1. Earliest piece that helps is from the mountain biome

2. Nothing I've seen yet sadly, hopefully something will show up in the ocean update, walrus hat?

3. Used to be parkour extreme, the devs took the ARPG combat in another direction a while back though.

4. You can get an accessory to increase weight by finding a certain merchant randomly in the world

5. Not sure myself, it's a game play choice they've made

6. This is not necessarily true, make sure your gear from the previous biome is fully upgraded, currently in full root making my way through the mountains with little trouble at all.

7. You should make spare gear or use some of the older stuff for retreival, it's often wise to make a beachhead on a new island with a portal, they can be fabricated fairly cheaply.

8. There is, gold and treasure to trade to the merchant or decorate with, indeed it's very difficult to make any iron gear at all without exploring the dungeons in the swamp biome.

9. It's a design choice, cheap way is to put it next to a tree and slap 2 roofs over it, usualy counts but can be a little janky

10. It's RNG, just do a ring in a boat on the next set of islands out from spawn then repeat you'll hit something eventually....probably

11. Depends how close the enemy's are, I've dropped wolves before when they are not looking at me or each other.

12. The Abomination came in a patch sometime earlier this year, it's how you make root armor and it's a blast to fight.....just not in a boat, do it on land with a decent shield or from the trees with fire arrows.