~ Taking natures lore as a skill in character creation and getting it to at least 30 will allow you to pick and search for food better food (provided the area has better soil). It will also allow you to turn plant fiber you collect into simple cloth. Which you can turn into primitive shoes that will remove the defult movement speed debuff when worn. Your simplest and first weapons (a sling with sling stones for ranged and a torch for melee) will also be of far better quality if you can find decent materials.

~ If you can at all help it, never be overburdened out in the open (i.e. while not behind walls with a gate/gatehouse or inside a building with a closing door that requires permissions to open). You might get away with it 99 times but the 1 time you do not will make you regret thinking it was fine all the times that you did. It doesn't make anything you do faster either. For instance while mining, you can actually clear material faster if making an effort to stay light than you would if filling your inventory to it's absolute max with each load.

While overburdened your chance of surival should something happen is virtually none. If you get attacked You will not have the mobility to either defend yourself or get away. You also likely will be unable to drop whatever is making you overencumbered as taking damage interupts that action. If you try to swim while over burdened you will sink and drown.

You will also want to mind that your equiped weight isn't more than you can effectively carry. Never have more than 40 sling stone equiped at once. And take off armor (at least) before attempting to swim. Being fully geared while swimming will often mean that you sink when trying to tread water. Which means as much as lag spike can wind you up dead if your equiped weight is too high while swimming.

~ Open the map at the start of each new play session. You shouldn't leave it up all the time as there are some performance issues with doing so. But you should flash it up frequently while on the move. Icons on the map will help you see important things in advance. CTRL + F4 will toggle on/off claim borders.

~ Do not use torches at night. The brightness of a torch makes everything out side of a few tiles darker by contrast and others can see your location from a long way off. Torches have their uses (like causing wolves to run when struck with one). But they are not the best option for seing at night. The alternative is to:

1) Go to your video settings and turn brightness all the way up at last light. You'll want to turn this back down before first light or the brightness can be so much as to be physically painful to look at.

2) Strike F3 to toggle build mode on/off. This will work almost like a torch but without the deficits of a torch. It auto-offs when entering combat mode.

3) Hit ctrl + ~. In the console that pops up type "FogPostFx.Disable()" then close the console with ctrl + ~. That command gets rid of fog (which can often obstruct view and can contribute to lag). This setting is not remembered across play sessions.

4) Turn grass all the way down.

~ When just starting stick to either the waters edge or the trees as much as is practical so that you can make a get away into the water if need be. You can use trees to cause your persuers to loose line of sight on you (run towards tree, strafe around it, run towards another tree, strafe around it etc.)

If among the trees and you see someone potentially dengerous aproaching (weapons, armor, warhorses etc.) that you do not wish to interact with. A good first move is to put a tree between you and them, put your back to the tree, and sit down (using the rest/chair icon). 9/10 they will pass by without noticing you (if they had not spotted you before hand).

~ Turn effects volume up. The moment you here a growl, grunt, groan or patter you should come to a full stop and even back up a tile. S key is your friend in this, especially if you have auto-move toggled on (num lock by defult). Try to discern where the sound is coming from without moving. If it is a Mutton, Aurochs or Moose, it will not attack unless hit first (it only takes one hit on these to make them agressive). A Boar (though not a sow), Wolf or Bear will become agressive without being attacked. That first growl or snort is your warning. If you stop immediately and identify the source 9/10 you will not come close enough to trigger agressive animals. You will be able to reverse your steps and go around it.

~ Don't use flee to get around faster or to run from potential danger. Only use flee once you start taking damage. Flee has a cool down that may very well leave you sorry for using it prematurely or needlessly. You also should not run for a get or door that you have permissions on as you will not be able to use it.

~ Don't run around in first person mode. You will not see 90% of what you should be seeing to stay alive.

~ Raise your FoV (Feild of View in Video Settings) to the maximum tolerable level. Which should be what gives you the most perhpheral without distorting what is in front of you (it's okay if what is in front of you looks a little further away).

~ Hold down the V key when in bound cursor mode while moving your mouse to pan your camera around whenever you are rooted by a crafting, collecting, or long series of droping actions. This in combination with high FoV can be the difference between seing an agressor in time to esc (literally hit esc before doing anything else if you do) or being 1 hit dead by someone who seemingly came out of nowhere.

~ Do not try to outrun someone who is persuing you that is on anything other than a regular horse while you are yourself on a regular horse (especially if they have a lance). Their horse has 50 more stamina than yours at minimum. Most of the time your horse will run out of stamina first and you will likely be sudenly thrown off it (because it stamed out at top speed). They will be on top of you with around 50 horse stam to spare and none all to happy that you thought you could run.

~ In general it's not the best idea to run from people who have seen you before you see them and who decide to approach you. It might be good to run if you see them first. If you do run don't be constantly looking behind you as you make your get away. However, most of the time the situation is against you escaping unless you are near water. If they are well geared, they are likely on patrol. Which means they do want to at least ask you some questions (mostly for their own security as any apparent newb could be the best shovel night around or a spy for one of their enemies...They don't know). Wanting to hold you up for a few minutes doesn't automatically mean they intend to kill you.

It's often best to stand your ground and interact with them. If you are polite and compliant you will be far more likely to not die than if you run and tell them to "&%^$ off!" if and when they catch up to you (just because you lose sight of them doesn't mean you are in the clear). A good opener is something like "Hi, have you seen any rabbits. I want to tame one?" For some reason people tend to instantly become a lot more friendly with new players who are just trying to down some game and put food in their belly. Especially if that game is often the kind they pass on taking for themselves regularly. The examplem of an opener I gave also has a flaw. Because you can't tame a rabit that you find as a physical animal in the world. The point is to demonstrate a lack of familiarity with even the basics. This makes you look completely ignorant and therefore likely to be a threat.