As soon as you start a new game play with a new character on a new map the very first thing you need to do is focus on levelling up your character so you can unlock different Tiers from the Tech Treepoints whihc in turn allows you to unlock blueprints so you can make better gear, workbenches and so on.
TIP: Only unlock the Blue Prints you need. You will have an opportunity end game where you can unlock all blueprints.
Summary of XP Progression
- Levels 1-10: Chop trees, gather resources, craft wooden walls/basic bandages.
- Levels 11-45: Craft a bow/bone arrows, hunt wolves and other animals, mine iron in caves. Upgrade your wooden base in normal mode to Stone and concrete if playing in hard mode.
- Levels 46+: Craft a rifle, explore the desert/arctic, hunt predators, and set up farming plots.
As soon as you land and as soon as you can start by making basic tools such as a stone axe, stone pick axe, stone knife etc.
1. Basics
- Harvest plants/fibre and make a lots of bandages.
- Cut down trees convert to wood piles and leave these stacked near your base.
- Kill animals and harvest everything. Process the bones for crushed bone and make epoxy. You are going to needs lots of epeoxy.
- Cook the meat from animals hunted.
- Craft lots of suture kits from Fiber, Bone and Leather (harvested from animals).
- Explore nearby caves, if a cave has a solid stone wall break down the whole wall not just an entrance.
- Mine the different ores found in caves.
- Once you have so much fibre you can make bedrolls for an xp boost as well.
- Start building a stone base for normal map hardness and a concrete base for hard mode.
- Complete Normal and Simple Missions: These quick tasks in Open World mode provide high XP, Ren, and exotic rewards.
2. Mass-Crafting and Deconstructing
- Bulk Crafting Items: Craft high-XP items in bulk. Examples include Bandages (early game), Rope, Wood Walls/Floors, or Oxygen Bladders (mid-game).
- Destroy/Dismantle: When your inventory is full, or you are leaving a prospect, break down the crafted items to regain some resources, and then craft again.
- Multiple Benches: Use 2–3 carpentry benches simultaneously to maximize the rate of XP gain from crafting.
3. Food Buffs and “Rested” Status
- Consume XP Food: Always maintain a +15% to +35% XP boost by eating food. Key items include Cooked Bacon, Strawberry Jam, and Fruit Muffins.
- Rested Bonus: Ensure you have the “Rested” buff to maximize XP gain. You do this by starting a fire and going to sleep between 6pm and 7am.
4. Strategic Activities
- Farming Crops: Planting seeds and harvesting them with a sickle provides substantial, continuous XP.
- Mining Large Boulders: Using a pickaxe on large boulders provides a high amount of XP and is efficient, particularly with the “Speedy Mining” talent.
- Clear-Cutting Forests: For early game (levels 1-5), felling trees is one of the best methods.
5. Top Tier Hunting
- Desert/Arctic Predator Farming: Go to the Desert or Arctic biomes with a long-range weapon (bow or rifle) and kill everything. Hyenas and wolves in these areas offer high XP per kill (3k-4k+) and are easily spotted.
- Skin Everything: Always skin carcasses. Skinning gives roughly 1k XP in addition to the kill XP.
- Bestiary Completion: Hunting different creatures increases your Bestiary progress, which grants account-wide XP buffs at 40% and 100% completion.
- Baiting: Leave carcasses behind to attract more predators for a continuous loop of hunting.