Bags vs Beds
Both set a respawn point; the difference is the cooldown after you use one.
- Sleeping Bag: 30 Cloth, crafts instantly, places on most flat surfaces. Cooldown roughly 5 minutes before you can spawn on it again. Cheap, portable, disposable.
- Bed: 100 Cloth + 50 Wood, a few seconds to craft, must sit on a foundation. Cooldown roughly 2 minutes -- less than half the bag's wait.
That shorter cooldown is the whole reason to upgrade. Use bags early and as backups; switch your MAIN spawns to beds as soon as you can afford the wood/cloth, because in a fight a 2-minute re-entry vs a 5-minute one decides whether you hold your base. (Exact timers vary on modded servers.)
The Cooldown Reset Rule
The single mechanic that breaks raid-train respawns for new groups: spawning on a bag puts every OTHER bag of yours within roughly 50-100 m onto cooldown at the same time. Beds don't reset each other this way.
The classic mistake is clustering three bags behind your raid target "so we always have a spawn" -- the first death burns the cooldown on all three at once, and your next two deaths have nothing ready. The fix is spacing: place raid bags 60-80 m apart so each is an INDEPENDENT spawn on its own timer. Three well-spaced bags give you three staggered re-entries instead of one shared one. Same idea inside a base -- spread spawn points across rooms, don't pile them in one spot.
Placement & Gifting
Bags aren't locked to you -- you can assign one to any player who's logged in since the wipe. Look down at a bag you own, hold E for its menu, and pick the player.
The timing tip that saves teammates a beach run: a bag's respawn timer starts when it's PLACED, not when it's gifted. So if friends are about to log on, drop a bag for them now and gift it once they're online -- the cooldown has already ticked away and they spawn straight into the base instead of waiting out a fresh 5 minutes. For a clan, give every member at least one bed, spread across multiple rooms, and call out spawn locations during a fight so you cycle re-entries instead of all landing in the same camped doorway.
Defending & Destroying Spawns
Spawn points are a top raid target on both sides:
- Bags are fragile -- a Wooden Spear kills one fast; a bed is tankier (~75 hatchet hits). Raiders hunt and smash your bags immediately to stop your comeback, so protect spawns more carefully than your furnace room and keep redundant bags in several spots so at least one survives an offline raid.
- Sweep enemy bags: any hostile bag placed inside YOUR Tool Cupboard range gets destroyed when you sweep with a Hammer -- check your base for planted enemy spawns after a raid attempt.
- Reclaim your own: hold a Hammer and press E to pick up a bag you own (not a teammate's) -- but you CAN'T pick one up within ~4 minutes of spawning on it.
If every bag you own is on cooldown or destroyed, the respawn screen drops you on a random beach -- which is exactly the state raiders are trying to force.
Covert Stash Bags & Decay
Two veteran tricks built on the same item:
- Covert raid spawn: place a bag near your target, then bury it under terrain, a rock, or a single foundation pillar so it's invisible from above. A hidden bag in a cave or hillside gives you a permanent, repeated re-entry at the raid -- caves are best because the dark and verticality beat sweep-checks.
- Recovery bag: drop one deep in a cave or dense forest where no roamer looks. After a bad death you respawn there with just rocks and a torch, sneak home, and reclaim your loot.
Decay catch: a bag placed OUTSIDE your Tool Cupboard range decays completely in about 36 hours. Spawning on it resets that timer -- so periodically respawn on your stash bags to keep them alive, or they'll quietly vanish right when you need them.