Once Human Beginner’s Guide

Survivors, welcome to the world of Nalcott. Get ready to withstand numerous challenges from zombie-like creatures to other players trying to kill you. Our complete Once Human beginner’s guide 2024 is here to help you with all the basic aspects. Learn how to set up a base, level up, get the strongest starting weapon, and more.

How to Start Playing Once Human as a Beginner

If you cannot wait to jump into the game, we have prepared a brief summary. By getting acquainted with the points mentioned below, you will learn what aspects to focus on. Here is what you need to know if you wonder how to start playing Once Human as a beginner:

1. Setting Up a Base
2. Best Starting Weapon
3. Early Leveling
4. Finishing Main Tasks
5. Summoning Your First Deviant
6. Essential Memetics Skills
7. Keeping Your Vitals High
8. Armor Upgrades
9. Joining a Hive

Of course, we cannot cover everything you need to know about this rich survival game. Our main goal is to help you get started. Therefore, we will draw your attention to the most critical aspects you need to know as a beginner.

Setting Up a Base

When entering the game, the first thing you need to take care of is to set up a base. In our Once Human starting guide, we have outlined the following criteria when looking for a spot:

• Proximity to basic resources;
• Several food sources;
• Water accessibility.

Having enough ores and logs will help you craft all the essential tools you need as a beginner. For example, crafting tables and chests where you can store your items. The base itself is a must-have thing to recover after a challenging fight and be protected from outer threats.

When it comes to food, this is the moment when you might face a problem. During the early game, you mainly eat pasture you manage to find. In most cases, they can be mushrooms, as they also help you keep the Sanity level up. If you are lucky, you can find a spot full of deer to have access to raw meat. Later on, you will learn to cook and store it.

Finally, you need to take care of being hydrated from the very start. Having access to water is essential. If you decide to live on a coast, you will be able to use salted water to craft salt for other recipes in the future. Consider all these little factors before setting up a base to have all you need without running around the entire map. BLOG20

Best Starting Weapon in Once Human

Always remember – your main goal is to survive and develop. Speaking of the first aspect, this is what we want to stop at. In this part of the Once Human beginner guide, you will learn about the best starting weapon. While you have a large variety of guns to choose from, we recommend using Crossbow. It can be of any tier, but the higher, the better.

Starting from level 1 to 15, Crossbow is the strongest weapon you can use. It is great not only in terms of raw power but also in how economical it is. The only thing you need to get a hang of is to shoot in the head all the time. Once you kill an enemy, you can safely approach the body to pick up a used bolt.

No matter what Crossbow you are using, you need to attach the corresponding mod right away. It is free, takes no effort, and grants extra bonuses. For example, you have the Rustic Crossbow Tier II equipped. Here is what mod you might want to attach to it:

• Munitions Amplifier Tier II (Green): Grants +6% weapon DMG and +2% Magazine Capacity.
• Crit DMG Boost Tier II (Green): Grants +5% crit rate and +1.6% DMG against Deviants.

If you decide to use any other weapon, get ready to spend tons of materials to craft ammo. These resources are a little harder to come by during the early game. Instead, you want to focus on improving your base and discovering building materials.

Early Leveling in Once Human

Leveling in the early game can be quite confusing. The reason for this is that you already have many things to keep in mind. Do not overthink it, and follow the rules we outline in our Once Human guide below.

1. Complete main and side tasks;
2. Killing enemies;
3. Finish commission tasks.

Apart from that, you can also farm more powerful enemies and bosses. For example, you will encounter Arachsiam, the third boss in the game. However, you will be level 30 or around this mark when this happens. This is not what you are looking for after starting your journey. On the opposite, the advice we have shared above is mainly aimed at the early game.

The first leveling way is going to be your main and side tasks. They reward tons of XP and are relatively easy to do. A few examples of these quests and the amount of awarded experience are shown below:

• Supply Line – 390 XP;
• Possible Need – 1,100 XP.

You will also clear out a bunch of enemies when doing these quests. This will help you earn additional XP along the way. This is how we get to the second point we have mentioned – killing enemies. You will encounter them everywhere, and the quests you are doing are not an exception here.

Finally, you can tackle commission tasks available in any town you can teleport to through the map. For example, they can be Deadsville (Level 2) or Greywater Camp (Level 25), and all others. On you get there, look for an NPC somewhere in the middle of the city. They will offer you to view commissions.

These tasks are split into weeks (from 1 to 6), each featuring 5 specific tasks. Completing them rewards you with a bunch of XP and other items. They are super easy to do and require minimum effort. For instance, they can make you boil water, mine a certain number of rocks, etc.

Check out our special Once Human Powerleveling offer to get your character leveled up in a jiffy. Save your time, skip the grind, and get to the endgame content right away. Our PROs will take care of everything else for you!

Finishing Main Tasks

Speaking of the main tasks, we would like to add a few more words on this aspect. Finishing them is the very basics we can point out in our Once Human complete guide. Why? Without progressing through the campaign, you will not access the main in-game features. Among them are things like getting your hands on essential items, crafting tables, and Deviants.

You will also go through the main areas you must visit. There, you will always encounter enemies of your level who are easy to take down. The same goes for the tasks, NPCs, and teleport points. If you skip all this and get to grinding mobs straight away, you will miss a huge portion of the gameplay.

Summoning Your First Deviant

Since we have already touched on the topic of the main tasks, Deviants play a huge role here. These creatures are your irreplaceable companions. Be it another gunfight with an enemy or gathering resources, they will help a lot. As a part of the crucial Once Human tips, we highly recommend that you get your first Deviant as soon as possible.

The game will guide you toward Butterfly’s Emissary, which is the very first Deviant you get after the tutorial. It belongs to the Combat type and assists you in battle. Later on, you will be able to unlock other Deviants who will help you around the base or resource gathering.

Here is what you should do to summon Butterfly’s Emissary Deviant:

1. Build an Independent Secure Unit;
2. Place it inside your base;
3. Interact with the item;
4. Choose Butterfly’s Emissary Deviant;
5. Press the "Synchronize to Cradle" button.

When starting out, the only problem here will be to craft an Independent Secure Unit. To do this, you need x20 Metal Scrap, x15 Copper Ingot, and x10 Glass. The first material can be found when exploring the area around your base. The second and the third ones are crafted via the Furnace.

Each Deviant, including Butterfly’s Emissary, features a set of unique abilities. In its case, you can summon it to accompany you all the time and attack enemies you encounter. This is the most basic Combat Deviant you get from the start. When you become more experienced, we highly recommend that you use Deviants to gather resources. This will save a ton of your precious time you can spend on other endeavors.

Essential Memetics Skills

The Memetics system plays a vital role for players of any level. This is basically your access to special talents you can choose from four different trees. In this part of the Once Human new player guide, we will outline the most crucial skills you need to get first. Before we get to that, let’s see what are the Memetics trees exist in the game:

• Infrastructure
• Crafting
• Logistics
• Building

Each skill tree has multiple talents you can learn to improve your gameplay. Depending on the preferred play style, you will focus on some of those above others. As a beginner, you want to start with the Infrastructure tree before moving to anything else. When opening this tree, look for the middle row specifically. Make sure you learn the following skills first:

• Smelting Essentials
• Copper Pickaxes
• Bronze Casting
• Bronze Pickaxes
• Forging Techniques
• Steel Pickaxes
• Electric Furnaces

The most essential skill in this row is Bronze Casting for several reasons. First, it lets you craft the tier 2 and tier 3 weapons. Consequently, you will use them to clear out enemies much faster, allowing you to earn tons of XP. Additionally, this skill unlocks the ability to craft Bronze Ingots. They are further used to upgrade your base and are gained through smelting Tin Ore in the Furnace.

Once you get closer to the Electric Furnaces skill, pay attention to the Chainsaws one as well. This talent can help you gather a bunch of wood to make charcoal for your Furnaces before you get their electric analog. To make stuff in them, you always need charcoal to keep them working. This makes you gather tons of wood, and that chainsaw can save you time like nothing else here. Instead of spending like 6 seconds to cut one tree, you will only need around a second to do the same with a chainsaw. BLOG20

Keep Your Vitals High

Since we are dealing with the survival game here, you always need to monitor several vitals to keep your character up and running. If you have never played a game of a similar genre, here are a few Once Human tips for new players concerning this aspect. First of all, let’s take a look at what vitals are available:

• Energy – Gives you additional HP and extra melee weapon DMG. Make sure you always keep it above 30% since everything below reduces how much load you can carry.
• Hydration – Affects things like your sprint speed, sprint stamina costs, and a bunch of others. Keeping it at least around 30% or above is crucial. Otherwise, you will not get the sprint speed bonus. Ideally, you want to keep it at 60 to 100% at all times.
• Sanity – Decreases when fighting enemies or upon entering Pollution Zones. Losing sanity leads to having your Max HP value reduced. If it drops more than half, you get a Whim, which stacks up to 6 times.

Each of these metrics can be kept up in different ways. Starting with Sanity, you have Sanity Gummy to use early on. One piece of this instantly adds +500 Sanity. The easiest way to get them is to cook them on a stove. The recipe is super simple: Boiled Water + Sugar. To make Boiled Water, you essentially grab any dirt water you find in the wild and boil it. To get Sugar, you need Beet to extract it from this vegetable.

To keep your Energy up, you need to eat food. Hunting deer is probably the ideal way of getting enough meat during the early game. Once you get raw meat, you need to cook it on a stove just like you did with water.

To ensure it stays fresh, you need to put it in a fridge. If you do not have one, you can use a Meat Drier as a replacement. Just put your raw meat inside, add some salt, and you will have a good storage of meat to cook and eat later on. Apart from that, you still gather and eat stuff like mushrooms and berries of all kinds.

Armor Upgrades

One specific thing with armor you always want to keep in mind is to put mods on it. No matter if you are wearing the starting baseball cap or some other level of armor. It is free to put mods on your gear and you can always take them on and off again for free. Depending on what tier this or that piece of equipment is, you will be able to attach the corresponding tier mod to it.

Every single piece of weapon and armor you constantly have should be buffed with mods. This is the most crucial advice on how to play Once Human and survive in this world. These mods give so many bonuses for free, and there is no reason for not using this feature.

Additional Tip: Craft items belonging to the same set to get even more bonuses. For example, having at least four pieces of the Rustic set will increase your movement speed, melee DMG, max HP, and gathering speed.

Joining a Hive

No matter what type of server you are playing on, joining a hive is a must-have thing to take care of early on. This will help you develop your base much faster, die less often, and have access to rare resources. You will also have no problem defeating stronger enemies, as you will have other players helping you.

The same goes for the PvP type of content since no player can survive an attack of five people. However, everything changes if you have a hive covering your back. In case you have not found the appropriate hive to join, you can always create one. Invite all your friends who are playing with you and help each other in crafting, building, and fighting everyone you see.

Once Human Tips for Beginners

As we are about to end our guide, here are a few more Once Human tips for beginners to share:

By following these tips, you can get extra resources and explore the map much faster. Do not neglect the advice we have provided above, as it significantly influences your gameplay in the long run.

Conclusion

To wrap up our Once Human beginner’s guide, we hope you have learned all the basics you need to survive. From creating your base to choosing the most crucial Memetics skills, we have covered it all. Now, you are fully prepared to tackle the world of Nalcott with all the challenges and dangers it holds. Make sure to bookmark our article and come back here occasionally to refresh memories if you forget anything. This is it for now, survivors, and we will see you in the game.

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