Uncompromising Mode Guide: Surviving in DST With No Compromises

Surviving in the vanilla (mod-free) Don't Starve Together is picked up quite quickly - seasonal dangers are not much of a concern, and food is so abundant that it doesn't fit in the fridge. Players find themselves asking, "I've survived 300 days, what to do next?" Some transition into a sandbox mode - building and decorating mega-bases. However, this style of play doesn't appeal to everyone. The Uncompromising Mode allows you to return to a state of constant danger and unpredictability.

Uncompromising Mode is not just about increased difficulty. It introduces numerous new mechanics, including three unique characters, new biomes, altered bosses, and a variety of useful items to counteract new threats.

In this guide, I will delve into the most significant features of this mod.

The Uncompromising Mode offers a wide range of settings, allowing players to disable almost all the new features in the game. This significantly simplifies the gameplay for beginners - essentially, you can make it much easier than vanilla DST, removing all nerfs and leaving only buffs.

Familiarizing yourself with the settings and reading the option descriptions will give you an idea of what to expect in the upcoming game.

There have been changes to the behavior of almost all monsters, and several new enemies have been introduced in the Uncompromising Mode. Below, we will examine the most significant changes that usually catch newcomers off guard.

The Trapdoor Spider, visually similar to the Spider Warrior, poses threat for newcomers with its sudden appearance from beneath the Flat stone in the Savannah. An encounter with it in the early days is problematic due to the lack of armor: its leaping attack deals a significant amount of health (33 HP), which is not easy to replenish. Killing it with regular weapons is a slow process, as the spider runs away after each leap.

Fortunately, there's a simple solution: craft an inexpensive rabbit trap and lure the spider into it, as shown in the video below. The double loot from the slain monster will come in handy later on.

During the first autumn, you won't encounter any changes in the hounds' attacks. The issues arise after 20 days when seasonal hounds join the raids.

The Ice Hound now freezes not only after death but also when it bites. Similarly, the Fire Hound ignites the player if you fail to dodge its attacks. Each season introduces a new type of hound.

• In Winter, The Glacier Hound is considered the most dangerous. Its ranged attacks freeze, and with two other Ice or Glacier hounds, there's a risk of getting permanently frozen without the chance to escape. Upon death, they create a slowing circle around them. Dealing with them is challenging; it is recommended to seek help from Beefalos or Pigs and build hound traps.
• In Spring, The Lightning Hound generates lightning. It is advisable to use waterproof clothing to resist stun and attack them first while they cast their lightning.
  
• In Summer, The Magma Hound isn't particularly dangerous against players, but its attacks can set fire to structures and chests. Therefore, it's recommended to deal with it away from the base.
  
• In Autumn, The Spore Hound is perilous with its jumps and spore clouds. Precautionary measures include removing perishable food and possibly wearing a goose mask for protection against spores.
  

Low sanity has become more dangerous due to changes in shadow monsters. The Crawling Horror now releases blinding ink, and the Terrorbeak teleports and attacks from unpredictable positions. However, the new shadow monsters pose a more significant threat.

Dread Eye: This monster either appears and attacks right under your feet or disguises itself as the surrounding environment, leaving Shadow Eyes on the ground.

Creeping Fear: The most dangerous of the shadow monsters. Its ranged attacks can reach the player even from a considerable distance, dealing 60 damage. With 1600 health, this opponent is almost like a mini-boss. Fortunately, this shadow type only appears at zero sanity, so it's crucial to constantly monitor this indicator.

For novice players, I recommend keeping sanity at a maximum in the early stages until you acquire armor, weapons, and healing. Farming Nightmare Fuel is much more efficient with the Nightmare Amulet – it increases the loot by 2-3 times.

Some important changes:

Regular spiders now jump, and killing them drops a monster morsel instead of a large monster meat.

Pigs and Bunnymen will no longer fight against their kind. They also do not tolerate those who destroy their homes.

Food is no longer a priority for Werepigs, and they break walls. This makes simple pig farms less efficient, but you can still trade 4 monster products and kill pigs individually.

MacTusk will leave traps around his camp and occasionally throw them at the character.

Catcoons are not as cute as before - their health and attack frequency have doubled.

Koalefants have gained new attacks, and their health has doubled. They remain profitable for hunting due to 8 raw meat pieces and a useful trunk.

Pengulls become aggressive and attack in a group when approached near their nesting site.

Frogs consume food lying on the ground, and they are not picky about butterflies.

Krampus knocks the character back and steals items from his inventory.

The full list of changes in mob behavior is shown on this wiki page.

This section is in progress.

Adapting to each season is the key to successful survival. We will briefly examine each season in the following sections.

The first autumn passes relatively calmly, giving you time to prepare for future challenges. The initial days should be spent exploring the map and gathering necessary resources. The remaining time can be effectively used for the following activities:

Base Building

Find a suitable location for the base and build the necessary science stations. Nearby, you can construct farms for quick access to meat, vegetables, or honey, depending on your preferences.

Search for the Lunar Island

Transplanted Stone Fruit Bushes and Kelp Fronds can help solve both hunger and health problems. Although they don't grow in winter, you can stock up on stone fruit for the entire season and break them when needed.

Boss Hunting

There are several bosses, the loot from which will help you in further survival:

• Dragonfly will allow you to create the Scaled Furnace, which will keep Thermal Stones warm in winter.
• Bee Queen provides the Bundling Wrap recipe, which is particularly useful for preventing double-speed spoilage of food.
• Hooded Widow holds a lot of loot in her cocoons, and you might even find a Tusk to craft a Walking Cane.

Ruins Exploration

This action is the most risky because, you will encounter several new enemies - Clockwork Pawns, Clockwork Amalgamas, and new types of Worms. However, a successful expedition will reward you with very useful Thulecite amulets, staves, and armor, which will be valuable in the future.

Winter in the Uncompromising Mode brings numerous changes to the game world:

• Nothing grows. This applies to farm plots, kelp fronds, cacti, berries, bananas, and almost everything else. The exception is mushrooms in caves.
• Trees do not instantly catch fire but smolder and are less efficient for heating.
• The Thermal Stone alone provides very little insulation - it needs to be combined with some clothing.
• Blizzard (or Snowstorms) - a new type of weather event that slows a character down and limits his visibility. During blizzards, everything starts covering in snowpiles, which are advisable to dig through to avoid snow monsters.
• The Deerclops comes earlier than usual - on the night of day 28.

Spring in the Uncompromising Mode retains the usual challenges - long nights, occasional frog rains, and faster perish time to all products. But the real chaos is created by the Tornado, which uproots trees and bushes in its path, scattering resources across the map.

To withstand the Tornado, you should acquire items for waterproofing: the Rain Coat, Eyebrella, or Rain Hat will be very useful. Keep in mind that for complete dryness in the Tornado's epicenter, you need 150% waterproof protection.

Build a Rainometer to track the cyclone's position on the map and avoid it when possible. Jump into wormholes to handle tasks on another part of the map while the Tornado wreaks havoc at the base - fortunately, it does not destroy structures.

Summer in the mod differs slightly from the vanilla version: natural wildfires do not occur every day but only during heatwaves. Throughout the heatwave, structures, chests, and any vegetation near the character will catch fire more intensely. This can be countered using Ice Flingomatic machines, but it's easier to leave the base, go down into caves for the day, or venture into the Hooded Forest. Build a Thermometer to anticipate this summer event in advance.

The smog accompanying heatwaves and arising from fires is dangerous as it lowers the maximum health. Prepare for this by crafting a Goose Mask or, even better, a Plague Mask.

During hound attacks in summer, the Magma Hound joins in, loving to set everything on fire. Move away from the base.

Finally, during summer, the Dragonfly will visit you. It is much weaker than usual - its health is only 4000 HP, but its attacks are still devastating.

The second autumn does not differ much from the first - there are no unique seasonal events to expect. However, there are some changes: frogs will leave poisonous clouds uopn death, Spore Hounds will join the raids, and the Bearger will be more dangerous due to its new attacks.

Uncompromising Mode requires the player to be particularly vigilant at night. Considering that the night is dangerous due to Charlie’s attacks in the dark, the unpredictability of night events becomes an additional challenge for survival.

These events vary widely. Most often, events involve enemies that attack you at night. Among them are previously unseen shadow creatures (dangling spiders, grabbing hands, fuel-sucking leeches), skeletons, vampire bats, and thieving Krampuses. There are also positive events, such as Lightbulbs growing from the ground or a Mysterious Stranger who gifts you masks. Some events are neutral; they only make the player wary.

All events, along with their monsters, disappear by morning. Therefore, during long winter or spring nights, it's more advantageous to eliminate incoming enemies, while in autumn or summer, simply evading them for a couple of minutes until dawn is sufficient. Another fair feature of events is that they do not occur during boss battles.

Rat raids wreak absolute havoc at base – rats ransack chests, spill their contents on the ground, and then drag them into their burrows.

Unlike Hound attacks, Rat Raids are not random events but serve as punishment for sloppiness and wastefulness. To completely avoid rat raids, you should adhere to three rules:

Do not keeping Rot or Rotten eggs at base

Recipes requiring Rot as an ingredient have been modified, so feel free to burn any Rot without worries.

Do not leave items on the ground

You'll need to spend some time gathering wood for chests, but that's only until the first spring – Tornadoes will bring plenty of wood for hundreds of chests.

Prevent food from spoiling

How to deal with excess food is up to you: you can cook and eat something that is about to spoil, or trade meat for eggs and vegetables for seeds using a caged bird.

Rat Raids can significantly change your approach to base building and resource management. Perhaps you'll realize you don't need frog legs that have taken up several fridges?

Additional Tips:

• Use a Rat mask to learn what specifically provokes rats. The mask will also indicate the location of the nearest rat burrow.
• You can store Rot and Rotten eggs in caves – raids don't occur there.
• Food inside wrappers doesn't attract rats' attention, just like inside Shadow Chester.
• Unwanted items can be fed to the Lureplant.
• Wardrobes can store a large number of items, as they have 25 slots for clothing and weapons.
• Scaled Chests received an upgrade – now they also have 25 slots.

In the vanilla version of Don't Starve Together, focusing on just two dishes - Meatballs and Pierogi - was often enough to overcome almost all obstacles in the game. However, the Uncompromising Mode introduces changes to the food system, prompting players to diversify their diet and make decisions considering limited resources. The characteristics of many dishes have changed, along with the requirements for their preparation, making previously inexpensive meals less effective.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect is the introduction of new unique recipes that not only satisfy hunger, restore sanity, or heal health but also bring new mechanics into the game.

A pleasant change in the mod is that now characters' favorite food restores 15 sanity, which is quite useful given the increased danger of insanity.

Cutting corners in ingredient selection is no longer an option. Using cheap ingredients is penalized with a less nutritious dish. For example, using two or more pieces of ice will result in a significantly less satisfying Snow cone. Cheap fillers include ice, twigs, leaves, butterflies. However, there are exceptions for some dishes, such as Butterfly Muffin.

For beginners, I recommend installing the Craft Pot mod - it previews the cooking results in advance.

Monster Meat is less suitable for the Cooking Pot: to cook anything other than Monster Lasagna, it needs to be mixed with regular, non-toxic meat (Kabobs are an exception). More detailed information, including examples of diluting monster meat, is available on the wiki page in the Meat Diluting section.

You can't turn Monster Meat into regular eggs - a caged bird will lay a Monster Egg, which turns food in the pot into Monster Lasagna or Deviled Eggs. However, if you mix a Monster Egg with a regular egg, for example, when making a Regular Omelette with 3 eggs, the dish will be edible.

Uncompromising Mode introduced significant changes to the food system:

• Scattered seeds are less filling (1.5 hunger instead of 4.5).
• Butterflies almost don't restore health anymore (1 health instead of 8).
• Farm plot vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants) also restore less health (8-12 health instead of 20). Farming is also less profitable due to weather conditions - nothing grows on the farm in winter. On the other hand, vegetables are useful for dishes with stricter ingredient requirements.
• Cacti restore less sanity (5 sanity instead of 15).
• Meatballs are less caloric (50 hunger instead of 62.5). It's often more advantageous to consume ingredients separately than to cook them in the pot.
• Pierogi is more expensive to make (1.5 vegetables, non-monster egg, and meat), and it spoils faster (10 days instead of 20). Considering that regular meat is needed for the egg, this recipe is not the cheapest way to restore health.
• The full list of changes is specified on the official wiki page of the mod.

Given these limitations, what can you do? Here are a few recipes to diversify your diet:

To satisfy hunger:

• Meaty Stew: With 150 hunger and the cost of 3 large meat pieces, it's a very cost-effective option. 1 monster meat will work being diluted.
• Tall Scotch Eggs: Providing 150 hunger and 60 health, though it requires an Egg of the Large Bird and 3 vegetables. Meadows carrots or cacti from the desert are suitable for this.
• Kabobs: This dish is a rare exception to the rules. Any monster meat, even the small one, will work as ingredient: combined with a twig and 2 berries or mushrooms it will result in 37.5 hunger dish.

For Health Regeneration:

• In the Autumn, with Birchnut Trees around, Trail Mix continues to be a good choice for health restoration.
• Butter Muffin, despite restoring only 20 health, can be made from the cheapest ingredients: 1 butterfly, 1 twig, 1 mushroom, 1 filler (a second butterfly can be used).
• Honey Ham remains unchanged and is prepared the same way as before.
• Steamed Hams provides 40 health and 15 sanity. It's a good choice if your base is close to the Hooded Forest. To make it, you'll need 1 raw meat, 1.5 vegetables, and 1 foliage. The only downside is that it spoils quickly.

For Sanity Restoration:

• Dried Meat solves many problems - besides 15 sanity, Jerky restores 20 health and 25 hunger. Importantly, it has a long shelf life, making it suitable for long trips to the ruins or prolonged boss battles.
• Salsa Fresca and Vegetable Stinger are the best dishes for sanity if you are into gardening. For others, it's advisable to stick with roasted green mushrooms. After the first spring, you can rely on Jelly Salad.

Also, don't forget about other healing methods - Honey poultices now restore 45 health, and sleeping is much faster and effective than before.

• Prepared from rare electric berries, Zaspberry Parfait adds an electrical damage multiplier to the character. The effect lasts for a day, and any character, not just Warly, can cook this dish.
• Made from Koalefant Trunk and vegetables, Snot Roast satiates the character to the extent that they won't eat for 4 days - their hunger will decrease 50% slower.
• Stuffed Peeper Poppers summons little eyes to help in battles - they will follow the player until they heroically perish in combat.
• Gloomberry Jam summons 6 shadow worm followers. However, they will only act for a limited time.
• Theater Corn restores a considerable amount of sanity, especially if you prefer watching others' battles rather than participating yourself.
• Beefalo Wings grants immunity to knockback. This dish will be particularly useful against some bosses, such as the Dragonfly.

You can find the full list of new recipes on this wiki page.

Next, we will look at some of the exclusive items of the mod and the changes that have been made to the existing items.

Most insulating clothes have received a very useful buff: now they have 4-6 inventory slots, making them a good replacement for a backpack during Winter, Summer, and Spring. The affected items are:

• Breezy Vest - 6 slots
• Puffy Vest - 4 slots
• Summer Frest - 6 slots
• Floral Shirt - 4 slots
• Rain Coat - 4 slots

In the vanilla version of Don’t Starve Together, the Wardrobe plays a purely decorative role. However, in the mod, it can hold clothing, weapons, and tools, providing 25 slots for this purpose! The limitation on storing clothing helps in organizing items at the base - now you will definitely know where your winter hats are, instead of checking all the chests.

The Telelocator Staff has become much more efficient - now it has 10 uses instead of 5, and its cost has been halved. Another advantage of the staff is that it can pre-select the teleportation point if two or more Telelocator Focuses are built.

The Telelocator Focus has become more expensive - it requires 3 purple gems for construction. However, it does not consume gems during teleportation, making teleportation accessible for all characters. The cost is quite reasonable - 50 sanity points and 1/10 of the staff’s durability.

These changes have greatly affected navigation in the world of Don’t Starve Together. You are not dependent on how well the map was generated and how well the wormholes are located. You can also:

• Teleport to the Lunar Island / Lunar Pier (Monkey Island) / Hermit Island, avoiding slow sea navigation.
• Move Celestial Sanctum pieces directly to the Lunar Island, without resorting to the help of Beefalo for transportation.
• Move to the hound trap area when Hound wave approaches.

The Lazy Forager not only picks up items that are lying on the ground, but also from bushes, allowing you to gather reeds in the swamp and grass in the savanna much faster. When collecting cacti and twigs from prickly plants, health is not lost.

The Lazy Deserter does the same as the Forager; much faster, but within a limited radius. It is beneficial to plant different bushes around it.

Obtaining the Shield of Terror for defeating the Twins of Terrors will not be easy - the bosses have been reworked and possess new attacks. But the reward has become much stronger - first of all, the damage of the Shield has been increased to 59.5. Considering how quickly the Hambat spoils, the shield will come in handy in future battles. The defense has also been increased from 80% to 85%.

But the most significant improvement is the doubling of durability, reducing the risk of losing the shield at zero durability.

However, there is a small nerf that is easy to get used to - the negative health value from food does not have a positive effect, making Monster Meat extremely ineffective food for feeding the Shield. Feed it with Meaty Stew - it will restore over 300 durability.

The Scale-shard Armor can be assembled after defeating the exclusive boss of the mod - the Moonfly, which appears in the summer full moon (day 131, 271, etc.). This is a late-game item that significantly increases damage due to shards rotating around the character. The armor encourages perfect kiting - when a hit on the character is missed, all shards disappear. In this playlist, I defeated all bosses using this armor.

There are more items that have been reworked and some that are completely new. They are all listed here.

Uncompromising Mode is a mod that receives frequent updates. Developers are continuously working on improving it and adding new content. However, like in any game, each update may bring new bugs.

A bug or a new feature that catches you off guard can ruin your hardcore world or record speedrun. Therefore, if you find yourself easily irritated or prone to bursts of anger even in vanilla DST, it might be worth reconsidering before playing Uncompromising Mode.

If you approach it with understanding and are prepared to deal with such inconveniences, I recommend joining the official Uncompromising Mode Discord to stay informed about updates and report bugs. You can also contribute to its development by suggesting new ideas.

This guide will be updated as the mod receives updates. If you have any questions about the Uncompromising Mode, feel free to leave them in the comments.