To get water in Sons of the Forest you need a water pot to purify it. You can get that easily from most campsites on the map and it avoids getting sick as a result of drinking straight from the source. The pot is basically the essential thing to find when you start playing to help with water, and is even more useful than the flask.
There's a double edged sword here as getting sick will reduce your health and being dehydrated will diminish your stamina. So staying hydrated without making yourself ill is important in Sons of the Forest easier.
Fortunately, there's plenty of options you can rely on and I'm going to explain them all here. So read on to find out how to get water in Sons of the Forest, the cooking pot,the flask and more.
How to get Water in Sons of the Forest
There's several ways to get water in Sons of the Forest:
- Eating certain plants, especially berries
- Collecting and boiling water from streams and lakes (but not the sea)
- Building a water collector
- Drinking energy drinks
For the most part you'll be able to stave off your thirst by hoovering up all the berries and plants you can find. It'll take a little time but it's a perfectly practical way to stay alive while you look for the cooking pot. That should be your priority over the flask initially, as it lets you collect water, purify it and carry it around in your inventory. In fact the pot is so useful that you almost don't need the flask anymore as you'll only be filling it from the pot you take everywhere anyway. The flask is useful to collect water from the rain catcher though, and the bunker you get it from is an essential location anyway. So let's take a look at everything you need to get clean water.
Where to find the cooking pot in Sons of the Forest
You should find the Son of the Forest cooking pot at any modern campsite - so the abandoned ones with camping tents and supply crates, as opposed to the cannibal bases. They're scattered far and wide so you should be able to stumble on one easily enough but the map above will help you zero in. I'm hazarding a guess that you may well find one at the first camp you visit, as the pot is one of the first gear items I've found when playing 1.0.
Once you have the pot you can equip it at streams and ponds to get a prompt to scoop up water. You can then take that to a fire and use the crafting cog that appears when you interact with it to boil water. You can then transfer that to the flask once done, although it's easier to just carry the pot around in your inventory and not ask too many questions about weight or leakage.
Sons of the Forest Water Flask location
Another way to store water on you, is to use the flask. This is actually very easy to find, once you know where to look:
- Use your GPS map to find the marked point of interest shown above. This is the Entertainment Bunker entrance, although can can't access the inner area until you have one of the Sons of the Forest keycards.
- Here you'll find a little electric golf cart, overgrown with plants, and a stone path to a cave entrance going underground.
- Squeeze through the gap and follow the tunnel into a room where you'll find a 3D Printer. It requires Resin to use and a small, respawning supply should be on the shelves near by.
- Use the laptop next to the printer to cycle through the options to the flask, then print it.
The flask will start empty, but just go to a water source with it equipped, and interact to fill it. Remember, unless you use a clean source like boiled water from the pot, or rain water from a collector, you'll get sick drinking it.
Sons of the Forest water collector
A Water Collector in Sons of the Forest, also known as a Rain Catcher, is simply made with a Turtle Shell and sixteen sticks, with the blueprints in your manual book. To make it, the sticks are arranged in a supporting grid, with the shell resting on top, upside down, to catch the rain.
Shells are obtained from killing turtles that spawn at the beach. Only these will give you a shell, with the inland freshwater turtle only providing meat. Once you have the shell, placing it upside down on the supporting grid will make a Rain Catcher.
Rain Catchers fill up over time, but obviously only when it's raining, making these best suited for your permanent base. You'll need the weather to play along, so try setting up a few of these, if you can find the shells, for the maximum amount of fresh water harvested each time.
Finding water
Drinkable water is obtained from almost all streams and lakes but it will make you sick - reducing your health when drunk - until boiled in the pot. For obvious reasons as well do not drink seawater! If you don't naturally run across some water as you explore, simply pull out your GPS map and look for any blue patches. To actually collect water, face it with the pot or flask equipped, and interact when the icon comes up.
Water-restoring food in Sons of the Forest
Almost all berries, as well as plants like Yarrow, will quench your thirst a little when eaten. It can take a little while to hoover up enough to fill your meter but not that long. There's certainly no danger of ever being thirsty when you can just eat your way out of trouble. If in doubt just eat every plant you can find with a green icon and note which ones bump your thirst levels.
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