The First Day

This guide is up-to-date with 0.F (Frank) as of Nov 15, 2020

The first day is always the most difficult, especially if you're new to the Cataclysm. This guide is intended to help newer players get the proper equipment and skills for their situation, learning all the basics that are necessary for their journey into the Cataclysm.

Notes

This guide assumes generally default settings (evacuee scenario, default world values, NPCs, and Survivor profession). The Survivor profession is recommended, as it starts with basic tools.

This guide also assumes that you have no starting skills spent in survival, fabrication, or food handling.

Basic movement

See controls.

Arriving

Blink. Look around. Unlike most people in Cataclysm, you're alive and breathing, and with patience, knowledge, and luck, you may be able to stay that way. Thankfully, you don't have to face the apocalypse completely alone—another survivor has made it to the shelter.

To get an idea of your surroundings, peek out of the various curtains surrounding the room by examining them from a neighboring tile. Try not to alert anything that looks potentially threatening. Some common early-game dangers include animals such as the wolf, black bear, moose, or giant wasp. Take care, many short-lived survivors have died by exiting the shelter ill-prepared, underestimating wildlife, and ignoring safemode warnings.

Ensuring the safety of your shelter is key to surviving. Let's take care of your primary needs. On the right side of the screen is your status bar, showing your health, mood :), Focus, and more. The game begins in mid-spring, and the weather is currently comfortable (probably). Let's check your inventory. By opening your inventory, you can see what you're currently carrying: the survivor starts with a fully charged cellphone, one matchbook, a pocket knife, and a plastic bottle of clean water.

If it is safe to do so, you can open all these curtains by pressing in the direction of each window. Your character will raise the curtains, letting the light in. A well-lit area (i.e. tile) is needed for crafting, so this is a good thing to do now. Time to take a basic look around your shelter.

The Shelter

This is where you start, one of the many government evac shelters. Notice that you can see things when you approach the lockers and cupboards. You can check them by pressing e. There, you can find some useful things for your survival like the wrappers of protein rations, more bottles of clean water, folded emergency blankets, emergency jackets, flashlights, batteries, lighters, some plastic & paper junk, and, if you’re really lucky, a gas mask, too. These blankets are useful clothing when it's really cold. They provide excellent warmth, but it's very encumbering. Encumbrance is a debuff and can potentially drop your fighting/dodging effectiveness, so wear them only if it’s snowing. However, you likely should wear an emergency jacket now. It gives moderate encumbrance but also keeps you dry when it rains. Plus, it gives extra protection and just a little warmth without dropping your efficiency.

Notice that your shelter has a console and a door that doesn't lead to the outside. This door blocks a stair to the roof. This door is also locked. Right now, it's impossible to open it without destroying it, but trying to break it with your bare hands is not recommended. Without something heavy, it'll take too much time and stamina. Check one of the windows and tear down its curtains. Then grab the stout branch and wield it. It's not very effective as a weapon but can do the job for now. Approach the door and smash it until it breaks completely (the NPC can hear it and check on what's happening, but don't worry about it). With the door out of your way, it's time to look at the roof. Do so by standing on the ladder and pressing < to go up.

The Roof

Here is the roof. Notice that you're very high from the ground level, so don't try jumping from the corners of your shelter. You can easily break a limb doing it.

We are here for other purposes. Notice that solar panel? It has something that is really useful for you, but unfortunately you can't just deconstruct it without the right tools. Let's take it by brute force. Smash the solar panel in pieces. A single blow will likely break it. Bear in mind that smashing such "furniture" is usually the worst way to obtain its resources, as smashing destroys some components in the process; however, we don't have a choice right now. examine what is left of the solar panel and collect all the scrap metal and lumps of steel. Your next task will require them.

Ignore the other remains of the solar panel, we'll have to come back here later, and go back inside. Doing so is almost the same thing as ascending to the roof; stand on the ladder and this time press > to go down.

The Basement

Now it's time to enter the shelter's basement and take a look around. Do so by standing on the stairs and using > to go down. It's widely known that these shelters were poorly supplied, but it does have a few extremely useful items. The basement is usually composed of 4 rooms: the main room containing the stairs, 2 bathrooms, and a hallway that covers the stairs.

The bathroom is where the important items are. The items can be in both rooms or in just one, but there is a guarantee of:

• First aid kit boxes: This box can save your life. It contains a lot of medical supplies useful for mending all kinds of damage to the player. Keep one, or its contents, close by.

• Soap bars: Useful to clean filthy clothing. You can always loot the clothes from killed zombies, but wearing their filthy garments lowers morale, and slightly increases infection risk.

• Gallon jugs of bleach and of ammonia are also here. Bleach can be used in the early game to craft sterile, bleached bandages.

• Several pieces of paper: Useless right now. No need to carry them as plenty of paper is around, and it will be some time before you are able to use them for crafting.

Now that you've salvaged the useful things from the basement, it's time to prepare yourself for the days ahead. You can leave the basement the same way you came in, by standing on the stairs and using < to go up.

Improving

Back on the main floor, we're about to do some serious crafting. First, we need to replace this stout branch. Although it can work as a weapon, we should settle on a more reliable weapon, as there will be times when your survivor has no choice but to fight. During a fight with a zombie, if it grabs you, not only is your move speed reduced, but you can get badly bitten, and being badly bitten will kill you within hours if you lack a disinfectant or antibiotics.

Before starting, bring everything useful to a cupboard, or try keeping the items at least 4 tiles close to you, all within a brightly lit area. Then check if you can craft a cudgel &. Open the craft menu with & key, and then use Tab to navigate around the tabs until you reach the menu WEAPON. Select cudgel with Enter. Beware that, if you craft too close to the cupboard, your character will automatically craft it on that tile and leave the item there after completing it. You can examine the cupboard to pick it back when finished. Cudgel is a strong early-game melee weapon. This weapon can occasionally attack quickly, stun enemies, and block incoming attacks. With a good knowledge in fighting, you can even take on armored zombies with this in a pinch.

Your next step is to craft some tools that you'll be using a lot, starting with the makeshift hammer. To craft this, you'll be using those chunks of steel that you obtained from the solar panel. However, you'll also need a different item: a short string. This can be obtained by disassembling a long string into short ones. To disassemble an item, you have two methods: you can pick it up G and then examine the item in the inventory and then disassemble it; or move into the same tile where the long string is and press B and choose the long string to be disassembled. Now, check if it's possible to craft & the makeshift hammer. It's located on the tab Others. If you need help in finding an item to craft, use f or F to search for it. If you cannot craft the makeshift hammer, check what items are still needed. If you're missing planks, you can take the ones from the door you recently destroyed.

The next tools to craft for the time being are the screwdriver and makeshift crowbar. The screwdriver can be made with either chunks of steel or scraps of metal. When you start the craft, you'll be prompted to choose what material you want to use. It's recommended that you choose the scraps of metal since they're easier to obtain than chunks of steel. For the makeshift crowbar, you’ll need one pipe to craft it. To obtain pipes, choose one of the lockers and smash it. With luck, you will get a pipe from the first. If not, keep smashing the rest of the lockers until you get one. Together, these tools give the necessary qualities to deconstruct furniture: prying one from the makeshift crowbar, and screw driving one from the screwdriver. Try them out by using the construction menu * to deconstruct a bench and a locker (Deconstruct furniture). From now on, keep these tools with you.

Wielding note

As you progress through the game, you’ll notice that you cannot carry everything you find - either it’s too long, too heavy, or occupies too much space.

If you try to carry the makeshift crowbar and the cudgel, neither of them will fit inside the messenger bag (where you store your items) due to their length. For now, you can only carry one at time. You can keep holding the crowbar to do the next tasks.

Upgrading

Your earlier crafting should have leveled your fabrication skill to one. If it hasn't, deconstruct benches until this is achieved. Remember that you must be in a lighter area to perform this task. Thus, if necessary, you can Grab things and move them around to where you can deconstruct them. You can also check your character's stats, temperature, and skills by pressing @. There you can navigate using Tab and the up and down arrow keys. Feel free to navigate here to familiarize yourself with this menu.

Now we're going to focus on raising your survival skill above one. To begin this, we're going to harvest food outside in the forest. Before leaving, note that in your status you're probably already hungry and maybe even thirsty. For you to survive, you must know how to prepare food and clean water. You may have some fresh water in some plastic bottles around your shelter or on your person. Find one and drink it by using E. Keeping yourself hydrated prevents you from losing speed from becoming thirsty. As for hunger, you can wait. Don't eat the protein rations right now. It'll drop your character's mood, and mood slightly affects how fast you can learn new skills.

Beyond the Shelter

Foraging outdoors will require some preparation to venture a little way from your shelter. First, drop the crowbar and wield the cudgel. Then open your mmap and look for a nearby forest (marked by dark green F on the map).

Explaining the map quick: @ is where you are, F is forest, F is swamp, R is river. These marks, < and >, are city houses. Avoid approaching these for now; zombies infest cities. You can navigate on the map to familiarize yourself with the meaning of each character on the map.

Leaving the Shelter

Although the forest is not a very hostile place, dangers do lurk here, including some strong enemies. If you are hearing voices from somewhere, avoid! If you see cobwebs, stay away. Certain forest fauna should be avoided. Fighting the wildlife right now is not worthwhile, for you can find things without risking injury. Some creatures can make you bleed, slowly draining your HP. If the safe-mode warning appears, see what is triggering it with the V and react accordingly. If you must run, press " and keep your distance from danger. Running costs stamina, so plan your escape route before running around. It's better to run between the woods until the creature loses sight of you than running through a open field, only to be chased until it catches and kills you. ' can be used to ignore the enemy that you've seen to start moving again. When the coast is clear, consider waiting until you catch your breath. Switch back to walk " when you're ready to move on. If you get caught, just press in the direction of the enemy to attack him, and good luck. (If a battle was unavoidable and you're bleeding, Drop your weapon wait for a while. Your character will put some pressure on the wound trying to reduce the bleed.)

Now leave the shelter in direction of the forest that you want to harvest for food.

Harvesting

Keep your eye open using V constantly when in open field. It'll make your status bar show all items visible in your line of sight. You may have to press Tab to switch from mobs list to item list. If you find human corpses on your way, you can check them for useful items. Don't eat human remains if you lack the cannibal or psychopath traits. Doing so will give you long-lasting morale penalties. You might even become so depressed you can't craft anymore (-100 morale).

In the forest start checking e the bushes. If you're lucky, you’ll find random things ranging from food, to crafting materials, to junk. Collect what is useful, including ten or so fiddleheads (harvested from ferns), and keep checking the bushes until you reach your volume capacity. This task can take some time, but the skill you learn and the things you find can be very helpful for survival. When done, return to your shelter and Drop your loot somewhere.

Your next and final task is to get water, and we're about to store a good amount of it so that you won't need to travel for water all the time. Bringing the crowbar with you, go to the roof and deconstruct the standing tank. Use the construction menu * to deconstruct the tank. Upon finishing, you'll get four metal tank (60L) and a water faucet. This tank is very useful for storing water. To easily bring them all back inside, you can haul \ them. When you start hauling, move to the stairwell and go down there; the items will come with you.

Now, with these metal tanks (60L), wield one of them. Since the tank is too heavy, I recommend you drop everything you have on you but your clothes and go to the nearest water source that you have. It can be the water in the swamp (beware that swamp water can sometimes be salty), or a small pond in the forest (ponds are very common in forest), or a river. When near the source of water examine it and pour it in the container. Don't drink this water yet! The water must be boiled or purified, or else it'll sicken you. Safe water is called 'clean water', while the 'water' we just gathered is impure.

Filling the tank is going to make it extremely heavy, so while you lumber back to the shelter, you'll lose a lot of stamina. If necessary, wait a while so as not to overexert yourself. Never let your stamina hit the last bar Stam : ;.... . If you encounter something dangerous, just drop the tank and run. Once inside the shelter, drop this tank somewhere. It's crafting time again.

Cooking

Let's prepare the place for you to start cooking. You don't want to set your shelter on fire, so craft & a brazier. Brazier requires a metal sheet. This can be obtained by deconstructing a locker. After finishing, activate to place it next to the water tank. A brazier is a place where you can set a controlled, non-spreading fire, so it's safe to cook anything on it. Now, separate your planks to burn them. Four should suffice. You can use the Advanced Inventory management screen / to precisely choose what you want to move out from a pile of objects. Move it next to the brazier and use the construction menu * to mark an area of firewood source. With it in place, when the fire is about to die out, you'll automatically place another plank to keep the fire going, provided you're using the fire, such as for crafting.

The last step before you start cooking is to bring another one of those metal tanks (60L) and place it right with the other water tank.

With everything in place, you'll need the matchbook to begin. Commence examinating the brazier to start the fire. Open the craft menu &, go to the food tab, and start by doing multiple clean water. To craft an item multiple times, select it on the list and press batch. Do 20x clean water. This is sure to raise your cooking level to one. After completing it, pour c everything into one of your metal tanks. Now use E to consume the clean water until slaked. Now you need to take care of your hunger. Open the crafting menu again and boil all the eggs that you collected. It doesn't matter if you use untreated water to boil the egg, so use normal water, and do the same to cook the fiddleheads. Eat the cooked fiddleheads until you're satisfied. Beware of eating until you get full in the field; while it's not dangerous, being completely full slightly drops your speed. If you haven't gathered enough food from the forest, eat some of the protein rations from the shelter. Always be sure to eat whenever you're 'Very Hungry'.

Finally, craft & a makeshift pot. This tool has Rank 2 food cooking quality and will allow you to cook any wild vegetables you may have. Cook any you have since they spoil in two days. Feel free to extinguish the fire if you want, just check it and choose to do it (doing so requires an item in your inventory to beat the fire into ash).

Preparing for the night

You’re getting tired and it's probably already getting late by now. Have you considered where you're going to sleep? The floor or a bench can work, but why not a bed? Beds are comfy and really help the character to sleep more easily, and you can make one. Makeshift beds can be built through the construction menu *. Though they require a good amount of materials, they're easily obtained. But first you need fabrication skill two. If you haven't reached this level, just look in the crafting menu & for something that you can build which requires fabrication skill of one. For example, wooden frames. Crafting items that require your current skill level will slowly train you to the next level. Do this until you reach level 2.

It may be very late in the day by the time you reach fabrication two. If it’s too dark inside, don't worry; you can still start a fire (in the brazier, else it will burn the place down) and use it to keep doing your tasks. You can also use the console's light; it's weak but does the job. Hurry up and finish the bed. To make the bed, you'll need four planks, six nails, and two sheets. Remember that you can get sheets by tearing them from the windows. If possible, construct the bed near the NPC. If he's awake, he can protect you.

Have time left?

If you did this tutorial and it’s still bright outside, or the next day, and you want to do more things, note that weariness from a lack of sleep can slow down your tasks. Getting a good night's sleep will reset your weariness.

Let's do some sewing. For this we’ll need some materials, such as rags, thread, and plant fibers if you found any in the forest. First, you need to craft & the necessary tool for sewing. A wooden needle is enough, but if you have spare bones, you can make a bone needle, which offers better sewing quality. Now, go ahead and tear more curtains and take 4 sheets with you. After that, drop them and press B to open the butchering/disassembly menu, and cut all the curtains. You must have a knife in your inventory to do it. While disassembly can save some of the materials, a single sheet takes one hour to disassemble, so proceed to cut it all outright.

Next, check if you have the all the necessary materials. Rags you'll have from the sheets, and either plant fiber or thread. If you didn't find any thread, disassemble a long string into short string, and then disassemble the short string into thread.

The first thing we’re about to sew is a blanket. This prevents you from losing temperature while you sleep and increases the chance to successfully fall asleep. The blanket requires 60 rags and 20 threads/plant fibers, and it takes about an hour complete. It’s guaranteed to raise your sewing skill, and like any craft, you just have to open the craft menu & to start working on it.

Insomnia

It is already dark, but you are not tired. Trying to sleep while not being tired can be difficult, much more so if you have the insomniac trait. So what to do?

You have some choices:

Organize your shelter. After you have finished everything during your first day, your shelter can be a mess. Organize your items. Separate them according to their type. Then you will know where they are in the future.

Read a book. Reading books can consume a lot of time, enough to tire you out, and still benefit you. Each first aid kit comes with an Instruction Booklet. Reading this book increases your first aid skill, which is very useful. You still need light to read; you can use the fire or the terminal for reading light. To read a book, you must have it with you or just be near it and press R.

Craft things. Not the best of the options, but if you want, you can craft stuff using the console's light. You can slowly gain some skills if you choose the right crafts.

Sew some more. Try making a turban. A turban can give some warmth to your head during the morning. You can train your skill or make some clothes to wear.

Ultimately, you can go outside to harvest food during the night. It's not recommended, as you are less likely to see dangerous monsters coming, but it'll provide you some more food and can increase your survival skill.

If you do have the insomniac trait, you'll have a low chance of falling to sleep even when tired, requiring to you do something else until you get very tired. However, you can simply try your luck and attempt to sleep anyway.

Before sleeping, you should consider drinking more water and eating some of those protein rations. Since you’re going to sleep, the morale loss here is not going to affect you negatively by the time you wake up. To sleep, just go on your bed and press $. When you sleep, your body temperature falls, and together with the night being colder, it’s a perfect recipe to make you chilly. If you get chilly, there's a chance of getting sick. If you didn't get the chance to make a blanket, don't worry. You can still prevent this by taking two the emergency blankets and Dropping them on the bed after unfolding them. That'll keep your temperature up while you sleep. Sleeping heals some of your health and restores your focus, things that you'll need in the morning. You can check your body temperature by pressing +. Here, you can see the armors and clothes that your character is wearing, what your body temperature is, and lot of other stats. Feel free to familiarize yourself with this menu.

The cellphone

Want to wake up early? Keep a wristwatch or your cellphone with you. When you try to sleep, it’ll ask if you want to set an alarm. It’s very useful if you want to wake up at a certain time or simply don't want to wake up at noon.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have finished this little tutorial with the basics for your survival. You know how to create things, how to interact with your environment, how to eat and sleep. But that is only a fraction of what is still ahead in this post-apocalyptic world, so why stop here?

In the next guide you will learn how to fight efficiently against the most common enemies of this world, zombies, as this will be essential for your survival, in addition to helping you to obtain extra resources in the cities.