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

For consistency, this guide assumes that you're playing the game with mostly default settings (i.e., evacuee scenario, default world values, NPCs, and Survivor profession). Starting with the Survivor profession is highly recommended as this starts you out with some 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 the room. Unlike an awful lot of people, you're alive and breathing; you'd be surprised how long you can keep that up given patience, knowledge, and as always, a tad bit of luck on your side. And just like you, another survivor is right next to you, watching you.

Your first concern upon starting should be to take a peek out of the various curtains surrounding the room by examining them. If you see anything that looks like it could pose a threat to your welfare, make sure not to alert its attention. Some of the most common early-game dangers are deadly animals, such as a wolf, black bear, moose or giant wasp. These animals have caused the deaths of many early survivors who went outside their shelter door ignoring the repeated warnings of safemode.

Making sure that your starting shelter is safe is the key for your survival. Now, let's take care of your initial needs; on your right side of the screen is your status bar, showing your health, mood :), Focus, and more. It's mid-spring and the weather is currently comfortable. Let's start by seeing what you have with you. By opening your inventory you can see what you're currently holding: the survivor start comes with a fully charged cellphone, one matchbook, a pocket knife, and a plastic bottle of clean water.

If it is safe to do, you can open all these curtains by pressing in the direction window and your character will raise the curtains letting the light in. Since you need to be in a bright area to craft things, this is a good thing to do now. So it's time you 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 these lockers and cupboards and 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 you can find a gas mask too. These blankets are useful clothing when it's really cold, they provide an excellent warmth but it's very encumbering, encumbrance is a debuff and can potentially drop your fighting/dodging effectiveness, so wear it only if it’s snowing; but an emergency jacket you likely should wear now, they do give an moderate encumbrance but they keep you dry if raining, plus give 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'll be impossible to open it without destroying it, but trying to break it with your bare hands is not recommended since without something heavy it'll take too much time and stamina. Check one of these windows and tear down the curtains on it, them grab that stout branch ^{Verify (rod?)} 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). Without the door in your way, it's time to take a look in the roof, do it 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 even break a limb doing it.

We are here for other purposes. Notice that solar panel; it has something that is really useful for you and unfortunately you can't just deconstruct it without the right tools, so let's take it by brute force. So smash the solar panel in pieces, it's likely to break with a single blow (keep in mind that smashing such "furniture" is the worse way to obtain its resources since it destroys some of them in the process, but we don't have a choice right now). examine what is left of the solar panel and collect all the scrap metals and lumps of steel; your next task is going to require them.

Ignore what else is left there - since we'll have to come back here later - and go back to the shelter. To do this is almost the same thing as getting to the roof; stand on the ladder and this time press > to go down.

The Basement

Now it's time to enter the basement of your shelter 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 indeed 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 to all kinds of damage caused to the player. Keep this item in a safe place.

• Soap bars: Useful items to clean filthy clothing, since you can always loot the clothes from killed zombies (wearing filthy clothes 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 some bleached bandages.

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

Now that you've salvaged the useful things out of 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 in here we're about to do some serious crafting now. First we need to replace this stout branch. Although it can work as a weapon, we still need a reliable weapon to be able to put up a fight, as there *will* be times when your survivor has no options except to fight. During a fight with a zombie if you get grabbed by them not only is your move speed reduced, but you can get badly bitten, and being badly bitten is effectively death in the next hours without a disinfectant or antibiotics.

Before starting, take everything useful and bring it to the cupboard or try keeping the items at least 4 tiles close to you, and in a bright area too. Then check if you can craft a cudgel & (Just open the craft menu with & key and then use Tab to navigate around the tabs until you reach the menu WEAPON and select cudgel with Enter). Keep in mind that if you craft too close to the cupboard your character will automatically craft it on that tile and leaving the item after completing there too, you can examine the cupboard to pick it back when finished. Cudgel is a strong early game melee weapon, this weapon can occasionally attack quick, stun enemies and block incoming attacks. And with a good knowledge in fighting you can take on even armored zombies with this in a pinch.

Your next step is craft the tools that you'll be using a lot, starting with the makeshift hammer. To craft this you'll be using that chunks of steel that you obtained from the solar panel, but you'll still need a different item too, a short string, this item 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 them examine your item in the inventory and them disassembly 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 not possible yet to craft check what items is still needed, if for some reason it's planks, you can take the ones from the door that you recently destroyed.

And the the next tools to craft for the time being is 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 it's 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 down, with luck you can get a pipe from them, if not keep smashing them until you get one. Together these tools give the necessary qualities to deconstruct furniture, prying one from makeshift crowbar and screw driving one from the screwdriver, try it 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 in the game, you’ll notice that not everything you find you can carry with you - 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; so for now, you can only carry one at time. You can keep holding the crowbar to do the next tasks.

Upgrading

Keep deconstructing some benches for resources until you notice that you level up the construction skill, remember that to do this task requires to you be in a lighter area to do, so if necessary you can Grab the said thing and move it around if you can. You can also check your character stats, temperature and skills by pressing @, there you can navigate using Tab and the up and down arrow keys, fell free to navigate there to familiarize yourself with this menu.

Now we're going to focus on raising your survival skill close to two. To do this we're going to harvest food outside in the forest. And before leaving note that in your status that at that moment you must already be hungry and maybe thirsty, and for you to survive this you must know how to prepare your food and clean water. By now it's possible that you have some fresh water in some plastic bottles around your shelter or with yourself, find it up one and drink it by using E, keeping yourself hydrated prevents you from losing speed by becoming thirsty. As for hunger you can wait. Don't eat the protein rations right now, it'll drop the mood of your character, and it slightly affects how fast you can learn new skills for some time.

Beyond the Shelter

To collect food on outside is going to request that you get ready to go a little far from your shelter. First drop this crowbar and wield the cudgel and 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're, F is forest, F is Swamp, R is river an these < and > marks are houses of a city and you should avoid getting close of it for now, it's full of zombies. You can navigate on the map to know what each character in your map means.

Leaving the Shelter

Although the forest is not a very hostile place for the character, it is still a dangerous place, and can hide some strong enemies, so if you are hearing speechs from somewhere, don't go there! If you see cobwebs stay away, same goes for some wild animals that stay in the forest, avoid fighting with the animals at all cost, there's no need to get hurt right now and 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 it's necessary to run, press " and keep your distance from danger, running costs stamina, so plan your escape route before running around, it's better run between the woods until the creature loses sight of you instead of running on a open field and be chased until it catches and kills you. (' can be used to ignore the enemy that you've seen to start moving again), so when safe switch back to walk " and you should consider waiting until you catch your breath. But if you get caught, just press in the direction of the enemy to attack him, and good luck. (If the battle was unavoidable and you're bleeding, Drop your weapon wait for a while and 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 dead human bodies on your way you can check the corpse to see if it has some useful items on it. But don't eat parts of the human body, without the cannibal or psychopath trait, it will give you long lasting morale penalties for having eaten human meat, you might even become so depressed you can't craft anymore (-100 morale).

On the forest start checking e the bushes if you're lucky you’ll find random things, ranging from food to crafting materials or junk. So collect what is useful including ten or so fiddleheads 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 to your survival. When done, go back 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 you won't need to travel for water all the time. Go to the roof and deconstruct the standing tank. Use the construction menu * to deconstruct the tank (remember to bring the crowbar with you now). After finished you'll get four metal tank (60L) and a water faucet, and this tank is very useful for storing water. To easily bring them all back to the shelter you can haul \ them, when you start hauling move to the stair and go down there, the items will come with you.

Now with that metal tank (60L) that you get from the standing tank, wield one of them, since the tank is too heavy I recommend you drop everything you have with you but your clothes and go to the nearest water source that you have, can be the water in the swamp (Be careful because the swamp water can be salt sometimes) 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 you'll get sick. Safe water is called 'clean water', while the 'water' we just gathered is unpurified.

Filling the tank is going to make it extremely heavy, so while you walk back to the shelter you'll lose much stamina, if necessary wait while to not hurt yourself doing it (Never let your stamina hit the last bar Stam : ;.... ). And if you find something dangerous just drop the tank and run. When inside the shelter drop this tank somewhere, time to go back to crafting.

Cooking

Let's prepare the place for you start cooking. You don't want to set your shelter on fire so craft & one brazier. Brazier requires a metal sheet and this can be obtained by deconstructing a locker, after finishing activate to place it next to the water tank. Brazier is a place where you can set fire and it wont spread around, so it's safe to cook anything on it. Now separate your planks to burn it, four should be enough, 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 when the fire is about to run out you'll automatically place another to keep the fire going while you're using the fire, such as for crafting.

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

With everything in place lets start by examinating the brazier to start the fire, you'll need to have the matchbook with you. Open the craft menu & go to the tab food and lets start by doing a multiple clean water, to craft multiple times a item select it on the list and press batch, so do 20x clear 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 you get slaked. Now you need to take care of your hunger, open the crafting menu again and boil all the eggs that you collected, doesn't matter if you use normal water to boil the egg, so use normal water, same to cook the fiddleheads. Eat the cooked fiddle heads until you get satisfied, do go eating until you get full, while it's not dangerous it slight drop your speed when you're full. If you haven't gathered enough food from the forest, eat some of the protein rations from the shelter. Eat whenever you're 'Very Hungry'.

Finally, craft & a makeshift pot, this tool has two food cooking quality and will allow you to do cooked wild vegetables, then cook all of them since this food spoils in two days. Feel free to extinguish the fire if you want, just check it and choose to do it (It's required that you have anything in inventory to bash the fire to stop it).

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 the bench can work, but why not a bed, they're comfy and really help the character to sleep more easy, and you can do it. Makeshift beds require a good amount of materials but it's easy to do. But first you need fabrication skill two. If you haven't reached this level just look on 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.

By the time you reach fabrication two it can be getting really late but if it’s too dark inside just 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, or you can use the light of the console, it's weak but does the job, so 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 from tearing them from the windows). If possible construct the bed near to the NPC, so 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.

Lets do some sewing. For that we’ll be needing some materials, like rags and thread and plant fibers if you have found them 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 do a bone needle which is better in 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 the knife in your inventory to do it. While disassembly can save some of the materials, a single sheet takes one hour to disassemble, so just go ahead and outright cut it all.

Next step is to check if you have the all the necessary materials at your disposal. Rags you have obtained 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 short string into thread.

The first thing we’re about to sew is a blanket, this is to prevent you from losing temperature while you sleep and increase the chance to successfully fall asleep. The blanket requires 60 rags and 20 threads/plant fibers and it takes about an hour to be completed, so it’s guaranteed to raise your sewing skills, 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? There are some alternatives:

Organize your shelter. After you have finished everything you can to spend the day your shelter can be a mess. Organize your items, separate them according to their type, then you will know where they will be in the future.

Read a book. Reading books can consume a lot of time, enough to tire you out and still give you some benefit. 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 light to read. (To read a book you must have it with you or just be near them and press R)

Craft things. Not the best of the options but if you want you can craft stuffs using the light provided from the console, you can slowly gain some skills if you choose the right crafts.

Do more sewing, for example a turban. The turban can give some warmth to your head during the morning. You can train your skill or make some clothes to wear.

And 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 failing to sleep even when tired, requiring to you do something else until you get very tired to sleep without any trouble, or you can simply try your luck.

Before sleeping you should consider drinking more water and eat some of that protein rations, since you’re going to sleep the morale loss here is not going to affect you negatively when you wake up. To sleep just go on your bed and press $, when you sleep your body temperature fall and together with the night being colder it’s makes a perfect recipe to you getting chilly, and if you get chilly there's a chance of getting sick. If you didn't get the chance to make the blanket don't worry, you can still prevent this by taking two the emergency blankets and Drop it all 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 and what temperature your body is and lot of other stats, feel free to familiarize yourself with this menu.

The cellphone

Want to wake up early? Just keep the wrist watch or your cellphone with you, and 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.