I’ve noticed many people not being able to survive for longer then a few days or ones that would get killed by a z-dog or a moose even though they should be able to handle it.
So this is my attempt to enlighten you all with my meta knowledge.
The Start
Find a place with a lit console like a shelter or mine so you can read and dismantle rags or craft at night.
Lave flows can work as well, i’ve built makeshift shelters next to molten rock and i’ve even seen magma inside a house lol.
A secondary objective is to find a place with a fireplace/wood stove/brazier so you can light a fire inside without burning your house down.
Crafting a digging stick to dig a shallow pit outside the door or window will do as well in a pinch.
Burn a rag or skewer to utilize batch crafting since the fire doesn’t need to be on when you finish.
Get clothes, see if you can loot a backpack, trenchcoat/duster(lab coats are nice too) and cargo pants/shorts from somewhere, otherwise you’ll have to craft them later.
Dismantle rags and felt patches for thread and yarn respectively, leave the yarn/sinew/fiber on the ground for crafting and use the thread to load your wooden/bone needle or tailor/sewing kit.
Craft bandana’s till tailoring lvl 1, craft arm warmers till lvl 2(you need this for leather funnel), panties/briefs till lvl 3, boonie hat’s till lvl 4, then reinforce your equipment and grind up to lvl 5.
Get a decent knife with high butchering, preferably a hunting knife but a butcher knife is fine too and put it into your boot, a hatchet doubles as a hammer so that’s nice too.
Get a hammer(stone/makeshift is ok for now) and a screwdriver and dismantle every furniture or broken console you see for parts and lvl 1 construction, do the same for clothing and use the leather patches to craft a leather funnel and a waterskin(you need survival lvl 1, get it butchering or foraging underbrush quickly).
If you don’t have a screwdriver then just smash stuff instead of dismantling them, just be careful not to waste rare parts from electronics or ovens(or even lockers for that sheet metal).
Activate the leather funnel outside on the ground and drop the waterskin on it, you can use a sealed stomach/jug/jerrycan/gallon drum/wooden keg or whatever better container you have instead of the waterskin.
Then collect rainwater, you can safely drink rainwater or well water or water inside vehicles inside tanks, they are not contaminated.
You can transfer liquids from container to container(or dumping it on the ground like with jugs of rotten milk) using "U"nload, it’s nice to fill a canteen or waterskin from the container on the ground, just stand next to it.
Eat some food, eat the blue stuff first as that will rot with time, but try to keep it as long as possible so you can make vegetable sandwiches later when you can craft flour(with a quern) and make flatbread(although flatbread is filling on its own).
Eat & drink your cans of soda and food(you will need the cans later to make shitloads of batteries).
If you don’t have enough food lets continue on with weapons and hunting and foraging.
Craft a sling and cudgel, craft some pebbles for the sling from rocks.
See if you can kill some squirrels or other diminutive woodland creatures and check every shrub for eggs and wild vegetables, a single trip should gain you enough food to sustain your nicely for a few days up to a week.
If you get attacked by an aggressive enemy like a zombie/cougar/moose/bear then soften them up with the sling and then switch to your cudgel and lure them onto a shrub(you can set it on fire if you want) and then just attack(the cudgel has rapid strike/precise strike/block and should be able to kill a moose but maybe not a bear)
After a while you should have bashing lvl 2 and can craft a quarterstaff which can rapid strike/block (and later with niten ichi ryu style can do some special attacks).
Now you should have enough water and food to start crafting and reading.
Get a wrench & hacksaw and start dismantling broken cars to train mechanics, then dismantle the seats and the stuff you don’t need to get springs/rope/string/flashlights, you can dismantle seat>rope>string>1000 thread, get wrist watches from clocks lol and flashlights come loaded with 100 batteries!
At this time you might have enough electronics materials to craft a lightstrip, this should help if you don’t have a console with unlimited light.
Wear survivor runner packs and carry a duffel bag with you to loot places and then go back home, sometimes you can wear 2 duffel bags filled with loot albeit overburdened and slowly gaining pain or a single survivor duffel bag.
I might expand the guide based on feedback.