You can easily spend the starting stones. Even if they don't spawn, they can still be made in the oven.
Higher level stones (3 levels?)
Can only be found.

Originally posted by Trollface:

You can easily spend the starting stones. Even if they don't spawn, they can still be made in the oven.
Higher level stones (3 levels?)
Can only be found.

I read about that, but isn't that recipe something I won't have access to for a while?

I wouldn't waste any materials on T1 tools or armors. You will acquire T2 gear soon enough. Even then, I wouldn't use the nonrespawning stones on anything except your primary weapons and armor at this point. Of course, once you unlock the renewable recipes do as you like.

I upgraded Acorn armor a few times by mistake, not knowing the material didn't respawn. After that went to Ladybug armor which I upgraded a few lvls on as well as getting my Ant Club to lvl 5. After that I hit the sandbox and with the armor and weapons from there finally started dumping mats into the T3 gear from that area.

For tool upgrades, I would hold off on upgrading your hammer or axe till you're on T3. Unless you're using them as your primary weapons then you may want to upgrade the T2 tools a little bit.

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

I wouldn't waste any materials on T1 tools or armors. You will acquire T2 gear soon enough. Even then, I wouldn't use the nonrespawning stones on anything except your primary weapons and armor at this point. Of course, once you unlock the renewable recipes do as you like.

I upgraded Acorn armor a few times by mistake, not knowing the material didn't respawn. After that went to Ladybug armor which I upgraded a few lvls on as well as getting my Ant Club to lvl 5. After that I hit the sandbox and with the armor and weapons from there finally started dumping mats into the T3 gear from that area.

For tool upgrades, I would hold off on upgrading your hammer or axe till you're on T3. Unless you're using them as your primary weapons then you may want to upgrade the T2 tools a little bit.

I upgraded the acorn armor because I was having too much trouble bringing down ladybugs without it. I haven't upgraded any of the t2 tools yet but I'm considering it as a way of exploiting bug weaknesses since haze is proving to be extremely difficult.

Excuse me if that's common knowledge, but I want to make sure I got it right:

So, basically, minerals (quartzite, marble and such) do NOT respawn and are a finite resource, BUT later on you can find recipes to make upgrading materials with renewable resources?

It would be a shame to have dozens and dozens of possible items to upgrade, and yet none of them being actually worth upgrading but endgame gear.

I found out pretty quickly that ladybugs dont have a lot of range. Worst they can do is a bellow and a headbutt, sometimes their little charge causes them to slide up terrain they cant normally climb. When first getting my ladybug armor i used terrain to my advantage...though be aware that ladybugs can be quite destructive so choose your elevated position carefully. So far I kept the ladybug armor for almost everything because its boosts suit my build incredibly well even if it's not tier 3. Each piece increases your block threshold, meaning how much you can block before you get staggered. The full set bonus together gives a chance of giving you a slow health regen when you block. Plus if the armor is taken up the sleek path later on it gets a heal efficiency buff, meaning all healing sources heal slightly better; from your bandages to smoothies to life steal builds. Makes ladybug armor a relatively easy set to grab pretty quickly that you can take into the late game, so one that i found to be worthy of spending my upgrades on while they were still really limited to me.

Before I got ladybug though, I found myself sticking to the clover armor. I tried out acorn armor for a bit because heavy armor is best to avoid death right? But, I found out that no, not in acorns case. Acorn is a tank armor, it's "major threat" piece effect means creatures are more likely to notice and target you. Great for the person constantly trying to pull aggro in multiplayer, but slapping a target on your back wasnt my smartest idea for solo. Clovers not super strong but it is cheap and each individual piece reduces hunger rate while the full set also reduces thirst drain letting you focus on other things than simple survival at the very start.

As for weapons, generally whichever you use most. By the time you get far enough to start having the option to truly carry around a bunch of damage/element types the starting upgrades are a renewable resource. At the start though, many players end up with a default ranged option (bow/spears), a favored weapon, and at least some proficiency with axes and knives (axes because of getting ambushed while building, knives because water...and for some the axe is the favored weapon). If you can get the hang of the perfect block/parry system with your melee weapon, you can get away with a lot more though. Takes some practice though, and that practice can be lethal sometimes.

If you progress the story at a slow pace and focus on unlocking recipes quickly you can get some of the better gear, i went started on getting the red ant armor quickly to start building a base, sleek red ant armor helps a lot for building a base quickly with the extra hauling power, mix it up with a sticky workers comp smoothie and the intern badge and you are one great construction machine.

But yeah, i suggest you look online for what armor can get from sleek or if its best to go with the normal higher stats, if you use the peep'r to get bug data for weaknesses then you can plan your upgrades out or try for the trinkets.

Originally posted by Zellnagi:

If you progress the story at a slow pace and focus on unlocking recipes quickly you can get some of the better gear, i went started on getting the red ant armor quickly to start building a base, sleek red ant armor helps a lot for building a base quickly with the extra hauling power, mix it up with a sticky workers comp smoothie and the intern badge and you are one great construction machine.

But yeah, i suggest you look online for what armor can get from sleek or if its best to go with the normal higher stats, if you use the peep'r to get bug data for weaknesses then you can plan your upgrades out or try for the trinkets.

Unfortunately I don't have access to sleek yet. I've been trying to clear the black ant lab but I'm not having any luck. None of my weapons seem to do the kind of damage I feel I should be doing at this point. Even exploiting weaknesses with level 5 tools, I don't do nearly as much damage as when I use the red ant club, and it doesn't seem to be strong enough to keep me from being swarmed. I managed to make it to the boss, but he flattened me when I got him to half health.

There is a key in the sandbox and you can get it early if you know where to look, it unlocks a chest in the sandcastles moat and you can get the salty morning star early, that is the best weapon for the boss as it has high attack power and salty damage already applied, and is quick as a 1H weapon so you can use a shield if you want.

Originally posted by Zellnagi:

There is a key in the sandbox and you can get it early if you know where to look, it unlocks a chest in the sandcastles moat and you can get the salty morning star early, that is the best weapon for the boss as it has high attack power and salty damage already applied, and is quick as a 1H weapon so you can use a shield if you want.

Thank you for the advice. I was able to beat him without the mace though, turns out he's much easier in 3rd person than 1st person.

Nice, that weapon is one of four that has an element at the start so you can just focus on mighty upgrades for the highest damage, seven if you count the new staves.

I'm currently harvesting Ox horns for jewels, and I've had to farm a few fangs for mighty globs but I've got a lot of weapons upgraded to levels 7 and above (at least 8 or 9) and probably as many up to level 5.
I think I may have once or twice had to craft my own brittle whetstones from scratch, but by that time I already had +100 of the required bits (that don't even need the oven unlocked to build), and I have lots of brittle rocks left on the map that I haven't even broken (or bothered to collect from the higher tier rocks due to inventory space).

My advice is to use both the brittle rocks as and when you need - I was careful with the marble and only upgraded the ladybird armour early on, I've still got over 270 bits in a chest gathering dust with only the widow and mantis armour still to make.

There are plenty of brittle materials, so you can spend them without too much concern. Don't spend sturdy or supreme materials yet though (you won't be able to crash supreme nods yet anyway I assume, as it needs tier 3 hammer).

Also, I wouldn't waste materials on such things as gas mask. Choose 1 or 2 tier 2 armor you use most and upgrade it. Same with weapons, maybe throw 1 firefly headlamp too... but gas mask, meh... it's usable only in haze and if you're struggling with its durability, just make 2 or 3 but don't waste materials on it, as it's otherwise very lousy as an armor + when you find toxicology badgeyou can fight with stinkbugs in melee without gas mask at all.

Originally posted by Lacrimosa:

+ when you find toxicology badgeyou can fight with stinkbugs in melee without gas mask at all.

I haven't found that yet, but maxed out Fresh Defense mutation, which is also easily obtained as soon as you get a tier 2 hammer, also lets you melee stinkbugs with negligible gas damage even without a gas mask.

Originally posted by maurizio.g1982:

Originally posted by Lacrimosa:

+ when you find toxicology badgeyou can fight with stinkbugs in melee without gas mask at all.

I haven't found that yet, but maxed out Fresh Defense mutation, which is also easily obtained as soon as you get a tier 2 hammer, also lets you melee stinkbugs with negligible gas damage even without a gas mask.

The badge got nerfed, it no longer provides immunity to gas like it used to.