Location decides everything
A base in the wrong place costs more than any raid. Pick the spot for what you need now, and move when that changes — most long runs end with a beach starter hut and a real base somewhere else.
Let the resources pick the region
Base placement is a resource decision before it is anything else. Ask what your next tier needs most, and build within a short flight of it:
- Metal — mountain tops. A base near the mountains turns ore runs into short trips, at the cost of cold weather and what lives up there.
- Stone — everywhere, but desert and riverbanks have the dense fields.
- Wood — redwoods and forests. A base at the edge of a redwood forest never runs out.
- Crystal and obsidian — caves and the same mountain regions as the metal. If you build near metal, you are usually near crystals too.
- Oil — snow fields and the ocean floor. Oil is the reason serious bases sit in the cold or on a coast.
- Black pearls — the ocean, and the deeper water where the dangerous things swim.
The Island: south to north
The Island’s map has a clear difficulty gradient, and it should drive your first base.
The southern beaches are the safe zone: mostly herbivores, flat ground, water, and trees within a short walk. This is where every new run starts, and where a starter base belongs.
The middle of the map is the transition. Redwoods give wood and berries, but the carnivores of the north start showing up here, and the terrain gets rougher.
The north is endgame ground. Rexes, carnivores, wolves and yetis, snow on the mountains, and the best metal on the map. Nothing about a northern base is safe until you have a bred army.
The volcano holds the metal and obsidian, and everything around it is hostile. Treat it as a farming destination, not a place to live.
What makes a spot good
Beyond the region, the actual spot matters:
- Flat, buildable ground — builds clean, and you can see the whole base from one angle.
- Room to grow — a good spot fits a much bigger base later, not only the starter hut.
- A narrow approach — cliffside and enclosed spots beat flat fields, because a raid has to come through a choke point.
- Water within reach — pipes and irrigation need a source, and every refill should not be a journey.
- Out of sight from common flight paths — the fastest way to get raided offline is to be visible from the air.
Hidden beats strong, until it does not
Early on you cannot win a fight for your base, so pick a spot that is hard to see rather than one that is hard to break. Tuck it into terrain, build low, and keep the footprint small.
The crossover comes quickly. Once you hold good gear, a bred army and anything worth stealing, exposure matters less than walls — and turrets. At that point, move to a defensible spot you can actually hold.
Watch the spawn pressure
Scout the neighbourhood before you commit. Aggressive spawns drop on top of a base that sits on a migration path, and a base you have to defend every night is not a base, it is a second job.
Plant crop plots and look after them for a session before you build walls. If you spend the whole evening killing what wanders in, the spot is wrong.
PvE and PvP want different bases
On a PvE server, only the wildlife can reach you, so a spot with light spawn pressure is nearly finished. Build for the dinosaurs and stop there.
On PvP, the threat logs off and comes back. Hidden beats strong, turrets beat walls, and three small bases beat one big one. Split the important gear across locations so a single raid cannot end the run.
Keep a second base
A small hidden backup elsewhere — a box with a bed, some tools, and a spare tame — is the cheapest insurance in the game. If the main base falls, the backup keeps the run alive instead of ending it.