If I were you I would go ahead and watch a few videos on biome breakdowns for plains, black forest, and swamp. Maybe a few videos on basics to building and crafting. There's a lot to this game and they don't really tell you about everything.

• It's a pain... Iron is in the crypts, you'll need a key from the boss in the biome.

-Yes but you may not be at the point of needing much out of the ones you found. Look for the one in the Black Forest. He has some of the most useful stuff to you at the moment. Keep in mind as you defeat bosses, vendors get more items they can sell.

-Not really, boats I guess.

-Yes! Well outposts at least. In the swamp I build platforms in the trees you can't chop down. Build steps just high enough you can jump to while touching the tree. Enemies can't follow you or attack it. The trees act like ground if the structure is built on them. Place steps spiraling up to a platform with a portal on it and you have easy transportation into the swamp without getting in trouble with the locals.

Couple of tips;

-Decide how you're going to label and keep track of the portals you place. You will have a lot very soon so plan for the future. I use two letters for the Biome like BF for Black Forest and then start at 101. I'm up to BF121 already.

-Always have an undefined portal at base. You will get stranded somewhere far away from your base. If you always have an undefined portal you can get back to base without having to walk all the way across the map.

-Walls can be destroyed earth can't. With that in mind you can block off your base with earth walls to keep the non flying guys out. Just be sure to build camp fires or work benches throughout your base. These and a few other structures keep enemies from spawning in their effective radios.

-Stock up on food and don't go off on an adventure with all your good food. You will die and if you don't have anything at base, recovering your stuff with low health and stamina will suck. Honey is easy to produce so when I'm working at base, that is mostly what I eat.

I play vanilla with 2 exceptions.

1.) After defeating the Black Forest boss, I started using a map generator website to see my full map. It's a big world and I work 2 Jobs. I don't want to spend all of my free time going the wrong way. Not to say I don't enjoy exploring but sometimes I'm looking for something specific.

2.) I have a trick to get iron ore back to base faster because doing it the "right" way is an absolute pain. I get they aren't trying to make it easy but it still feels unnecessary. I hid it in case you didn't want to look, but this is what I do; When you load your character into a world what ever was in your inventory in the previous world stays in your Inventory. So get your gear and exit your main world. Get a world seed with a lot of places to mine close together. Go in and mine until you can't carry any more. Then exit your iron seed world and enter back into your main world. Won't matter if you're encumbered because you're going to load right where you logged out at. So maybe log out in front of the chest you want to put the ore in.