Just got back from RA for the first time

[cjc813]

Finished RA with pretty minimal spoilers beforehand.

Holiest of cows in all of India... that was phenomenal. So much fun.

I was *not* expecting a dungeon of that scope out of a little block game, nor was I expecting them to pull off environmental storytelling and atmosphere the way they did. It's pretty insane.

Gonna move on to the next location next weekend, probably. This time I'll make sure to bring more than a few slices of pie to eat. 

Edited February 25, 2025 by cjc813

[Cetasaya]

Yeah i'll remember my first RA delving for a long, long time.  Top tier environmental work.  In any game. 

No spoilers, but the third and fifth story locations are VERY useful places to live nearby and theyre almost always VERY far away from spawn.  Not essential, but useful.  I usually build a sailboat (if my worldgen has an earthlike amount of water, which for me it always does) and completely fill it up with all my most valued stuff before even going to the second (the story locations seem to spawn in a curvy line away from spawn so carrying everything with you if youre not married to your early base(s) is more efficient imo) and onto the third.  The distances between story locales are crazy long.

Ive gone back and forth between the RA and my first base before the sailboat was added for far too many times lol.

Now I (usually) settle permanently somewhere 100-1000 blocks from the third location (and in a spot that has good temporal stability, temps, percipitation, hunting, traders, view, ect.) and a self sufficient FOB near the fifth.

Next playthorugh I might cheat and fly in creative to the third location and start completely fresh from near there in survival, that would be sick.  Or start in the RA after i clear it of mobs in creative.

FYI for anyone reading this, the items that help you locate the story locales are all in the creative inventory.  I hunted down the necessary NPC in creative to find the RA to take a lot of detailed pictures of the third location so i could use it as inspiration for my first base then figured out that THAT location comes from an item and yeah... 20 minutes wasted.  20 minutes is a LONG LONG time when the ONLY thing you wanna do is play the d@mn game and build your base and youre stuck flying in creative mode and your poor old rtx 2060 mobile GPU cant load chunks fast enough.

Edited February 26, 2025 by Cetasaya

[cjc813]

11 hours ago, Cetasaya said:

ONLY thing you wanna do is play the d@mn game and build your base and youre stuck flying in creative mode and your poor old rtx 2060 mobile GPU cant load chunks fast enough.

Fam, I'm playing on a $500 laptop with integrated graphics. Coming back from RA, I dropped from Low to Ultra Low just to make it home in a reasonable amount of real-world time. 

I'm also torn by the distance between story locations; much of chapter 2 I've spoiled and looked up already, but I still want to head to the other locations; so much of the narrative is told environmentally, and people tend not to share those environmental details when they're posting online. So I want the "Journey," and the experience, but I don't want to spend the next real-life week or two preparing for and working through the content. So I'm tempted to just fly there in creative... butttt... I want to *experience* the story, so I wanna elk-up and travel. But that takes a ton of time... and so on.

It's a dilemma. 

[Zane Mordien]

Turn forestation down to -50% and upheaval to 0% and the trip isn't as bad on an elk.

[Zane Mordien]

Also keep a shovel, shears and an axe on your hot bar to dig paths and cut your way through trees you run into and that speeds things up.

[HalfAxd]

4 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Also keep a shovel, shears and an axe on your hot bar to dig paths and cut your way through trees you run into and that speeds things up.

or just bring a torch and burn a path...  #evilgrin

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, HalfAxd said:

or just bring a torch and burn a path...  #evilgrin

You're speaking my language. 

[DuskyBun]

RA blew my expectations of what this game could be out of the water. Truly surprised me and only reassured my faith in the devs going forward.
And pie rules! Probably my favorite way to eat on the go besides a good bowl of soup

[cjc813]

4 hours ago, DuskyFalcon said:

And pie rules! Probably my favorite way to eat on the go besides a good bowl of soup

Oh, 100%. It's my favorite way to cook and preserve and carry food. Salt? Never heard of it.

Can confirm, though, that 5 pieces (even of red meat pie) isn't enough to get *to* and *through* a casual jaunt in the RA in full iron chain. Especially when you can't figure out where the giant gear is supposed to go and explore the whole thing at *least* twice.

[cjc813]

4 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

6 hours ago, HalfAxd said:

or just bring a torch and burn a path...  #evilgrin

You're speaking my language. 

Absolutely.

Dying to wolves because you're running through the forest and get blocked is no fun, and neither is not having sticks when you need them. So shears are a permanent part of my kit.

And yes, I, too, have been inconvenienced by an entire forest and just burned it down. RIP frame rate. 

[Cetasaya]

13 hours ago, cjc813 said:

So I want the "Journey," and the experience, but I don't want to spend the next real-life week or two preparing for and working through the content. So I'm tempted to just fly there in creative... butttt... I want to *experience* the story, so I wanna elk-up and travel. But that takes a ton of time... and so on.

It's a dilemma. 

Thats a very tough call.  I want to share my opinion on the comparison between the RA and chapter 2 but I feel that would unduly color your experience.  Sometimes when I hear a another person talk about a game or movie or whatever they kinda influence my opinions a bit and their words hang heavy.  But chapter 2 is 1000% worth keeping as spoiler free as possible for yourself imo.  But I dont have any responsibilities as I am a freelance artist working from home.  If you do have a family and a job and cant spare the time, the travel might be a bit much.  I got the time to REALLY dive deep into whatever game im playing though.

**Light spoilers ahead for those that havent done the first dungeon**

There is an item that the boss for the RA drops that will enable you to get the elf for half off.  Its useless except for decoration otherwise.

**Light spoilers have ended**

To help afford the elk, I made an index card listing everything that every trader buys and sells (pictured, i write very small lol) and took everything I had that was valueable to the lads and went around my area and hit every trader.  This is around an ingame year or so after completely licking the RA clean of all its loot and being in the bronze age for a good while so i had a half sailboat's worth of tasty goodies.  Long story short, new bronze tools, aged crates, jewels, bread, wolf pups, owl treasure chests, and lanterns are the most popular items they wanna buy.  Removing the edit protections from the RA and taking all the crates, chests, containers in it have netted some sweet gears for me.  Focusing on panning for low quality jewels, baking bread, and smithing bronze tools are the reliable ways to generate gears as well.  Youre gonna need a girdle and saddle at minimum so youre gonna need leather and copper too.

But I dunno... I dont like the elk.  I mostly sail.  Like I said, my oceans are pretty much connected.  Getting the elk on and off the boat is a pain.  It LOVES to rubberband back to the treasure trader i got it from, especially if I save and reload while its in the boat and standing.  Roping it sucks cause you gotta click a specific spot.  Fetching the cooking pot, accessing the saddlebags, ect. all got TINY little spots on its body.  And its call scares the sh!t outta me too.  Freaking nightmare fuel.  It gets hung up on just about everything.  I think the elk is just bad.  And the fact that you gotta generate the world around its really bad traversal to even make it useable is just worse.  The elk needs a lot of work it should just be scrapped.  Its impressive from a technical standpoiint but it's a complete chore to use imo.  Plus the elk takes up three chest spots in the boat and its saddlebags dont even replace one in terms of storage.  You can make it work if you're willing to make some concessions and practice on it, but i'm not.  This playthrough will be the first and last time I use the elk.

1 hour ago, cjc813 said:

12 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Also keep a shovel, shears and an axe on your hot bar to dig paths and cut your way through trees you run into and that speeds things up.

So shears are a permanent part of my kit.

And ladders to hop up and over mountains instead of having to run around them.  One ladder every two blocks up does the deed.  And of course shears help find the sticks needed for ladders quickly as well.  Sticks are massively OP and are used in a crazy amount of recipes im always running out of them, so i got two pairs in the boat at all times.

Edited February 27, 2025 by Cetasaya