Guides:Spire Island

=Landscape= Spire Island is a tall and rocky island consisting of a handful of very and thin tall mountains, and neighbours teraphyx, goldrock and plateau. It is one of the few Islands to contain no plantlife, and as of such it is remarkably difficult to live there.

The thin nature of the mountains means that there is very little space to construct or farm on, and the largest masses of land clear land are covered by snow, so a lot of things can't be done there. No plantlife means that all wood, food, or leaves have to be manually produced or gathered from elsewhere, and the absence of natural water sources makes this island very difficult to survive on.

However, the island does contain a vast variety of ores. In fact, it contains the most different types of ores of any island in the entire game (hosting all but chromium). This makes it very appealing to survivalists, as you can create almost all metal tools and weapons without having to leave the island, and you can even create gunpowder and bombs there, which makes one nearly invulnerable.

Overall, this island is an excellent place to live so long as you are prepared and know what you are doing. If you feel that you fall under these two categories, you may want to consider taking a closer look at the island. =Soloist Survival - Core Survival= This guide teaches how to prepare for and live on spire island, and assumes you are alone.

Preparation
Should you want to settle here, you will have to take food and water as your first priority. Bring some small and large composts to farm wheat, apples and berries. This will provide a constant acess to food and wood. Alternativly, you could fish, which provides the large perk that it won't take up nearly as much space as farming does, and with space being painfully scarce on the island, this could certainly help. However, it's does mean you can't get wood or leaves for tools without leaving the island, and for long term settlements, it could waste much more effort than it saves. You should also bring 1 or 2 wells to provide water, as snow water does not refill many points of thirst, and cannot be placed into a water container.

The main reason of coming to spire is because of the ores. It's recomended to bring at least an iron pickaxe and forge to collect the metal the island has to offer, as the lack of loose stones and wheat on the island makes it very hard to get a forge to advance past the Stone Age if you don't bring one as a part of your preparation. Rockma or Flax Island makes a good place to collect a few metals before you settle at spire.

Arrival
Once you have your iron pickaxe, forge, and food method of choice decided on, your first priority should be to block the entrance with the forge. This prevents unwanted visitors from arriving without you noticing. They can still climb the sides, although it is extremely uncommon to find someone who won't ask for you to remove the forge first, and by that point you will know of their presence and will be able to pick them off with a ranged weapon as they slowly climb up.

After making the island private, you should place your wells to start gathering water while you mine, and start mining. If your hunger is low, you may want to do a small amount of food production beforehand.

Assuming you took the route of farming, you should place a handful of composts onto the ground, and drag them onto the large snow plateau. Placing them onto the snow without using the drag tool results in the composts falling into the snow, and becoming very difficult to get out again. Plant your crop of choice into the composts, and craft a sickle while you wait for them to grow. In many cases, dedicated farmers cannot afford a steel (or even iron) sickle as farmers generally don't farm on islands with good ores. You should not have this issue.

Preparing for the Future
Your first objective while mining should be to get steel tools, and depending on how skilled you are at multi-wielding, obtaining multiple pickaxes to speed up the mining process. Mithril is scarce, and avoiding having to make pickaxes out of it will help to conserve it. If you have not already got everything you need to start producing food, you should set that up now.

Once you have a set of steel tools and weapons (and preferably a spare one too), you should focus on making your food supplies more permanent. A good figure to keep in mind is that one hunger point lasts exactly 10 seconds, so as an example, one bread will last you over ten minutes while living alone, and a bugshark (should you manage to catch one) will last you for over half an hour. As of such, this step shouldn't take too long unless you have plans for a 10 hour play session.

Having finished that, you should be left with all your requirements for survival fulfilled, and unless something goes terribly wrong, you are now safe from all foreseeable threats. Just mind your stats.