Survival Guide - Your first day

Seraph finishing their first day.

Welcome to Vintage Story, an uncompromising wilderness survival sandbox game that emphasizes challenging gameplay. This page will guide you through the core mechanics that form the foundation of your survival journey: gathering resources, managing hunger, and finding shelter. This guide is a collaboration between many individuals.

Your first day

Player Spawn

Players appear in the world around the "spawn location". If a player dies in the game, the player will reappear (respawn) near the initial spawn location until the player spawn point is reset (this can be done with a temporal gear, which can be found later in the game.) It's a good idea to set a marker for this spawn point when a player first appears in the world. Either use on the world map or through the command /waypoint add [waypointcolor] [title]. This command adds a waypoint with given color (any .NET Color or a Hex Code) and text.

User Interfaces

Once you have spawned, you will see three indicators at the bottom of your screen: one red, one cyan and one green.

1. Health. 2. Temporal Stability. 3. Hunger

Health

The first red indicator, your health bar on the left, reflects the amount of damage your character can take before dying. Each subdivision in the bar represents 1 health point, of which you will have 15 by default. Lost health points can be recovered using healing items or through natural regeneration, which restores 0.1 health points every 10 seconds. However, this significantly increases the loss of satiety.

Temporal Stability

The second marker, represented by a cyan gear in the middle, is your temporal stability. This measures how stable the player is. The less cyan area there is, the more unstable the character will be. As it gradually decreases, you will see the gear spinning counterclockwise. If it completely runs out, you will enter the Rust World, which causes visual distortions, increases the spawn rate of monsters, and causes damage until some temporal stability can be recovered.

Draining temporal stability:

• Some surface areas are temporally unstable
• Caves, underground caverns, and places below surface level are generally more unstable than the surface of the world
• Temporal storms (occur at regular intervals)
• Being near a Temporal rift will rapidly drain temporal stability

Recovering temporal stability:

• Move to a location of high stability on the surface or at higher elevations in the world
• Transfer the temporal stability from a temporal gear : equip the gear in the left hand, a knife in the off hand, and hold to provide a 30% boost at the cost of some HP
• Killing monsters recovers small amounts of your own temporal stability

Keep temporal stability in mind when picking a spot to build your home, as moving after settling down will be much harder.

Satiety

Satiety, represented by the green bar on the right, reflects how hungry the character is or how many calories remain to be burned. It has a maximum, default, value of 1,500. Satiety decreases naturally over time, even when standing still, but some actions such as running, holding something in the off-hand, wearing armor, or certain conditions like cold temperatures or regenerating lost health will increase satiety consumption. If satiety falls to zero, the player will start to take hunger damage, leading to death. Eating food will restore as much satiety as shown in the item's description.

Player Inventory

Below the three indicators, you will see one empty slot on the left, 10 empty slots on the middle and 4 empty slots on the right. These are three different types of inventory slots.

• Off-hand slot Which can hold passive items such as torches or lanterns.
• Main inventory Which holds 10 slots. Every slot is linked to a shortcut for quick access (default: keys 1 to 0).
• Backpack slots Which allow for portable containers to be added. Up to 4 containers can be used to expand the inventory further. These slots can be accessed through the inventory/crafting window E or by using Ctrl + 1 to 4.

Stone Age

Branches and stones

Knapping process

In order to start the Stone Age, you will need Stone Tools. For this we will need to use a mechanic called Stone knapping, which allows you to create primitive tools and weapons heads. The process involves:

1. Find Flint or loose knappable stones (basalt, chert, granite, andesite, obsidian or peridotite).
2. With the flint or stone in your active hotbar slot, place it (Shift + ) on solid ground to create a knapping surface. Only flint will immediately create a knapping surface. In order to use the other loose stones, you need to place it once, then target it (Shift + ) again with another loose stone.
3. Choose the tool to create from the menu. An axe and a knife are highly recommended as first tools.
4. Using a stone in the active hand, on the orange boxes to remove them from the stone and shape the finished blade or tool head. When the last orange box is removed, the completed tool head will transfer to the player's hotbar. If an orange box (or group of them) becomes completely separated from the main tool, they will disappear as well.
5. Press E to open the inventory GUI and access the crafting grid. In the grid, combine the stone tool blade with a stick (handle) to create the finished tool.

Protip

• Sticks can be collected from the ground or by breaking leafy branches using .

Portable Containers

Now that you have a knife and can quickly gather reeds, you should collect 10 of them to craft a hand basket, or 40 to fill all four backpack slots. Each hand basket adds 3 inventory slots, giving us 12 new spaces. It is important to note that backpacks can only be kept in the regular inventory slots while they are empty. Once they contain items, they can only be placed on the ground or in backpack slots.

Food

Food scavenging time!

You can now fill all that extra inventory space with food! Here are some of the first day options:

• Wild Crops can be found around the world. They spawn in varying states of growth, but should only be harvested when fully mature. In addition to providing food, they are one of the main ways of acquiring seeds for farming , along with looting ruins and trading . Wild crops can also be an easy way to acquire flax before you have a farm.
• Mushrooms can be harvested with a knife or empty hands. They will regrow in the same area, so marking mushroom clusters on the map can be advantageous. Make sure to check the mushroom with the Handbook to check for poisonous variants, as some mushrooms can drain your health or even kill you when consumed raw or cooked. They can be found on the ground or on trees, and are (mostly) found in forests.
• Ripe berry bushes can be harvested without tools, and then broken and replanted anywhere else. After a while they will start to bloom again if the climate is right.
• Cattail roots can be harvested using a knife and cooked as a source of early game forage. However, eating the roots gets rid of the plant, so it is best to try to avoid doing so until you have made as many reed chests and baskets as you require.
• Animals can be killed for nutritious meat and fat , as well as items useful later in the game like bones and hides . While looking at a dead animal, sneak and hold with a knife in hand to harvest the meat, fat, and hide. The bones can be gathered by destroying the carcass left behind. Meat must be cooked in a fire pit before eating.

Refer to the page on wild foods for more information. See also Foraging .

Find clay and take it with you or mark it on the map.

Clay

Clay is a required resource to progress through the ages. Many new players have a difficult time trying to find clay in their first worlds. Pay attention to the exposed edges of grass-covered blocks in your first days. (See picture to the right for an example of clay blocks.)

In the early game, clay can be used to build comparatively cheap stationary storage options and your first means to preserve food for a bit longer. It is also required to craft a cooking pot, which is necessary for advanced cooking. Clay items must be fired in a Pit kiln before they become useable.

Detailed information can be found in the Clay Forming page.

Crafting a firepit.

Light / Cooking

Once the sun sets, a player might want to create a firepit as a source of light and for cooking. Be aware though, rain will extinguish any uncovered fires or torches , so be sure to build a simple roof over any firepits.

To make a firepit, gather the following resources:

• Dry grass : with a Knife in hand to gather Tall Grass.
• Firewood : with an Axe in hand to cut Trees and harvest logs. Place the axe and logs in the crafting grid to create firewood.

Sneak and right click on solid ground with the dry grass in hand to place a fire pit. Next, sneak and right click with 4 firewood in hand to complete the fire pit. Then, light the fire using a firestarter (or a torch), hold with either item in hand and aim at the base of the firepit. (Optionally check the handbook H, to find out how to make a firestarter .)

Congratulations, meat can be cooked and new torches created by heating sticks! Be careful though, a torch in your off hand will cause you to take an increased hunger penalty, and torches held while taking a dip in water will get extinguished.

Combat

To defend against hostile creatures, craft stone age weapons by knapping or carving a club from a log. Different weapons have different ranges. Spears are the strongest long range weapon in the stone age, but break quickly. Create a stone spearhead by knapping, and combine with a stick (shaft) in the crafting grid to finish the spear. Wooden clubs are durable but have less damage and less range. Knives, axes, or just plain sticks can all be used as weapons, but these have shorter ranges than the spear. In an emergency, small stones can be thrown at mobs. For more information, see the main article on Combat .

Improvised body armor can be crafted from dry grass and firewood for some very basic protection. It will not protect your head or legs, but is better than nothing. Once more established in the world of Vintage Story, more advanced types of armor can be crafted.

A house made of basic materials.

Shelter

As the sun sets, temporal monsters will start to spawn. Monsters are hostile, and can be dangerous to players (especially if they have no armor or weapons), but can be easily avoided if players prepare a shelter beforehand. There are different blocks that you can use to make a shelter using the early resources you have available. Dry grass can be used to make a basic bed to sleep through most of the night. Dry grass can also be used to form hay bales or cob for early building. Soil is also a good building material, and can be used to create packed dirt , rammed earth , or daub (for making wattle and daub ). If you run out of time or don't have the resources to make a shelter, you can always hide in a trader's cart, although you will not be able to prepare tools or food for tomorrow since you can't modify a trader's cart. If there are no traders nearby, you can always make a skybase or bunker - just remember, some monsters can climb ladders!

Stationary Storage

See Containers for detailed information.

In picture: a chest, a labeled chest, a vessel and a basket.

For more storage, the player can craft two early game containers.

• Reed chests have 8 slots, but they require a total of 24 cattails (or papyrus) to craft. They aren't a great option for storing food because food in chests will go bad faster than in your inventory when the weather is warm.
• Storage vessels have 12 slots. They require clay to craft and have the best spoilage rates in the game, which make them most suitable for food storage. As with all clay items, they must be fired before they become useable.
• Chests have 16 slots. They are not considered early game storage, because they require boards and nails and strips to craft, both of which require access to smithing .

Temperature

See Temperature for detailed information.

The player's body temperature needs to be kept around 37°C. Prolonged times with body temperature under this mark will result in shivering animations and even damage taken. Beware that dipping in water or being out in the rain will make your temperature drop faster. Standing near a lit campfire can warm the player up and the body temperature will stay up a while even after stepping away. There are no negatives for having too high of a body temperature.

Advanced Game Mechanics

Once the basics are mastered, players can develop advanced technology: Survival Guide - Advanced tech

Tutorial Video: First Day

Thanks to Ashantin for creating and sharing with the VS community.