Heat – Beginners Guide / Tips and Tricks

Other Heat Guides:

• Heat All Item IDs
• Heat Server Admin Commands

Heat FAQs

How do I drink water?
There are two methods: Drinking from a water skin/jug/flask, or stepping into a water source deep enough. To see if your character is gaining hydration hit “P” and watch your hydration stat number go up.

Protip: There appears to be about a 5 second delay when drinking from a potable water source on hydration, Two sips will usually fill you up from empty.

How do I get a water skin?
You can craft a water skin by the “player” or at a crafting table, but you need to unlock it first. To unlock go to blueprints, you will see it under the tools tab you will need 4 hide and 1 sinew. You get hide & sinew when you kill and harvest an animal. To harvest an animal you will need an axe or a skinning knife.

Why do I keep getting poisoned when I drink from a water skin?
Water quality matters in the water skins. To avoid a debuff when drinking from a potable water supply (water skin, ceramic jug, flask, etc.) you need to use “purified water”. There are two ways to get purified water:

• Boil it at a heat source, like a campfire, fireplace or stove.
• Get it from a well.

Protip: You can boil water in a water skin/bucket, and store purified water in a barrel/bucket, if a well isn’t possible yet. Buckets hold 60 units of water, small water skins hold 3, medium hold 5.

My Character is hungry where can I find food?

• If you have a shipping bin (once you claim a plot of land, you should place one), you can purchase food.
• You can grow food, if you have seeds (you get “mixed seed” by hitting the grass for fiber or hay, or purchase some at the shipping catalog), but these will take in-game days to produce.
• You can forage for Saskatoon berries, and mushrooms (the red mushrooms are poisonous). Mushrooms are found in the forest clearings, and randomly along the forest. Saskatoon berries are bushes found across the map.
• Hunt! You can kill any livestock you see, including predators. They all provide you with meat, giblets, fat, bone, sinew, hide, and a single pelt. You can cook the meat & giblets. The meat is what you will want to eat. Bigger the animal, the harder to kill it, and the more meat it provides. A small animal provides up to a stack of meat (5), medium sized animals provide up to 3 stacks (15), and large animals provide five stacks or more (25).

Protip: There appears to be about a 5 second delay when eating food, eat and wait to see where your levels are at.

Protip: Potatoes are the best raw food in terms of how long it takes to rot (shelf-life). Raw potatoes have a shelf-life of 2-3 days, and baked potatoes have a shelf life of 4 hours. You can bake a potato in any heat source. Baked potatoes give about 65 nutrition.

Protip: Pelts are worth a good amount of money. You can use these to make money early on in game.

Protip: You can buy (cheap) or make cornbread, which is also has a long shelf-life. It takes 2 days to rot and provides about 60 nutrition.

I put points into my hydration and/or nutrition stats, but the cap went down?! What is this sorcery?!
This is unconfirmed, but I believe the rate in which your stats go down on upgraded hydration/nutrition remain the same (time wise), however it takes far less food/water to bring your character up to full. For example, within one game day with your nutrition stat at 100, it would take you a full day to become hungry, and it would require two cooked meat to bring you from empty to full. If your nutrition stats is 50 instead of 100, it would only require one cooked meat to bring you to full, and your hunger still takes all day to degrade to hungry.

Note: I have tested this out and it appears to be correct, still conducting testing.

Can I move a tent along with me?
Yes, you need the hammer and you can dismantle by right clicking with the hammer. It will say “destroying” but it will return the item to your inventory if there is not too much damage to the item.

How to I set a respawn point?
You can place a mattress or bed down, and when re-spawning it gives you access to that as a re-spawn point option.

How do I tame an animal?
You need darts (you can craft or purchase these), a blowgun & at least 3-4 of the animal’s preferred food (a stack or two is better). You shoot the animal with a dart (1-5 depending on animal size), and it will “stun” them, so you can tame it. Then you hit “E” to open its inventory and place the food items inside the animals inventory. You can use the “use item” which force-feeds that item to the animal to speed up the process a little, but taming takes time regardless. Just wait, you will see the blue “stun” progress bar go down, (if it goes below 30% stun the animal again) as you see the green “tame” bar go up.

How do I farm?
Currently farming is only useful for personal food production, unless you are growing tobacco, corn or grain (which only grows in the summer & fall). You need seeds to plant, a hoe to till the soil and a watering can.

• Pick a plot of land, and left click to till the soil. Right click will smooth the land out so you can’t plant. Tilled plots look like a dark dirt squarish patch.
• Add the seeds to your tilled rows. A seeded plot will have two lines of planted “rows” per square, only one plant will grow.
• Water the seeded plot until the square is blue. It will slowly fade from black/grey to a blue color. Three swipes of the copper watering can is enough.
• Wait until it grows. The seed bags will tell you the grow rate. The fastest seems to be the turnip seeds. When plants are ready and you walk up to them you should see the “E” Harvest option.

Protip: Tomatoes, Saskatoon, & Strawberry seeds only need to be planted once. They continue to produce. Have not yet tested on the other seed types outside of spring, I suspect corn will be a producing plant as well (unconfirmed).

Protip: You only have to water once, when you plant the seeds, but watering the plants regularly yields better results. Later in the game you have the ability to make sprinklers. Watering cans are an option, and upgraded cans have a higher capacity and range.

Protip: Dry soil has a light brown color, and the ground looks dry and cracked.

Protip: Compost bin can be used to turn rot, defecation & gunk into soil additives for farming.

Where do I make ingots?
You need to upgrade the kiln 2x, until it is a smelter. You need a total of 80 iron ore (and other supplies) to do so, as of Alpha 6. Once the kiln is upgraded to a smelter, it will allow you to smelt iron & copper ingots. 15 ore makes 1 ingot.

Where do I make steel?
This is a combination of steps. You make the “recipe” at the laboratory. Once the recipe is created, you craft the item at the smithy.

Where do I make food recipes?
Once you’ve unlocked a food recipe from the blueprints (hit “b” and select the food tab — fork & knife icon, you need a prep table to craft the recipe. The recipe is the raw ingredients, and you cook the item in a heat source (campfire, fireplace, smoker, oven, etc).

Ore Nodes

One of the biggest questions I had was what ore nodes looked like. I didn’t even know how to identify a node when I found one. I collected screenshots for the nodes just for you all.

The spawn locations are random per world generation. Nodes tend to have higher chances to spawn along certain terrain types, but can randomly spawn anywhere. You can see sulfur or saltpeter on iron and stone nodes as well.

15 ore weighs almost twice as much as a single ingot. If you set up a mining operation far from your base you may want to build yourself a small cabin with smelters & a fireplace.

If your character is overburdened with too much weight, it slows their movement down, and causes them to pant like they ran a marathon. The weight may eventually stop movement, however I haven’t tested this out yet.

You can use a pickaxe to get ore (listed in order of durability & damage):
Steel > Iron > Copper > Bone > Stone

I have not seen anything past steel, but I didn’t look. You repair pickaxes (and other tools) at the workbench for about 1/3 the material cost to build one.

As of Alpha 6, there is no fall damage.

As of Alpha 7 ore nodes come in different sizes, some will give hundreds, others will only give dozens.

Dirt Node

Looks like a pile of ash.
Wooded terrain.

Clay Node

Large lumpy orange/yellow stone.
Along water sources.

Lead Node

Tall smooth square stone.
Along water sources and Treelines

Copper Node

Can be found in meadows, within the woods and hilltops at higher rates, but found anywhere.

Oil Shale Node

Flat dark jagged rock.
Desert/Canyon and Mountains.

Iron

Large dark red smooth rock.
Desert/Canyon and Mountains.

Sulfur Node

Lumpy yellow rock.
Desert/Canyons and Mountains.

Saltpeter Node

Desert/Canyon and Mountains.

Gemstone Node

Blue tall rock.
Desert/Canyon and Mountains.
(Provides a single random gemstone when depleted)

Nugget Node

Large lumpy pale yellow rock.
Desert/Canyon and Mountains.
(Provides a single random nugget when depleted)

Combination Node

Appearance differs.
Can be found anywhere.
Sulfur and Saltpeter often appear with another node, like iron or stone.
Below is iron and sulfur.

Nutrition & Hydration

There are several types of crops, animal products, & forage items in the game. Many of which are available for purchase as well as can be grown/produced (in the right season of course). This is not a comprehensive list, just the items which I have found, so far. You can boil water in any container in a heat source (bottom) to purify it. A well provides easier access to higher quantities of purified water, but in a pinch you can boil water in a water skin to purify it for drinking at a campfire.

Raw Foodstuffs