Cheapest house to make

Hi,

The newbie guides on the wiki stop right before giving any advice on what to do on your homestead. So here goes.

From various posts and guides I figured I needed some storage building first with a floor, walls and and a roof so I can store stuff inside them so it doesn't decay. I presume it means dropping storage basket on the floors of the building.

Now, what would be the cheapest storage shed to start with? I suppose some kind of small tent? Maybe go for a larger 1-tile like shed structure? The wiki does not mention any decay rates, so I don't know what kind of time pressure I am under.

You are not under any time pressure. Unless you let your totem decay, any bins you drop on your land will stay indefinitely.

Standalone structures (tents and canopies) can store bins, or bins can be placed on the ground or a floor. Some think placing bins in building slots looks neater. Others like me are too lazy to open the building and then the bin.

The only time this makes a difference is in commissaries. Commissaries will reduce the decay of food, but only if it is placed in a bin in a slot. Therefore, your commissary should be a tent or canopy.

As to what you should build first, that depends on what inspirations you get and the blueprints you find. Grind architecture enough and you will learn to make roofs and floors out of sticks and straw. There are rumors of a big bad coyote who can huff and puff and blow Gadu structures down.

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Originally Posted by thurgond

You are not under any time pressure. Unless you let your totem decay, any bins you drop on your land will stay indefinitely.

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Thanks. That's a lot less pressure. Now to make it perfectly clear, bins on the ground on my land don't decay, and neither do their contents, whether they are tools, cloth or quickly decaying items like plants? Food on the other hand needs a "commissary" to not decay, whether it's cooked or unprocessed like fish?

Also, is there a trick to highlight my land so I fence exactly around it, a sin Wurm for instance? The "entering" and "leaving" messages are not very accurate.

ok..

you totem gives you rights to an amount of land, within that land all your stuff is protected...

bins/carts dont decay as in "break" or rot but they will loose there locks so people can take there contents or even the basket/cart themselves...

Im not sure exactly of the times, your will have to get someone with more knowledge or look it up, but the basics are this..

if you leave a locked bin out in the woods (outside of your tribe lands) it will stay locked for anyone else untill the lock decays, lets say 20 days after which other players are able to open and take its contents or pick up that bin...

but if you place that bin on your tribe lands it is then protected by your totem and will remain safe for hell of a lot longer untill your totem decays which i think is around 3 months.. again im not sure on times so...

now tools and almost everything else in game decay with use... so a hammer wont decay over a period of time like a lock, but it will decay with use, so use that hammer a lot it will decay fast and break requiring a replacement... you can see this by mousing over the object and looking at the object's health/state stats for example "62/65" first number being it current state and last number being its max, when the fist number hits zero, the item is broken or rotted...

Food on the other hand decays all by its self... so that stat figure will drop over time to simulate the food rotting, im not sure if keeping food on tribe lands helps this decay i don't think it does, but you can do many things to lengthen this decay time by making food pouches or using commissary...or in the way you cook the food can help its lifespan ... hope that answers your first question...

as for "highlighting" tribe lands... the answer is "NO"... we usually just stake it out if you need to see boundary's or for rough idea as to where your borders will be BEFORE you place your totem, you can pace out around 15 jogging steps, the rough distance from totem to border in a 1-4 person tribe... hope that's of some use

Just to clarify a couple of points…
Your carts are safe forever on your tribe land. They only become abandoned if the tribe does. Carts left on public land are deemed “unsafe” in the object header, but they aren’t abandoned or claimable for about 2 RL weeks. I think it’s specifically 135 game days, but I’d have to look at the old patch notes for sure.

Bins are never safe off of tribe land on the ground. As soon as you drop it, it is accessible to anyone regardless of what permissions and/or locks you have set.

Food items, whether meat, fish, plants, cooked or uncooked, all decay. As already pointed out, the rate of decay can be slowed by commissaries and/or specialty baskets/pouches. All will decay and break in time though. Note: raw food that is even down to its breaking point will become pristine again when cooked and give you a new decay timer.

No highlighted borders (would be nice), but you can tell exactly by coordinates. Tribes of 4 toons or less have a tribal plot of 50m x 50m square with the totem always at the center of the square. It’s pretty easy to fence in on a border by constructing a ghost fence or post and then moving it outward until you get a message that you can’t build off of tribe land. There is your border.