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If you have never played Slime Rancher before or are just looking for a good place to get started, then we have you covered. There is a lot to take in when you’re starting the game and this can honestly be a bit confusing. In fact, you may even feel like you’re getting lost in trying to keep your ranch together, you may have even had a good portion of your slimes make a prison break. While the game can be frustrating, with a few good tips, things get much easier to manage.
Below we go over everything a new player needs to know about the game and some proven tips to make your life much easier while playing.
More Slime Rancher 2 Guides:
Every Slime in Slime Rancher 2 and Where to Find Them | Slime Rancher 2: How To Unlock The Jetpack | Radiant Ore Location Guide | Slime Rancher 2: How To Find All Map Data Locations | Complete Rainbow Fields, Ember Valley & Starlight Strand Map Guide | Slime Rancher 2: How To Unlock Both Rainbow Fields Maps | Locations Guide | Slime Rancher 2: How To Reach Starlight Strand | Giant Cotton Gordo Location Guide
Your First Corral
When you start collecting slimes, things may seem like they’re going pretty smoothly. You set up two corals, place in some Pink and Cotton Slimes, then throw in some food. At this point, you will likely wander back out to explore Rainbow Island without a worry in your mind. When you finally make your way home, though, you will learn that slimes love escaping from their enclosures. In fact, you likely now have quite a few Largos running around on your farm.
This can be a massive problem as unhandled Largos can lead to a Tarr invasion. Before you start ranching multiple breeds of slimes you should get your corral ready. You will want to add on a net, as this helps to keep Slime from escaping, if you plan to keep a high number of slimes, make sure to make high walls as well. This gives them a bit more room to bounce around.
You will also want to look into getting the feeder and plort collector expansions eventually to help automate your job. You should also keep in mind that some Slimes will have special needs. The Phosphorus Slime, for example, needs to be kept in a cave or have a UV shield on its pin.
Start a Farm
Next, you will want to worry about creating a stable food source for your ranch. Luckily, you can choose to use your plots of land to produce food. To do this, you simply choose between a vegetable, fruit, or meat plot. For the plant-based plots, you simply need to shoot a single fruit or veggie into the port, and it will automatically start growing. You can also choose to enhance this plot with sprinklers and fertilized soil to help your food grow quicker and get the maximum yield on each harvest.
In addition to this, you can set up a plot to keep birds like the chicken in. This is a little more complex as you need to add both a hen and a rooster to start getting chicks. While hens are pretty common, it can take longer to find the rooster. You will also need to keep a watch on the pen as birds will grow old and stop producing chicks. Like with the garden plot, you can add on to the chicken plot to help speed things up. You can add grass to help chickens grow faster or even choose to have a machine that removes older hens.
No matter which food route you choose to go with first, keep in mind what slimes you have on your ranch. Slimes that escape will happily hop their way to food and start chowing down. This can especially be annoying in the case of chickens, which produce much slower and can be thrown off if the rooster gets eaten.
Getting to Know Rainbow Island
Rainbow Island is rather big and packed full of wonders. The island has three different areas you can access currently and tons of Slimes to find. The island isn’t without its dangers, though. There are plenty of ways to lose health or even knock yourself out. When you do this, you will automatically return to your ranch, but all your collected items will be removed. Obviously, this isn’t an ideal scenario, and for the most part, it can easily be avoided.
Here are some tips for safely exploring in Slime Rancher 2:
- Look out for signs with crossbones. This means the zone ahead has aggressive Largos that will attack you on site.
- Learn to deal with the Tarr early on. They spawn frequently but can be dealt with by upgrading your character or shooting them into the water using your vacuum.
- You will also want to be careful when exploring. While there is no fall damage, you will be sent back to your ranch if you fall into deep water.
- Make sure you return to your ranch frequently. The game is about balancing the time you spend on the ranch with exploring.
- You will also eventually be able to make portals to zip you around the island. This is a great resource to use as it lets you quickly return to your ranch or jump to the area that you need to farm in.
In addition, you should look out for Gordos and Slime Statues with glowing eyes as they typically block shortcuts to get around the area.
Get Down With Slime Science
Next, you will want to get familiar with the basement area beside your house. This area is where you will be able to do Slime Science and upgrade your character.
This is an important part of exploring Rainbow Island as you will need the drill to harvest resources and the jet pack to acres several areas on the isle.
Here is the order you should worry about your first few upgrades in:
- Drill
- Jetpack
- Water Defense
- Storage Expansion
To get the jetpack, you will need to find Radiant Ore. Luckily, this resource can be found in caves around Starlight Strand and is common. You will also need to gather pliers to help make these items, but these can easily just be collected while you’re exploring.
