Don’t Starve Together – How to Survive the Summer

Summer is the final season in a year in Don’t Starve Together. With a high temperature, random wildfires, and the approach of the Summer boss, this season can cause you to lose everything if unprepared.

So, if you’re unsure what to do next, read on to learn how to survive the Summer in Don’t Starve Together.

Recommended Read: Don’t Starve Together – All Console Commands List

To survive the summer in Don’t Starve Together, you must learn the various ways to decrease your character’s temperature to prevent overheating. You can live in the oasis or travel underground to escape the Summer heat. You should also pay close attention to wildfires and extinguish them before they spread. Lastly, you have to deal with the Antlion boss before it destroys your base.

Table of Contents

• How to Survive the Summer in Don’t Starve Together

How to Survive the Summer in Don’t Starve Together

In contrast to Winter, Summer in DST has longer days and shorter nights. This creates the conditions for the sun to cast its heat into the Constant world.

Summer starts on day 56 and lasts for 15 days, meaning you will have plenty of time to prepare to avoid the intense heat.

Without further ado, let’s learn all the things that happen in the Summer and how to deal with them!

1. The Change to Temperature

As Summer approaches, you’ll notice a sudden color change in the world. Everything is now orange-ish, and the temperature is constantly increasing.

Your character will repeatedly take damage if overheated. Here are ways to cool yourself down in the Summer:

Hide Under a Tree

In the first few Summer days, when the temperature is still low, you can hide under the trees to temporarily reduce your temperature.

This method can be used with other methods below to decrease the temperature faster.

Use Cooling Items

Thermal Stone is the best item to modify your character’s temperature, whether you’re cold or hot.

You can put it in an Ice Box to cool it down, then put it in your inventory to prevent the heat completely. However, the cold Thermal Stone won’t last forever and will return to its normal condition after roughly half a day.

You can build multiple Ice Boxes across the map as transit stations. That is, however, not an optional solution because Ice Boxes aren’t cheap to make.

Instead, try finding Chester and filling its inventory with Blue Gems. Then, wait for the next full moon for it to transform into a Snow Chester. Now you have a cute mobile ice box.

Besides Thermal Stone, many other items, such as an Eyebrella, Pretty Parasol, Umbrella, Floral Shirt, Chilled Amulet, or Moon Caller’s Staff, can cool your character.

Among them, Eyebrella stands out the most because of its versatility and crafting requirements, assuming you know how to beat the Deerclops.

A single Eyebrella should keep you safe from the Summer heat. If not, you can always use it with other methods listed here.

Build Cooling Structures

Endothermic Fire and Endothermic Fire Pit are other versions of the Campfire and Fire Pit. Instead of providing heat, they decrease the surrounding temperature.

Although the building and fueling process is the same as normal heat sources, you can’t cook food using those Endothermic fire sources.

Unless you have a base to set up a permanent Endothermic Fire Pit, it will become frustrating having to build a new Endothermic Fire every minute to cool the temperature down.

This experience is the same as you need to constantly build a new Campfire in the Winter. It consumes a lot of resources and time.

The Siesta Lean-to is an excellent structure to avoid the heat during the day phase. It restores your health and sanity but consumes your hunger when used, just like a Tent.

The only difference here is the Tent only allows you to sleep during dusk and night, while the Siesta Lean-to allows you to sleep during the day.

For both the Endothermic Fire and Siesta Lean-to, you can pre-build them for immediate use in dangerous situations.

Other Things to Note

Some food items have the ability to cool the temperature of your character when eaten. The reduction happens per second and varies based on the food.

For example, eating Ice decreases your character’s temperature by 5.33 per second for 7.5 seconds, resulting in a total of 40 degrees reduction.

Here’s the full list of cooling foods:

Wilson, Weeber, and Woodie may overheat faster in the Summer because of their beards. So, remember to shave your beard regularly in the Summer if you play one of these characters.

2. Wildfires

The heat in the Summer not only affect your character but also the surrounding environment and structures. This means the plants, the trees, and even your houses can ablaze.

Also, hound waves in the Summer contain Fire Hounds. These creatures create a massive wave of flame, potentially burning your entire house within a minute.

So, to prevent wildfires from the above causes, you must build the Ice Flingomatic to extinguish the fire.

Each machine costs 2 Gears, 15 Ice, and 2 Electrical Doodads, which is not cheap. That’s why saving these resources earlier is a must if you choose to live in your base in the Summer.

Once you build the Ice Flingomatic, add fuel (Logs, Twigs, Rots, etc. ) and turn it on. With full fuel, an Ice Flingomatic can last up to 5 days.

Because the Summer only lasts 15 days, you only need to refuel the machine 2-3 times. And remember to build the Ice Flingomatic in the center of your base to cover all of your structures.

You can also use Water Balloons or a Luxury Fan to extinguish the fire. Remember to use the Fan cautiously because it can destroy non-permanent fire sources immediately.

Extinguishing the fire with your bare hand is another great option. You lose some health points (except Willow), but your base will be saved.

3. Food Situation in the Summer

Since food items spoil 25% faster in the Summer, consider using Bundling Wraps to keep your food fresh.

However, this unique item can only be unlocked via the blueprint obtained from killing the Bee Queen or opening the Klaus’ Loot Stash.

So, if you’re struggling with the bosses, try hunting for meat and foraging for plants instead.

The heat also affects food items, making the drying process faster. This makes Summer a great season for drying food, especially Jerky.

Regarding vegetables, most plants don’t grow in the Summer, except for Cactus. They can grow normally in all seasons and provide Cactus Flowers if harvested in the Summer.

These flowers and Cactus Flesh provide significant hunger and health, allowing you to survive throughout the season.

You can still grow giant crops in the Summer. But remember to put more effort into watering the ground, as its moisture will decrease over time.

4. The Oasis Base

If you don’t have enough materials to make the Ice Flingomatic, find the desert biome where the Oasis Lake is located.

All plants and structures in this biome are safe from wildfires, making it ideal for building a temporary base with fewer resources.

Before you go, bring basic resources and materials to build an Ice Box, a few Chests, Crockpots, Fishing Rods, and an Endothermic Fire Pit.

Building your second base next to the lake is recommended for fishing, as you can get fish to fill your hunger and Crumpled Packages for various trinkets and Desert Goggles blueprints.

The Desert Goggles help you travel faster in the sandstorms in the desert during Summer, reducing the time needed to gather materials and Cactus Flowers.

5. The Underground Journey

Although the above methods are the traditional ways to survive the Summer, some players (including us) choose an unintended yet beneficial way to spend Summer in DST.

Believe it or not, you can’t overheat while in the cave. Not sure if it’s a bug because you can still freeze down here but not overheat. However, this feature still exists after several updates.

So, not only does traveling underground completely remove the heat, but it also opens opportunities to discover the underground map, as well as giving you some time to find the Ruins and other resources.

To prepare for the underground journey, you must gather as many resources as possible, including Logs, Grass, Twigs, Rocks, Flints, Gold Nuggets, weapons, armor, and especially health-restoring and sanity-restoring food.

The goal for the underground journey varies.

If you’re new to the game, just stay near the cave entrance and try to survive the Summer.

Otherwise, veteran players use this time to explore the map, defeat the Ancient Guardian, and repair the Ancient Pseudoscience Station to craft mid-game items, such as The Lazy Explorer, Thulecite Crown/Club/Suit, Star Caller’s Staff, and most importantly, Deconstruction Staff.

6. Boss of the Summer

When you’re familiar with the heat and wildfires of the Summer, Antlion is another risk you must pay attention to.

Although Antlion can’t walk and stay in one place in the desert biome, it still can destroy your base by creating sinkholes.

These holes are super annoying, as they destroy everything built on them, slow your character, and stay there for another 30 days before disappearing.

To find the Antlion, scour the desert biome. If you see sandstorms, then the boss is nearby.

Once you find the boss, you must contribute items or trinkets to delay its ability. Each given item has a different delay time, but using Rocks, Cut Stones, or any left-over trinkets is recommended.

Each Rock delays the disturbance time by 0.33 days, while a Cut Stone delays roughly 1 day. This number can’t exceed 6, so you must only contribute 18 Rocks or 6 Cut Stones for each visit.

Besides contributing, you can beat the Antlion to completely remove its disturbances.

Otherwise, if you’re afraid of the boss, just immediately run away from your base when you hear the ground shaking and your character says weird lines about the ground.

7. Prepare for the Next Season

Congratulations on surviving the Summer in Don’t Starve Together!

Though, it’s not over. The consequences of the Summer are still there. Go around your base to check for missing structures and rebuild if needed.

Besides cleaning up your base, be prepared for the boss of Autumn – Bearger.

That’s how to survive the Summer in Don’t Starve Together!

Have any suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comments section below.