Gameplay tips
This is an initial page to collect gameplay tips. All of the tips listed here are currently up to date as of Enraged Koala.
You can drain water through the background layer. Clearing out some blocks on the background layer will drain any water in the foreground layer. This is a quick way to clear out water when mining. The opposite is true of liquid-dominated planets with Ocean, Arctic, Toxic, and Magma biomes. Removing the background layer beneath sea level will cause the native liquid to flood the immediate vicinity.
The Matter Manipulator has it's limitations. Mainly with regards to speed. The Manipulator can mine/harvest anything, but it will do so at a very slow pace. Building tools (pickaxe, drills, etc) will allow you to mine/harvest much faster. Furthermore, the Manipulator can only mine/harvest 4 blocks at a time, whereas most tools will mine/harvest 9 blocks at a time. The Manipulator can be greatly improved however with upgrades. When fully upgraded it harvests 25 blocks at a time, pick up liquids, and is faster than all but diamond tools.
Tools will deteriorate Tools will slowly degrade with use and eventually break. You will notice that the mining/harvesting speed of a tool will slowly reduce as it degrades. In previous versions, minerals like copper and gold could be used to repair the tool, but this is no longer the case.
In order to efficiently harvest meat from animals, you need to kill them with a hunting bow, spear or knife. Killing creatures with other weapons will not spawn any meat nearly as often. Typically, other weapons do more damage than hunting weapons, but damage varies depending on the tier and type of weapon.
There are several ways to heal. The most common method is to sleep in a bed. Alternatively, you can use a vast array of methods such as salve,Stim Packs, bandages, Nanowrap Bandages, food, and status pods.
Right-clicking on a stack in your inventory will split the stack.
Shift-clicking while building with a matter manipulator will cause only one block to be built rather than four.
