How to: Don't Starve - Traps!

Most people get the misconception that if you are going to hunt something, you will need to fight it and kill it.

While that could be done, there are actually easier methods to hunt or gather certain resources - via the use of traps.

There are in general, 3 kinda of traps - traps, tooth traps, bird traps.

Traps are craftable using 6 grass and 2 twigs, under the survival tab. Baits (food items) can be placed under traps, but is not advisable as it is a waste of precious food items, since they are scarce. Instead, there are other ways to trap your prey without the use of bait. Any form of trigger by animals will cause the trap to fall. When a trap falls, it may successfully catch a creature, or it may also fail, in which you would need to reset it.

a trap with a prey in it

Rabbits
Rabbits give morsels when killed, and 2 rabbits and a twig could be used to craft rabbit earmuffs - a clothing item that can help you keep warm during winter.

Rabbits spawn from rabbit holes. At dusk, or when they are scared, rabbits will run back to their holes. This means that traps can be placed on the rabbit hole itself. When dusk arrives, rabbits will run towards their holes and trigger the trap.

Similarly, you can place a trap on rabbit holes, and scare a nearby rabbit. It will run towards the rabbit hole and trigger the trap. A bait can also be place in line with the trap, so that when a rabbit moves towards to bait, it will trigger the trap since they walk in a straight line to their targets.

However, chasing a rabbit back towards the rabbit hole takes more practice as the direction and position of the player, rabbit and trap all makes a difference. This also applies for putting the bait in line with traps. Hence, the simplest method would be to simply set a number of traps on a number of rabbit holes, as the catch rate can be 100% if you place it right.

Spiders
Spiders give silk, gland, and monster meat which are all very useful items required for making other things. Since spiders are aggressive creatures, it is often troublesome to fight them since they will attack you.

The use of traps enables you to safely and easily farm all these drops from spiders without the need to risk your health.

All you need to do is make a few traps, don't even need any food bait for this. To help you gauge, if the spider den you are trying to farm from is tier 1, 1 trap is sufficient; if its tier 2, then make 2 traps; and so on. This is because when u go near the spider den, the number of spiders that emerge each time depends on the level of the spider den. If it is at tier 2, 2 spiders will emerge when u go near the den.

The moment u go near (on the sticky surface around the spider den), spiders emerge and will chase you. As you walk away from the den, place a trap in your path (or have it placed before hand, either way is fine) and walk through the trap. Spiders will chase you in a straight line and will trigger the traps in their path.

Simply collect the sprung traps to obtain whatever loot that was supposed to drop if you would've killed the spider. This ensures an easy and efficient way to farming silk and glands without having to put on any armor, weapons, or risk hurting yourself.

How to: Surviving in Don't Starve

Previously I made a post on the things you need to do to establish a good start in Don't Starve. Here's part II - tips for surviving.

So now you have a base with a fire pit and Science Machine.

Next, make an Alchemy Engine. Essentially, Alchemy engine is also a science machine but a higher tier one. It will unlock even more recipes which will help you in your survival. To make an alchemy engine, you will need 4 boards, 2 cut stones, and 6 gold nuggets/2 electrical doodads (RoG). To make boards and cut stones, simply go to the 'Refine' tab near the science machine and refine these items. In RoG, electrical doodads are needed for crafting alchemy engine. Electrical doodads are found under the 'Science' tab and can be made by using 2 gold nuggets and 1 cut stone.

Food
Basic:
[1] Gathering
To make things easy, first of all, make yourself a backpack (4 grass, 4 twigs). Backpack gives you extra 8 slots in your inventory, which makes gathering that much more convenient! Common food stuff that you can gather includes carrots, berries, seeds, mushrooms and birch nuts (RoG). For meat items, you can kill rabbits for morsels or spiders/hounds for monster meat. You can also kill other animals like Gobblers (that annoying turkey that steals your berries) for drumsticks. But I wouldn't recommend this as Gobblers run quite fast and you would end up wasting a lot of time chasing it down.

Cooked food normally have better stat restoration than raw food. Do take note on mushrooms because eating a certain type of mushroom raw/cooked will give you different effects! Here's a simple summary on mushrooms:

- Green mushrooms
Comes out during dusk, buried in the day and at night.
Raw: restore hunger, minus a lot of sanity! never eat this mushroom raw, seriously. Unless you wanna decrease your sanity on purpose, which I wouldn't recommend for beginners...
Cooked: minus 1 hp, but increases sanity

- Blue mushrooms
Only comes out at night, buried during the day and dusk.
Raw: restores health and hunger, but decreases sanity
Cooked: decreases health, increases sanity

- Red mushrooms
Comes out in the day, buried at dusk and at night.
Raw: restore hunger, but decreases health
Cooked: adds 1 hp, decreases sanity

[2] Planting
Make a shovel. Now when you go out gathering supplies, dig up berry bushes, saplings and grass. Bring them back and plant them around your base, for easy gathering of resources in the future. For berry bushes and grass, you will need to fertilize them after transplanting them. Here's where you will need to pick up poop from beefalo. :)
A fun tip: If you find a pig village, they often have a different type of berry bushes. It's essentially the same thing but they look cooler. You can steal these and plant them near your base too!

The cool ones found in Pig villages

[3] Farming
You will need lots of poop for this. With Science Machine, you will be able to craft basic farm using 8 grass, 4 poop, and 4 logs. Seeds which you've picked up can be planted in the farm. You can either wait for them to grow or fertilize it to hasten the process using poop/rot (rot is obtained from spoiled food items). With an alchemy engine, you can craft improved farm using 10 grass, 6 poop, and 4 rocks. Crops in improved farms grow faster than those in basic farms. Similarly, you can fertilize them to make it even faster. If you can afford it, craft improved farms without making any basic farms.

*I'm used to referring to manure as 'poop', cause, they are. When I say poop, I mean manure. Heh.

Advance:
[1] Bee box
Crafted under 'Food' tab, using 2 boards, 1 honeycomb and 4 live bees. To obtain honeycomb, you will need to break down an existing bee hive. To catch bees, you will need to make a bug net using 4 twigs, 2 silk and 1 rope (refined from grass). Plant flowers around the bee box for the bees to make honey. The more flowers you have, the faster the bees will produce honey. Honey is a very good food item as it can be stored for a relatively long time, and can be used to make honey poultice.

[2] Crock pot
Also under 'Food' tab. You can make this using 3 cut stones, 6 charcoals, and 6 twigs. You can get charcoal by setting evergreens on fire, and chopping it down after it is burnt. Crock pot allows you to combine 4 food items to make food with better stats. Simply combining ingredients will end up with wet goop, which does not restore any points to any stat. Here's a crockpot simulator which is super helpful for cooking using a crockpot.

this is the yummiest recipe you can make in crockpot, trust me. :P

[3] Drying rack
Can be crafted using 3 twigs, 2 charcoals, and 3 ropes. This drying rack isn't for clothes (lol), its for meat! Meat items (raw) can be hung onto drying racks, and will become jerky after some time. Compared to raw or cooked meat, jerkies can be kept for a longer period of time before going bad.

Basic protection
There are many wearable items that will give you different amount of physical damage protection. For me, personally, I would recommend a log suit and spear. The materials are easy to gather and they give a reasonable amount of basic protection. Making a log suit requires 8 logs and 2 ropes, while making a spear requires 2 twigs, 1 rope, and 1 flint. You don't have to wear these all the time. Equip them when you are about to engage in a fight or forsee that something is coming to attack you (hounds, for example). Take note that, when you equip the log suit, you will drop your backpack.

The next Don't Starve tutorial will be a detailed guide on making a bee box and establishing a bee farm.

Animax Carnival 2015

So, Animax Carnival 2015...

Day 1

Went as Krobelus the Death Prophet from Dota 2. Literally finished rushing my Fluttering Mortis just the night before the event.

Really happy that people actually know where I'm from! I still get this little thrill inside when people ask 'you're Death Prophet from Dota 2 right?' I feel like, 'yesss a fellow Dota 2 playerrrr <3'

Sadly, I didn't meet everyone I wanted to meet.. couldn't look out for people cause I was half blind the whole day. My lenses were not only 0 degrees (I need 400 :P), it was white screened too. So on top of not having the power I needed, there was an extra layer blocking my view. I'm not sure if I have ignored people who smiled/waved at me. If I did, please know that I'm not ignoring you on purpose!

Sexy Juggernaut

Really happy to see my fellow dota 2 cosplayers. Sorry though, I don't have any really nice pics of all of us.. T-T

Day 2

Went as Konata Izumi from Lucky Star.

After cosplaying Dota 2 characters so much recently, I must say that I felt a bit bare being in a simple school uniform. *I need armor for protection*

Still, a BIG THANK YOU to my Hiiragi sisters for being with me <3.

My derpiness is high in this one...

Honestly though, I'm not entirely satisfied with my Konata cosplay. Felt like I'm a little too old for such a cute character. Plus, my costume and wig wasn't as perfect as I wanted them to be. The wig is a shade too light, my uniform is a shade too light, and the ribbon that came with the uniform was wrong so I had to make one at the very last minute which was quite horribly done.

My sincerest apologies for letting this happen. *cries in a corner*

Plus, I honestly felt really awkward having to be 'cute' as Konata. I felt like I was out of place, awkward, and just a little lost. Took me a long time to gather what little cuteness I have in me now that I'm so old. Well I guess that's what you get for cosplaying a character 8 years younger than you.

...and then I managed to be young for a short while.

How old do I look in this picture?

Ooh, and there's Oo-kun too! The blue cat, it's so cute. At first I couldn't comprehend why everyone was so crazy over it. But after taking the Oo-kun balloon, I think I get it now. Plus, I must admit, that balloon did, somewhat helped me get into character. :P

Major All Stars!!!

Major All Stars, the biggest Dota 2 tournament in SEA with a starting prize pool of $100,000 organized by Fallout Gaming, happened on the 20th-22nd March 2015.

And I am proud to say that I was lucky and blessed enough to be a part of this historical and amazing event.

My team, D2MC was invited to cosplay for the tournament.

The event lasted for 3 days. There were hiccups on the first day as they had problems with burnt cable and the matches had to be cancelled for the day. It was pretty messed up but by day 2, everything was back, matches were being played smoothly, we had a clear schedule for our appearances, etc. It was near perfection.

I'm gonna let the pictures do most of the story-telling.

My D2MC family <3...

We do crazy stuff like ballet dancing.

Play 1v1 in costume :3

I find this picture pretty epic...

inb4 I'm playing with myself... *huehue*

Our job includes taking pictures with event goers

And fighting Roshan (Riki took the aegis)

And we got the chance to take selfies with Dota 2 legends <3

Dendi <3

I still can't get over how cute Era is.

D2MC at the after party

We had so much fun bring a part of this huge event. This is truly a big step for e-sports in SEA, especially Malaysia! Props to every party involved - organizers, sponsors, players, etc. who made Major All Stars happen. You guys rock!

Once again, I love my team. I love D2MC. I just wanna say this over and over again because, dayum, you guys are awesome! 

How to: Bloodstone

Sorry for the long hiatus, been busy juggling so many things that I'm trying to handle all at once. Nonetheless, here's a quick, simple tutorial to make up for it. Been meaning to post this for awhile now but haven't found the time to until now.

So, Dota 2 Bloodstone. Made this to carry around when I cosplay Death Prophet. Unfortunately, so far, I forgot to bring this the both times I cosplayed Krobelus.

+500 HP

+400 Mana

+9 HP Regeneration

+200% Mana Regeneration

...and pocket suicide

To make one for yourself, here's what you'll need:

• Foam sheets
• Glue, Scissors
• Acrylic paint, Clear lacquer

Cut this shape out of your foam sheets. You'll need 6.

 

Align 2 pieces back to back and glue them together.

 (A) Cut a triangle to cover the top and bottom. You will need a total of 6 pieces for the whole Bloodstone. 

(B) Cut a rectangle to cover the curve in the middle. You will need a total of 3 pieces. 

(C) Cut 2 small rectangles to cover the remaining space/opening. You will need a total of 6 pieces.

Glue all of them down into position, as shown in the picture. Trim the excess on (B).

*My apologies for not having a clearer picture. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer/explain more clearly.

As usual, lightly burn the sides, push the ends in and gently press with you fingers to give the edges a smoother finish.

Paint it red with acrylic paint. Or you could also spray paint it, if you wish.

Cover with a coat of clear lacquer.

And now you have extra 500 hp, 400 mana, added 9 hp and 200% mana regen!

Have fun~