Copy/Pasta from DF Forums, N00b Tips:
1. How come I keep getting screen shots?
There is a bug in the Steam Overlay and you just need to change the key its bound to, even though it already says its bound to a key other than the one you are pushing.
2. Where do I buy an axe?
Its on the merchant but often hidden under the feat tab in the upper left. Click the star to make the tab minimize.
3. Why is there no wood, ore, stone, cotton, fish in this node?
First off your combat log is also your system chat so turn that on from chat options. Second nodes get used up especially iron in the safe zone, so you must find full nodes. Each node has 51 hits and if you get nothing its empty. Often iron will be hard to get and you will need to leave the safe zone to find full nodes. Iron is from the shimmering/glowing rocks. Fish nodes are based on zone and water so one big lake in many zones will have a node for each zone, many small lakes in one zone will each be a node.
4. How do I craft this timber into wood?
Go to the work bench and click woodcutting with the wood and gold in your inventory. 1g + 5 timber = 2 wood. Once on the woodcutting ui up top wll be a very hard to see wood icon. Double click it. Also you can't be wearing a shield when you craft.
5. What happened to my mount and how do I get a new one?
Mounts are not permanently bound to you and you must despawn them after use. To despawn, target them and hold f then click despawn. If you lose your mount you need to either steal, gank, buy or make another. To make a mount you need 1 steadgrass (from herb bushes) + 20g + 1 inferior anima (From skinning trolls, skeletons, zombies and other mobs) + 1 saddle (Made at workbench from leather working 1g + 2 leather + 3 cloth = 1 saddle. Go to the achemist station to make its the purple glowing thing. Mounts have a 2 minute timer for security in safe zone.
6. How do I trade/gank/revive someone?
Target them and hold f and click choice. In safe zone you can only revive. In general targeting and holding f will let you do options on players and mounts.
7. Where is the market?
In the capital cities. Each safe zone is a cluster of 4 cities and there are 4 different safe zones. You can explore the whole area safely but if you get a message you are leaving the zone turn back. The capital will always be the largest city in the area and will be towards the center of the cluster. The market will usually be pretty near the bank except in Cor Ymi (Dwarf) where its below and a fair distance away.
8. How do I get better gear?
Any gear better than the crude/worst can only be made by players. You must either craft it yourself or buy it on the market. If you join a clan they will often have crafters who can make stuff for you though many want the mats or compensation. If you hate crafting then don't and just use your time to make money and misc mats to trade for gear, but if you don't mind it then crafting what you use can be very efficient.
9. I finished tutorial now what do I do?
Its really up to you. You can harvest for mats, farm mobs, explore, look for a clan or what ever you prefer. In general you want to get your bearings and feel for the game so doing a little of everything isn't a bad way to go.
10. How do I make gold?
Probably the easiest way to make gold early on is to farm humanoid (Skeletons, zombies, goblins, trolls, salamanders, kobolds, etc...) mobs because they drop gold and also low end gear as well as other loot. Basically animals drop rawhide and humanoids drop gold and gear, though animalish humanoids drop all. You can also harvest mats and sell them on the market (NOTICE: other than for the feat never sell to the vendor he pays very poorly and you can make many many times more from players on the market). Also maps are great money and come from fishing, but you have to leave the safe zone to get them.
11. What are danger zones?
Danger zones effect the percent chance of getting rare essence and maps when you harvest/fish outside the safe zone. In the safe zone you will get 0 of either. In general you really want to go to zone IV or V for good results because I-III are still very low odds. I usually only harvest iron in I-III because I need the iron not the essence.
12. How do maps work?
Maps are a game of hot and cold with green pointing you in the right direction and red telling you that you are going in the wrong direction. The blink rate lets you know how close you are with 2-3 blinks a second being very close and a blink every 2 seconds being very far.
The trick is to double click the map in inventory and then find the green/red border. Green will be half (180 degrees) and red the other. If you split the green area in the middle (90 degrees) that will point in the actual direction you want to go. Between this and the blink rate you can generally tell where the map will take you after some experience. I sort my maps by region (Human, center, yassam, etc...) and have them in bags so when in that region I can do the maps that aren't too far. Anything more than a 1 blink per second rate is pretty far.
When you get to where it stops blinking and is all green or every direction goes red fast (Sometimes exact all green spot is elusive) you want to dig with a shovel.
13. What is the fastest way to gain prowess?
The quickest prowess gain is done by joining a clan (or playing with friends) and by passing the easy mob feats to get to the middle ones like elementals, ogres, hill giants, hags, etc... Many of these mobs have 3 feats one for the mob, one for the mob type (elementals, giants, undead, etc...) and one for the mob difficulty (Freak, feind, terror, etc...). Doing it this way can get you 20k+ a week prowess.
Though not as quick by any means, but having the advantage of soloable and safe, you can do the armor type feats. Each armor type from robes to metal has 3 feats (make set, make 100, make 500) and are a great source of prowess. In general you can think of it as $ = prowess because you can just buy the mats to do these, though you can just farm them direct as well.
14. I just got killed and i'm laying here what do I do?
Nothing! You will get up as soon as the white circle in middle of your screen completes (This often bugs so you wont see circle but its still going). If you push space bar you will self gank leaving your loot where you died and sending you back to bindstone. The only other ways to be sent to bindstone from dying is if you die in a fluid (water/acid/lava) or are ganked by another player. So in general you don't really die, you are just incapacitated for a couple minutes when killed by mob or a fall.
15. I just got killed by some 150k prowess guy at a noob spawn wtf?
Don't worry everything in DF is replaceable (Except maybe house deeds and additions). Everything has durability and will break if not lost to a PK prior. Don't think of DF in terms of a normal MMO where you spent 100s of hours to get x and if you lose it you would quit. In DF everything is meant to be temporary and if you really like something make sure to bank it since only in your bank is ever truly safe, you really can't bank too often. Also don't wear your best gear to farm goblins try and gear your self to what you are doing. In general don't protect 100g with 10k g gear or 10k g with 100g in gear, try to gear to match what you are doing.
Also get use to dying, because it happens to everyone. Dying isn't something bad that happens in game its a fundamental part of the game. No one worries about dying in a FFS or MOBA nor should you worry in DF.
That which kills you makes you stronger....
Bonus Questions:
16) Why can't I sprint?
You are probably encumbered carrying more than 350kg. Open your back pack and look to far right of bar. Some food and unburden spell allow you to carry more.
17) Is there a faster way to salvage?
Yes throw it all in a bag/sack and salvage the bag, of course you must be at right table for the items, but it will just pick out what it can for the one you are at.
18) How does leveling skills work?
All skill level linearly but costs go up exponential so leveling a skill to 50 would give 50% of total power but only cost 10-15% of total cost of getting to 100. So getting skills to 25 50 or even 75 can be a very good investment if you use those skills a lot. Transfers, heal self, heal mount, weapons and skills in your primary role (Don't raise skills in secondary role they don't do anything, though some should do a little they don't appear to) and maybe some harvesting skills even (raising a harvesting skill 25 lowers time 1 sec so at 1 its 12 seconds a swipe and at 100 its 8 seconds).
Also as you raise skills the cost to raise other skills goes up a little so over time what use to cost 125 now cost 150 (getting to 50 in a skill for example). So try to focus on skills you use most first.
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