General Survival

## First Minutes of GRAV Gameplay

After starting GRAV, select "Multiplayer" and then choose any of the available servers. (Sometimes not all of the available servers are shown in the list right away because of connection-troubles, so try to "refresh" and eventually more servers will be shown.)

There are official test servers which are designated as such. These are frequently reset as they are for testing purposes so don't expect to maintain your progress on these. Some are labelled PvE-Servers (meaning player can't kill each other there, while they can still destroy structures of others and/or claim them when decay "frees" them), while others are PvP-Servers by default. Servers you have played on will be marked with a '\*'.

You can also select "Solo Play" and a brand new "planet" will be created just for you.

Finally you can set up a Dedicated Server to play there only with your friends and those you permit to join.

## First Time Spawning Into GRAV

You will first spawn into any new GRAV world with Player Level 0. Other players may be in close proximity on multiplayer worlds. You might also spot their buildings, Crafting Base Items, Uplinks, Harvesters and so on all over the planet. Some might be "locked", but others might be free to use for everybody.

You will first spawn into a Starting Area. You'll be surrounded by low level non-aggressive mobs (fauna) and the game will present you with a basic 'tutorial' with instructions to follow to quickly gain a few levels.

## Kill Enemies

Why would you want to kill creatures?

* Monsters drop blueprints! A level 0 character has only the most basic blueprints by default. Most of the items you will need to build in the game come from blueprints, including the generators needed to protect your future base.

* Monsters give experience points! You can't level up without them, so get killing to grow big and strong.

* You will want to hunt Bosses (randomly named enemies that radiate colored light and are often larger than the usual monsters; some even look different!) as often as possible. Bosses drop blueprints more often than regular monsters and offer extra experience points.

* LOOT!!! Monsters drop a plethora of helpful items including already made stims, essences for crafting elemental gear and extra stims, monster-specific Materials used for crafting all manner of items, and more!

**Pro Tip:** *Wealthy* enemies glow bright gold and drop double the loot of a normal monster!

## How do you fight?

Using your default Melee weapon - Rotted Wood Club - you can begin killing enemies by selecting it (defaulted `1`) and pressing your left mouse button (`LMB`, default). You should gather resources and craft your first "real weapon" (starting with Rusty Pistol) as soon as possible because *any* weapon is better than your first weapon.

## Gather Resources

You should start using your MultiTool to gather resources in the world ASAP. You can never have enough basic resources:

* Wood from trees,
* Fossils from skeletons on the ground,
* Ore from shiny rocks, and
* Gems

When you have found a resource node (such as a tree, crystal, rock, etc), use the left mouse-button to harvest. When harvesting there will always be a chance of more special resources like planks, chunks, etc. to drop as well; these will be much needed for crafting weapons, armor and other useful items. Resource nodes that glow are called 'jackpot' nodes and will provide extra resources and experience.

## Loot Crates

If you spot large red Loot Crates standing around: there will be a good amount of resources and also special resources inside; when you get close to these boxes, enemies of your level or a bit higher will spawn as Guardians close to it (made known to you in the upper right corner of your screen). So be careful!

## Crafting

You will want to build an Armory or just go search for Armories placed on multiplayer worlds by other players that are free to use.

At this crafting station you can craft a *Rotted Wood Club* and a *Rusty Pistol* at first with some Pistol Bullets. You won't need a blueprint for these low level weapons because they're are already in your possession from the beginning. Protect yourself soon with Rotted Wood Armor.

That will have to do for a while, since you will need to get blueprints for better Armor, a Wooden Sword and better Pistols from Bosses around level 15 quite a bit later. Later on you will be able to unlock and build other types of weapons like Pistols, Assault rifles, Shotguns, Sub Machine Guns and MultiTools.

You may want to build more stuff:

* Camp Fires for healing both health and stamina
* Uplinks as your self-defined respawn point where ever you feel safe
* Storage Bins that you might want to set to friends-only or private on multiplayer worlds
* Composters which will turn Wood into Organics.
* Science Stations for Stims and Devices,
* Factory's for building Vehicles and Traps
* Kitchenettes will produce Food from Organics
* and then a whole base made of Rooms to protect your stuff

After that many other objects to help you explore, fight and survive. Keep in mind that you will need to obtain the blueprints from larger enemies before you can craft some more advanced devices, and that you will want to upgrade most crafting stations and powered devices with more materials for better results and longer duration, because pretty much all of the structures that you build will start to decay if you do not attend to them regularly.

Some sources for materials (e.g. wood, fossils) are more common outside while others (e.g. ore, gems) are more common dungeons (caves, Alien Towers, Science Labs, etc). You will be able to craft MultiTools of higher levels at your Armory while advancing through the game and after obtaining the require Blueprints. You will also discover different ways of gathering more interesting resources like Element-X, Cagite or World Artifacts.

## Team Up! ... Or Not!

When you meet other players in game you will have to make a choice. You can become their teammate, their enemy or just pass each other and go your separate ways. Everyone will see each other with an “**UNFRIENDLY**” tag under their names at first. Creating teams has advantages all around and in order to create one you must create and share a Friend or Foe (FoF) Code.

To do that you need to enter a “console command”. If you wanted to set your FoF Code to *406*, for example, you would open your console by pressing the tilde (`~`) key and typing:

```
clientsetfofcode 406
```

Now you will be in team 406 and it will show in the upper right side of your screen, the UNFRIENDLY tag will disappear and you will be able to use each other’s items.

Please note that you should have as long a FoF code as you can - max is 9 digits - as anyone with this code can potentially access your base! Codes can be guessed. Use www.random.org to get your new code.

## When You Get Injured

You are going to take some hits. When you do you will of course lose health. Build or find an accessible Camp Fire and **dance** (default `X`) around it to heal both health and stamina. The more people who dance the faster you heal! Save wood by right-clicking and extinguishing your fire after use; otherwise it will burn out by itself after using up all wood it contains.

You can also use Health Stims (default `H`) which will either be dropped by enemies you kill, pop out of Loot Crates you may find (be careful, as enemies around your characters level will spawn around them as soon as you get close!) or can be crafted using the Science Station, which requires a blueprint.

Your health will also slowly regenerate over time and a bit more after leveling up the Astronaut skill Health Recovery. These Skills can only be leveled up with Element-X. See Player Skill for other health related skills you can use to heal your character.

## When You Die

Expect to die often, especially in the beginning. When you die you will drop your backpack and many supplies with it, even some armor, weaponry and tools that you don't have equipped. You will always keep your MultiTool Mark I, your Combat Knife and your default helmet.

You will respawn back to either your original starting location or at your last Uplink location (explained in next section). Once you spawn back in you will want to locate your dropped backpack that fell and retrieve it. Look for a round dot on your compass that will lead you to your backpack. It is represented by a glowing golden/silvery sphere. It will shine brightly as you get closer to it. Get up next to it and hit `E` if you want what is in it.

Other players on multiplayer servers can and often will retrieve your backpack right away so if you want your loot you'll have to act quickly! Later on you will be able to craft Bag Summon Stims at your Science Station to retrieve all your backpacks from a far distance, even if they should be at the bottom of deep chasms or at other unreachable spots. It takes 10 minutes for your dropped backback to become retrievable with the bag summon stim.

## Create an Uplink

If you want to create a new spawn location you can craft an Uplink from your build menu (default `B`). Upon creating the Uplink you will be automatically bound to it. If you place another Uplink, you will be bound to this new one, but you can then still unbind your character from it and bind it to an old Uplink if you want.

Now when you die or exit the game you will automatically spawn near the Uplink when you come return. Your Friendly Allies can also bind (requires some resources) to your Uplink. However: you, Foes and Unfriendly players can also destroy your Uplink. Especially during Invasions enemies might intetionally target your Uplink so you might want to defend it (for example, by building a base around it). If your Uplink is destroyed you will then spawn at the original location you first started at when coming in at level 0.

## Console Commands

See: Console command
Since GRAV is still *early access* there are some menu items that are not yet implemented. You can access some of these features by typing commands in the console (default `~` or `TAB`).

## Have Fun!

You are now on your way to having a great time in the many worlds of GRAV. There are a LOT more features that you will find in game. Explore the Planets and Dungeons. Mine, Craft, Build, Upgrade, Defend and Dominate! Have Fun!