Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Become a Top Survivor and Dominate the Lands and the Seas

Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad has been a popular sandbox survivor game since its launch back in 2018, continuously growing and improving over the years with countless updates. Sandbox survival games are nothing new to mobile platforms and there has been more than enough titles and variations of the sub-genre across both mobile platforms.

Despite of this, Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad remains popular for its mix of features and challenges that ensure active immersion from every player. There is always a plethora of activities to engage in and the variety of objectives and missions available ensures an engaging experience of near-endless possibilities.

Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad does have its share of complex mechanics and features that can appear overwhelming for complete beginners. The initial tutorial session that runs you through the most basic activities is a huge help and the interface is set up to make it very easy to get to where you need to be.

It can take a while to get fully accustomed to all the crafting and production methods but progression is certain especially for players who play actively. If you are in a fit of excitement to become a top class nomad, our Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad guide has everything you need to become one in no time!

1. Understand All The Basics

Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad sets you on a role of a castaway, drifting across an endless ocean on a makeshift raft. Survival is naturally the main goal and as dire and hopeless as that may sound, you are more than capable of sustaining your survival. Your raft will basically serve as your home, housing everything that you need to survive. Beyond that, a constant objective involves performing enhancements and various improvements to your raft, enabling a more convenient lifestyle and augmenting survivability as well.

Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad employs the usual hazards attributable to survival games. There is a constant need for food and water and you also have to keep tabs on your health. Hunger and thirst can lead to health degradation and there is no shortage of enemies that can harm you as well. While you can feel the most secure within your raft, a shark will often be swimming around it. Going into the waters is always a risk and visiting nearby islands also come with its share of threats.

Your survival adventure banks on the idea that what does not kill you makes you stronger, making almost every activity you engage in earn you experience points that lead to higher survivor levels. Higher survivor levels lead to more items that can be crafted, preparing you further for bigger challenges ahead. It may be a surprise as well but Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad actually has a story campaign you can progress in and milestones within it also lead to the availability of additional avenues for growth and progression.

Once you have completed the tutorial session, you will be equipped with the necessary tools you need to obtain the most basic survival needs. The infinite ocean around you is not as empty as you might expect and while most items floating along can be deemed as other people’s trash, each one is very important for a castaway like yourself. Everything you can hook and grab from the sea has some use for you one way or another. Save for the hunger and thirst levels that continue to drop over time, no energy is consumed when it comes to farming for items.

Most of what you can fish off the sea are just basic materials and you can expect that there would be a need for rarer items that are hardly or not at all available from the ocean. This is where you will need to venture into nearby islands and structures. There is an energy system for this but it will not necessarily be consumed for travelling to islands normally.

Energy will be expended, however, if you choose to cut down time and fast travel to any location. The energy you use depends on the distance your row boat travels and that is what you will have to manage with the energy you have available. Energy replenishes as well over time and having no energy will not prevent you from being productive as well.

2. Focus On The Main Quests

Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad leaves players with plenty of activities to engage in early on. While some content may be locked behind certain progression milestones, players enjoy a lot of freedom as to how to go about their survival adventure. There is nothing wrong with going about your adventure as you please but having focused targets and prioritization of objectives can certainly lead to faster progression.

With food and water being constant needs for survival, it is basically a given that ensuring a steady supply of both comes as priority one. Keeping a decent level of both basic needs is simple and easy, leaving you plenty of time to tend to other tasks in-between. Considering the rest of the activities, the next top priority should be focused on progressing through the main quests.

You can access the quests via the organizer icon at the upper left side of the screen. There is an array of quests available but focus should primarily be centered around the main quests as these relate to your overall progression. Main quests are further subdivided into story quests and other quests.

Story quests may take some time to complete one after another, given that some require you to venture out into the surrounding islands. Other quests are the best guiding path towards progression, outlining the items to build and improve within your residential raft.

Following the main quest line is an excellent source of XP and you would want to reach new levels at a rapid rate early on. Some quests also reward you with gold coins, which is a premium currency you will need plenty of. As you build new items and improvements along with reaching new levels, more and more items become available for building and crafting.

The natural impediments relating to progression along the main quests will center around the resources needed. This means that on top of the regular farming and processing of food and water, you also need to take note of the next set of materials you need to obtain and process.

3. Grind On Ad Boosts Early On

Video ads in free mobile games are nothing new and has been around for quite some time. While some players may still be annoyed or distracted by the presence of ads in games, it should be well understood that these ads can be the reason for the game’s continued existence and development. Although there are 5-second ads that pop up whenever you travel to islands, the rest of the video ads you will see are ad boosts. Ad boosts, while not necessary to patronize, can tremendously help in speeding up your progression.

One of the best ad boosts in Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad becomes available upon quest completion. Once you have accomplished a quest objective and ready to claim your rewards, you will be provided with an opportunity to double the rewards you claim and whether it is just XP or XP and coins, it is always worth playing a 15 to 30-second ad for the perks.

Fishing for items is an exciting feature of Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad that just does not get old. Although the variety of items you can obtain out of it are plenty enough, the shop holds an abundance of free stuff that you should always take advantage of. You can visit the shop by clicking on its icon at the upper right side of your screen. There are plenty of tabs to look into, but we especially recommend visiting the free tab regularly.

There are free doubloons (gold coins) to earn by playing a short ad. Then there is a resource box as well to claim once every 24 hours. The last item is where you might spend some time on. The unknown reward section is a lottery crate of sorts that you can take advantage of as often as you want.

The most common rewards consist of materials, which come in handy at any time but excellent gears as well as doubloons can be earned as well. Ads can also help you speed up processing times and serve as alternatives as well to level up skills.

4. Prioritize Enhancing Skills That You Need More

By clicking on the bag icon at the lower right side of your screen, you will not only be presented with the current contents of your inventory, but you will also see the items you currently equip as well as your current stat summary below it. The icon on the upper right side of the player section leads to your current skills, and you will want to spend some time unlocking and improving them early on.

Skills are divided across 3 distinct categories and each one is equally important. These are survival skills, builder skills, and attack skills. Survival skills basically improve the survivor’s performance as far as surviving is concerned and stands as the most basic skills needed to bolster survivability. Builder skills relate to production, crafting, and process completion times. Last but not the least, attack skills improve the survivor’s proficiency with different tools and weapons.

Each set of skills follow a progression line of sorts and some of the skill options become available only after you have unlocked the previous node. Skills can also be levelled up using your gold coins. However, you can always opt to play a video ad instead of spending valuable doubloons. As much as you can sooner or later unlock each skill, you should always consider prioritizing what you need the most.

What we recommend is prioritize survival and builder skills first. While unlocking each available node should be top priority, certain skills will prove more critical for your continued progression. The skills you choose to capitalize on can be a unique set that is different from all other players. Be especially selective when it comes to upgrading attack skills as you will not be utilizing all types of weapons in any given time.

5. Prepare Well Before Exploring

Although developing and improving your raft in tandem with continuously farming for materials within your raft can take hours after hours of fun and excitement already, Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad’s mechanics that let you explore different areas in the map is an important and exciting feature you would probably be raring to jump into as soon as possible.

There are plenty of rare materials that can only be obtained by visiting islands and these materials serve as common requirements for building and crafting. Additionally, players can expect a lot more action stepping off their raft homes as islands are littered with different types of enemies.

Before you decide to leave your raft, there are some preparations you need to tend to first. Having enough food and water in your bag is a basic necessity as there are no guarantees that you will be able to obtain some in your explorations. With very limited inventory space, you should always make it a point to unload some of your items into storage and bring only what you actually need for the trip. Weapons are considered essential but be sure to limit what you bring and not the entirety of your arsenal.

Although you will primarily venture out into available islands in pursuit of the story quests, you will naturally have to revisit each of them later on for exclusive items that can be farmed from them. When you reach this point, be sure to identify first the items you are exploring for. You can tap on each island to check the possible items you can farm from each one. Beyond focusing on the actual targeted loot, be sure to be mindful of the limited inventory space you can carry as well as the storage you have back at home.

As exciting and engaging combat can be, be sure to exercise caution whenever you leave your raft home and venture into any of the islands. Despite being well-prepared, there are random factors that may impact the outcome of each exploration run, not just with the loots you can earn, but with the enemies you may encounter as well. If is best to increase the level of your aggression once you have a solid idea of how battles go, especially considering the health kits and weapons you have with you.

6. Keep Processes Running

A big delimiter that exists in Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad, relative to doing whatever you want, comes in the form of processes taking time. Whether it is collecting water, catching fish, cooking fish, or crafting various materials, each of these processes take time to complete. For free players, only 2 processes can be performed simultaneously so planning is very important to ensure that you will continue to meet your basic needs and at the same time be able to move forward.

One thing to note is that processes lodged count as one per structure. This means that you can queue in as many fishes in the fishing net and at the same time queue in several fishes for cooking. Extra queue slots are unlockable using doubloons but thanks to an unlimited supply of ad boosts, you can easily unlock queue slots for free.

For starters, you may want to queue in your ready supply of water and food. Once you have more than enough, then that would be the time to lodge some crafting needs. Keep in mind that completion times are different per process. This means that careful planning will lead to a more efficient utilization of your structures. Ensure that 2 processes are always active as much as possible. Lodge processes that take a lot more time to complete if you are planning on leaving the raft and going on an adventure or if you are logging off of the game.

7. Choose Wisely Which Items To Keep

Farming for items is a lot of fun in any game and there is never any doubt on that. With basically only time limiting your acquisition of items in Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad, you are bound to be too enticed to keep farming for resources in that your inventory will soon have zero empty spaces for you to place in new items.

Although items save for gears can be stacked in your inventory, there is a limit to it. You only start off with a few slots for both your bag and the chest on your raft. Though you can always go for expansions and create extra chests, it is very important how to manage your limited inventory space at an early time. It is easy to get lost in activities that involve grabbing more items and you should always stay focused on what you need. Items needed to accomplish quest objectives, as an example, should be top priority unless you are short on food and water.

The chests as extra storage space should be considered for items you will certainly need later. By this, we mean that there will be instances when you need to gather several types of materials for building, crafting, or repairing some structures within your raft home. However, some items may require you to venture into islands to farm the remaining resources you need. These are basically the instances when you would want to leave some items behind on your raft.

Some materials, though not immediately necessary, are not as easy to obtain as others. Materials you occasionally have to produce based on other raw materials are examples of these. In contrast, junk and wood, which are basically the easiest items to nab, should remain as your first choice of items to drop in the event that ran out of space to store items. While within the raft, though, there is always an option to just build extra floors and walls using wood instead of throwing them away.

8. Remember To Expand Regularly

Your raft in Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad is your home and the ocean sets no limits as to how huge you want to build it. Wood supplies stand as the basic requirement you need to improve and expand your home so take advantage of the limitless space to keep expanding your territory. Having a bigger raft will enable you to more freely organize your stuff, particularly important structures where you process various items. At the same time, you can set up your raft home in such a way that you will not worry as much when the shark decides to chew on it.

Whether you are on your raft or out venturing into islands, the shark that consistently loiters around can randomly have a bizarre case of munchies and start nibbling at your home. Although you can attack and fend it off whenever you are around, the shark can easily damage your raft, most especially if left alone for a while. In preparation, make sure to never leave any important structure at the edges of your raft. Whenever you can, keep building around what you started on and leave the outermost section of your home as borders in case of a shark attack.

Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad certainly has a lot to offer than what we covered in our guide. We are fairly confident though that the simple tips and strategies we shared will go a long way especially if you apply them at the early part of your journey. If you have spent more hours adventuring within Raft Survival: Ocean Nomad and discovered some nifty tricks and strategies yourself, feel free to share them with us below in the comment area!