First things first, what is a "panic room"? A panic room is a collection of walls that are built with the express intent of protecting the player from mob attacks - the most common of these being the cyclic hound attacks that get gradually more intense as the game progresses. A very handy table that shows the relationship of days to hound attacks can be found at: Hound Attacks. A good panic room will easily defend against the likes of the Hounds, but what about other mobs? Well, its not a very likely scenario that a panic room will be needed to defend against Spiders or Spider Queens (most folks set up their camps in a safe area, out of the reach of spiders), however in this game any scenario is possible. What about extreme mobs like the Deerclops? In the early game it is very hard to prepare for an attack like this, however it is not impossible. The rest of this guide will focus on how to design and build your "safe house".

The first thing a player must do before even considering anything else is collect the necessary materials. For a beginner player in an early game world, this shouldn't be very difficult as it requires one simple resource: Rocks. "Why rocks" one might ask? Because rocks create the only non-flammable wall structure in the game, the Stone Wall. After the player has survived the first two hound attacks, there is a chance of Fire Hounds spawning - and in that scenario, Hay Walls and Wooden Walls just aren't going to cut it. In fact, it could quickly turn your lovely panic room into a burning wall of death. Fire hounds will burst into flames upon dying, and will burn everything near them down when they go.

So, while running around in the first few days of gameplay and collecting the necessities for ones base, it is very likely that a Rockyland biome was discovered (and probably bypassed for more important things - aside from collecting the first 12 rocks for a firepit). Its much easier to accomplish this in the early days when the hound waves come at a less frantic pace, so clear your inventory, build several picks, pack some food for the voyage (and extra Flint and Twigs for tools) and head to the Rockyland. The goal for an early game panic room is to think small, but stout - you'll want to collect a little over 120 rocks to make it happen. This may seem like a lot, but you will be building a small room with very thick walls (more on this later).

Once enough rocks have been collected, get to work refining all of them into Cut Stone, and then go into Structures and build them all into Stone Walls.

Now comes the big question - "Where the heck do I put this thing???" Good placement of a panic room should keep it far enough away from base camp resources such as Twigs, relocated Grass Tufts and Berry Bushes. It should also be close enough to get to in a hurry if the attack sound starts playing. At its shortest interval, the hound announcement will play for 30 seconds before they spawn and terrorize the player. So keeping the panic room location within 20 seconds of the base is ideal (giving time to equip armor, helmet and weapon as well). It can serve a player well to install the panic room in an orientation that allows a nearby road to run right into it, allowing for more preparation time, and less running frantically time.

Now that a good location has been determined, the actual structure can go up. For an early game build, a large room is not always necessary as it can consume a lot of time mining rocks to build. Also, without Tooth traps or Bee Mines for protection, the hounds can quickly destroy a larger structure without much effort, and leaving the player susceptible to attack from multiple directions. With that said, a small structure is fine to start out with. The goal of the early panic room is to simply organize the attack better, so that the player is not overwhelmed. The design should be include a triple thick wall of defense all the way around. Why 3 walls thick? Because the hounds will be able to attack and injure the player through 2 layers of stone wall. The third layer keeps them from reaching through with their long bite angle. The entrance is not very long, but is narrow - this is what will "funnel" the attackers into formation for one-on-one combat, rather than being overwhelmed by multiple attackers at once. Take a look at the picture on the right. The room is built at the end of a road, the walls are thick enough to prevent damages from side or back attacks, and there is a Fire Pit and Chests there for night attacks. It's small, but does the job it needs to very well.