Stranded: Alien Dawn – Beginners Tips

Useful Tips for Newcomers

• Non-Nyx moons are 6 hours of warning, not 12. Regardless, the moon shouldn’t make a difference of if you keep weapons on you or not. I do keep the weapons on because it’s an EXTREME hassle to swap them out for each attack, even with just 1 person, lol. Weapons don’t deteriorate THAT much. You’re wasting so much time (both in-game and IRL) to swap them out, it’s just not worth it.
• Putting a bunch of hay floors to prevent enemies from spawning near your base is only useful if your base is humongous. This is not a legit tip for a new player. Very very few people will EVER need to do this. You’re just going to confuse this poor person and make things awkward and worse for them.
• The default sleeping spot that requires no materials is fine until you get beds. Beds do take up space but they make people happy to sleep in so get them ASAP. It doesn’t require many resources, just a little bit of wood or stone and cloth or leather.
• Yeah unfortunately, heating and cooling devices are pointless in this game. Just make clothes. You’ll be frustrated with how long it takes to make clothes. I have two recommendations: Either use Vivien, or play on Saltu. Saltu is by far the easiest map and it’s not even close. But Vivien is super helpful either way.
• I use wooden or stone floors but yeah technically you don’t have to. I think it looks better, but I guess the central floors are covered up with flooring so you don’t even see it. Hmm. Keep in mind it’s worse thermal insulation if you DO use heating or cooling, though.
• Nine flamethrowers is way too many lol. The only thing that get past even like 3 is Junos. I put 4 just to be safe. Just be prepared to fight Junos yourself; it’s not that hard. Note that means 3-4 in each row; 6 to 8 total. You don’t need EIGHTEEN flamethrowers.
• I’ve never fought “LARGE” numbers of Junos (no more than like 4, maybe 6 with a lot of people) and never fought waves so big that the flamethrowers run out of fuel. Bmnoble’s only experience in the game is apparently 20 years in with 20 people and way more stuff stockipiled than you would ever need. Not the typical experience. If you win your first game in like 5-7 years, you are probably playing on Medium, and you use the normal amount of people (i.e., don’t use mods for more) then you will do fine with much fewer flamethrowers than Jmnoble suggests. I don’t know why people think “tips for beginners” means “tips for people on year 20 with 20 people”. Also most people don’t play on Nyx, either, and half these tips are for Nyx…

And after you first game, you will have enough experience you can win the game sooner, and again, still won’t need 18 flamethrowers.

• Mazes are definitely bad, just use flamethrowers instead. Certainly no need for BOTH. I used mazes at first without flamethrowers. Just don’t do it. Flamethrowers are GOAT.

Speaking of GOAT’s, Ken’s the GOAT, by far the best survivor, you should use him.

While we’re talking survivor suggestions, I suggest RAKHA, NOT QUIN (don’t understand people’s obsession with him), Laara or Vicente, Ken, and Vivien. Don’t need a researcher, research is not THAT important and ANYONE can do it. Krista is barely faster than other people because her ability is very RNG, hit or miss. Rakha, Laara, Vicente, Vivien, and Ken, however, will ALWAYS save you time, no matter what, no RNG needed (well Ken needs a little RNG actually getting metal but besides that). Less RNG is needed for metal when you use Ken because, ya know, you get twice as much each time you get it…

• Hydroponics are the most useless tech to research…and cooking makes your people much happier. The basic meals provide 6 more happiness than syrup and fruits, and cooking also doubles your food. Just saying. Pickling uses FOUR times more food than cooking. Regardless of if you cook or not, you still never want to use Hydroponics, they’re very inefficient. Just stockpile enough food for winter. By the time you get to them, you’ll have plenty of knowledge on how much food you’ll need. Freezers are way more useful than Hydroponics, just saying. XD

And don’t use “freezer rooms” as some people “suggest”…just use freezers…

Also regardless of if you cook or not, you want to make sure you have 3 different foods for happiness reasons. People get a happiness buff if the last 3 meals they ate were different. Don’t eat raw vegetables or meat.

• You also get a happiness PENALTY by only having 1 food source. Your people get like 21 happiness eating 3 different basic meals over eating JUST syrup. 21 happiness. That’s a lot… Just saying. And I’m sure cooking is much more efficient than dealing with all the research, resource gathering, building, and maintenance that is required for a HUGE hydroponic room. Good lord. Again, Bmnoble speaks from experience with 20 people on year 20 with the Nyx moon only, apparently…
• Again, non-Nyx moons have SIX hours of warning, not 12. But they would know that if they didn’t play Nyx only…

Best advice I can give you OP is just google advice, there’s tons of it out there and I can’t think of a lot off the top of my head other than just replying to what other people say. But here’s a few more:

• Research lightning rods FIRST THING and build one ASAP. IF someone gets struck by lightning before you build one just reset, start a new game. People get PERMANENT injuries for being struck by lightning. Just not worth.

During lightning storms, keep people near your lightning rods in activities they can do there. Even sleep, if nothing better to do.

• Get weapons before your first wave. Depending on difficulty you might start with some, but that should be #1 priority after lightning rods, it’s weaponsmithing. Bows and spears go a long way for early waves. Don’t build crossbows. After you have weapons, and a decent base up and running, then go for flamethrowers ASAP. First, you’ll need a source of metal alloys though and fuel. If you have fuel fermentation it’s WAY easier…if not, you’ll have to do it the hard way. (Honestly, I don’t play seeds that don’t have fuel fermentation. It’s a brekathrough tech, not always available. I would personally keep resetting until you see it. It makes things a LOT easier. But it’s not technically mandatory.) You’ll probably want metal refinement before flamethrowers unless you happen to find a ton of metal alloys.
• After you have flamethrowers, you can build a small fence behind them for your people to at least stand in at first. But you’ll want a fence around the whole base ASAP as enemies will start attacking your base some too if you don’t protect it and just hide behind your flamethrowers. There are many more detailed guides and pictures you can find online if you search.
• Again, Saltu is the easiest map. And you probably wanna use Vivien. Definitely use Ken.