Early game after respawn

[LupusExMachina]

I've played for quiet a bit now and the early game has become a lot of fun to me. It feels like a complete roguelike, a game on it's own.
What personally bothers me though, is dying and respawning at any point after noon and before sunset.

Basically, whenever I respawn in any enviroment other than morning with sunny weather, I die a gruesome death, over and over again.
Either I don't have the time to prepare or there are already some hostile mobs around to hunt me down.
By now I havn't come up with any other solution than running around a bit and letting myself get killed until favorable circumstances for a fresh start come around.

Has anyone found a viable strategy to deal with suboptimal starting conditions in any other way than waiting it out?

[Six]

Has anyone found a viable strategy to deal with suboptimal starting conditions in any other way than waiting it out?

I think honestly, the best thing to do is to go make a cup of tea and think about what stupid thing you did that caused your death, then respawn as the sun is rising. If you can't collect enough starting wood before the sun goes down, there's little you can do bar waiting anyway.

[Mr_Hosed]

Yeah, I've had zero luck on new spawns if they don't occur near or on sunrise. Additionally, you REALLY don't want to respawn in a new area at night with meat walking around to be harvested. Within 3 nights all the nearby meat will be gone regardless of what you do.

I've taken to staring at the respawn screen until it's light out.

[ExpHP]

Just now, I Hardcore Spawned into the middle of a forest at nightfall, and spent the greater half of my first night covertly attempting to steal a tree from underground.

[FlowerChild]

Use the opportunity to get piles.

[TheGatesofLogic]

Or, alternatively, you can mix creeper oysters with zombie flesh to CURE piles

Edit: almost forgot! You need green poo in that as well

[FlowerChild]

Seriously though...as I hinted at with my pile comment, I dig into the earth and harvest dirt for the next day. Dirt is actually massively useful now, and I always find myself running low.

Even though you only get a 3/4 ratio on digging by hand, that's not much of a loss. As for losing animals during that time...well, thems the breaks.

[LupusExMachina]

After putting in some thought, I came up with a "solution" for the situation.

After a respawn I'm practically Invincible, but bound to the location of my spawn.

My options are:
1) Dig with my bare fists and gather some ressources
That's actually pretty ineffective, considered option 2.

2) Go mobhunting
Yes, that's the thing. Especially creepers tend to be a very effective source of blocks (piles in a while) and other mobdrops.

Considered that option 2 leaves me with possibly more materials, rarer materials and a full hunger bar if I respawn a last time just before sunrise, it is preferrable in any case.

[Sarudak]

Yeah there's really no reason not to go rambo on the nearby mobs and try to kill a few with your fists or pop a few creepers given at that point you have nothing at all to lose. I actually often find myself just starting a new world after I die. Maybe that's because of my tendency to carry all my possessions on my back through the early parts of the game.

[jkievlan]

at that point you have nothing at all to lose.

As I see it that's your biggest strength after a respawn. I just run around looking for good stuff and collecting what I can just in case I decide to hole up. I generally expect to die at least three or four more times immediately after I respawn, but in the process I learn a lot about the surrounding terrain.

[Peter5930]

I just dig a few blocks straight down, create a couple of blocks of dirt out of the dirt piles and plonk one above my head to seal myself in, then wait for morning. Spiders can be a bit of an issue when I emerge in the morning, but I can either punch them from my hole where they can't get me, if I can afford the hunger, or sprint away from them. If I spawn in a desert, I'll punch some cacti and make a cactus fence around the opening of my hole, since I can't plug it with sand.

Also, was the probability of raw meat causing food poisoning increased with the last BTW update? I used to sometimes eat raw meat on my way back to my base after respawning to avoid working my way up to a furnace, but then after the last update, I found myself starving to death each time since I'd get food poisoning from it more times than not.

I don't bother exploring much after respawn, since I die too easily without decent gear, all the villages will be abandoned and all the desert temples will be looted. Exploration is much better saved for when I can properly equip myself for an expedition, and use the nether to travel to where I'm more likely to find things of value.

[jkievlan]

I don't bother exploring much after respawn, since I die too easily without decent gear, all the villages will be abandoned and all the desert temples will be looted. Exploration is much better saved for when I can properly equip myself for an expedition, and use the nether to travel to where I'm more likely to find things of value.

Yes, but in the early game *lots* of things are valuable, including livestock, trees, deep water, ravines, etc. Since it costs nothing to explore after a respawn, why not take some time to find ideal base locations? Plus there's a lot of value in knowing the surrounding territory before you start building. I don't know, maybe it's a waste of my time, but I feel a lot more comfortable knowing where everything is nearby before I just up and build a base. Once I'm established, moving to a better location is a PITA.

[Peter5930]

I don't bother exploring much after respawn, since I die too easily without decent gear, all the villages will be abandoned and all the desert temples will be looted. Exploration is much better saved for when I can properly equip myself for an expedition, and use the nether to travel to where I'm more likely to find things of value.

Yes, but in the early game *lots* of things are valuable, including livestock, trees, deep water, ravines, etc. Since it costs nothing to explore after a respawn, why not take some time to find ideal base locations? Plus there's a lot of value in knowing the surrounding territory before you start building. I don't know, maybe it's a waste of my time, but I feel a lot more comfortable knowing where everything is nearby before I just up and build a base. Once I'm established, moving to a better location is a PITA.

One of the factors that keeps me from exploring early in the game is the tendency for animals in loaded chunks to get eaten by zombies and spiders. If I hole up at night, usually a lot of the animals in the area have been eaten by morning, and it means that I'll have a harder time surviving when I respawn, and will need to lead animals back from further away once I get wheat/carrots. Later in the game, when I'm venturing farther afield through the nether and have animals penned up at home, it doesn't matter much if the local animals get eaten, but I don't like the area around my spawn point being depopulated too much early on.

Exploration is also much more productive if I have plenty of torches, ladders, food, iron tools or better, and weapons, and I prefer to walk to my base and pick up what I need rather than go through the painstaking process of punching trees to mine cobblestone to scrape iron nuggets from the walls of caves to get an iron pick and so on.

I don't find that the location of my base really matters terribly much; there's more caverns, ravines and mine shafts in that swiss cheese that passes for geology in Minecraft than I know what to do with, and the differences between the biomes are fairly minor. The decision about where to put my base mostly comes down to picking somewhere reasonably scenic and close to my spawn point so that I can get back to it relatively easily if I die.

[piter_50]

One of the factors that keeps me from exploring early in the game is the tendency for animals in loaded chunks to get eaten by zombies and spiders. If I hole up at night, usually a lot of the animals in the area have been eaten by morning, and it means that I'll have a harder time surviving when I respawn, and will need to lead animals back from further away once I get wheat/carrots. Later in the game, when I'm venturing farther afield through the nether and have animals penned up at home, it doesn't matter much if the local animals get eaten, but I don't like the area around my spawn point being depopulated too much early on.

You don't have to wait for carrots/wheat. You can get animals with grass you cut with scissors. Sure you can't breed them, but you can at least get 2 cows, 2 sheep, and a chicken penned in/near your base without having to travel too far and having the surrounding areas depopulated from Steve/Zombie/Spider hunting. You get to set up your Noahs ark of animals for later breeding and get your early game renewable food/clothes resources.

[milkmandan]

In my latest play through, I picked a large hill in the desert to be home and intentionally have not moved far from it at night. There are still large numbers of critters not too far off available if food gets scarce. But, between mushrooms from the swamp and a small chicken farm that hasn't been an issue.