Guide:Walkthrough

# Walkthrough

### Important Notes

* Colonists are your primary resource. The more unique colonists you have, the more can be produced. They can also be used as human shields if you're cold like that.
	+ They can be kept happy by keeping their needs met, like heat, food, and beds.
	+ Keep your colonists happy or else they might leave your colony.

* Use stockpiles whenever you can, they are essentially colony storage. Colonists will constantly move items to and from it, as things are crafted and need to be crafted.
	+ Place resources in there for easy transport of materials between facilities.
	+ Use it as food storage, as Colonists can easily grab items from there, so they can be kept fed.

### (Optional: Multiplayer) Starting the Game: Finding Your Friends

* On loading into the game, hit the "o" key to open the Map.
* On the left is a list of teams available to join.
* Joining a new team will kill and respawn you near your teammate. (In future, players will be prompted to join a team before loading so they wont have to die and respawn)

### First Goals: Building a Basic Shelter

* You should have spawned near a crashed pod, with some basic supplies such as food and building materials strewn around the crash site. Pick the materials up and loot the pod for what you can.

Your first shelter should protect you from attack, provide warmth from the cold and serve as your starting base to produce resources to continue your journey.

* Harvest some wood to build a workbench, either manually or with the help of a Colonist if you have one. Note that you do not need an axe to harvest trees, a pickaxe will do just fine.
* You can build Wooden Panels on hand and use those to build a basic shelter. Don’t go too fancy, as a simple box will do just fine.
	+ Wood will eventually be vulnerable to fire and weaponry, but it will work for now.
	+ It is recommended to find a grassy biome, as those allow for the most resources.

* Build a Workbench via the Blueprints menu under the Facilities tab. This can be used to build most of what you need to survive. Remember, Colonists will automatically work on Blueprints, but you can work on them as well by pressing E.

* Construct a campfire using wood. This is needed for basic warmth, light and cooking. It can be found under the Furniture tab on the Blueprints menu.

* Place a Stockpile via the Build menu. This will give Colonists a place to haul all of your harvested resources as they work. It can be found under the Storage tab.

* Place down a bed, preferably close to a campfire, these will allow your NPCs to sleep better, making sure they don’t get tired, so they can keep working. Place one for every NPC in your Colony. They can be found in the Furniture section, Bed (Wood) or Bedrolls are recommended, as you likely don't have Metal Ingots at this stage.

### Second Goals: Establishing Your Base, Progressing

Your next immediate goals should be constructing the facilities that can produce the basic items you need to explore the world, equip and feed your colonists, defend your base and continue unlocking more advanced technology. As time goes on, feel free to expand your base for more space. If you need verticality, use ladders, which you can craft by hand or build them in the Blueprints Menu.

* If you have none yet, dig downwards with or without Colonist help to obtain Iron Ore - it is the silvery material found in rocks.

* Build a Low Tech Smelter using the Blueprint tab and any rocks you've mined. You will require metal ore to make it.
	+ This smelter can only refine iron, copper and gold, at a higher resource penalty than later smelters. It will eventually require coal to run.

* Deposit the ore in a stockpile or the smelter itself, or let the NPCs haul the ore there if they are the ones mining it.

* Head to the Smelter and stack up some Metal Ingot orders. The NPCs will begin hauling ore to it. The Smelter is automated and does not require an NPC to function.

* Metal is the staple building material for most of the game, keeping a healthy stock of it should be a priority at all times.

* Once you get an ample supply of Metal Ingots, you should start by building 3 facilities: the Research Table, Kitchen, and Butcher Table; All of which can be made in the Blueprint menu under facilities.
	+ The Research Table will allow you to start researching various things, many allowing you to better yourself by getting better equipment.
	+ The Kitchen will allow you to feed your colonists a lot better, creating certain meals with good ol’ meat and potatoes. Store meals in the Stockpile for easy access.
	+ The Butcher Table will allow you to better harvest resources from animal corpses, allowing for more things like fur and meat. Better to create more clothing and food.

* Once you obtain more metal ingots and colonists, you can begin constructing other crafting stations, in whichever order is most pressing to you:
	+ Armorer (Guns and body armor): Allows for you to defend yourself and colonists from enemies more efficiently. Includes things like stronger weaponry and flak armor.
	+ Tailor’s Bench (Cloth, clothes and environmental wear): Allows for you to better equip yourself for the environment and survive better. Includes things like cold protection, stronger clothing sets, and medical supplies.
	+ Refinery (Refines oil and plastics): A necessary facility that allows you to create more advanced materials needed for the late game.

These can all be found in the Facilities tab of the Blueprint menu.

### Priorities moving forward:

* Defend yourself from Raiders using the stronger weapons and armor found in the Armorer’s workbench.
	+ Take note that raider attacks will progressively get stronger as time goes on, so be ready to keep bettering your equipment.

* Explore, dig underground and find more exotic materials to manufacture better equipment with.
	+ Keep an eye out for a new kind of metal, it will be invaluable.

* Find cool stuff! There's plenty of cool things and items to find and try out.