Islands and climates

Every new game makes a new world from a seed. The open world is a big square of sea with 6 to 10 islands, each roughly 400 to 1000 tiles across, with deep water between them. Nobody can walk across the sea: you cross it by boat or by helicopter (see travel).

Your first island is always temperate and mild. The other islands each get one of the other seven climates, once each before any repeats, so a world of 8 or more islands has them all. Cold climates lie to the north and hot ones to the south, with some mixing.

The eight climates

Climate	Land	Snow in winter	Ice in winter
Temperate	Grassland and deciduous forest. The start island is always temperate, and mild.	Yes	No
Arid	Desert, savanna and dry shrubland. Hot summers, little rain, dust storms.	No	No
Cold	Taiga, tundra and snowfields. Harsh winters; shallow water freezes.	Yes	Yes
Wet	Lush temperate rainforest. Rains often.	No	No
Swamp	Low marsh with jungle ridges and lagoons. Wet summers and autumns, drier winters.	No	No
Volcanic	Ash waste around a central volcano, few trees and ore-rich rocky slopes. Ash falls instead of rain, and the vents pollute.	No	No
Alpine	Mountain islands of rock walls, scree, tundra and snow. The harshest winters; shallow water freezes.	Yes	Yes
Tropical	Hot jungle. A wet season and a dry season instead of a cold winter.	No	No

Within an island the land still varies: beaches along the coast, rock walls on the mountains, and the biome from the local warmth and wetness, so high ground is colder. Climates also set the weather that passes over them and how they change with the seasons.

What you find out there

• Trees. Fell them with an Axe: a trunk falls and gives Wood with each swing. Stumps give a little more.
• Rock and ore. Boulders give Stone and ore veins give Coal, Iron Ore and Copper Ore, one piece per Pickaxe swing. Rocky slopes, above all on volcanic islands, are rich in ore.
• Forage. Berries and Mushrooms grow wild and regrow with the season (see seasons).
• Raid sites. More than 40 per world, spread by land area. The start island holds only two easy ones (a town or a police station); the rest lie across the sea.
• Landing pads. One to three per island: concrete squares with a painted H. Reach one to unlock it as a helicopter stop.
• Docks. One or two per island (one on the start island), each with a rowboat at the start.
• Outposts. Walled survivor camps, about one per island, with a trader (see trading).
• Factories. They pump out pollution and are guarded (see pollution).
• Animals roam by climate and habitat (see hunting).

Everything you change in the open world is kept: a felled tree stays felled, a dropped item stays where it fell, and a boat stays where you left it.