Strength

Strength is a player stat that was added in v0.29 update along with weight, athleticism, and sanity. As of V0.71, the system for raising strength has been completely over hauled. It now runs on a calories and exercise system.

Gameplay Effects
Strength affects the damage of melee weapons, the higher your strength, the more damage you can do. It increases weapon damage by. For example, if you have 70 Strength:  = +50% bonus damage. This calculator can show you exactly how much bonus damage you can get with your current strength:

Strength has no effect on thrown or ranged weapons, such as the flintlock pistol, crafted bow, modern bow, and throwing spears.

Having the blood infection status effect will lower the player's strength until the player consumes aloe to heal it.

Raising Strength
Certain actions affect raising strength depending on your current net calorie count.

As of V0.73, when performing an attack (regular or power),. Meaning you gain or lose 0.0047 depending on whether you had surplus calories (gain) or lost calories (lose) when you performed the attack.

For example, if you ate 2800 calories, and burnt 3000:, your.


 * You can only gain or lose 2 strength per day. However, this count can be reset with saving and exiting. This will allow the player gain as much strength as they can in one day. Once the cap has been reached, calories will continue to burn though no gains or losses will be made to strength.
 * Calories are required for strength to be gained. If calories burnt are higher than calories consumed, you will lose strength.
 * The only way to raise strength is by swinging a weapon. There is no other way to currently raise strength.
 * Console Commands can provide an on screen HUD display of your stats, this can make raising strength much easier as you don't have to check your survival guide.

Key: = Change in strength.

= Plus or minus.

Farket's Tips and Tricks
These tips and tricks are provided by Farket:
 * "Calorie loading" is the method I recommend for raising strength and maintaining weight. You need 3000 calories to raise 2 strength which takes 426 swings of a weapon. As soon as you wake, consume about 3000 to 4000 calories. This will last you the entire day and you won't have to worry about checking your stats throughout the day. Once the sun is starting to set, start swinging a bone to burn the rest of the calories and raise strength. You can either stand still and do it (use an auto hotkey if you know how to assign one). Or you can use the bone on stick trees. This will gather hundreds of leaves as well as a lot of sticks, whilst raising strength.
 * Using a bone as a method of raising strength is currently the best way. Bones only use 3 stamina per swing. The amount that it uses is so low, that you can swing indefinitely without running out of stamina, even with 0 athleticism.
 * Calories are calories, it doesn't matter if you use 10 cans of soda or eating meat. As long as you have calories, you will raise strength.
 * Keep your weight between 200 and 210. If your weight goes under 200, you will receive penalties towards strength. If it goes over 210, you will receive penalties towards athleticism. The more it goes above or below these ranges, the higher the penalty.
 * Avoid gaining weight as weight is much harder to lose than it is to gain, just like in real life.
 * Your weight only changes ONCE per day. Ignore the arrow until that time comes. The exact time is just as the sun rises. You will see a bright glow of the sun, then it will disappear. This is the exact time that your calories reset and your weight changes. If you have excess calories, you will gain weight. If you have more burnt calories, you will lose weight. The higher the difference, the more the weight change.
 * Swinging a bone for 4 minutes and 10 seconds burns about 3000 calories and gains two strength. There are 36 minutes and 34 seconds in a day. Based on this, you would be able to gain 14 to 15 strength in one day, if you save and exit after reaches 2 strength each time. If you were to do this for 15 strength, you would need over 23444 calories and you would need to take 3192 swings with a bone. This method would drive someone insane if they did not have an auto attack key assigned (look into macros). The ideal place to do this is in the main cannibal village's cave. Drop down into the cave, build a temporary shelter, swing and raise your strength, save and exit. Once you return, go up the rope in the cannibal village and get all the soda boxes, there's over 7 boxes which would provide over 7000 calories each time. Keep doing this and you could max your strength out in under 7 days. Though this would be VERY boring in that span of time.

Myths

 * Increasing strength does not allow you to carry more than 2 logs, you can only carry 2 logs no matter your strength.
 * Strength does not increase blocking effects
 * You do not need to sleep to raise strength. Though this will speed up the process but you will need to be more active with eating.

Important VR problems

 * VR players can not gain any strength through chopping trees and/or killing enemies