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Once Human’s tutorial will teach you the basics of building a base, understanding the map, quest structure, and then progressing through the game. If you want a bit more context and information about some of the features and events you’ll encounter, our Once Human beginner’s guide is here to help you. We’ll give you plenty of Once Human tips to accelerate your learning.
Starting out
Before you do anything, you’ll need to select a server. There are two server types: one for PvP and another PvE. PvE servers have exclusive world boss events, while PvP servers offer more PvP events around the map, and in some instances around your base. If you’d rather fight big-world bosses, go PvE. If you want to fight other players in big guild versus guild battles, defend your base, or raid other bases, then go PvP.
Next, design your character, including their weight, which comes with unique stats. Think of these as build modifiers for different melee weapon types, stamina, and carry capacity. If you want to use more melee weapons, then consider either more strength or swing speed, for example. More inventory capacity is also useful for storing more items on loot runs.
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- 64KG or less – 80KG base load, 15% attack speed buff, 10% less damage from melee attacks, and +25 maximum stamina.
- 65-85kg – 90KG base load, Torso DMG reduced by 10%, and Stamina recovery speed increased by 20%.
- Over 85KG – 100KG base load, attack speed is reduced by 10% but gains 15% damage. Rolling speed is reduced by 20% and weapon stability is increased by 15.
With all that done, it’s time to jump into the game. You’ll get basic combat and movement tutorials to get you on your way before dropping you into the open world. When you’re reach the open world, we recommend following the main story to learn the basics of base building and get the Motorcycle.
Deviants
As part of the tutorial, you’ll get an introduction to Deviants. Deviants are creatures that grant abilities and passive buffs to your character. When found, they can be stored in your Cradle to activate them or in Incubation Chambers in your base to use them passively to collect ores, tend to plants, and so on. You’ll naturally learn more about these as you play, so don’t worry too much about them in the early game. Use the starter Deviant you’ll get during the tutorial and use it to get a feel for how it works.
World Map Content
The map is full of quests you can take on, either via the main storyline, side quests near towns, settlements, and other points of interests. We recommend playing through these quests to level up, get new blueprints for gear, and score loot to craft new items and expand your base.
When you reach a point of interest at a POI, you’ll see a few tasks for you to complete, rewarding you with crafting materials and resources. These include finding Mystical Chests that contain blueprints for armor and weapons. Make sure to properly complete side quests, main story missions, and map POIs to start levelling up.
Best early game weapons and armor
When you first start the game, we recommend crafting a crossbow. It’s very strong and easy to use for killing basic monsters or targeting boss weak spots. It feels better than some of the assault rifle found in chests a little later on.
If you want better weapons or armor, one of the best ways to get reliable weapon and armor is to open Mystical Crates that award random blueprints. You’ll find them in settlements across the map, marked with a purple icon. If you get lucky, there’s a Hunter 500 Frag pistol that’s a very strong weapon blueprint you can get in the early game. It’s something to consider farming for when you’ve done the basics to progress a little faster.
Outside of that, you’ll get memetic points, which are basically tokens to spend on unlocking new technology. You can specialise in crafting if you want to and get better weapons and armor for your crafting stations. After that, the same rules apply for better gear as you level up. Continue to unlock memetics to get new blueprints. And when you move area, go and farm the various POis for more blueprints.
Building your base
Building your base is an important part of Once Human. Base building is key to storing items and running crafting stations. Unlike other games, Once Human has a portability feature, allowing you to save the layout of your base and store it. You can then move your base’s around to a new spot if you want to migrate to a different area at a later date.
The other tip we have for building camps is to watch your boundaries. Each camp has a square field around it to indicate your buildable area. Avoid conflicting with pre-made structures and the environment – large boulders, roads, landmarks, settlements, and so on.
Try and build in the centre of your area. This will prevent you from building too close to the boundary limit. You can upgrade your base size if that happens, but it requires a hefty amount of resources and technology to do so. Building in the centre enables you to properly use your entire zone and not have to dismantle and rebuild from scratch when you do hit the boundary.
Weapon mods
When you start getting better gear and items, you’ll start to notice modifiers. If you open your inventory, you will find you can hover over them and press the inspect menu to get more of an idea of what the modifier does. There’s also a button that allows you to view all modifiers. This will help you learn what weapon effects exist in the game, and what you want to loot or craft yourself. This is where you can customize your playstyle and build.
Survival Mechanics
Once Human isn’t that big on survival mechanics, but, there are a few to keep an eye on:
- Energy – Acquired via sleeping. This buffs HP and melee damage.
- Hydration – Affects sprint and stamina. You can restore it by purifying water or acquiring other beverages via loot or cooking.
- Sanity – Sanity is a purple bar that eats into your health bar and affects the max HP you have. You get this from fighting enemies in polluted areas marked with dense atmospheric fog. You can purge any sanity debuffs with food and consumable like jellies.
We recommend building a bed in your base to periodically recoup energy. Many of these survival stats are improved and buffed by consuming cooked foods and drinks.
Memetics
Memetics are essentially Once Human’s technology tree. Stick to basic crafting memetics in the early game. Don’t worry too much about building parts and furniture, as you tend to need a lot of mid-grade or high-grade materials which are hard to get at the start. The ones you do need are typically fairly obvious for base construction or main quest objectives. In addition, crafting station memetics are a must-have to unlock more advanced crafting recipes, which you’ll need to get better gear, weapons, materials, resources, and base building components.
Don’t start investing too much in weapons and armor, as you’ll find you’ll get recipes to craft weapons you won’t have found materials for yet. Cooking memetics are also worthwhile for better food and drink buffs, but it’s not too necessary in the early game. Save your memetics for as and when you need them in the early game, then specialise your build once you’re more established.
If you make a mistake you can respect your memetics. Though, the deeper you get, the more costly it becomes to do so. It’s part of the reason we recommend holding off. Early game respecs are pretty much free. Feel free to try a few things out yourself and get a feel for how the system plays before committing.