Locations

Twenty-two pages of places, and the thing worth sorting them by is not where they are but how often you can go back. Some of these locations pay you nothing at all and exist purely to move you somewhere else. Some pay once and are then permanently empty. Some refill, but only if you strip them properly first. And a few pay for as long as you can hold them, which is what a base is.

One thing to say for this bucket before anything else: it is the most reliable set of pages in the wiki. Fourteen of these guides state a number in their opening line and then deliver exactly that number, from five base sites on Crystal Isles to four villages on Fjordur. When a page here says all four, it means four.

Pays nothing: the obelisks

Three obelisks per map, and they hold no loot whatsoever. What they do is act as the boss terminal and the transfer point, which makes them the least rewarding and most necessary structure in the game.

On Ragnarok all three are pinned precisely: Red at Joannas Inlet at 35.0, 85.7, Blue near the Oluf Jungle at 18.1, 17.4, and Green in central Hidana at 57.0, 38.1. Aberration is stranger, as Aberration usually is. Its Blue obelisk is inside a radioactive cave at 19, 27, its Green sits near the River Valley at 26, 63, and the Red is described by region rather than by coordinate, in the southwest. Worth knowing before you go looking with a GPS.

Pays once: caves

A cave is a one-time transaction. The artifact at the end of it is what you came for, the loot crates are a bonus, and once both are gone the trip is not worth repeating.

Scorched Earth has exactly three, and our page names them after the artifacts they hold rather than the terrain: Crag at 28.4, 29.4, Gatekeeper at 63.1, 43.8 and Destroyer at 78.6, 75.7. Those three names should look familiar if you have read the Manticore's tribute list, because they are the same three artifacts it demands.

Crystal Isles is the more sprawling write-up, running from the Snow Biome Cave at 31.1, 50.1 through the Waterfall and Floating Caves to a Beehive Cave, with the loot listed for each. Crystal Isles is also the map where a cave is as likely to be a resource run as an artifact run, which blurs the line with the next category.

Pays on a timer, if you empty it properly

Beaver dams are the most repeatable income in the game and they come with a rule that five of our six pages state independently: you have to loot a dam completely, to the point of destroying it, before it will rebuild. A half-emptied dam simply sits there. Our Fjordur page is the one that puts a number on the wait, and it is a wide one: anywhere from a few minutes to several hours.

What is inside is consistent enough to plan around. Cementing Paste is the reason anyone goes, with Silica Pearls, Rare Flowers, Rare Mushrooms and Wood turning up alongside it.

Our beaver dams overview is the one to open if you play across several maps, since it collects coordinates for The Island, Ragnarok, Lost Island and the rest in one place, along with the spawn command for when the dams will not appear at all.

Ragnarok has a second timed source that works on the same principle from the opposite direction. Its desert drops are five loot crates that fall across the Deathsands and Green Desert rather than sitting in the ground, and the contents are gear rather than materials, with saddles and SCUBA equipment among them. You are not harvesting so much as waiting in the right place.

Pays as long as you hold it: 35 base sites

Six maps get a dedicated base guide, and between them they document thirty-five sites, each chosen on the same criteria: flat buildable ground, something to drink, metal within reach, and a shape that is hard to attack.

Our best base locations overview spans The Island, Valguero, Ragnarok and more for anyone who has not settled on a map yet, and it is the better starting point if you are choosing between maps rather than choosing within one.

Fjordur, where somebody built it already

Fjordur is the only map with pre-existing architecture worth occupying, and it gets three pages that exist nowhere else in this wiki.

The castles are the showpieces, with the Snow Castle at 21.4, 18.5 and the Swamp Castle at 04.5, 41.0 leading a list that also turns up hidden caves and pearls. The villages are the practical option, four of them including the Red Forest Village up in Asgard at 61.3, 36.2 and a Viking Village at 28.2, 43.5, all usable as ready-made building sites.

The ratholes are the ugly, effective end of the same idea. These are gaps in the terrain rather than buildings, a lava spot at 90.7, 78.1 and underwater hideouts around 45.2, 34.2, and the reason to know them is that a base built inside one is close to un-raidable. That makes them the most valuable real estate in this bucket and the least pleasant to live in.

What to do with the loot

Cementing Paste from the dams, artifacts from the caves and the metal near your base all feed the same machine. Our resources guide covers what tool or creature each material actually needs, items catalogues the artifacts by map, and bosses is where the artifacts get spent. For a view organised by island rather than by purpose, start at the wiki hub.

Frequently asked questions

Why will my beaver dam not respawn?

Almost always because it was not emptied completely. Our pages are consistent that a dam has to be looted until it breaks before it rebuilds, and even then the wait ranges from minutes to hours.

Which map has the most base locations documented?

Scorched Earth, with seven, ahead of Lost Island, Ragnarok and The Center on six each. Crystal Isles and Fjordur have five apiece.

What is a rathole and should I use one?

A gap in the map's geometry that a base can be tucked into so that it is effectively impossible to raid. On Fjordur our page lists a lava spot and several underwater options. They are a PvP answer rather than a comfortable home.

Do obelisks contain loot?

No. They exist to summon bosses and to move characters, creatures and items between servers, which is why they are worth knowing the coordinates of even though visiting one pays nothing.