I always try and fend for myself and become self sufficient...
But after a couple of days, I regain my senses and remember why this game should never be played on a server.
The netcode is beyond horrible, warping and despawning vehicles, server crashed and lost progress, servers being rebooted every couple of hours because of atrocious garbage collection, horde nights in stop motion format and if the server doesn't have mods, it becomes close to impossible to find loot very very quickly etc etc.
It's a shame, because this game is best with company and the skills system has changed the game to multiplayer focus, but when they don't upgrade the backbone, you have to be a serious masochist to play it on a server.
I bought the game in 2013 and all my friends gave up on this game many many years ago...
I go in single player and do a test play every time a new alpha lands, but it gets boring fast alone, I have the most fun with cheats and just using the game as a giant box of legos and doing large elaborate build...