Core Keeper 1.0: Complete Starter Guide for Newbies | Everything to Know

With the 1.0 version and console launch of Core Keeper drawing near, you might have decided to give it a try. But the sheer amount of content that the game provides can be easily overwhelming for a newbie.

Core Keeper is pretty similar to Terraria with it having a top-down view instead of being a side-scroller. You will have to learn a lot of different mechanics of the game in order to get the most out of it. But worry not as I will guide you on everything you need to know to get started.

Complete Starter Guide for Beginners | All the Information You Need

A lot of things are covered in this guide so feel free to use the table given below if you are looking for something specific.

Character Creation

When you start playing the game, the first thing you will have to do is create your character. You can customize your character in any way you want from the plethora of options given under different categories. You can change skin, hair, clothes, eye color etc.

Background

But the most important part of the character creation is selecting the right background. This will affect how you start out in the game. Each background has specific perks and starting items. Following backgrounds are available to choose from:

• Explorer
  • You will start out with a small lantern. Without a light source, the game is pretty dark so the lantern will come in pretty handy.
• Miner
  • This background starts out with a copper pickaxe. This is going to help a lot with mining at the start of the game.
• Gardener
  • You start out with a copper hoe and a watering can which can let you start farming right away when you find some seeds.
• Chef
  • If you choose this, you will have a cooking pot which allows you to mix ingredients and create various food items.
• Fisherman
  • This one gives you a tin fishing rod at the start of the game.
• Fighter
  • You will be given a copper sword to start out with. This background is for players who want to have an easier time at combat in the beginning of the game.
• Ranger
  • As the name suggests, you will be given a wood bow to start your game with. Good for keeping a distance from mobs and attacking them from far.
• Mage
  • Similar to Ranger but you will be given a simple staff instead of a bow. Good for ranged combat as well.
• Warlock
  • You will start out with a Tome of the Dark which is a summoning item. It is rare and can not be crafted. You can use it to summon bat minions.
• Nomad
  • You start out with nothing.

Controls

To learn about the controls of this game, simply go to the main menu, click on Settings and then click on Controls. You will find keybinds for all the different actions for all of your input devices.

If you want, you can easily customize the keybinds to your liking through this menu. The game offers a pretty extensive system for changing your controls. Make sure to give it a thorough look!

Skills

There are a total of 11 skills for various stuff in the game such as crafting, cooking, mining, gardening, etc. These skills are leveled up when you perform their corresponding activities. For example, walking around will give you running experience which will level up your running skill or damaging walls will give you mining experience which goes into your mining skill.

To check your skills, open up your inventory and then click on the golden star icon at the top. Each skill will have a skill icon along with a number which represents its level. There’s a white bar underneath each skill which shows progression towards the next level.

When you reach level 100 (max level) on a skill, the number will disappear and a golden star will appear in its place. The entire skill icon will also turn golden.

Skill Abilities

If the number on a skill is yellow in color, it means you have unspent skill points. Clicking on a skill will show its abilities which you can obtain by spending skill points. You get 1 skill point on every 5 levels and reaching level 100 on a skill will give you extra 5 skill points. This means you can only get a total of 25 skill points for each skill so spend it wisely.

Building a Base

One of the major activities you will be doing in this game is creating a base. There are no hard and fast rules for creating a base and you are free to do as you please. This game is a sandbox after all! But there are a couple of things that you must have in your base and they are as follow:

• A room where you can place all your workbenches. This is where you will come to do all of your crafting. One thing you should remember is that the chests put adjacent to workbenches can access the items placed in those chests.
• Storage room to place all your items in a neat and organized way.
• A room in which you can place your bed.
• Rooms for all the Merchants.
• Garden to grow crops.
• Wood farm.
• A place for your cattle.

Food Bar

Below your Health (red bar) and Mana (blue bar) is located your Food Bar. This bar indicates how hungry your character is. If it depletes to zero, you will not die but you will get debuffs which will increase the damage you receive. Keep your food bar above 25 to avoid this.

The next 4 sections of this guide will show you how to get food and maintain a steady supply of it. You also need to craft the Basic Workbench for 8 wood as it is needed for crafting the necessary tools.

Fishing

Fishing is an easy way of getting food in this game. Simply get close to water and use your fishing rod. Once an exclamation mark appears above your character, use the fishing rod again to catch the fish.

The most basic tool you can get for this is the Wood Fishing Rod which is crafted for 5 Wood at the Copper Workbench. You can craft the Copper Workbench at the Basic Workbench. This should get you started in the beginning of the game. Later on when you obtain some Tin, you can craft a better fishing rod at the Tin Workbench.

Farming

Farming is going to be your major food source especially early on in the game. To start farming, you will first need to craft the following tools:

• Wooden Hoe
  • Can be crafted for 4 wood at the Basic Workbench.
• Watering Can
  • Requires 4 copper bars and the Basic Workbench.
• Wash Basin
  • Craft this if you do not have a natural water source nearby.
  • You need 5 wood and 2 slime to craft this at the Carpenter’s Table.
  • Carpenter’s Table can be crafted for 8 wood and 8 copper bars at the Basic Workbench.

After getting the required tools, simply use the hoe to plough the earth. The better the hoe, the more tiles you can plough with a single click. After that, plant the seeds in the plowed tiles. Once you have done that, fill the Watering Can through the Wash Basin (or natural water source). Afterwards, use the Watering Can on the planted seeds to water them.

The crops will start growing and will be available for harvest in due time. Once they are, you can harvest them with your hand or by using a hoe.

Cattle Farming

Ranching is another good source of getting food and before anything else, you need to craft the correct set of tools. Craft the following things:

• Livestock Workbench
  • Craft at the Basic Workbench for 8 wood, 2 copper bars and fiber.
• Feeding Tray
  • Craft for 10 wood and 8 copper bars at the Livestock Workbench.
• Leash
  • You can craft the leash for 8 Fiber at the Livestock Workbench.
  • Alternatively, you can also use the Cattle Transport Box but it is much more expensive to craft and can only be used once. So it is better to stick with a leash in the beginning.

Now you need to explore until you come across a Meadows sub-biome. It has yellow tiles with orange colored trees like the one shown in the image below. There you will find two types of cattle called Moolin and Bambuck. Moolin will produce Meadow Milk and Bambuck will provide you with Wool. Both of them drop Marbled Meat when killed

To capture a Moolin or Bambuck, approach it and use the leash. A visible tether will appear and now simply drag it back to base.

In the base, create a separate space for the cattle and place down the feeding tray there. On the feeding tray, place down food for the cattle. Moolin and Bambuck eat all kinds of plants that can be farmed. Keeping your cattle well fed is important otherwise they will not produce.

Breeding

If you have two of the same type of cattle, a baby cattle of the same type will spawn when they eat food at least 30 times and are close to each other. Baby cattle do not give produce and will grow into full sized cattle when they eat food 8 times.

Cooking

You can craft the Cooking Pot at the Basic Workbench for 2 wood and 4 copper bars. In the cooking pot, you can combine two ingredients (like fish, plants, meat, etc.) to create other food items which offer various kinds of buffs. With 65+ ingredients in the game, there are more than 2000+ different combinations possible.

You can use this wiki page to learn about the different types of effects various ingredients can have.

Ore Boulders

During your explorations, you will come across ore boulders which look like the ones shown in the image below. Different types of ore boulders can be found like copper ore boulders, tin ore boulders, gold ore boulders, etc. These ore boulders are the best sources of getting ores. A single ore boulder consists of 1800 raw ores.

Mining Ore Boulders

Before you can start mining an ore boulder, you will need to get the following things:

• Electronics Table
  • Crafted at the Copper Workbench for 8 wood and 8 copper bars.
• Automation Table
  • Crafted at the Tin Workbench for 5 copper bars and 8 tin bars.
• Electrical Wire
  • 3 electrical wires can be made for 1 copper bar at the Electronics Table.
• Lever
  • This is also made at the Electronics Table for 3 wood and 2 copper bars.
• Crude Drill
  • This is crafted at the Automation Table for 8 tin bars.

To mine an ore boulder, you will need drills. You can use 8 drills (2 on each side) on a single ore boulder. Early on in the game, crude drills should do the trick. Simply place down the drills on each side of the ore boulder and use 2 electrical wires and a lever to connect them all.

You can use the image given below as reference. Once you are done, simply switch on the lever and the drilling will start. It will take a lot of hours for a single ore boulder to be completely mined.

Wood Farm

Wood is a resource which you will need a lot throughout the game. Whenever you come across wood during your exploration, make sure to get it. You will also get root seeds when cutting down wood which can be used to start your own wood farm.

Constructing a Basic Wood Farm

A wood farm with 5 root seeds is more than enough in the beginning of the game. To build a wood farm, use a hoe to plough down the earth, plant the root seeds and then water them with the help of a watering can. After that, leave one side open and cover the rest with wood floors so the roots will grow in one direction.

After that place the crude drills one tile away from the seeds. Make sure the drills are facing the seeds. Now put down the electrical wires between the drills with a lever at the end. Turn the lever on and the drills will break down the roots when they grow which will result in wood for you to collect. The drills will keep on working even if you are far away.

Furnace

The furnace can be constructed for 20 dirt blocks at the Basic Workbench. You can use the ores you get in the furnace to create their respective bars.

Merchants

There are 5 different merchants in this game. You can buy various types of items from them with ancient coins or sell them to get ancient coins.

Merchants are spawned by their respective spawning items. You will need to create a proper room for them in your base before you can spawn them. There are a total of 5 merchants but you only need to be concerned with the following 3 early on in the game:

• Bearded Merchant
  • This merchant is spawned with Slime Oil which is obtained by defeating the Glurch the Abominous Mass boss.
• Cloaked Merchant
  • Mysterious Idol is needed to spawn this merchant which you get by defeating the Ghorm the Devourer boss.
• Seasonal Merchant
  • To spawn this merchant you need the Seasonal Calendar which can be crafted at Carpenter’s Table for 5 wood and 8 fiber.

Setting up Rooms for Merchants

For a room to be considered valid for spawning a merchant, you need to meet the following requirements:

• Must not be smaller than 2×2 or bigger than 8×8 in size.
• Must be enclosed with solid walls. Wood walls or paintable walls are good options early on in the game.
• A door so you can enter and leave the room.
• You need to place a bed in the room. Do not seep in the bed before you have spawned the merchant.

Once all the requirements are met, place down the spawning item on the ground inside the room and the merchant will spawn after a few seconds.

Waypoints

You will come across ancient waypoints which look like circular blue discs embedded in the ground. Once activated, you can use it to fast travel to other activated ancient waypoints.

You can also break them and place them wherever you want. You will need to wait 10 minutes after placing it down before you can use it. These can serve as a good way of quickly moving around the map.

Core Activation | First Three Bosses

When you start out in the game, you will be spawned near the Core. To progress further in the game, you need to activate it. To activate the core, you need to get 3 crystals which can be placed in the three statues located near the Core. These 3 crystals are obtained by defeating the first 3 bosses of the game.

Following are the three bosses you need to find and defeat (it is best if you follow the order given below):

Glurch the Abominous Mass

• This boss is found in the undergrounds about 65 tiles away from the Core in an area covered with slime. Once you get close to the boss, your screen will start shaking.
• Glurch attacks by leaping towards the player. Using a ranged weapon or spells is the best way to deal with it.
• Defeating this boss will give you the Glurch Eye crystal.

Ghorm the Devourer

• You will find this boss in the Forgotten Ruins around 230 tiles away from the Core.
• Once Ghorm’s health drops below 75%, it will start moving in sporadic patterns. To deal with this, take about 300 wooden spike traps or 150 spike traps (tin) and place them on the path of Ghorm. This will deal significant damage to Ghorm when it runs over them and will make it easier for you to defeat it.
• You will get the Ghorm’s Horn crystal when you defeat this boss.

Malugaz the Corrupted

• For this boss to spawn, you need to find the Caveling Throne Room scene which can be generated in the Forgotten Ruins at a distance of 300 tiles from the Core.
• Once you have found the room, you can summon the boss by placing Skull of the Corrupted Shaman on the rune. The Skull of the Corrupted Shaman is created by combining 3 Crystal Skull Shards which are found in the Forgotten Ruins.
• Malugaz will throw fireballs at you which will also ignite the floor tiles. You can bring a larger watering can with you to put out the fires which will give you more room to move around.

Activating the Core

Now that you have all the 3 crystals. Place them in their respective statues located around the Core. Once the core is activated, you can interact with it and it will give you instructions and insights on different things.

This marks the end of this guide. You are now armed with all the knowledge you need to start your adventure in this grand sandbox. Go out there and discover the secrets of the long-forgotten cavern, you may even get to fight the legendary titans!