Originally posted by Alji:

I used portals so that helped me, but I am not sure I would have even persisted without portals given the boss locations I have on this map seed. GL with your effort.

But you have inspired me. I think I'll try a no portals run next.

I kind of felt as though I needed to do this.

My first toon only killed Eikthyr, then cheesed iron and silver with door clipping and stagbreaker. He is as far as he can get without dragon tears, so kinda in limbo. He used portals. He died very often.

Second did everything vanilla style with a major cheese. I used crypt keys and wishbone for iron/silver on this one. He has killed all but Yagaluth and is in Padded with blackmetal weapons. I could finish his run pretty quick. I used portals AND super cheese world hopping to move metals to smelter. I did this just to speed up gameplay with my focus on killing bosses the first toon never killed.

So, here I am. I am a cheater. I needed to do this in order to prove to myself that I could play the game as intended. No portals and permadeath are just my self inflicted punishment for my first two toons cheese.

So, here I am. I am a cheater. I needed to do this in order to prove to myself that I could play the game as intended. No portals and permadeath are just my self inflicted punishment for my first two toons cheese.

Hey, whatever makes the game fun for you, right? Reading yours and others posts have actually made me thinking about exploring each biome and the world at least to 33-50%...

...WITHOUT killing one single boss.

And of course completely without cheese and cheats. So no chair cheat to get into crypts. Not sure if this is doable. But I'd like to see this as a challenge to me.

Copper and tin can be farmed by exploiting trolls (I wouldn't count that as cheese, since trolls, I mean they DO hit very hard). I never tried that on purpose, even though I did get the odd nugget from trolls smashing things.

Iron is more or less almost impossible, that means no iron armor, padded armor, iron weapons and the biggest problem, no iron shield.

Swamps can be tamed with troll armor and a bronze buckler, but then there's the abominations. You need to kill quite a lot of them to get the full lvl 3 root set. Not sure I can make this work just with fire arrows, because I don't think the buckler will be able to block them.

Mountains with root armor and bronze weapons? Going to be tough. Silver is technically out of the question, since I probably won't be able to use the Stagbreaker to smash rocks to pieces, since that would count as cheese.

So, root armor the whole way through? Well, at least you wouldn't need to worry so much about Deathsquitos... :P

Thinking about it...

Edit: Maybe I should just go for the Fenris set, it doesn't protect me from skeeters, but it will give me a running boost. So maybe a combo of root chest and Fenris hood and leggings, or something like that.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I just hit day 45, back at meadows base. Turnips are going and I expanded the base (originally just small house I took over) to allow fermenters when time comes. I think I will hit up wiki, see what my mobile base shopping list is in total and start rounding it up to put into a cart. I think It should go pretty well.

Logging out for now. I have been on too many hours today, likely to make some stupid mistake if I stay logged in.

Originally posted by Grailoch:

So, I have started a permadeath, no portals run this weekend. I am on iteration 3. Grevk III has a decent newbie isle. I have found two elder locations and am making bronze/troll gear on starter Meadows base. I think I want to stay here until I max upgrade what I can. I am making a full run around the shore of the isle currently. I was not able to do it 100% because there is a northern peninsula that had some swamps and even some slivers of plains biomes. It is mostly black forest up north with a couple smaller mountain areas in middle of peninsula.

Regarding no portals. Would you relocate your whole base to a new area, making multiple trips if needed or just farm that new area to build up workstation/forge from scratch? I can see advantages and disadvantages both ways. Should I abandon my newbie Isle or delve into the swamp areas on it in search of crypts? Should I go off and kill elder (probably geared up enough currently to drop him) or use cheese clipping in any sunken crypts and maybe even go to mountain areas with stagbreaker in search of some silver?

It is so difficult to decide. If I make a wrong choice, then I will likely need to re-roll and start over. So far I have just been dropping trolls with copper knife to max upgrade that gear and exploring newbie isle.

What would you do?

Hoe for a dirt road plus cart. Main on the Shore of a bay with an Ocean connection. Loading and unloading the Karve as needs be. I wouldn't try to cheese it. Food first, keep hp up. Potions second, have poison, frost, medium healing, and minor stamina on hotkeys. Max out a tall shield, be ready to block. Training. If no deaths is the most important part, then it's training time. Race track for running and jumping. A safe pool for swimming laps with the shore right there. Find a few geeks and pull out the shield. It's blocking time. With running, jumping, swimming, blocking at 90-100% most enemies can't catch you. Most tall shields can block all of their attack. Most shores are within swimming distance. Watch out for falling trees and build safe to fall from homes

My permadeath run before this one ended in the mountains while i was in troll armor (wolves). i had cleared one crypt but was having trouble with others because there were spawners and elite draugr in the entrance areas. One had a 2 star archer ( couldn't take more than one hit). Thought I was gonna die and jumped out with <10HP several times. I didnt have enough iron for armor and figured I was already taking chances anyway. I decided i should try to sneak some silver and I could then overpower the crypts. The mountain area I was near was just way too busy with golems wolves and drakes. I should have just backed out, but the weather had been bad for a couple of days and I still had some time left on my potion (i couldnt just waste it!), so I got impatient and stretched the search a little too far. In retrospect, I should have continued the search for more accessible crypts instead.

My new run has been similar but I did it by the book and took iron armor into the mtns. It has been much less stressful. I recommend doing it in the conventional order. The thing I had been most worried about was a wolf hunt, i recommend always being wary about that. Always have at least a simple wood fort within running distance and wall off each of your silver mines.

I used portals so that helped me, but I am not sure I would have even persisted without portals given the boss locations I have on this map seed. GL with your effort.

But you have inspired me. I think I'll try a no portals run next.

trying to take shortcuts to find higher level stuff is a recipe for death. It may go well, sure, but the odds of something going wrong are much higher than the normal approach of earning it in order. Exceptions could be made for a boss fight, since right after the boss is the same gear you just had and welcome to next biome, but rushing to cheat silver before swamp is asking for trouble -- if you gonna do that, do it in iron armor but before bonemass.

moving a whole base is a big deal. You either need a dozen trips to haul all the stuff you needed or you start over and farm it and both stink. Its a lot less trouble to make a one room crafting shack, extract the local ore and make your gear. Eventually that means upgrading the shack to upgrade the gear though, so plan on having enough upgrades to craft the max tier... and you can make a quick but not full comfort rest area too, may as well (even a campfire with roof+ the rugs and a chair is pretty good).
warning, a crafting shack is seen as a full base and will be raided.

Kill the Elder if it is in the vicinity. With troll armor lvl 3 and a lvl 3 finewood bow you can take him down easily.

For a no portal run, I would probably want to set up a simple base close to every boss, and bring the needed materials that are not easy to farm with me. Make sure the base is reachable by boat, so you can load the heavy stuff into it. The Karve should be good enough for this.

Mind, I would probably still farm the copper and tin for the basic forge. Just bring the not so easy stuff or stuff that is hard to come by, like surtling cores or iron later.

Set up only the minimum necessities. Taming should be out of the question, since you probably will need to move on after the boss is down, and you most likely won't be coming back.

Originally posted by jonnin:

trying to take shortcuts to find higher level stuff is a recipe for death.

warning, a crafting shack is seen as a full base and will be raided.

Yes, the raids are my largest concern. I have clearcut the area around my starter base and my only current raid are Greydwarves. I have been able to kite them around that area for the extent of the raid timer pretty easily. I worry about the Draugr and Troll raids though. That is why I am holding off on the Elder for now.

I have make it pretty far into it without getting killed yet, but the zones after black forest are a different story. Very slow is the way I think.

Between what you can carry and what you can put in a cart without overloading it, you might be able to create a 'portable' main base. You could also do it with a longship but for a karve would need multiple trips or... well there's a way to get a cart aboard perhaps even broken down into crates and barrels - still rather iffy. Raft.. lots of trips .. would build bridges as far out into the water as possible at each end and keep the raft trips as short as possible, loading/offloading from/to chests on the ends of the bridges (ok piers lol).

The big issue to me would be the chance of getting hit with a raid at poorly defended waystations and outposts (which you'll probably want a lot of). Not going to get into it because it may be spoilerish but there is a way to build minimal 'outpost lite' min-bases that are not subject to raids (other than the one that comes after you wherever). If you want to go that route check the wiki on Raids and Events, triggers, and think about minimum requirements and build orders. Quite possibly paranoid overkill but then again, permadeath..

With no portals you're going to need lots of roads and ports. I'd suggest using an adhoc approach and being far more concerned with function and time required rather than appearance or convention.

You can build 'swim' ports rather easily - just a pier (dead end bridge to nowhere) jutting out in the water with a workbench and some chests. Use the 26d roof to make like a bumper that you can stand on for cargo transfer. When parking your boat, move it out almost as far as you can swim and make sure the boarding ladder faces the shore. For added safety, make a raft and leave it halfway between. If mobs go after something it'll be the raft, better to lose it that the ship. The raft also serves as a 'regain stam' place.

For roads, I only use the hoe and traditional roadbuilding techniques in areas that are suited for it - basically fairly clear relatively flat areas that won't take forever to terraform into a road. For the rest, I've found it faster to build wooden cartways; anchor to ground, tree, post, or raised earth as necessary. its just 2 - 2x2 flooring pieces side by side for cart hauling. Use the 26d roof pieces to change elevation. I prefer to alternate sloped and flat sections and not to chain more than four or five in a row so you can run with cart up them without running out of stamina.

For ravines and the like just go full bridge across that part. In areas that brush up against or go through black forest or swamp, I'd elevate the roadway using raised earth sections as supports - keep the whole roadway up around 10 meters or so.. If you want you can pass through swamp like that using the Forever trees when available and make it a covered bridge/fighting platform as well as a road.

If you don't care about looks and don't try to make everything 'perfect' you can pretty much build that type of cartway using the rocks and wood you get from clearing the way.

Yeah long winded as usual, hope it helps! Good luck Rogue!

Originally posted by jonnin:

trying to take shortcuts to find higher level stuff is a recipe for death.

I would partially disagree with this as long as you are fully prepared, have high sneak/run/jump, best food (balanced between health and stam) and, of course, go only in daylight and only on the borders (swamp) or quick in/quick out for mountains. Don't be greedy, and don't stop to mark things on your map.

If you do take these risks make sure and have a fully enclosed and roofed outpost with fire and workbench as close as possible to the area you are scouting/raiding. You might even want to put in earthen walls or moat with plenty of clip space between that and your outpost's walls.

Yes it is a chance but its a calculated one - the rewards for getting things like turnips or obsidian early are huge.

Yes it is a chance but its a calculated one - the rewards for getting things like turnips or obsidian early are huge.

I have been waiting out the nights in cleared troll caves or burial chambers where I can set up a fire for rested buff.

I do have 3 turnip seeds on me that I got from swamp edge scouting. I am gonna plant them at my first Meadows base for now.

I think I am gonna finish making an outpost in Black forest where I found several copper nodes close and smelt up enough bronze to max out what I have got currently. I have a dwarf tower on the shore I have taken over. It has a spawner within range that I dug out for skill training and wood/rock gathering.

After I get maxed equip I'll go back to Meadows base, make some fermenters, brew up poison resists, and explore the local swamp areas to see if any sunken crypts are available without taking to the seas.

There's a really horrible looking outpost design I've been wanting to use. Probably would want to have a nearby cart to haul the mats but... build a single block square stone pillar to max height using Hoe 'raise ground' - use beams out from that to give you enough support for a 3x3 (measured in 2x2 floor pcs) platform - should be enough for fire (in the middle), bed on one side workbench on other some walls and a roof with chimney.

Fun part is figuring out a way in and out - especially if a wondering troll takes out your ladders.

its much larger than that. It can probably be even bigger (certainly with wood floors instead of stone). I got 2 floors and plenty of space in this lofted outpost... could probably have done 10x10 floor tiles in stone or twice that in wood...
but 5x5 is plenty for an outpost.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2814526727

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2814526713

For a no portal run if you want to be as mobile as possible while out and about then I would suggest taking workbench and forge mats with you, some mats are interchageable so you don't need duplicate mats to set up all forge stuff and all workbench stuff at the same time. I did no base run with no portals so worked for me but maybe not for you. If you got trouble with space see if you can put a cart on the boat but don't put the real heavy stuff in the cart as it will weigh boat down and cause sailing problems, just be wary the cart doesn't go over board, I found best location for cart is right up against the player when steering.

Otherwise I say just make a base near stones and sail back and forth, it's not as time consuming as one thinks, I did my first no portal run in 161 days, no death run will prob take a bit longer since your prob gonna be taking things super cautious.

Big tip for sailing is DO NOT take any risks, if you think something looks like rocky crap water or too shallow then leave it and find another spot to sail in, only land in safe spots, if it don't look safe then find somewhere else, DON'T sail near plains unless you plan to land.

The biggest problem with no death runs I know of is wolves, make a safe plan of attack for wolves cause that will probably be your downfall.

Originally posted by jonnin:

its much larger than that. It can probably be even bigger (certainly with wood floors instead of stone). I got 2 floors and plenty of space in this lofted outpost... could probably have done 10x10 floor tiles in stone or twice that in wood...
but 5x5 is plenty for an outpost.

Nice! Was thinking of something smaller to be quick to build and use minimal mats but your pictures show the potential for more. Did a proto of the 3x3 just now and well tight fit, fire danger, looks horrible and is cramped, works though.

PS: Looking at it again and.. dig a trench around the base and just laugh at raids aka bow target practice.