Doloc Town Getting Started: Your First Day Walkthrough

Jumping into Doloc Town on launch day can feel overwhelming, especially with a 30+ hour core experience stacked on top of combat drones, gene splicing, and a full post-apocalyptic farming economy. This Doloc Town getting started walkthrough maps out your first ten hours so you stop guessing and start building, because every minute spent wandering wastes scrap you can never recover.

What Doloc Town Getting Started Actually Covers

The phrase "Doloc Town getting started" covers far more than opening the menu and pressing New Game; it covers the loop that runs from the prologue through your first stable vertical farm, including combat drone readiness, basic drone weapons, and the gene replicator chain that unlocks later. According to the official Doloc Town Steam page, the game ships with full Vertical Farm construction, drone customization, and 30+ hours of content, so an early-game plan matters more here than in most farming sims.

Here is the scope of this guide:

• Hour 0-1: Prologue, scrap runs, and shelter setup

• Hour 1-3: First crops, basic drone unlock, tutorial combat

• Hour 3-6: Vertical Farm Tier 1, water and energy routing

• Hour 6-10: Drone upgrades, first gene modules, weather defense

If you want a broader overview of the ropes, the Doloc Town beginner guide covers the wider picture, while this article stays focused on the first ten in-game days where most new players stall.

Your First Hour: Scrap, Shelter, and Survival

The first hour of any Doloc Town walkthrough is dominated by Proti arriving at the ruined settlement that gives the game its name. You wake up near the central tower, recover a starter backpack, and meet the early NPCs who unlock the first quest chain. Press E on every highlighted object, because the tutorial flags scrap piles, broken water traps, and drone salvage that you would otherwise walk past.

Resource Priorities in Hour 1

Everything you collect in the first hour feeds the construction of your first Vertical Farm tier, so spend scrap on the right things and avoid the temptation to decorate the shelter before it survives the first storm.

The starter backpack holds nine slots, so leave anything marked Decoration for the return trip. Most new players over-collect wood and stone, while under-collecting circuit scraps, which are the real bottleneck for the first drone upgrade. Community guides on the Steam Community hub consistently flag circuit scraps as the resource that decides whether you fight Hostile Drone 33 at hour 3 or hour 5.

Combat Drone Basics for Early Encounters

Combat shows up on day two, and Doloc Town getting started tips always undersell how aggressive the early drone fights feel. The default drone uses a tier-1 blaster that does around 8-12 damage per shot, and you have about 60 HP before your first shield chip, so kiting is non-negotiable. Bind Dash to a mouse button early because the i-frames save you from the spike damage that hostile drones and bullet hell clusters dish out.

Sidescroller Combat Cheat Sheet

• Dash on cooldown: i-frames last around 0.2 seconds, longer than the recovery on most basic attacks

• Vertical aim: enemies come from above and below, so never lock your crosshair to ground level

• Overcharge: hold fire for 1.5 seconds to release a charged shot that breaks enemy shields

• Retreat: walls and doors can be sealed with a basic repair kit, which buys time to heal

Hostile Drone 33 is the first real wall for new players, and it appears around hour 4 if you push the main quest. According to community testing on the r/IndieGaming subreddit, the fight goes from near impossible to manageable once you have a tier-2 drone frame and two enhancement chips stacked. Players who skip the vertical farm tier upgrade and rush the boss tend to die three or four times before learning the dash pattern, which is why the safe plan is to clear the farm unlock first and then turn the drone into a real weapon.

Drone Weapon Tier Reference

Different weapons shine in different fights, so build at least two of these during the prologue to avoid being locked into the wrong role.

Save the Siege Cannon crafting materials for the late game, because burning them on the first night leaves you dry for the next boss and there is no reliable way to restock before the second wave hits. The RPGamer review of the launch build notes that early weapon recycling is the single biggest mistake new players make, and it tracks with what I saw during my own playthrough on the release build.

Building the Vertical Farm and Growing Your First Crops

The Vertical Farm is the single biggest reason a Doloc Town walkthrough feels different from Stardew-style farming sims. Instead of tilling a flat field, you stack grow trays in a 3D tower that occupies one tile footprint but produces four crops per tray. Power comes from the energy core at the base, and you connect water lines up the spine on day three. According to the 1.0 release press release, the vertical farm system was one of the most-requested features during Early Access, and it is the core reason the launch build has a 95% positive rating on Steam.

Crop Tier and Yield at a Glance

Crop selection in the first season matters more than later, because money is tight and pests are relentless. The base yields below assume no gene modifications, which arrive after the gene replicator quest unlocks in hour 8.

A common mistake is planting Ash Potato on day one, which sounds profitable until the pest swarm hits and a single tray upgrade is not enough to keep them alive. The safe formula is two trays of Tumble Wheat, one tray of Scar Carrot, and one empty tray reserved for the gene-modded seedling you get from the lab quest. Community testing on the Steam guides confirms that this rotation breaks even on day 4 and starts turning a profit on day 6, which is exactly when you need spare cash for the energy core upgrade.

For readers who want a deeper dive into combat drills, the Doloc Town how to start page breaks down the first boss fight timings, while the Doloc Town useful tips page covers day-three shortcuts that save roughly two hours of grinding.

Day 1 to Day 10: Progression Milestones for New Players

Doloc Town getting started advice is useless without a checkpoint system, so this section gives you a clean milestone list you can tick off by hour. Based on community feedback and the dev roadmap published in the 1.0 release, these are the gating moments that decide whether you finish the prologue clean or get stuck in a farming loop that never pays off.

Milestone Checklist

• Hour 1: Shelter built, basic drone unlocked, two starter crops planted

• Hour 3: First drone combat win, Tier-1 Vertical Farm built, water line complete

• Hour 5: Energy core upgraded, three tray types running, first NPC faction joined

• Hour 7: Hostile Drone 33 defeated, Arc Thrower blueprint acquired

• Hour 8: Gene Replicator quest unlocked, first Gene Module spliced

• Hour 10: Tier-2 Vertical Farm online, weather defense built, save backup toggled

Quick Stats Behind the Opening Loop

The 95% Overwhelmingly Positive rating is a strong signal that the developer has tuned the early loop well, and it tracks with my own playthrough: I died once to Hostile Drone 33, zero times to anything else, because the sidequests telegraph their difficulty through NPC dialogue long before you actually engage. Players who ignore dialogue tend to walk into bullet hell waves blindly, while players who read every line get a 30-second warning before the screen fills with projectiles.

If you want to skip the planning and jump to advanced builds, the Doloc Town progression guide picks up at hour 10 and walks through the gene chain, while the Doloc Town beginner tips page lists the seventeen tiny optimizations that compound over a full run. Between those two follow-ups and this walkthrough, you should have a complete map of the first 15 hours without needing to dig through Discord threads.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is the Doloc Town getting started phase?

The first ten in-game hours cover the prologue, the first vertical farm tier, and the first drone boss. Most players reach a stable mid-game loop by hour 12, though completionists who chase every NPC quest push that to 15+ hours.

What is the first crop I should plant in Doloc Town?

Plant Tumble Wheat on day one. It has a 2-day grow time, low pest risk, and a 35g sell price that funds your first drone upgrade without forcing you off the farm to grind scrap.

Can I skip the combat drone tutorial?

You can skip the optional tutorial pop-ups, but the combat tutorial itself is mandatory because it unlocks the dash ability. Without dash, you cannot dodge the bullet hell patterns that spawn from hour 4 onward.

Is Doloc Town Steam Deck verified?

Yes, according to the official Doloc Town Steam page, the game is officially Verified for Steam Deck, with 30+ FPS at the default preset and full controller support out of the box.

Should I save scum or play ironman on a first run?

Play your first run on the default save settings. The game autosaves every 10 minutes and maintains a 3-slot rollback, so ironman adds risk without a meaningful reward for a first playthrough. Once you understand the gene chain, a second run on ironman is more rewarding.