Targeting, mob interactions, and fuel specifics.
Winona's Gadgets Guide
Targeting & Mob Interactions
There are certain mobs that the catapult can target but not damage. You can force this by starting an attack and canceling it before it connects. This is easier with no weapon equipped or the sleep dart. Any dart would work but the sleep dart doesn't do any damage and keeps aggro off you. You can only attack friendly mobs by Ctrl clicking.
The mobs that won't be damaged by the catapult are Abigail, hostile ghosts, chester/hutch, houndius shootius, domesticated beefalo, smallbirds, extra-adorable larvae, friendly fruit fly, and glommer. Glommer won't scare butterflies or birds away if you want to make a butter/feather farm.
Some mobs will keep aggro on the player while they are on a boat. This can be used to farm mobs like volt goats and spiders safely. You can even kill Moose/Goose like this.
Since catapults have a small area of effect or A.O.E. you can't reliably depend on walls. Mobs try to path between statues, however. Catapults don't effect statues although some mobs will destroy them simply by walking in their path. Mobs to be mindful of: clockwork rook, deerclops, bearger, klaus, fuelweaver, toadstool, malbatross, and even antlion's sand spikes. Make sure to protect them. Catapults are technically a stationary mob that has 400 HP and regains 8 HP every ten seconds. Spotlights are structures like a think tank or science machine. Another very important thing about targeting, catapults won't damage enemies if they are too close. The catapults will simply stop firing.
For certain mobs like splumonkies and frogs, you can't build statues diagonally or they will squeeze through. Having a mod called Place Statues, which is a client mod, helps with using statues as walls. These are the only mobs I have had trouble with, even while using the statue walls. They are just too small. Here is what my splumonky farms usually look like:
There is a gap connecting the part of the ruins with lichen to the village. The gap makes for an awesome choke point. I don't like to spend a lot of rocks on statues so I grab moonglass from the Lunar Grotto if I'm going to build a lot. I prefer the pawn statue since it is small and it's designs don't overlap with other statues and obscure your view.
How GEM/Gen Fuel Works
Any character can add fuel to and use Winona's gadgets once they have been built.
The GEMerator holds a charge 6x that of it's nitre gen counterpart. The fully fueled generator lasts 1 full day, or 8 minutes, with 1 gadget attached. A full GEMerator lasts 6 days, or 48 minutes, with 1 gadget. The spotlight and catapult both have the same drain rate. You also cannot power gadgets that are on separate platforms. A gen on land can't power a spotlight on a boat and vice versa.
The most gadgets you can attach to one GEM/gen is 9. When you attach multiple gadgets to a power source you get diminishing returns. This is also true when you attach multiple power sources to one gadget. You can get 50+ days out of one spotlight like this, but don't do that.
Full Generator:
- 1 gadget - 8 minutes (480 seconds) (1 in-game day)
- 5 gadgets - 4 minutes
- 9 gadgets - 48 seconds
Full GEMerator:
- 1 gadget - 48 minutes (6 in-game days)
- 5 gadgets - 24 minutes (3 in-game days)
- 9 gadgets - 288 seconds (4.8 minutes)
Build Showcase
This is my favorite Winona farm just because it is so easy to make. You can get tons of healing and food out of it. Just set it up next to camp where there are other players so it can run every day. You get meatball ingredients every 15 seconds and then some. Skip to the last 15 seconds of the video if you want to see it work while it's set up.
There are lots of ways you can use your newfound knowledge of gadgets. Spotlights are good lightsources around camp especially in the caves when powered with a GEMerator. They aren't affected by the rain like fires are, last days at a time, and are useful in every season except winter. You can get more gems from earthquakes (and nitre) so fuel is only a problem if you stay in the caves permanently. Winona can easily do this with a Tam o Shanter because she is the only character that can repair clothing without hounds teeth. Pair that with a free hit from Charlie and you have a regular spelunker! Ha! Spotlights don't help much with fighting but you can cook some food and rummage through chests no problem!
I see a lot of Winona players build exactly 8 catapults in a ring around one GEMerator and forget about it. There are a lot of times a different setup would be better, though. Here are some examples:
Here's a fight where the ring of catapults is useful:
Toadstool fight starts at 0:59. I also only needed 1 gem per gen but that was just a test. It takes six minutes if you do it with a normal character and don't use dmg modifiers. When I did it like that I used 2 moonglass axes and 2 dark swords. 2 gems for each gen, too.
To top things off here are some slurtle/snurtle farms I've never seen anyone else use:
You can't use more than one catapult for these farms. If you do they won't come out of their shells. It takes 70 seconds to kill 1 group and 120 seconds for them to respawn I think.
Source: https://gameplay.tips/guides/9758-dont-starve-together.html
More Dont Starve Together guilds
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- Don't Starve Together - Maxwell Character Guide
- Don't Starve Together - Creating Your World
- Don't Starve Together - Wolfgang Main Guide
- Don't Starve Together - Starter Base Guide
- Don't Starve Together - Early Beefalo Domestication Guide
- Don't Starve Together - Incomplete Attacking Guide (with Ranged Weapons)
- Don't Starve Together - Event Guide on Full Moons
- Don't Starve Together - Food Cheat Sheet (Christmas 2019)