Help:Strategy

Strategy
The foundation of all and everything" ‍ "this is not an actual item
Type	Gameplay Element
Obtaining	Game experience and research
Usage
Damage	You fight more efficiently
Crafting	Reading this page
Other	Enhances your Gameplay

Overview

Hello starvers, this is a comprehensive guide to playing Starve.io. This is page is written so you can play in the stage order that it is structured in, so don't skip to the bottom and try to learn how to beat dragons before you can mine wood.

This page also presumes you understand/have read the following posts:

• Player Status Bars
• Controls
• Crafting
• Mobs
• Tools

Good luck, you'll need it.

Basics

Choosing a Server

So the first thing you'll want to consider is choosing a server you like. If you are a lone wolf, servers with 15-25 players are the best. With too many people, things can get quite chaotic and there are generally fewer resources for everyone as the map stays the same regardless of player count.

If you are a team player, you should choose a large server. The best size for this is 60-75 players. This way it is very easy to find a teammate. In small servers usually, you can only find 1 or 2 players to team with but in large servers, you can often find 5-6 players. Be warned though, there are usually savages (players that kill others for score and items) everywhere.

Lastly, try to find a server in your continent that suits your needs too, it is hard to do anything at 3 frames per second.

Part 1: Sticks, stones and survival

The best time to spawn is late at night, as you'll be able to get basic harvest tools before sunrise and not waste any daylight. Unfortunately, you can't really time your spawn, and you might spawn just before dark. If you do, don't panic, just head to the river. Walk down it, it is very likely you will find someone with a campfire on the edge.

If you don't do that and have made it to daytime, your priorities should be getting a wooden pickaxe (10 wood) and about 25 berries. Just walk up to a tree or bush and start hitting it to harvest. If you started at night, do the same but come back to your campfire when you start noticing your temperature bar going down.

When you spawn, you will notice that there are rabbits, wolves, spiders, hawks, and boars. It's best to avoid all these mobs as a player will need a sword/spear to deal with them. Wolves and spiders are hostile and dangerous, especially when they're both chasing you simultaneously. Boars and hawks are neutral mobs, so even if you hit them by accident, they will become aggressive and attack players in sight. You can tell if a mob is aggressive or not if they have a red outline around them.

Avoid players with helmets, especially powerful ones. They are mostly just cautious hunters, but some will be savages. Generally speaking, you will not get attacked by players until later in the game when you have better tools and resources.

Find some stone deposits and gather around 50 stone.

Next, you'll need to pick a spot to be your temporary base. Your base should be near the edge of the water so you don't die of thirst at night. Also, try to find a place near multiple resource deposits. Now, open the map in the bottom right corner of your screen. When you're at your chosen location, left-click the orange dot (you) to pin your location. Make a workbench and place it. Try to put it against a resource deposit making a wall parallel to the water's edge to keep mobs away. Craft a stone pickaxe. A point of conflict within the community is which weapon is better: swords or spears. For early game, swords are better for most because it saves a great deal of time when grinding. However, spears are better in teams because the range is much farther than swords. As such, you can get a first hit advantage, and also hit more players at once. Bows are not recommended, as they are very expensive. If you intend to make gold tools, now would be the time to do so. Gold Ore can be found on the map, marked by a picture of an ingot. You'll need 20 of it to make a pickaxe, 20 for a spear, and 40 for a sword.

Now onto hunting! To get your first essential items, the IKEA Manual and Bag, you're going to have to kill 9 wolves and 5 spiders. Once you've finished crafting your wood weapon of choice, upgrade it to stone, as wood weapons simply take too long to kill mobs. In addition, I would suggest crafting a Machete. This extremely useful item doubles all of the drops the mobs give you.

Your inventory should now look like this: Stone pickaxe, stone weapon, berries, wood stack, stone stack, Machete or Cooked Meat, and extra fires (you should always have some on you!). You need the other three slots for raw meat, wolf fur, and thread.

With only a spear or a sword, your only real option is to kite. For wolves, lure them close and hit them on the nose for damage. They have a speed pretty much the same as you, so if you don't circle around him, you should be fine. In the contrary, stop attacking for a second and then keep going. If you feel up to it, aggro a couple of wolves and do the same because you can hit multiple mobs at once. Spiders are the weakest mob in the game, not including peaceful mobs. If you feel like it, you can take on multiple spiders at once, if you have at least stone weapons. However, if there are other mobs around, such as wolves or boars, never take on a full group, because then you're a box. You should kite spiders the same as wolves. A machete is highly recommended to make hunting easier. Hit the mob boxes with it to double your loot drops.

Once you've killed the minimum mobs (ignoring rabbits/crabs etc, though don't be shy to pick up some more kills before night) or darkness has fallen, head back to your marked camp and begin crafting a bag. While you're waiting, fill up on water and bait some mobs to your place. Strafe around your campfire, making sure you stay on the outer reaches of your heat so you don't get caught and don't hit your fire, as this will put it out. By the end of your first full day, you should have a bag and stone tools. If you have time left, the IKEA manual, aka the Book, requires 4 wolf fur, 4 paper and 4 cord, and will be essential later. The book makes crafting 3 times as quick. Always remember to equip your book to craft! You can use it to cook all of your raw meat (Make sure you're near a fire) and stop relying on berries.

Part 2: Choosing your playstyle

If you're here, that means you can survive your first nights with little trouble. (Or you're here after getting destroyed by a crab and wondering where it all went wrong) Either way, now you have to choose what kind of Starver you want to be.

Name	Outline	What to do after
Leveler	Getting gold tools, making earmuffs and chapka for winter Going to Winter zone, crafting diamond tools, cap/scarf then Fur hat Heading deeper into winter, crafting amethyst tools and stocking up on ice Crossing over to the Lava biome, eat ice to stay cool until you craft heat protection. Farming Reidite for tools and armor/protection.	Ranker Architect Hotel Owner Guide
Ranker	Making a farm to harvest for points Killing leaderboard players for their spot and their score Killing high level mobs for points Completing Chrono Quests	Hotel Owner Pirate Guide PK'er
Adventurer	Doing Chrono Quests	Any
Architect	Making a base for storage, rest or farming for just you or friends	Any
Hotel Owner	An open farm for noobs and masters alike. Free food with mass plots with wheat, bread making structures, berries, pumpkins, tomatoes, garlic etc Need a pitchfork, shovel and watering can Having good protection, this playstyle will attract Player Killers and attention on you as you get points when others harvest your crops. Diamond, Amethyst, or Reidite walls will work.	Guide
Guide	Finding noobs and showing them how to play/giving them items you don't need anymore	Any
PK'er	Hunting leaderboard players for points or just savaging. Specialized version of Ranker	Guide
Farmer	Building large farms, maybe finishing Winter Peasant and Golden Pitchfork Chrono quests. Specialized version of Ranker and using the market to get all the ores including reidite
Pirate	Fighting the Kraken and GMO Piranhas for materials to make Diving suit Getting Scuba Gear and raiding the Ocean Islands for their loot
Troller	Buying Thief/Warrior/Builder Starter Kit and trolling players by driving them away from their fires, stealing their items, and destroying their bases.

Base Building and Farms

You may want to build a base in your play-through. Bases are useful to protect you from mobs, aggressive players, and anything that can really harm you in general. However, a good base requires a lot of resources and you shouldn't start building one until you're fully prepared.

If you decide to create a base, make sure you build it in a livable location. The ideal place would have:

• Access to a water source (a well, lake, or the ocean).
• Incorporate clusters of trees, and other important resources (such as stone and gold) for faster wood gathering/resource gathering.
• Empty places that won't be bothered by anyone (Winter Biome, island, or even a base straight out of bridges on open water)

More tips

• Natural resource nodes, like trees and rocks, are indestructible and make good walls.
• Put walls more tightly around natural blocks like trees, so that people can't 'glitch' through. Make sure that no one can use the door hack and get through your walls.
• Having your base incorporate the border of the map means fewer walls are needed (especially at corners) and gives easy access to huge amounts of wood.
• Player made plants are a must need - a base without a good food source isn't a real base.
• Wooden walls aren't recommended as they get easily destroyed by hammers. Use gold walls, or higher.
• A base that is too big will be very hard to manage and defend. It's recommended to build a base no bigger than 60 tiles.
• Plants plots are recommended even if you're planting in the forest, double the food production means less space required but still the same efficiency
• The wrench is cheap in costs and allows you to repair damaged walls. They're vital for defending against players with hammers, especially high tiers.
• If you have enough wood, it's not a bad idea to cover your entire base with roofs. That way you'll stay warm even when collecting your food and repairing damaged walls, and aggressive players won't be able to see where you are but you can see them clearly. They won't be able to know what your base looks like, how it's designed, or what you have. This gives them a huge disadvantage when trying to raid or destroy your base.
• Be careful when placing items. It's really frustrating when you misplace an object that's hard to obtain or you simply don't want to bother spending time to get it again, like the bed for an instance.
• It's recommended to start building from the inside so you don't screw up your spacing unless you know exactly how you'll design it. Note that starting a farm before you finish your walls will likely attract noobs into your base and it can be frustrating.
• If your base is near a water source but cannot be accessed inside your base (which in general is a bad place to build), stock up on water bottles so when you're under attack, you won't have to risk your life leaving the base to get water (this isn't needed if your base is built completely on top of a pond or in the ocean).
• Spikes are very weak when compared to walls, even though they do damage when players get too close. It's recommended to either use them in conjunction with walls or use diamond spikes or higher. Golden spike isn't as strong as a wooden wall
• If you're a sword user, you might want to consider crafting a spear. Hammers don't have a lot of range and people are forced to use them at close range, so you can hurt them with a spear while they do that. Note that it's recommended to fix your walls before doing so since you'll need to wait a few seconds before unequipping it.
• Don't use your weapons to harvest your crops, it'll make the crops die faster. Use a pitchfork instead.

Farm

You want to build a farm, but you don't know what to plant and where? It's best to choose a nice place with a lot of space.

• Make a wall around your farm so other players can't steal food resources from you, unless you want it to be public and free
• Find seeds and plant them
• It is recommended to use plots and peasants because they are very cheap and easy to make.

• The best choice for a small and simple farm are berry bushes, because it's easy to get.
• For a bigger farm it is your choice to plant anything, but here is something that might help you:

Plants	Normal	Plots	Plot+Peasant	Plots+Winter Peasant
Wheat	16  0.93f/s	8  1.9f/s	6.4  1.9f/s	4.8  3.1f/s
Berry	55  0.19f/s	27.5 0.3f/s	22  0.45f/s	16.5  0.6f/s
Garlic	70  0.2f/s	35  0.4f/s	28  0.5f/s	21  0.66f/s
Pumpkin	120 0.25f/s	60  0.5f/s	48  0.62f/s	36  0.84f/s

• Each player has 100 units of food.
• You lose 0.56 food in 1 second. You need to have production of food higher than 0.56 or you will die.
• f/s means how much food you get from it in 1 second
• Numbers that are bold tell us how much time a plant needs to grow a new crop.

• The results show us that the most efficient to grow are pumpkins, but garlic is also recommended because it also protects you from cold.

• That is all you need to know about farming and don't forget to water the plants. Good luck!

Fighting

Mobs

The main mobs you'll be fighting early game are spiders and wolves. Every mob has a method for killing its prey and attackers.

• Wolves are relatively easy to kill, just hit their nose and run backwards, continuing to hit them. Usually you can kill them before they get too close, but if necessary, stop hitting and get to safety. They are good to hunt at night if you have nothing to do.

• Spiders are very easy to kill, and only take six hits from a gold sword. However, they can also web you if you get too close or don't kill them in time. It is best to kill spiders one at a time to minimize your chances of being webbed. It is ill advised to attack several mobs when spiders are present, as being webbed makes you vulnerable to whatever is chasing you.

• Crabs are best enraged at a distance, as they are very fast and deal swift blows. If you want to hunt them, you can lure them to the beach edge and kill them on land so they can't get you. (this strategy is not guaranteed to work, as updates may have allowed crabs to walk on land) You may have to bait them yourself from time to time to keep them aggro.

• The best way to kill rabbits is to bait them against a resource node or a wall, as this will immobilize them. Swords are more efficient, but if you can't trap them then use a spear, as the range will minimize fleeing.

In the mid-game you'll be fighting polar bears, winter wolves, penguins, and maybe even mammoths and dragons.

• The polar bear is slow, so you can circle a fire to keep warm while hunting. This is the same for winter foxes, though you may want to give yourself some space as they can move faster, making them more dangerous.

• Penguins can be indirectly dangerous by leading you away from your fire, but they are very similar to rabbits.

• Refer to Dragon, Kraken, Lava Dragon, Mammoth, for more information about fighting them.

P.V.P

So, you are being attacked by a player? Do you see a savage attacking an innocent player? Or are you wanting to be a ruthless player killer but don't know where to start? Do you have the courage? If yes, then it's time for PVP!

I generally don't recommend player vs player, but when it can't be avoided, here are some general tips.

• If you are new to PVP, try not to attack players with higher level gear than you.
• Always stock up on bandages. They help to regain HP faster. (Garlic no longer has any healing factor)
• Always be the first one to attack. You can outfight a player who has better gear and weapons if you can get that one hit advantage.
• A spear gives a big advantage in some scenarios. You can gain some extra hits with the long-range, although it becomes obsolete when in range of a sword of equal or higher tier. If you are devoted to PVP, it is best have both a sword and a spear.
• If you have a sword, close in and continue to attack; do not let your prey escape.
• Always move while attacking. Try to stay behind your opponent so that they cannot hit you.
• Switch between your helmet and chapka in time. Maintaining proper temperature is very important. If you are cold in a fight, run through fires, i.e., place fires in front of you and run over them when the temperature bar updates. The temperature bar updates approximately every five seconds.
• Use spikes/walls to your advantage. If you are running away from your opponent, turn towards them and place a spike, or even a workbench to slow them down. You can sandwich them in spikes in between trees or other mines with the help of a team-mate.
• If you have a diving mask or suit and are low on health, escape to the ocean.
• If you have a better chapka than your opponent, run into winter biome. Always make sure you have enough water bottles or a shovel.
  • This does not always work, as they may time their placement of campfires. However, if you have a mammoth fur hat, and there is a blizzard, you can easily outlive them.
• Do not let your opponent know your health, especially if they have a spear. Only retreat if you know their health is lower than yours.
• If high tier players are chasing you and are catching up, try skirting around resource nodes or going into them. Most players do not react fast enough to draw their weapon if you double back, however only do this if they are almost next to you. If you are ahead, try to find a thin river and go through, this will slow them down, allowing you to throw them off your tail.
• Fighting people may not always be the best choice, but you will gain materials and score from it. You will get revenged, keep that in mind. Only try savaging with reidite or lava gear.
• As a savage, pretend to be friendly to lure in the new nooby players. Drop an item near the 'noob' and soon after that, kill them. If you don't manage to kill the player, either waste 95% of your time chasing that player or maybe find another person to kill/troll. This will not work on experienced players, as they are often doing quests that rule out the use of other player's boxes, and also because they know that you will attack them.
• Make a good tier hammer to break the structures that your prey/attacker places down. The most common structures might be a workbench or a wooden wall.
• A hood may be a good idea if the player seems salty and angry, as he may want revenge, or join a clan and put a bounty on your head, and people can't revenge you if they don't know your name :)

AFK

Template:This section might need improvements

AFKing is when you want to be able to try to survive as long as possible, but you can't always remain by the keyboard forever.

If you want to try to AFK, you need to maintain all four status bars as high as possible. You will most likely need to build a base if you want to be able to survive. Out of the four biomes, the Forest will most likely be your best option. To maintain the Food bar, press R to Auto-Feed. Make sure you have plenty of food. To maintain the temperature bar as high as possible, equip a mammoth chapka, as you will not lose or gain heat with it equipped in the forest. To maintain you water bar, your base should be on a water source and have bridges over the source so you don't drown. To keep your health bar full, make sure your base is roofed to prevent mobs from spawning and diamond walls or higher to keep others out. For your three bars of food, water, and temperature, it is also advisable to sleep in a bed to slow the bars' descent even more. Even with these strategies in place, it is inadvisable to AFK for too long, as you can still eventually die if left unchecked. It would also be a good idea to have teammates protect you from savages so you can AFK as long as possible

Auto-Clicking

How to do auto-clicking without downloading apps or hacks(Only works on a computer or any keyboarded device.) Step by step:

1. Make sure you have another window open. (Chrome book short cut: Ctrl + T)
2. Go to your Starve.io window.
3. Hold down your mouse button.
4. Switch windows when still holding. (Keyboard short cut: Ctrl+Tab)
5. Release after you switched to the new window.
6. Now you can go back to the game and find out that you are still hitting. (Also works with walking, follow the same instructions and hold down W, A, S, D Instead)
7. Have fun :)

FAQ's

Q: Swords or Spears?

A: This is a personal choice up to the user to decide which fits them more. If you are unsure, then take this into consideration:

Swords deals more damage than Spears (Better for skilled PvP and PvE)
Spears can reach further than Swords (Better for ranged PvP and PvE)

Q: Are Bows better than melee Weapons?

A: It's up to the player if they are skilled enough with the bow. The bow is strong but very expensive. The Dragon Bow is easily the hardest recipe in the game. I mean, to get it you have to kill a bunch of mobs, get a lot of resources (200+ each one), and to use Dragon Arrow you have to kill one of the hardest mobs, the Sandworm.

Q: To savage or not to savage?

A: Savaging is easily the most controversial play style ever. People will hate you, yes. People will focus on you, yes. You will get tons of points, also yes. It's totally up to you if you prefer points above having a good relationship with the community.

External links

• Official website
• Starve.io Play