Guides/Panic Room

Many players of Don't Starve have heard the term "Panic Room" thrown around from time to time, but may not understand what exactly one is, or how to build one. This guide will attempt to provide some direction for the construction of such a panic room, and some tips to ensure its effectiveness.

What is it?
First things first, what is a "panic room"? A panic room is a collection of walls that are built with the express intent of protecting the player from mob attacks - the most common of these being the cyclic hound attacks that get gradually more intense as the game progresses. A very handy table that shows the relationship of days to hound attacks can be found at: Hound Attacks. A good panic room will easily defend against the likes of the Hounds, but what about other mobs? Well, its not a very likely scenario that a panic room will be needed to defend against Spiders or Spider Queens (most folks set up their camps in a safe area, out of the reach of spiders), however in this game any scenario is possible. What about extreme mobs like the Deerclops? In the early game it is very hard to prepare for an attack like this, however it is not impossible. The rest of this guide will focus on how to design and build your "safe house".

The early game
Fortunately for the beginner player, the default settings don't immediately inundate you with dangerous mob attacks. As a matter of fact, there is a period of time where players work to establish a base, and the Hound attacks are fairly easy to fend off with little more than a log suit and a spear. The surprise comes when the attack warning period dwindles to mere seconds rather than minutes, and the quantity of attackers seems to multiply exponentially. How in the world is one to survive with attacks coming in from every possible angle? This is where the "novelty" of a panic room becomes pure gold.

Gathering Materials
The first thing a player must do before even considering anything else is collect the necessary materials. For a beginner player in an early game world, this shouldn't be very difficult as it requires one simple resource: Rocks. "Why rocks" one might ask? Because rocks create the only non-flammable wall structure in the game, the Stone Wall. After the player has survived the first two hound attacks, there is a chance of Fire Hounds spawning - and in that scenario, Hay Walls and Wooden Walls just aren't going to cut it. In fact, it could quickly turn your lovely panic room into a burning wall of death. Fire hounds will burst into flames upon dying, and will burn everything near them down when they go.

So, while running around in the first few days of gameplay and collecting the necessities for ones base, it is very likely that a Rockyland biome was discovered (and probably bypassed for more important things - aside from collecting the first 12 rocks for a firepit). Its much easier to accomplish this in the early days when the hound waves come at a less frantic pace, so clear your inventory, build several picks, pack some food for the voyage (and extra Flint and Twigs for tools) and head to the Rockyland. The goal for an early game panic room is to think small, but stout - you'll want to collect a little over 120 rocks to make it happen. This may seem like a lot, but you will be building a small room with very thick walls (more on this later).

Once enough rocks have been collected, get to work refining all of them into Cut Stone, and then go into Structures and build them all into Stone Walls

Tips

 * When mining rock, it is far more efficient to build 5 or 6 picks and mow down a whole field of rocks before picking anything up. This allows you to go much faster by left clicking rapidly on the rock to mine faster than if you held the space button down and waited on the automation.
 * If supplies of Flint are adequate and rocks are all that is needed, mining the boulders that look like [[Image:RockFlintless.png|32px]] have a higher chance of dropping 5 rocks per boulder, with no Nitre, Flint, or Gold.

Location
Now comes the big question - "Where the heck do I put this thing???" Good placement of a panic room should keep it far enough away from base camp resources such as Twigs, relocated Grass Tufts and Berry Bushes. It should also be close enough to get to in a hurry if the attack sound starts playing. At its shortest interval, the hound announcement will play for 30 seconds before they spawn and terrorize the player. So keeping the panic room location within 20 seconds of the base is ideal (giving time to equip armor, helmet and weapon as well). It can serve a player well to install the panic room in an orientation that allows a nearby road to run right into it, allowing for more preparation time, and less running frantically time.

Design
Now that a good location has been determined, the actual structure can go up. For an early game build, a large room is not always necessary as it can consume a lot of time mining rocks to build. Also, without Tooth traps or Bee Mines for protection, the hounds can quickly destroy a larger structure without much effort, and leaving the player susceptible to attack from multiple directions. With that said, a small structure is fine to start out with. The goal of the early panic room is to simply organize the attack better, so that the player is not overwhelmed. The design should be include a triple thick wall of defense all the way around. Why 3 walls thick? Because the hounds will be able to attack and injure the player through 2 layers of stone wall. The third layer keeps them from reaching through with their long bite range. The entrance is not very long, but is narrow - this is what will "funnel" the attackers into formation for one-on-one combat, rather than being overwhelmed by multiple attackers at once. Take a look at the picture on the right. The room is built at the end of a road, the walls are thick enough to prevent damages from side or back attacks, and there is a Fire Pit and Chests there for night attacks. It's small, but does the job it needs to very well.

'That is, unless Deerclops comes. He won't be phased at all by the puny walls, and lack of defenses.'

Tips

 * Don't just run right into the panic room when the sound plays - get prepared with your armor and weapons and then run around when they attack. Get them all into a group and then run straight into your panic room. Quickly turn around and dispatch them one by one. The reason for this is to protect your walls. Hounds come from several different directions, and will run directly to the player. If a wall intercepts their path, they will chew on it until it is destroyed to get to you. If this happens, take out all the hounds that reach you first, and sneak out the entrance to attack them one at a time to lure them away from the walls if need be.
 * If Deerclops shows up early on, try to attack him once and lead him far away from your camp and your tiny panic room. Get him to aggro on a Pig Village or some Beefalo and just run.  Try to get through winter and plan the next phase of panic room design.

Advanced Panic Planning
To be continued...

(Wall) 02:06, July 26, 2013 (UTC)