Stuff all gone

[Thor]

Just keep scouting patiently. When you do find a reasonably good area to settle make a leanto there and start patrolling nearby areas to see if there are any other players settled there.
Multiple different biomes nearby help, small lakes are great to have but be a bit careful around long and connected rivers since people can spot you pretty easily when paddling there with a canoe (perhaps most common way to travel).

[tweenprinc3ss]

You shouldn't have too much of real value to be stolen at this point. Use everything you make that you can, and keep powering up your skills with foraged inspirationals until you can make a claim. Get Indian Foraging asap, as with this you can make Savage Charms, which can be sold to the white stalls in Providence for decent silver. Be WARY of other players out in the world, and good luck!

[pistolshrimp]

Thanks for all the encouragement folks! I'm really enjoying the game so far. My frustration at this point is mostly due to my ignorance (not knowing if I've been raided or if stuff is gone from decay-- although it definitely sounds like I've been raided). When I started building I thought I was reasonably isolated, but then as I explored the area I found a couple of other player settlements, so I guess someone decided they didn't like having a new neighbor.

Do you guys have any advice in regards to picking a reasonably safe location to settle? I don't really have a sense of how large the game world is yet, is it possible to find less densely populated areas that still have access to most of the biomes?

How quickly do things decay on their own? I didn't realize that I could repair them, so I hadn't been doing that. I'm definitely going to get a claim stone next time before I invest any silver in nails.

To build off what Lusewing said:

There is no such thing as true isolation in this game, eventually you have to just pick a spot. As someone who has done a lot of scavenging I can tell you a few guidelines about making your base more unlikly to be stumbled upon, but as you find later some of these points will be bad for future base design, so it's a balance of your needs.

1. The Further away from Providence the better
2. The further away from the ocean the more unlikely to be stumbled upon
3. The further away from rivers the more unlikely to be stumbled upon
4. The further away from land marks that stand out, lakes, clay pits, etc. the more unlikely to be stumbled upon
5. If you can set up in a very jagged region, often people will go around rather than go through, you can have some more remoteness

But, you will need water, you will need clay, and you will hate climbing up and down hills, you're best bet is to walk west for a couple of hours until a spot feels good to you and you haven't seen many bases nearby. Buy a pclaim and set it up, start building.

Decay is random, but often you will usually see your structure turn red before there's a big risk of it disapearing.

[JessicaTheRipper]

your best bet is to walk west for a couple of hours until a spot feels good to you and you haven't seen many bases nearby. Buy a pclaim and set it up, start building.

they can start walking from LimersFront which is already far from Providence

[pistolshrimp]

your best bet is to walk west for a couple of hours until a spot feels good to you and you haven't seen many bases nearby. Buy a pclaim and set it up, start building.

they can start walking from LimersFront which is already far from Providence

That's a good suggestion, just the OP said he didn't have much silver. He would probably save enough time to make 3x the cost tho.

[tack]

Can i add
dont pave any area
dont dig over large areas

to the list as both will show up on the map

also when scouting look out for strange paved tiles in a line from rivers aome raiders use them to find bases for future raids dig them up as the biome will cover them or dig them up and replant an oak in random ones

tack

[Ukhata]

Can i add
dont pave any area
dont dig over large areas

to the list as both will show up on the map

also when scouting look out for strange paved tiles in a line from rivers aome raiders use them to find bases for future raids dig them up as the biome will cover them or dig them up and replant an oak in random ones

tack

the dont pave thing is not really applicable anymore, since you need to pave to build a lot of things, even the simplest of structures.
just make sure you have at least 2 braziers for every brazier area you own, if not more, and also torchposts!

security through obscurity is long since useless. build walls and brazier and torchposts asap. thats all you can really do. and LAYER your walls