Force of Nature: Guide for Beginners

You wake up on a beach with no weapon and only tathered pants.

The area where you wake up can be summarized as two half circle.

1. The first one will be made of Palm Trees (bannana/coconut) and Palm Bushes. It will only partialy fill the land so that you may move past it without any cutting.
2. The second one will be made of Bushes, Various Trees (Pine, Oak/Mapple, Birch). It will cover the full half circle and it will constitute your main defence, as an impassable barrier, while in this area.

You’ll find a variety of fauna as well as some items laying about.

Progression will take the form of a tutorial with quests guiding you throughout the game on the most importants mechanics.

General controls
If you are uncertain which keys do what, you can access the Controls via the Menu (Esc) under Settings. The game will pause while in the Menu or any of it’s sub-menus.

The game will behave differently depending on wheter or not you have any of the character’s pannel opened.

No pannel opened
The mouse’s cursor will be locked by default to control the camera. It can be unlocked with Space Bar. While doing this, you will be unable to change the camera’s facing.

Pressing Space Bar in this mode will show the cursor to set items’ and plant-type items’. While doing that, it’s possible to manualy grab items or harvest plant-type items.

By default, Alt will harvest all plant-type items in the character’s vincinity, while Ctrl will pick-up all items on the ground in the same vincinity.

With pannel opened
The main difference is that the mouse’s cursor will be unlocked, with all the effect described above. It is still possible to reverse this (i.e. lock the cursor to camera) by pressing Space Bar to allow you to turn the camera.

The only difference in this “reverse” mode, is that pressing Space Bar will not hide items and plant-type items’ names.

Character’s pannel
The main character pannel is the Inventory that can be accessed, by default, using the I key. From this pannel bellow, you can see both your inventory and 6 buttons at the bottom of the Character part. Most of these have a keybind to access them directly. Each one are described below in order from left to right.

1. Map – using M : This is the only character pannel that will not open the Inventory if you access it using it’s keybind. The name is self explanatory. On the Map where you can see the discovered land and fog of war. You can click and drag to move around and see beyond your immediate surroundings. Ennemies will be shown as red dots and Pets will be shown as large white shape.
2. Craft – using C : This will open the manual crafting menu. While this is the only initial crafting method, the number of items that can be crafted manualy is limited and is quickly overshadowed by Crafting Station, though it still has it’s use even during late game.
3. Build– using B : This will open a list of options related to building structures and decorations, including moving them (when possible), repairing them and destroying them.
4. Characteristics – no keybind : This is where you can see you character’s stats as well as level-up. There are a lot of informations in the statistics, such as the range of comfortable temperature, that are not used early on but that becomes crucial during mid to late game.
5. Quests – using Q : This will show both active quests as well as past quests. You can click on any quest to show details.
6. Encyclopedia – no keybind : This will allow you to see all items available per level or globaly. It can be useful to see exactly when you will have your next Tool, Weapon, Consumable or Miscelanous improvement.

In general, higher numbers are better. This is true for damage, armor and even speed.

However, the same is not entirely true for Consumable that grant health and stamina overtime. The gain is spread over the duration. Thus, between Bananas (+18 Stamina over 20s) and Coconut (+12 Stamina over 10s), the later will provide a quicker recovery.

The following will have more in-depth sections later-on. To some degrees, some of those are interelated.

1. Use your surroundings to your advantage.
2. Early on, gather sparingly.
3. Upgrade your items.
4. Build inteligently.
5. Ennemies are strong.
6. Dress for the job.

This guide is structured to cover the basics of Gathering, Building, Crafting and Combat, as well as more advanced explanation following each categories.

If you are starting out, you may want to jump around to the next 101 section before reading the more advanced explanations.

Toward the end of the guide, there is a list of tips that cover various game mechanics that are often interelated.

At the end of the guide, I’m inviting readers to give suggestions and feedback, as well as give credit to those that did.

Beside the few ressources that you will find laying on the ground around your spawn point, all ressources are either harvested (plant-type), generated by structures, as creature loot or gathered with the use of Tools.

When in the vincinity of plant-type items, you can press Alt to harvest or click on their name (see controls above). Once harvested, the items dropped can be picked-up using Ctrl.

The same mechanic apply for plant-type items grown by the character.

Plant-type items include : Wheat, Coffee, Strawberry, Pumpkin, Mushrooms (4), Miscenalous plants (5) and roses (6).

Mushrooms include : Cep, Fly agaric, Panther Cap and Russule.

Miscelanous plants include : Hydrangea, Lettuce, Rosemary, Salvia and Violet.

Roses include : Black rose, Blue rose, Green rose, Red rose, White rose and Yellow rose.

Hives are “plant-like” as they are harvested in the same maner but cannot be grown.

Some items gathered with tools can be grown, but need to be gathered again with tools.

Those are mostly just two ways to generate ressources: through buildings or animal pets.

Building can generate Water or Honey. They are generated over-time until they reach 6 units. Thus, visit them from time to time to pick them up and restart the generation process.

Animal pet need to be fed generaly a certain amount Wheat (Cow [Milk], Goat [Milk], Sheep [Wool]) or Wheat Seeds (Chicken [Egg], Rooster [Feather]), as well as Water. Pigs [Worm] require Apples and Water. Once fed, the animal will generate ressouces the same way any crafting station would. However, it is not necessary to remove the ressources before feeding your animal pet.

Early on, it will be mostly Cooper Coins, Gold Coins, Pelt, Claw and Fang. Later on, you’ll get Gem Shards, Bones, various Arrows, Coal, Ember, Ores and Ash.

As in any game, it will be easier to grind for those ressources on earlier parts of the map when you have progressed past that point.

There are four tool type : Axes, Pick, Shovel and Fishing rod. Except the fishing rod, all tools have multiple tier. Each tier is more efficient due to the damage power, speed, or in the case of shovel, with double yield.

Axes will harvest vegetation or, in the case of non-yield vegetation, allow you to merely cut a path through it. More details provided in the advanced section. Axes have 4 tiers (level) : Stone (2), Coper (6), Iron (8) and Steel (11).

Pick will harvest Stone and Ores. Stones will always be found in any boulder on the map. Ores will be found in boulders that have colored vein in them (color) : Coper (pinkish orange), Iron (rust orange), Tin (blue grey). Picks have the same 4 tiers as axes.

Shovel will harvest soil type as well as, in the case of dirt, worms. More details provided in the advanced section. Shovels have 3 tiers (level) : Digging Stick (2), Coper/Iron (6) and Black (10). The first tier is extremely slow, thus unefficient. The last tier has the same speed as the second tier, but provide double yield.

Fishing rod can be used with worms as ammunition to catch fishes. Those can be cooked in Bornfire or Cooking Table early on as a decent source of healing (+20 HP/25s). They are crafted at level 2 at the crafting table. However, it is the slowest item in the game with a speed of 0,12 (even slower then a Digging Stick with 0,33) and will not catch fishes every single time. On a single 100 Worms streak, I got 52 fishes, 8 branches and 40 no-yeild.

In the basic section, I have covered the four tool types and their use. Due to the variety of yields for Axes and Shovels, I’ll focus on their ressources in this section.

Axes, as seen previously, are used to cut through anything vegetal. I put them in three categories : Trees, Bushes and Other plants. Screenshots coming eventualy.

Trees
Cut trees will leave a stump behind that can be chopped for a little more wood… or left there since they are passable terrain.

• Pine : The denser evergreens (low branch) is the only tree that is impassable around it’s full radius. The tall version is the easiest tree to navigate through. Both drop lots of Logs and have a chance to drop a Pine Cone, allowing their eventual growth at level 11.
• Banana/Coconut Tree : These will drop, beside their fruit, a decent quantity of Logs and some Palm Leaves. There is no use for the fruits beside stamina regeneration.
• Apple Tree : These will drop, beside Apples, a decent quantity of Logs and some Branches. The fruits can feed Pigs, are used in cooking Apple Pies and can be used for regrowth.
• Various non-evergreen : These will drop a decent quantity of Logs and some Branches.

Bushes
Bushes are the undergrowth vegetation that will be completely removed once gathered.

• Palm Bush : These will have huge leaves flowering around a central point. They drop Palm Leaves.
• Branch Bush : These will have smaller or no leaves on a network of branches. They drop Branches.
• No-yield Bush : Some leafy vegetation in later stage do not yield anything.

Shovel
Depending on the type of soil where you dig, you may have one of five results.

• Soil : This will consistenly drop on brown earth looking patch of ground, as well as the grey one that look like dry chips of wood. This will also randomly drop on grass patch (green). Wherever soil can be gotten, you have a chance to get a Worm.
• Clay : This will consistently drop on the brownish orange patches of ground. This will also randomly drop on grass patch (green).
• Sand : This will only drop on beaches and other sand patches.
• Rocks : I have to verify this again, but at some point it was possible on certain ground to get rocks.
• No result : Grass patches will often time yield nothing or only a Worm. Soil under water will yield nothing.

Data collection pending – All tests at level 12

Buildings and Decorations are unlocked as you level-up. You can see at what level in their respective sub-menu.

Buildings, unlike decorations, are also limited in quantity except for a few exceptions. This limit increases with level-up, up to a point.

All buildings and most decorations can be rotated using the mouse’s wheel before they are placed and all buildings, except house-type structures that cannot be further moved, can be moved after being placed. All buildings and decorations that can be moved can also be rotated while moving.

Buildings and most decorations can be destroyed using the last option on the Building menu. This will provide part of the materials back.

Finaly, some buildings, and only those buildings, can only be built inside house-type structures and will show the mention Can only be placed indoor before the component list. These includes (level) :

• Craft table (4)
• Small chest (4)
• Straw bed (6)
• Tailor table (7)
• Bed (9)
• Chest (9)
• Plant pot (9)
• Alchemical table (10)
• Shelf (10)
• Lamp (10)

It is safe to leave items on the ground as they will not despawn. That is something I take into account when designing my base, often leaving basic items such as Stone, Log, Branch, Palm Leaves and Water directly on the ground in separate piles (with uncomplete stack slightly to the side).

Capacious barrel, although pricier then chests, carry slightly more items and can be built outside of house-type structures. This make them, in effect, unlimited.

When planning your base layout, it might be a good idea to place containers near crafting stations or farms and fill them with the items you’ll need to craft or farm.

The decoration sub-menu include various items that are mostly optionals.

In my view, fences are mandatory to create pen(s) for your animals, as they prevent them from wandering about. If your pen(s) are small enough, you’ll be able to target all your animals without entering the pen(s).

Here is a screenshot of my pens.

Another decoration that I find useful in my base are the speed boosting soils. The speed bonus stack with bonus from equipement or consumables. Sawdust and Sett are relatively inexpensive. Here is the list (level – speed bonus) :

• Sawdust (7 – +25%)
• Sett (8 – +50%)
• Black gravel (9 – +67%)
• Blue gravel (9 – +67%)
• Green gravel (9 – +67%)
• Red gravel (9 – +67%)
• White gravel (9 – +67%)
• Yellow gravel (9 – +67%)

Another thing that you may find useful is to place a spot of Sand and/or Clay near your farm to spend your stamina while waiting for crops to grow during late game.

Crafting is done either by hand through the Crafting menu using the C key, or using Crafting Stations. Those are (leve – limit at level 12) :

• Bonfire (1 – N/A) : Used to create Embers, fried meat and fish as well as an assortment of clay-based items.
• Coal smoaker (3 – _) : Used to create Coal.
• Blast furnace (3 – _) : Used to create ingot from ores and coins. Used to create glass and glass-type items.
• Anvil (4 – _) : Used to craft most items out of ingots.
• Craft table (4 – _) : Used to create various items throughout the game including those done by hand.
• Cooking table (5 – _) : Used to create various food consumables as well as items required for crafting (flour, sugar and mushroom powder).
• Tailor table (7 – _) : Used to create fabric, clothing and most armor pieces.
• Altar (8 – _) : Used to strengthen gems, craft amulets and the end-game required item.
• Alchemical table (10 – _) : Used to craft various potions and molotov cocktail. Used to make

Out of that list, only the Craft table, Tailor table and Alchemical table need to be inside.

Mills are late game house-type structures that come with a built-in crafting station that is more efficient then the cooking table at making flour and mushroom powder. It is also the sole crafting station capable of creating colored elixir out of roses for crafting.

All crafting is done automamticlay over time and is idealy started between exploration trips.

There are three types of generated ressources : those that are crafted, those that are farmed and those that generate over time.

Starting early in the game, you will have to make a rope before you can craft a stone knife. In this example, the rope is the crafted ressource.

The same principle will continue throughout the game on all of the crafting station except the Alchemical table.

You can farm ressources the following way :

• Seedbed 2×2 : This will grow from a single seed or unit of miscelanous plants or roses.
• Seedbed 4×4 : This will grow from 5 seeds, 5 units of miscelanous plants or from 4 roses at a time. It will also be able to grow pumpkins.
• Big seedbed : This will grow vegetation that can be cut with an axe.
• Romantic seedbed : …
• Plant pot : This will grow from a single mushroom.
• Animals : Feeding animals require Water and either Wheat, Wheat Seed or Apple. It is not necessary to remove the ressource before starting a new feed.

There are two of them : Water and Honey, from Wells and Apiaries respectively. Both will generate up to 6 units before stoping. To resume generation, you will need to harvest the ressources.

Coming soon. Meanwhile there is already a guide about Alchemy.

I strongly recommend that you learn to use the Map (M) to see where ennemies are nearby. Proceed carefuly to lure one of them at a time since they will initialy be extremely strong.

As you level-up, you will gain more health and stamina (+10 / level) as well as passive regeneration increase (+0,02 / leve ; up from 0,2). You will also get a small armor boost that translate to a small % of damage reduction.

Melee weapons come into two variety : light and heavy. Light melee weapon allow movement while you use them, while heavy melee weapon prevent movement while using them. In practice, there is little difference except to finish-up a fleeing ennemy.

There are also various ranged weapons, but I don’t use them so I can’t realy give an input here.

Higher damage value and higher speed number are better.

After the first shard of nature, you will want to have a good amount health regenerative consumable at all time. Stamina should not be overlooked as when you have no stamina left, you will be unable to attack.

Finaly, you will eventualy be able to tame goblins, with a chain trap, the same way you can trap animals. You will need to travel to later regions if you want to tame higher level goblins.

I will divide weapons into four categories : Light melee, Heavy Melee, Thrown and Bow. All will include informations in the following format : (level – damage – speed). Tools can also be used as melee weapon but are far less efficients.

• Cudgel (3 – 15 – 0,63)
• Stone cudgel (4 – 21 – 0,53)
• Studed cudgel (5 – 22 – 0,63)
• Bronze shortsword (7 – 23 – 0,78)
• Iron shortsword (9 – 29 – 0,71)
• Steel shortsword (11 – 37 – 0,75)

• Stone mace (3 – 20 – 0,63)
• Bronze longsword (7 – 27 – 0,78)
• Iron longsword (9 – 35 – 0,71)
• Iron mace (9 – 45 – 0,63)
• Steel longsword (11 – 44 – 0,75)
• Steel mage (11 – 60 – 0,63)
• Golden mace (12 – 70 – 0,66)

Thrown weapons do not require ammunition.

• Rocks (4 – 12/8 – 0,74)
• Molotov cocktail (12 – variable – …)

To use bow, you require a bow :

• Crude bow (6 – 13/22 – 0,62)
• Longbow (9 – 18/30 – 0,56)
• Lightbow (11 – 18/40 – 0,81)

And some ammunitions :

• Stone arrow : Level 6 – no damage modification
• Bronze arrow : Level 7 – +7 damage
• Burning bronze arrow : Level 8 – +12 damage
• Iron arrow : Level 9 – +13 damage
• Poisoned iron arrow : Level 10 – +13 damage & 12 / 10s
• Steel arrow : Level 11 – +18 damage
• Poisoned steel arrow : Level 12 – +18 damage & 15 / 10s

Data collection pending – All tests at level 12

If you cannot pass through somewhere, neither can the creatures. In many cases, this can be used to your advantage to create either shield and/or bottleneck.

Shields are when creatures, even though they see you, cannot reach you due to pathfinding distance. In some cases, you’ll be able to attack safely them with melee or ranged weapon. Melee is ideal if you want to pick-up the drop (or part of it).

Bottleneck are when creatures cannot traverse more then one at a time. This reduce considerably the incoming DPS for melee combat. Larger ennemies (or pet) cannot traverse small paths where the player and smaller creatures can. This can lead to an effective shield were you can wait for the ennemy to retreat to hit it in the back a couple of time and it is especialy effective against smaller ennemies like elementals.

There are lots of reasons why I don’t think it’s more efficient to loot early then later on :

• Better Tools : A steel pick (35) is 3,5 times more powerful then a stone pick (10), cutting through rock much faster. It is also much faster (0,72 vs 0,55). You will see gradual improvement at each tier.
• Better Consumables : As you start cooking, you will get accross more powerful stamina regeneration items. I personaly like cofee for it’s decent strength and low cost.
• More Max Stamina and Stamina Regeneration : You start with 50 points of stamina and 0,2 stamina regeneration per second (250 seconds or over 4 minutes to fully regenerate). Every level-up you gain 10 points of stamina and 0,02 stamina regeneration per second. The regeneration increase does not seem like much at first, but by level 11 (steel tier items) it will have doubled the base regeneration (cutting the regeneration of 50 points to 2m5s).
• Amulets of energy : At level 8 (+0,25), 10 (+0,34) and 12 (+0,42) you can craft progressively stronger versions of the Amulet of energy. At level 12, the combined effective regeneration (natural+amulet) is 0,84. At that point you are regenerating about 50 points of stamina per minutes on top of any Consumables.

If you add-up all those factors together, it makes gathering too much to early a lot more time consuming then it could be later on. Gather about what you need in the near future and wait to expand your base late game.

Some possible exceptions early on :

• Spending about 75% of your stamina, to avoid getting too slow, before picking up the items laying on the ground around your spawn point.
• Ibid., when you are waiting for a craft or building to finish.
• Ibid., while you are waiting for your health to regenerate (assuming you’re out of stamina consumables to eat at the same time as health consumables).
• Spend all your stamina before leveling-up, as it will be fully regenerated.

This could go without saying, but there is often a steeper effect to the increase than what may appear of a small numerical increase.

Don’t be shy to invest to always keep your gear up to date with the possible exception of the level 12 amulet (pricy and concurent with end-game condition).

Keep the best version of cold and hot armor, see more details in Dress for the job.

Generaly, I wait until I start laying down my animal pens and farming area before I realy start expending my base.

Until that point, I make do with the Hut of Branches that are cheap to rebuild if need be.

At that point, I also start to get better gear to gather what’s needed for expansion, see Early on, gather sparingly.

Just because I could build sooner, does not mean I should.

As you progress, some if not most ennemies will hit like trucks even if you improved your gear and dressed for the job.

Don’t be shy to use any advantages at your disposal, as stated earlier.

But if you’re about to die… hit Esc to pause the game and Save & Exit. You’ll reload safely at your spawn.

During the course of the game, you will and you should change gear often beside when you upgrade it. Some factors to consider :

1. Temperature outside : Your Comfortable temperature range should always be enough for wherever you are headed.
2. Relative level of danger : Depending wether or not you’re expecting to fight in dangerous or relatively safe area, such as late game ressource gathering, you’ll need more attack and damage, or speed and stamina.
3. Absolute safety : While in your base, you should put even low-level Leather Boots (at least until level 12) for the speed increase and avoid any helmet that reduce your speed. Combined with the best amulet of speed you have and Sawdust, Sett or better speed improving decoration will make for faster farming.

Written by J’s