animals inside your base, because you won't be able to dismount. So the best next thing is designating an open area as near as possible to your base, place a good square of Ice Walls (8 in a 2x2 might be enough if you space them just right, but I'd suggest a 3x3 just to be sure) and one Gate with a Lock. Everytime you want to go harvesting resources, simply bring your entire entourage with you and you'll never need to watch out for random players sneaking up on you! Make an army!

I should add that you can only tame 5 animals. I suggest at least one "mount", be it a Horse or a Bear or a wolf... The rest can be whatever. King Polar Bears are a good choice, as well as those big Yetis. Choose wisely!

COMMANDS

If you tame an animal you have four commands. Stay, Follow and Attack are self explanatory. Stay means that they stay in place without moving, and only attack something if they get attacked first. Follow means they follow you and attack anything which wants to attack you. Attack means they don't follow you around if there's anything to kill. Otherwise they stick mostly to you. But it's easy to get them lost. Follow is by far the most used command by me, with Stay as a close second if I'm hunting something that I want to tame, for example. Or I want to gather resources and they'd get in the way. Now, let's talk about Free

If you Free an animal, they

• Recover their entire health
  
• Are now hostile to you
  
• Can be tamed again, gaining their full health again

This is a costly way, to heal a tamed animal. The proper way is to simply look at the animal and "drop" some cooked meat!

It could be useful if you have an animal that is weaker than another one you could tame!

Currently even those bipedal masses of fur can be tamed, with a lot of raw meat. Don't cook all your meat if you want to tame them. Some animals require two to four stacks of cooked meat, or even more. (I need to test more here too, plus stuff might change in the future so take all this with a grain of salt. Meat is better with salt anyways!)

RIDING

The main advantage to a ride is, you can go faster.
The second is that your carried weight doesn't matter. You can have your character full of heavy stuff and still go the whole way as fast as you were empty handed.
Riding an Horse doesn't seem to be faster than a Bear or a Tiger. I might need to test this, but I have a feeling there are no differences in riding speed between different animals.

Critical Chance and Critical Bonus are quite easy to grasp, so let's get those out of the way.

Critical Bonus is the amount of extra damage you deal if you achieve Critical Hit. If you have 150% Bonus damage, and your normal hit is dealing 10 damage, your Critical hit will deal its normal 10 plus 10*150%. So 25 Damage. Easy peasy.

Critical Chance is simply the probability of getting a critical hit. Normally is 15%. So you have, matematically, 150*15%% more damage by default (0.225 points of damage for every point of damage you would deal, on average).

Now the difficult part. You see how you deal a different damage value each time you hit something (including both enemies and inanimate objects)?

You have a Damage Value in your Skills tab. By default, Woodcutting and Mining Damage is one and Melee is 5. This damage is a BASE damage. With your fists.

By taking a tool or a weapon in your hands, you will see those damage values increase by the amount of the Tool. So, taking a Metal Axe (the tool, not the weapon) your Woodcutting damage increases by 50, to a total of 51.

I couldn't find the exact formula of how damage is calculated to trees, but by hitting many times and gathering data, I can make some well placed guesses and assumptions.

It seems that damage is randomly distributed between that 51 and +/-10 (the least I dealt was 41 and the most was 61). BTW The average damage was 51.

Repeating this with different weapons and skills and attributes indicated that damage dealt is in average equal to the base+tool damage, and oscillates between a minimum of -20% and +20% of that. It doesn't seem to follow a normal distribution, that means all values between min and max are equally probable.

So, if you had 100 damage, you could deal between 80 and 120, with each number in between having an equal probability.

Now, I didn't look at all enemies' health, because it would require that I count while fighting, and I'm not good enough for that, but Trees and Rocks don't move, so there, I could do some math! Trees have 400 total health. The first 200 goes to the Tree turning into a Stump. once the Tree does that, no matter how much damage you dealt in the last hit, the Stump has 200 Health. Period. The best you could do is deal 200 damage two times, chopping down the Tree in 2 hits. No amount of skills will reduce that to one swing.

Mining is similar, but the rock has 300 total health, spread in 4 phases of ever shrinking rocks. At least, I think it is. It was difficult to count my punches at times... because that's what I used to break it and be sure I got more or less the right number...

With Ice, I was also not totally sure, but it seems 4 stages of more or less 50-70 Health seems right... I got mixed results there. I'm not sure.

This fits more or less with the 8-10 Metal Axe swings per Tree, and the 8-9 Metal Pickaxe swings per Ice Node, and the 12-16 for the Stone Node (with the variance depending on your damage luck).

Skills that add a percentage to that damage are applied AFTER that base damage. Which means the average goes up, but so does the variance (damage gets spread over a higher maximum and lower minimum).

I will need to test this, but Armor is supposed to remove damage AFTER Skills and Attributes increase damage.

One interesting thing about using your fists? You deal only your base damage, true, but the swings are twice or thrice as fast. If you invest in Iron Fists (which requires both Masteries at level 3 of course), put some attribute points in Intelligence (WHY intelligence? WHY not strenght?!?!? DEVS?), you can actually gather resources completely fine without Tools (freeing two Hotbar slots and making you start again faster if people destroy your base and rob you blind). At around Intelligence 12-15 (it's difficult to calculate because of that random damage thing) you start chopping Trees faster than with a Metal Axe because you reach the point where having more hits is more inportant than having +50 or +30 extra damage per swing...

I don't want to calculate it. I have enough Excel Tables open as it is. But it's all theoretical anyways. You won't be reaching level 9-10. It requires 32500 Exp, which is 3250 Trees chopped. You could! But let me know if you get there without cheating.

TL;DR: Your Tool/weapon damage is added to your normal base damage, and that's only an average with some variance. Trees have 200 Health Points, their Stumps have the same, Mining nodes and Ice Nodes have ≅250 and ≅300 Health Points.

AN OVERVIEW OF VARIOUS SOURCES OF EXPERIENCE

How to get Exp? There aren't many ways to do that currently. Mainly they're divided in three categories, plus another minor source of Exp:

• Resource Gathering

This is what will push your level up most of the early game, until you have a base and can do some gardening. Trees grant about 13 Exp, while Ice and Stone Mines grant a bit more, but it's faster to cut down a Tree normally. I'd say Trees grant more Exp, then Ice then Mines.

It is not the act of collecting the resources, but the act of breaking down the node/tree that grants experience. The Metal Axe takes about 7-10 swings to chop down a tree Pickaxe takes about 9-12 swings to break down the Node, and those swings are slower! Until you get a Greenhouse, Trees are your main source of Exp.

Besides chopping and mining, there is one other way. Using a Shovel. The neat part about this is, you can do it everywhere, even at base. You don't need to go around making yourself a target and attracting the wildlife! It does offer only one Exp every time you take the product of your Shoveling. It isn't much, but it's honest work! The downside is, Shoveling cannot be done any faster, so even at later level ups, you're going to get the same amount of Exp as at level one. The same isn't true for Wood Cutting and Mining.

• Crafting

Everytime you craft something, you get Exp roughly proportional to how long it takes to craft and how many resources you're using. I didn't break down all possible crafting recipes, but I can tell two important things.

1) Only crafting from your inventory works (no mills, Ice Makers, Furnaces and so on. Yes, even the Crafting Bench isn't netting you Exp).

2) Exp gains are roughly proportional to the amount of resources and/or time required to craft what you're crafting.

3) You don't gain any Exp when Riding your tamed animals. Don't Craft while riding if you want the Exp. Otherwise, it's fine

4) Don't put a crafting queue and then log out/close the game. You won't get any experience, and the crafting won't even be done. You even lose all the materials you used up to craft things!

• Gardening

Compared to gathering your grown plants, the rest is a pittance! I'll talk more in depth about this one in the section after the next, about Gardening.

• Building with the Building Plan

Exp gained is more or less proportional to the amount of Ice required for each building. Upgrading doesn't net any Exp. Not worth mentioning.


Things that DON'T give Exp even though it feels like they should:

Killing Animals (or players I guess, which is nice, it would be cheesable with two people killing each other for Exp)
Fishing
Placing down Buildings from inventory (such as Fences, Gates and so on)
Exploring the map
Upgrading your Buildings to Wood or Stone.
Raiding an enemy Base, destroying their buildings (this would be cheesable, with two people raiding each other... Maybe better that it isn't)


Currently, dying doesn't reset your Exp or skills, thankfully.

The Exp needed per level follows a simple pattern. To reach level x from level x-1, you need (x+1)x500. A few examples here:

Lv 1 =1000XP
Lv 2 =1500XP
LV 3 =2000XP
LV 4 =2500XP
And so on.

This means you'd have 2500 EXP when you reach level 2, and you need to get to 4500 to get level 3, for example.

Each Level nets two Attribute points which can be allocated in either Skills or Characteristics, with no separation between the two.

So. What is Exp and Levels and Attribute Points good for, you ask?

Mainly, for the Skills. Although it might seem more convenient to talk about Skills and Characteristics separately one by one, I'll do an aggregation of both.

TREE CHOPPING MASTER&MINING MASTER&INTELLIGENCE&IRON FIST Intellgence would seem to be the one to have the most impact, with gathering resources faster... but it's a lie. Dealing more damage to trees theoretically means being able to swing your axe less times. More Exp/Fiber/Wood gathered in less time. But it's also not THAT good, I'll be honest.

Let's talk about the Master skills first. They seem to be the vastly superiour option here. I'll talk about Tree Chopping Mastery as an example but you'll be able to apply the whole thing to mining too.

If you have the Metal Axe, without any levels in the mastery skills and no intelligence you require between something around 8-12 swings. With an average of 9 or 10.

It is mathematically possible i guess, although improbable, that you can take a minimum of 6 swings and a maximum of 16.
If you're really really really really really unlucky.
Like... it's THEORETICALLY possible with how the damage system works...
but it's also theoretically possible according to quantum mechanics that my hand spontaneously turns into a living, functioning cat...
Yeah. Not happening. But if it happens, know that it's possible and I predicted it. If you take 5 or 17 swings for a Tree I want a video or I'm not believing you.

At Tree Chopping Mastery lv 1 that drops to 6-8. Matematically impossible to reach get it in 5 and to require 9 or more swings.
At lv 2 it's between 5-7, but most likely 6
At lv 3 it's almost always 4 with some really bouts of bad luck at 5 and really really bad luck at 6.

To obtain this with the Intelligence Attribute? Intelligence gives the same effect with 26, 51 and 77 points respectively. Yeah. Big difference.

The Iron Fist skill, funnily enough, doesn't only work when you use your fists. It adds an extra 5 points of damage even to your Axe or Pickaxe swings, unless I calculated stuff wrong!

They DO scale with each other, BUT. After taking LV3 you could have around 1% probability of chopping one Tree in 2 hits with your Metal Axe... with 16 Points. Or 100%probability with 49 points.

It is nice to have if you want to forego the use of Axes completely, and in fact there comes a point where using your Fists is faster than using an Axe. It still requires more hits, but punches are about twice as fast. That is around 17 points by the way.

Similar reasoning goes for mining.

It's not all that trash, now that we have a way to gather enough points, but your first few levels should be used for the Skills.

STRENGTH&MELEE MASTER&SUPER DAMAGE&SLAYER&STRONGMAN&BACKPACK MASTER

STRENGTH, AGILITY AND LUCK ARE CURRENTLY LOCKED AND WILL PROBABLY BE REWORKED!

Strength is a trash skill imho. It has two main effects.

It increases "base damage". This refers basically only to melee swings with weapons and fists (which DOESN'T include resource gathering damage!). Not ranged damage. If it did... that'd change things... but it doesn't. You want to go around swinging your sword at bears? Be my guest!

And increases your carring weight by 10. Which is:
- not very much in the grand scheme of things. Your base maximum weight is 850 (I know, there's that 1000 written there... but it's at 850 that you start walking slowly and stop sprinting... and there doesn't seem to be any penalty for going over 1000... a bug?)
- absolutely inconsequential even if it was more than 10 per point. You have ENOUGH carry capacity as it is, really, and if you need more... there's the appropriate Skill, Backpack Master. 1000 more for ONE point, or 1000 more for 100 points?
- Your main limiting factor when carrying stuff is inventory size. Which is increased by carrying a backpack AND which Backpack Master also augments. But really, you won't even need the skill. NOT STRENGTH. Period.

Max Carry Weight is also kind of useless as soon as you get a mount. They don't care about your weight at all.

I should add that If you had enough Strength with a sprinkle (or... a lot) of luck and agility you would indeed be more deadly in melee. Crit chance and damage up, with base damage also being increased sounds good... but really, you need many many attribute points for that to matter. The Skills themselves on their own are much more powerful, just like before for the resource gathering skills. But after you have enough points in the rest of your attributes, it might pay off to put some into Strength.

AGILITY

Agility is much more useful than the other tree Characteristics. It increases Critical damage, which only affects Melee again, which isn't that useful, but it also increases the stat "Armor". I'm guessing once we get proper clothing, some of it will be also giving us armor.

My testing shows that it directly subtracts whatever damage you receive. So if you would take 50 and have 5 Armor, you now take 45. After the Greenhouse method of leveling up was added, this can be increased enough to make it very useful.

I don't know and can't properly test how this stacks with the percentage based damage reduction some food grants, because I would need another player to hit me too, and those damages have a component of randomness to them, so testing is difficult.

One sure thing is, minimum damage is 5 points. Whatever the Agility or Armor stats are, you'll always take at least 5 damage from whatever source, that means a rapid rate of fire would overcome a high Armor value easily (Assault Rifle for the win I guess?). Again, I didn't test for how this stacks with the percentage based damage reductions.

With 10 points, most wildlife only inflicts 5 points of damage. With 20 you're tanking all the wildlife.
With 35 you're taking the minimum amount of damage possible from a Golden Blunderbuss at point blank range.
That damage is still pretty high, over 40-70 damage depending on a couple of factors, but better than outright dying!
You need over 50 to have a chance of surviving more than a couple of Rifle Shots.
Forget about surviving bombs and grenades. No seriously. Don't think about them.

LUCK is only increasing the CHANCE of critical damage by 1%....

If it feels underwhelming, it's because it IS.

Critical Chance is normally 15%. You would need 85 points to guarantee the bonus damage. Mathematically, each point of luck increases melee damage by an average of 1% x Crit damage, and Crit damage is around the 150% (depends on what your skill point usage is, some skills and attributes change that). That's around 1.5% extra damage per swing. You know what gives much more CritChance though? A skill. Yeah.

RANGED SKILLS

Super Archer is Super Useful. It increases the average damage of a bow from 100 to 130 with six points. And this is ranged damage, finally. Bow is also quite good as a beginner's weapon.

Sharpshooter just increases the range of Rifles. The only rifle that really benefits from it is the Assault Rifle, which is kind of short ranged in comparison with the other two... but really, until we get some Scopes to attach to our rifles and snipe from afar? This skill is to be avoided. Or, you need to take ONE point in it. Because...

Blunderbuss Mastery requires it. And this skills increases damage dealt with Blunderbusses between 30% and 40% and also increases Precision. I'd take this any day of the week and two times at Sunday.

IMMORTALITY

Immortality is a must as soon as you can. This plus a bunch of Agility will make you REALLY hard to kill! Extra Health, and less damage taken is busted.

Overall I suggest spending all your first points in Skills. Sharpshooter and the Melee enhancing skills can be foregone, depending on your playstyle. Definitely take 10-15 Agility then, and spend the rest how you see fit!

This will be your main source of Exp. If done right, it can also be your main source wood, fiber and healing. Arguably, also money and food.

First, let's talk about the two Greenhouses.

The Small one is easier to defend and to encase in a Base, and can host 2x3 Large Pots for a max of 24 small crops. The big one, on the other hand, allows you to grow Trees, which are by far the best thing to grow for Exp and Money.

The Big Greenhouse is about 12-13 Square Foundations long, and 4-5 large. It's also pretty high...

Protecting the big one is difficult EVEN on PVE Servers. You would need around 20-30 Walls or Spiked Walls and Gates. Make sure it's not possible to enter from above.

The door of the Greenhouse can be locked with either the Code lock or the Key lock, which makes it not a complete nightmare to defend. If a Greenhouse is picked up/destroyed, all the contents disappear.

You definitely need additional methods to protect it. If you use Ice Walls I suggest one totem each corner plus two at the center of the long walls.

If you use Foundations and normal walls, then place the Totems on the base accordingly!

BENEFITS OF A GREENHOUSE

Greenhouses are warm inside, so you won't need a Fireplace during a storm anymore. That's the most immediate benefit there is.

Secondly, and mainly, Plants. Most of them give 200 XP when gathered. It's a nice, semi passive source of XP. Also, Plants can grant a variety of bonuses, from increased healing, additional max health, more stamina, more melee damage, resistance to melee damage and more. Also, some of them sell for good money!

CROP PLOTS

To grow Plants, you need Crop Plots.

There are 3 in various sizes. The small one (1 plant), the medium one (2 plants) and the large one (4 plants).

The Large one is the one you want to use, with MAYBE some Medium.

The benefits of using the Large one are:

• Cost effectiveness.
  The cost of making the medium one is exactly two times the cost of making the small one. Which means, there's no great advantage. The Large one costs like 3 Small ones. Which should tell you that you're saving 1/4th of the resources.
  
• Water is used per Pot over time, not per Crop.
  This means planting two plants in a Medium one will require half the water you'd need to grow those same plants in two small ones. The Large one only uses 1/4 of the Water for the same amount of Crops! Also. This applies wholesale to Fertilizers too.
  
• Space Effective.
  It's impossible to fit 4 Small Crop Pots in the same space taken by a Large Crop Pot. This means more Plants in your Greenhouse, even if it's minimal.

There are no drawbacks. A Greenhouse can fit (in the width) 10 Large Pots, leaving a bit of extra space where a Medium one could fit, if you place all of them perfectly.

You could instead leave that bit of extra space in the middle or to one side to walk around. Space to walk is not needed, but it's nice to have. Walking on Pots doesn't have negative effects, you're unimpeded and generally it's easy in first person to look for the right pot. But it's annoying.

You want to have Ground Torches illuminating everything during the night. You can't carry a torch and water the plants at the same time. One torch is enough for 16 Large Pots if it's in the middle of them.

The whole Greenhouse can host around 240 Large Pots if all are placed optimally. Maybe more...
Plus some Medium ones. Plus some Torches.


HOW DO CROP POTS WORK?

• Pots consume Water and Fertilizer over time, even when empty. Moisture and the Fertilizer effects don't disappear once a plant is harvested. Plants NEED water, and grow 2x faster with Fertilizer. Fertilizer alone can't grow plants and is just wasted.
  
• Watering Cans give 25% Moisture on use for 15 points of Durability. A Can needs 5 Water Bottles and has 500 Durability.
  
• MAYBE plants grow faster when moisture is kept high. But I'm not sure anymore.
  
• Plants seem to require 3-4 fertilizers and about 60 Water from a watering can (120 if not fertilized). This is true if you water the pot and then insert a Fertilizer right away (simultaneously, if possible, or it will require just a bit over 100% Moisture
  
• Harvest results are variable and I don't have enough Data to give an average yet.
  
• Maples require double that.
  
• A Water Bottle gives, as an average, 1 and 2/3 of a normal crop when they're fertilized, or 5/6 of a normal crop if not fertilized. Half of that for Maples

PLANTS
There are 6 Seeds you can buy

• MAPLE
  The undiscussed best plant to Grow. This nets you Wood and Cloth (which is 2/3 of what you require for watering cans and Large Pots!). Also, it takes about double the amount of time as the other seeds to grow. It nets 500 Exp, compared to the 200 Exp granted by the others. This makes it the best Plant to grow for Exp. Each harvest gives around 90-150 Wood and 20-80 Fiber on average. That's probably worth more money than the highest selling price crop...
  
  
• CABBAGE&BEET
  They're the best Crops to Sell (30 coins apiece).
  
  Both grant less health and hunger than Cooked Meat.
  
  Cabbage increases your Max Health by 25 and Beet also grants +15 extra melee damage for 60 seconds... how much that is worth it's up to you.
  
  Eating multiple Beets or Cabbages doesn't stack more and more melee damage or Health. Not that it would matter, with 60 seconds being an extremely short duration... Sorry to bust that bubble!
  
  
• PUMPKINS
  The best vegetable to eat to fill your hunger OVER TIME. Three of them fill your health and hunger almost completely in 180 seconds. Arguably Second best to heal after Corn.
  
  Double as effective as cooked meat at both filling your hunger bar and your health bar. Also, it allegedly provides 30% damage reduction. I couldn't test that.
  
  But the hunger/health thing is fantastic at home. Eat one, do your stuff, eat another... nothing like meat.
  
  They sell for 20, but why would you not use them as your main food source instead?
  
  
• CORN
  When used correctly, this might become your main source of healing.
  
  It grants 5% Health and 15% Hunger over 10 seconds, and you can eat one more to refresh that 10 seconds and add another stack of that effect, up to three, after which eating more only refresh that level 3 buff.
  
  4 of them can recover your whole Health bar in around 40 seconds. Eat two in quick succession, then one more after 7-8 seconds. and one more after another 7-8 seconds. It can be really really powerful!
  
  Corn sells for 10.
  
  
• PEPPER
  This thing is currently useless. It sells for the least amount of coins (6), it restores the least health and hunger (5%), and it INCREASES thirst by 25%! If you eat 4 of those after you've drank to full, you'll be back to 0.
  
  They would be used to recharge your Stamina bar. You know... that thing you use for swinging and jumping and running?
  
  Problem with this is... you never really need the Stamina Bar at the stage of the game you obtain the Greenhouse. By then you can mount something to go places, and Sprinting is the only thing that consumes Stamina faster than you regain normally. You could buy the Seeds for completeness' sake... and in case they get a buff I guess. Right now? Trash

How many seeds should I buy of X?

Cabbage, Beet&Pepper? No.

Or only one if you really want all the Crops just for fun. I did that too. I understand that need!

Maple, Corn and Pumpkin? I suggest about 8 each of Corn and Pumpkin (per person if you're in a team). This should be enough to feed yourself and occasionally heal damage. The rest can be Maple.

There was no way to convert money into Exp... until now. Fertilizers accellerate your plant growth. Money is easier to come by than Exp, trust me.

But do what feels best, really. I like to get tons of Exp from Trees. Exp is not easy to come by, and 500 each Tree is amazing! Takes long, but it's worth it. Better than chopping down 200 Trees outside!

Gathering resources and selling them directly whenever it's possible seems the best strategy. Making Wood into Planks doesn't net you any extra money per wood for your effort. Unless you want to craft it for the EXP (which is NOT a bad idea, mind you), there's no monetary gains. Same for Sand into Glass, or the various ingots. Just sell them how they come.

Some things you can't usually sell direcly, it's possible to sell through crafting them. Such as:

• Snow -> Igloo
  100 Snow is worth 80 Coins as an Igloo... pretty good for what is basically a farmable resource at home! Drawback of this: Shovel cannot be affected by skills and also the type of Shovel you use doesn't seem to influence the drops. This makes it less effective in the mid-late game
  
• Meat -> Cooked Meat
  You CAN sell the Raw meat, but it's worth less. Better to cook it, even counting the used wood, you're profiting from it. Also, you NEED to keep warm anyways, and charcoal is a useful resource! Just have some meat to cook, and always cook some!

Unless you're using Gold for Explosives (which is GOOD for PvP, don't get me wrong, Grenade Launcher is the best weapon in the game to deal with players!), the Ore sells really well!

Although it seems a good idea to use your Greenhouse to farm some stuff for money, I'd say it's much better to use it mainly for the Exp gains, Pumpkins as a food source and Corn as an healing aid. Probably Maple is highly profitable, because it nets quite a bit of Wood and Fiber... but then again, you need those resources for other stuff!

To be honest with you, aside from the Seeds, Fertilizer and occasionally some resources that you can't be bothered to farm, the Merchant and money are useless after a certain point. Especially after you have your base all set and ready, and nearby sources of various resources have been secured!

• You can totally bring a spare campfire with you, place it where there's plenty of trees, and stay warm while you collect your wood!
  
• Most wildlife is easy to cheese. An Igloo and/or couple fences and they won't be able to attack you while you whack them.
  
• Currently, walls support only one roof of distance. But three roofs can support a fourth one sometimes. Some walls can be deconstructed, if they were there only for the supporting role. A whole roof can support itself as long as there's walls on the outside, theoretically.
  
• DON'T sell your Clay, no matter hot tempting. Keep it for when you finally have a Greenhouse. You only need a big one, so collect only 400 Sand for the required 200 Glass and ignore your Shovel from that moment.
  
• Different Shops don't seem to sell different items. Get close to one, and you won't need to travel around for another!
  
• You don't need to buy more than one of each type of Seed from the merchant if you don't want to, but I suggest you do buy an mount of seeds equal to however many places for plants you have!
  
• Don't log out/exit the game while crafting. You'll lose all the materials you were trying to craft with and not get anything back. Don't ask how much stuff I lost to discover this

I might expand on this guide more in the future, as content is released, and as I try more weapons and stuff, but for now that's it!