Water, water, everywhere! And not a drop to drink. Survival isn’t easy in ATLAS. The massive pirate-themed online game makes life difficult — you don’t just need water to live, you need fresh water. Salt water won’t save you. Even more maddening, you’ll need food and vitamins or you’ll come down with a nasty case of scurvy. For a rollicking pirate MMO, there’s an awful lot of busy-work involved in living on the sea.
Thankfully, acquiring fresh water isn’t that difficult when you know exactly where to find the stuff. It comes from two easy-to-find sources on most islands — mysterious temples, and the ground itself. That’s right, you can access ground water to sustain yourself and fill your water skin.
ATLAS bills itself as the “ultimate survival MMO” with over “40,000+” simultaneous players all crammed on a single server. The initial beta loadout is taxing, but that just shows how interested players are in this living, breathing, and very strange world. You can form a band of pirates and sail the seas in search of adventure; and yes, there be dragons.
How To Find Fresh Water | Basic Survival Guide
ATLAS, at the time of writing, is currently in early-access. There might be more than a few changes to the formula in the near future — the game is so punishingly difficult, some players are advising newcomers to simply die rather than figure out how to keep your character alive.
Water is one of the most basic components of life. In ATLAS, you need to keep your thirst meter in check with fresh water. There are two very simple ways to get fresh water.
- NOTE: You can store water in your water skin. Select the water skin and press [E] to fill the container. Stored water will slowly drain from the water skin over time.
When you arrive in your homeport town, find a temple. You’ll find fresh water near temples in ponds — press [E] to drink straight from the pond, or use your water skin to collect the water.
You can also find fresh water on any island. First, find wet patches of land — go prone (Press [X]) and left-click the wet soil to begin a mini-game. Complete the quick mini-game, and a spout of water will appear. This looks a little ridiculous, but you can drink from the water spout — you cannot fill your water skin from a ground spout.
Using a shovel on wet patches of land will get you 500 water.
Each area of ‘wet soil’ only contains one water source, and it will disappear. You’ll need to wait for rains to resupply an island with wet soil patches where you can get fresh water.
When you start building, you can also use barrels for a steady supply of fresh water. Place a barrel down, and it will fill with fresh water when it rains. Simple!
Water Jugs, Water Barrels, and Buckets are all useful tools to collect water.
