Starting Tools and Equipment: What to Craft First
Farming everything with the starter rock isn't viable for long. Here's the exact order of tools worth crafting first.
When you wake up on the beach you have almost no equipment. Getting better tools starts with collecting wood and stone, and there are a few ways to speed that up.
Gathering the Basics
- You can pick up small quantities (around 50) of wood, stone, sulfur ore, and metal ore directly from the ground in some spots.
- Chopping down trees, stone nodes, and ore nodes with your rock works too — watch for a red X marker appearing on a tree after your first hit, or a sparkling spot on a node; hitting that exact point again gathers faster.
- You'll also need cloth, gathered by picking hemp plants you find scattered around.
The First Real Tools
Farming everything with the rock is not effective for long. Your priority should be:
- Stone Hatchet (200 wood, 100 stone) — chops trees much faster than the rock and is better at processing dead animals (or people).
- Stone Pickaxe (200 wood, 100 stone) — much better for stone, metal ore, and sulfur ore, and a better melee weapon than the rock too.
Your First Weapons
- Wooden Spear (300 wood) — throw it or use it to stab. Careful: if it lands in a target, it can stick there and either get thrown back at you or run off with the animal.
- Hunting Bow (200 wood, 50 cloth, plus 25 wood + 10 stone per 2 arrows) — this is the main weapon for your first day. It kills most animals in three to four shots; bears take around eight and are genuinely dangerous, so be careful.
One old trick: luring an animal into shallow water slows it down dramatically, making it much safer to finish off without taking a hit yourself.
Processing What You Kill
Once you've killed animals or other players, chop up the bodies with your tools (or the rock, if that's all you have) — aim to collect at least 30 bone fragments early on. As soon as you have them, craft a Bone Knife (30 bone fragments) — it gives you maximum resources when processing bodies, whereas stone tools or the rock waste some of what a corpse would otherwise give you.
Killing animals also nets you leather (for clothes), animal fat (for low-grade fuel), cloth (for bows, sleeping bags, and clothes), and bone fragments (for knives, clubs, or bone armor).
What should I craft first — the hatchet or the pickaxe?
Whichever resource you're short on right now. If you have enough wood/stone for both, get the hatchet first since wood gathering underlies almost everything else you'll craft next.
Is the bow really worth the resources this early?
Yes — it's genuinely the main weapon for day one, both for hunting animals and for early PvP at short-to-medium range. Getting comfortable with it pays off quickly.
Why does my Bone Knife matter so much?
Processing a body with stone tools or the bare rock wastes some of the resources it would otherwise give you — a Bone Knife extracts the maximum amount, which matters a lot when every bone fragment and piece of cloth counts early on.
Should I fight other players with just a spear and bow?
Only if you have to — early weapons are enough to fight another fresh player, but they're not enough to contest anyone already geared up. Prioritize resources over unnecessary fights in these first hours.