If you are lazy (like me) and don't want to read the guide I put it all in a video:

Here are some key bindings:

• Place blocks: LMB (left mouse button)
  
• Pick up blocks: hold RMB (right mouse button)
  
• Pick up loot: RMB or E
  
• Rotate lift / items before placing: Q
  
• Camera
  
• -> zoom out: C or ALT + Scroll down
  
• -> zoom in: X or ALT + Scroll up
  
• Open Backpack: B or TAB
  
• Move the Lift
  
• Up: ARROW key UP
  
• Down: ARROW key DOWN
  
• Hide /Show GUI (= hide/show hotbar, healthbars ...): ALT + Z

Loot crates:
You can find them all over the world. Most of them do respawn. Hit them with your sledgehammer to break it and get the items

Set Spawn:
You can set your spawn point by "sleeping" in a bed (just hop in the bed and leave it right after). Every time you die, you will respawn there. You can later build a bed and place it on your car/vehicle to have the spawn point next to you if you die on your adventures!

The game time
Each Day in Scrap Mechanic lasts 24 real life minutes. The time is displayed in the top left corner of the HUD

First of all, you want to get rid of the flames in your spaceship. Near your ship you'll find a small pond with two buckets. Pick up the buckets. Head to the water with the bucket in your hand and press
LMB. Now you can go to you ship and throw the water at the flames to extinguish them.

-> Find this part at 01:17 in the video

Wood is obtained by hitting a tree with your sledge hammer. Hit all the parts until they are this size:
Press E to refine it in order to convert it into blocks.
(Later on you can speed up the process once you have a sawblade, a Resource Collector and a Refinery Bot.)

Scrap Metal is obtained by killing Haybots. You can also find it in the broken constructions around the map.
Press E to refine it in order to convert it into blocks.

At the pond where you got your water you can also find all you need to start your first farm.

• First you need to place a soil bag on the ground
  
• Then you need to place a seed in it
  
• Water it with your bucket
  
• (To speed up the growth you can use the fertilizer)
  
• Wait until you can see the Carrot/Tomato...
  
• Harvest it with LMB

DON'T make your first farm TOO BIG. Otherwise farmbots will attack the farm!

-> Find this part at 02:13 in the video

Later on you'll find the Wocs (The weird cows). You can feed them corn to get "Woc Milk" (fills up the drink bar. Is also used in a few crafting recipes).
You need to find corn and hit it with your hammer. It will drop some corn. Place the corn you collected next to the wok. It will eat it. Sometimes it will drop the wok milk.
That's how corn looks like in game

Just follow the dirt path/crator next to your ship untill you see this broken construction:


Climb up the construction and get to this part:


Pick the battery up with LMB and head back to your ship. Then place the battery in here:

-> Find this part at 05:13 and 08:11 in the video

The Haybot and the Totebot are most frequent enemies running around. Kill them by hitting them with your hammer.
Tips:

• You can walk backwards and hit them. Because of the long range of the hammer you will hit them more often (while walking backwards) then they will hit you.
  
• Toss water at the Haybots to disable them temporarily!
  
• Tapebots shoot at you but have very limited health. If you manage to sneak to them you can kill them with 1-2 hits!
  
• Haybots are afraid of sawblades, even if they’re not spinning, they will straight up avoid like a 4 block zone around the sawblade.
  
• Totebots are afraid of spinning drills.

Haybots drop scrap metal when they die!
Weapons like Spudguns are items which are difficult to get by at the start. (Kinda late game items)

-> Find this part at 04:53 in the video

If you have never built a car in Scrap Mechanic here is a small guide:
What you need:
The material

• A driver seat
  
• a engine
  
• 6 bearings (2 for steering - 4 for the wheels)
  
• 4 wheels
  
• building blocks
  
• wire tool

Building the car:
Build a base plate out of the building blocks. Place the driver seat and the engine on it.
For the steering wheels place blocks/pipes like in the picture:
Do that mirrored on the opposite site.
Place the last two bearings in the back (right and left side of the car) and place the wheels on it.
Connecting the parts:
Put the creation on the lift so it is easier to work. Use the connect tool to connect the driver seat with the horizontal (steering) bearings:
Right click with the connect tool on the green bearings to correct the steering. Otherwise the steering is inverted.

Connect the engine to the driver seat and 2 bearings which are connected to the wheels. Invert the bearings on the left side so all bearings rotate in the same direction.

Now you need to put gasoline into your engine! That's it! :D

-> Find this part at 15:19 in the video

To find the workshop/mechanic shop just follow the dirt path (like you did to get the battery) until you see a parking lot. Then follow the street until you see a big wrench in the sky. Head there! Here you can get better crafting bots.


The battery which you need to power up the workshop/mechanic shop you can find next to the building in the room with the number 2 above it. Watch out there is a Haybot waiting for you!


-> Find this part at 21:36 and 23:05 in the video

If you build your farm too big Farmbots will come and try to destroy it. You'll get a warning saying "Unauthorized farming detected"
-> Build a wall/protection around your farm
You'll see a countdown. Remember: 1h in Scrap Mechanic = 1 minute in real time. So if it says "10h" in game you'll have 10 min until the attack.

There won't be any visual / audio notification when the attack begins so be careful!
When the counter hits zero a few farmbots will spawn around your farm and walk towards you. If they can't find you they will walk towards the farm and destroy it / try to destroy the walls around the farm. The better blocks you use the harder it is for the bots to break the wall.

ErDragons Guide covers many items and where to get them:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2089415221
If item xyz is still missing or you can't find it, let me know.

Tipp #1: (by ErDragon)
You can find this cute creature (I think it's a reference to Axolotl) inside lakes. The easiest way to find them is at night. I got info that he can eat cardboard blocks (maybe about 10) and give one Glow (yellow thing that required for glowsticks)



Tipp #2: (by ErDragon)

If you're new to this game and you see this Bot, RUN AWAY FROM HIM! He can shoot tape that inflict 55 DMG, so if he hits you 2 times you'll die. Tapes fly at a pretty high speed, they are pretty accurate, and ammo can bounce. So I suggests building wall.



Tip #3: (by ErDragon)
Remember to guard your crops. Bots can destroy them.



Tip #4: (by ErDragon)
If you are new to the game and you don't started farming yet the easiest way to not die from Hunger and Thirst is using Woc Milk. Place the Corn on the ground Woc will eat some and give you Milk. You can do this infinite number of times. Woc will newer feel full.



Tip #5:
If you building on an island in a lake/ocean, Haybots can't get to you and Totebots get slowed down a lot because of the water. That gives you enough time to kill the Totebots. (Tipp by nuttelabear)



Tip #6:
You can fine tune the rotation angle in a controller by holding shift and changing the angle with LMB.


Tip #7:
You can only kill the big red Farmbot through explosions and shooting them with Spudguns! Sledgehammers do not do any damage!

That should get you started. If you have any questions, let me know. Also if you want to know what to do after these steps (Like how to get the spudgun) let me know as well. Then I'll add more to this guide.

It would be would mean the world to me, if you could check out my Social Media channels ^^

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/CocoaCoCi

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https://www.twitch.tv/cocoacoci

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https://www.instagram.com/cocoacoci_/