It's important to note that the yellow and red teas are relatively simple to make, since they're commonplace in the starter forest biome; the yellow one lets you be a bit more risky with the food, but the red one gives you the digestion buff, which means food and water go down more slowly, which is better overall in the beginning. You won't really feel secure until you have at least one dew collector with the first two mods; you'll feel really secure with two such collectors, but THEN it's important to note that the collectors, as well as the fires that purify and make the teas, create "heat", which can cause screamers to spawn which can potentially overwhelm an unprepared player. I helped to avoid that by making sure both my collectors were in different locations, my second at my horde base. I also made sure that either the campfire or one of my other manufacturing devices was active at any given time, not both, because too many would jump the heat threshold. Ideally, if you need all this stuff active, you set it all up at once, then go do missions while everything's working, that way the heat no longer matters, and you come home to everything completed. Honestly, hydration's the lesser of two concerns, because food is more complicated because sustainable production requires farming, which is more problematic unless you spend skill points and get the armor that makes it profitable.
It's important to note that the yellow and red teas are relatively simple to make, since they're commonplace in the starter forest biome; the yellow one lets you be a bit more risky with the food, but the red one gives you the digestion buff, which means food and water go down more slowly, which is better overall in the beginning.
You won't really feel secure until you have at least one dew collector with the first two mods; you'll feel really secure with two such collectors, but THEN it's important to note that the collectors, as well as the fires that purify and make the teas, create "heat", which can cause screamers to spawn which can potentially overwhelm an unprepared player. I helped to avoid that by making sure both my collectors were in different locations, my second at my horde base. I also made sure that either the campfire or one of my other manufacturing devices was active at any given time, not both, because too many would jump the heat threshold.
Ideally, if you need all this stuff active, you set it all up at once, then go do missions while everything's working, that way the heat no longer matters, and you come home to everything completed.
Honestly, hydration's the lesser of two concerns, because food is more complicated because sustainable production requires farming, which is more problematic unless you spend skill points and get the armor that makes it profitable.