Doloc Town Beginner Guide

Your toolbox and bag

You start with a pickaxe, axe, and watering can in the homestead boxes. The pickaxe clears debris and breaks ore nodes; the axe handles trees and wooden scrap. Your backpack is small at first — stash overflow in cardboard boxes (5 slots each) until you can buy a bigger bag from Hult at the general store (community reports put the first upgrade around 500 gold). Boxes are portable storage, not permanent chests — upgrade to real containers or backpack tiers once you can afford them.

Platforming is part of the job

Doloc Town plays as much like a platformer as a farm sim. Jump to reach ledges, climb cliff sides with a hold maneuver, and check rooftops — hidden loot sits above eye level. That mobility matters once you stack platforms and scaffolding upward; the next section covers why vertical space beats ground plots.

Cardboard vs wooden planters

Early quests give cardboard planters — fine for learning, but many players regret stacking a skyscraper of cardboard before unlocking the equipment desk. That desk crafts wooden plant basins, storage chests, a furnace, and sprinklers. Use the public workbench in town hall (set up by Uncle Merlin) until your personal desk is online.

Shelter beats acreage

Very few crops survive scorching heat or acid rain in the open. Severe weather returns regularly — check the forecast icon each morning rather than trusting a fixed day-count from community notes (timing shifts by season and patch). Build upward under cover rather than spreading wide on toxic ground. Full weather prep — lightning rods, patches, irrigation — is on the farming guide.

Once vertical beds are watered and roofed, you need a daily rhythm for energy and sleep — otherwise you pass out and lose gold.

Benches are free recovery

Sitting on benches — and some beds — lets you advance time while refilling stamina. Not every stool works; tavern seats may be decorative only. Use downtime while crops grow or while your shipping drone is away.

Sleep indoors when you can

Passing out at 2:00 a.m. teleports you outside with penalties. Sleeping indoors usually avoids the harshest outcomes and keeps the next morning predictable. Pair sleep with a quick check that every planter was watered — dry beds waste the whole day cycle.

With energy handled, the next bottleneck is raw materials: coal for smelting and scrap for machines.

Process rubbish instead of hoarding it

Meet Lank behind the garbage truck at the junkyard. You can process rubbish into crafting materials or trade bags directly for rarer goods like complex parts and engines. Keep a bin near your workbench so quest items do not fill your tiny backpack.

Archive donations pay well

Sako (also spelled Sacco in some community posts) runs the archive museum robot south of town hall. Donate one of each crop type — payouts are generous and the archive terminal lists optimal growing conditions for each plant. Pair this with Alchemy's research machine after her greenhouse quest to unlock adapted seed varieties.

Selling crops still needs your shipping drone — the bin does not collect itself.

Launch before you leave town

Income is not instant, but returns quickly if you activate the drone early each morning. You can also sell directly to shopkeepers when you are desperate for bag upgrades — Hult sells consumables and the bigger backpack, while Villain stocks seeds once Alchemy unlocks new strains.

Combat comes after farming basics

Follow the main quest to unlock the shooting range and armed drone flights. River Valley hornets and advanced machines will shred you without ranged modules. Until then, slugs and passive circular drones ignore you unless you strike first — a rule that matters on your first mining trip.

Town quests and friendships gate better seeds, recipes, and shop lines faster than grinding random ruins.

Friendship is a tech tree

Gifts, festivals, and heart events unlock recipes and discounts faster than guessing. When you have spare crops or cooked meals, start on the NPC gifts page rather than selling everything raw.

Quests beat grinding

If a craft recipe seems locked, check your tech tree and the town hall equipment desk — many gates are story-linked, not level-linked. Kasia often points you to the public workbench until you craft a personal desk.

Once friendships and income are stable, the River Valley opens — and combat rules change.

Passive enemies until provoked

Slugs and floating circular drones in early caverns do not attack until you swing first. When mining, wait for patrols to clear your node. One careless pickaxe swing can summon every hostile in the chamber.

Old City Ruins come later

Version 1.0 adds Old City Ruins with tougher foes and side quests. Treat it as a mid-game capstone after your vertical farm survives seasonal weather and your combat drone has modules from Cod and Mody. Route planning lives on the exploration page.

Before any of that sticks, avoid the beginner mistakes below — most are fixable process errors, not combat skill checks.

One habit that fixes most of them

End each day with three checks: all planters watered, shipping drone launched, and a quest objective accepted for tomorrow morning. That triad catches the usual early-week wipeouts without needing a spreadsheet.

When the loop feels automatic, move to the farming guide for weather calendars, sprinklers, and crop rotation.