You Never Forget Your Many Deaths

[Vhalkyrie]

Disturbing graphic glitch.  

[boshmi]

56 minutes ago, Vhalkyrie said:

Disturbing graphic glitch.  

That's actually slightly horrifying.

[Vhalkyrie]

Day 220: Playing with Matches

Note: This post will be OOC from the perspective of me, the player.

The Matchless day is coming.

And you know what?  I'm excited.

If you remember, a few posts back I mentioned that one of my early Sandbox experiments was attempting to figure out how to survive in a post-match world.  I didn't get to finish that experiment, however, I at least gained useful information that maintaining a permanent fire is not the answer.  The problem is excessive hatchet wear.  I would pretty much have to live on the Desolation Point map in order to keep resupplying hatchets, and that isn't really what I want to do.

Right now, there's only one tool that can be used to make fire without matches, and that's the Magnifying Lens (Mag).  The Mag is dependent on sunny days, which is unpredictable, so I'm taking notes to predict the unpredictability.

The two maps where I have lived the longest are Pleasant Valley (92) and Timberwolf (50).  I didn't take any detailed records on the weather in PV except to note that 8-10 hour blizzards are possible, and blizzards stretching 2-3 days with only short breaks in between are possible.  Weather cycle changes are approximately 4-6 hours - this is totally estimated by empirical observation, so don't shoot me if you find different!

I'm taking weather notes in my game journal because I'm trying to determine what's my approximate probability of having days to use the Mag in a post-match world.  I've recorded conditions, temperature/wind chill, and whether the Mag was usable.  I recorded most of my observations from the safety of the fishing hut where I could pass time in 1 hour increments, test the Mag in the stove, and collect dinner!

A few words about my notes.  In my game, here is how I tell time:

Hours Survived:
15H: Breaking Dawn (13 Hours until Darkness)
22H: Midday (7 Hours left until Darkness)
3H: Dusk (Audio notification) (1 Hours left until Darkness)
5H: Night (10 Hours left until Daylight)

Here's roughly what I found in 7 days of recorded observation approximated:

Day 216: Mag Y - 3 Hours
Day 217: Mag Y - 4 Hours
Day 218: Mag N
Day 219: Mag Y - 2 Hours
Day 220: Mag N
Day 221: Mag N
Day 222: Mag Y - 3 Hours

I am able to use the Mag after breaking dawn, almost right after the sun comes up, during clear weather, but I am not able to use the Mag at Dusk (2 hour til darkness).  About 30 minutes after dusk seems to be the cutoff.

Timberwolf seems to have 1-2 hour weather change cycles.  I haven't collected enough data for any statistical significance yet, but I can already roughly estimate that I can anticipate 2-3 days of no use-able sunlight.  With 1-2 hour weather changes, the probability of 4 or more days of no sun is unlikely.

Fire is required to boil water and cook food.  So that means I need to anticipate 2-3 days of water and food when I go matchless.  Water is easy.  I've already been stashing a large supply of water.  I have even more in the fishing hut.

When I go matchless, I will need to have 2-3 days of cooked food on hand, and then store 2-3 days worth of uncooked food for the next sunny day.

Because I don't have a lot of storage space in the hut, I can't stockpile large quantities of food, so my food is fresh and rotated frequently.  I eat 80% fish and 20% rabbits.  I know lots of people are adamant that rabbit trapping is better than fishing, but I am having trouble with it.  If it wasn't for fishing, I would be starving as my rabbit catches aren't consistent.  If any master trappers have tips, I'd love to hear them.

Another thing that is helpful about the Mountaineer's Hut is the area outside has an enclosed sidewall that is sheltered from winds.  On sunny days with heavy wind, I can still use the Mag.  The little deck area seems to function similarly to the porch at the PV Farmhouse.  It's a safe outdoor zone.

I don't have too much to add about the temperatures because @Drifter Man has already collected excellent data that I refer to often.  

The air temperatures in Timberwolf follows this pattern.  TMW gets all weather types (clear, fog, snow, blizzard, etc), but with no apparent weighting towards any particular one.  PV, on the other hand, is heavily weighted towards severe blowing wind and blizzards.

Also based on @Drifter Man notes about clothing wear, I have altered my bundling up outfits.

Unfortunately, he is absolutely correct - the hat is cheap junk!  It falls apart at an atrocious rate.  So this is basically how I've organized my fashion:

Sleepwear: Wolfskin Coat, Rabbit Mittens.  The wolfskin coat is extremely durable, and the rabbit mittens are incredibly easy to repair.  I sleep with the coat and mittens for 6-8 hours, so I wake up approximately when the message "2 Hours Until Daylight" appears.  According to Drifter Man's temperature data, the coldest point of the night is right before dawn.  In my game, breaking dawn happens at Hour 15 in the status page.  I wake up at hour 13, and check the temperature.  If there's a blizzard, I put on the deerskin boots and pants, then sleep for 2 more hours.  My animal clothing is maintained at 90%-100% condition.  I've never woken up cold or near freezing - unless for some stupid reason I forget to put the coat and mittens on.  That's why my sleep time is 6 hours - that's usually plenty of time to catch any brain farts before I get hypothermia.

Morning Wear: WCoat, RMittens, DBoots, DPants, Scarf, Heavy Wool Sweater, Long Wool Underwear, Wool Socks.  When I go to check my rabbit traps, I wear this.  If no rabbits, then I chop wood and collect sticks.

Fishing Wear: Same as Morning Wear, but with Hat.  Even though it is moth eaten, I can withstand blizzard conditions inside the hut with no fire as long as I am wearing everything.  Since the weather change on TMW is quick, this doesn't last long.  So this is my fishing hat.

Evening Wear: I'm a free bird, baby!  When starting a fire and cooking, it's au naturel and one with nature.  But, this is how I can end up shivering if I forget to put on my sleepwear when the fire goes out.

This clothing juggle allows me to manage most situations without fire to stay warm.  Once I am matchless, my cooking/boiling schedule will be dependent on when the sun comes out.  This means I'll have to perform most tasks in no more than 1 hour bursts so I can jump on the sun when its available.  When skinning rabbits, I start a fire to unfreeze them, then use a torch to carry it back to the hut and cook.  I am able to perform these two tasks with one fire-lighting this way.

I have enough matches remaining to last approximately 90-130 more days.  Note that when I run out of these matches, I won't be completely matchless.  There's a number of matches out in the open that I didn't pick up yet, like at the PV Farmhouse, and there are two containers on the Mountain that I know have matches.  I'm not too worried about it.  The only thing that I'm concerned about is whether I will be homebound and region locked because using the Mag to boil water and cook food while on the road seems sketchy.  My exploration days may be over at that point until bow-drill firemaking comes available, as mentioned on The Roadmap.

[Vhalkyrie]

On 4/7/2016 at 0:21 AM, TheRealNFK said:

I just want to say I'm really enjoying this thread and appreciate all the effort you've made to document your adventures. This is good stuff!

Hey thanks!  Glad you are enjoying it - I'm having fun writing them, too!

On 4/7/2016 at 11:06 PM, hauteecolerider said:

Yup, staging places are important for the summit run here. I thought about how I wanted to do this, and found two caves that worked well for this. Actually, I used four caves, but rotated between them - the first cave for all the supplies I would need for the next week or so, then moved those supplies up to the second cave. Once I had them all moved, then I moved them from 2 to 3. Three was just below the last rope to the summit. Then when I cleared the wreck, I used the cave on the summit to stage all the stuff I wanted to take back down, moved them to 3 in stages. Once I had all of them down to 3, I started moving them from 3 to 2, and so on.

I am planning something similar.  I'm not going to open all the containers at once, however.  During my Pilgrim game, I noted the contents of the containers.  In my Voyager game, it doesn't seem that the contents have changed - only RNG on the quantity of items.  Like when I got 1 firestriker and 5 can openers - GRRR!  So I can target which containers has items that I need, like hatchets or matches.

[Vhalkyrie]

I don't know who owned the bunker before me, but it's no surprise they're no longer around.  Now this is the proper way to supply a bunker for the apocalypse!

[Drifter Man]

19 hours ago, Vhalkyrie said:

The Matchless day is coming.

And you know what?  I'm excited.

I thought you would be  With those frequent weather changes, Timberwolf Mountain can be more suitable for matchless life than other maps. In Mystery Lake there can be several days in a row without sunshine, although not very often. Some time ago I tried to make similar weather notes but I only have three days' worth of records. My hope was that I would be able to predict blizzards and other weather patterns. Unfortunately, weather observation takes too much time and I'm usually quite busy in-game.

How do you recognize light snow from medium snow? It is hard for me to judge this and I've only been able to distignuish two levels of the intensity of snowfall.

You put in a lot of information that is new to me: the limitation of using the lens at dusk, the possibility to use the lens to start a fire in a stove inside a fishing hut, or that you can thaw frozen carcasses with fire. Thanks for this!

[Vhalkyrie]

9 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

My hope was that I would be able to predict blizzards and other weather patterns

I know a little bit about blizzards since I spent so many hours listening to them from the PV Farmhouse, but I'm not sure how much help it would be.  On the PV map, I have seen clear skies with no wind suddenly turn into a howling wind without warning, but I don't recall seeing an abrupt transition for blizzards.  For example, you don't get perfectly clear skies then suddenly blizzard.  I believe that I can predict a blizzard, unfortunately, it's hard to describe.  There is a type of heavy snow with wind that precedes a blizzard, but it doesn't always turn into one.  Sometimes that snowstorm dies out with no blizzard, however, sometimes there is a very subtle change in pitch with the wind.  Whenever that particular snowfall starts, I begin to get worried.  If I hear that change in pitch, I drop excess weight and start running.  Most of the time I am correct and a blizzard soon follows.

From within the Farmhouse itself, a blizzard also has a particular distinctive sound when it flares up into a full blown storm, and again when it starts to die down.  However, that "die down" sound isn't always a guarantee - sometimes it flares back up.  My blizzard prediction is mostly based on intuitive cues from the sound, which isn't easy to translate into words.  When you eventually move to the PV map, I suggest that you listen to the weather as much as the visual, and you'll probably pick it up.  Blizzards happen so often on PV, you'll get lots of practice!

The only weather prediction that I am 100% certain of is if the birds fly directly overhead, you have less than 1 hour until the weather changes.  The PV map is very large, so that's a big red flag to get out of the open.  It doesn't necessarily mean bad weather, but there's no real way to tell.

9 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

How do you recognize light snow from medium snow? It is hard for me to judge this and I've only been able to distignuish two levels of the intensity of snowfall.

That's true.  What I am describing as "medium" snow might just be light snow with heavy wind.

9 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

You put in a lot of information that is new to me: the limitation of using the lens at dusk, the possibility to use the lens to start a fire in a stove inside a fishing hut, or that you can thaw frozen carcasses with fire. Thanks for this!

I'm not sure if the "dusk" thing is specific to the TWM map.  At dusk, the sun kind of sets behind the hills, and I'm not sure if the game physics calculates this as loss of sun intensity for the magnifying lens.  So it might be different on other maps.  But yes, you can absolutely use the lens on the fishing stove!  Glad this helps.  

[Vhalkyrie]

The Sun is the River

In my last info-post I made the following comment: 

On 4/8/2016 at 10:38 AM, Vhalkyrie said:

My exploration days may be over at that point until bow-drill firemaking comes available, as mentioned on The Roadmap.

This has bothered me greatly.  While living on the TWM map, at some point I am going to need to make trips to Desolation Point for hatchets in order to keep my firewood well stocked.  I realized that I made a mistake when setting up my current Sandbox game.

To recap, my goals for this Sandbox are:

1) Permanent habitation in Timberwolf, with occasional supply expeditions on other maps.  Mainly PV and DP.
2) Live as long as possible with no hibernation.
3) Park the character if/when I get bored with routine and wait for new content.
4) Have fun!

I intended for this character to be a backpack drifter that hops around the different maps.  I carry minimalist gear and just reestablish essential supplies in the new area.  Live there a while, then move to the next until I ended up in Timberwolf, which is where I am now.

While the "just living out of one backpack" has worked great to this point, the problem is that the matches I looted on other maps are going orange.  So they aren't wasted, I am trying to turn them into water so that the energy goes to use somehow instead of evaporating.  I only lived on the other maps 20-30 days on average, with the exception of PV at 92 and Timberwolf 50.  Had I known that the match deterioration rate was so rapid, I would have managed my looting differently.  However, I'm stuck with it, so I need to roll with it.

This leaves me with the current dilemma that the magnifying lens is the only renewable fire source, and it's dependant on the sun.  This is extremely problematic for travelling.  If I have to travel to the Desolation Point map to make tools, how am I going to get enough water with dependence on the sun?

I am ignoring firestrikers for the moment.  In my current game, I have only found 3, and these are not renewable tools.  I am focusing only making fire with the magnifying lens.

It turns out a little bit of real world experience might help me out here.  I used to live in the Pacific Northwest in Washington state where I was a member of an outdoor hiking/camping club.  I have been on several 2-3 day backpack trips where we had to haul our supplies and make camp.  Nothing too strenuous like hiking the Apalachian Trail or anything, but it's still very hard work.

I have also been on 2 day hiking trip through the Painted Desert in Arizona.  Desert hiking is brutal because I had to haul all my water, and water adds a LOT of weight.  I had to bring a gallon of water (4 liters) PER DAY.  So a two day camping trip required 2 gallons I HAD to carry.  This was back country national park with NO facilities.  No streams, no ponds, no drinking fountains.

Forest camping, in contrast, is somewhat easier - though calling hauling a 25-30 pound pack for 6-8 hours is tough to describe as "easy".  And don't get me started on the 30kilo/66 pound pack that our game protagonist carries - she is WAY more buff than me!  I have no illusion I could do this in real life - forget it, man.

However, you don't have to prepack your water.  You generally follow streams or rivers, and set up your camp sites near water sources.  All you need to carry is some kind of water filter or purification tablets.  (I'm terribly disappointed at the wasted opportunities for the game purification tablets, but that's another topic).  My current real life water filter weighs only 11 ounces and I can make 40 gallons (150 liters) on one cartridge.

My concern is that when I'm down the last match, traveling to other maps becomes a desert.

And then it occurred to me: The Sun is the River.

Whoa...deep.  

Seriously, though.  With the magnifying lens, I need sun to make water.  When without sun, I am in a desert.

When I move between maps, I need to carry 4 liters of water because I am traveling in a 'desert'.  I have to take it all with me because I can't rely on the Sun to use the magnifying lens in between.  However, once I am at my transition point where I can resupply water, I can afford to wait a couple of days to hunt for food and wait for "The River" to replenish what I take.

That means I am not necessarily region locked, however, I need to make plans fast to correct this situation.  What I need to do is create a large cache of water at my transition points.  When I move to/from Timberwolf/Pleasant Valley, I already have a large supply of water, so this is taken care of.  However, while I still have good matches, I plan to create 40-50 liters of water between Pleasant Valley/Coastal Highway and Coastal Highway/Desolation Point.  While I love the Mystery Lake map, unfortunately, it doesn't have any necessary resources for me to return there.  I already brought all supplies from the Dam to the Farmhouse long ago, so there's no need for me to travel there again.

[hauteecolerider]

Thanks for all your notes and thoughts on living matchless.

I haven't yet reached the point in my Pilgrim game where I have to start worrying about matches, fire and water. Right now my biggest concern is managing my first aid supplies so I always have something on me when I go out . . .

[Vhalkyrie]

I'm getting a crash course in matchless living - lol.  The deterioration rate is extreme, in my opinion.

[Vhalkyrie]

Diet Rabbit: Just 1 Calorie!

 

[nicko]

32 minutes ago, Vhalkyrie said:

Diet Rabbit: Just 1 Calorie!

 

i guess it didn't weight much 0 so lucky you got the 1 calorie?

[Vhalkyrie]

I thought it was funny.    Apparently the rabbit had 451 calories of meat, and I got an off-cut of 1 calorie!

I'm trying to visualize what 1 calorie of rabbit meat looks like.  Barely fish bait!

[Vhalkyrie]

I can't work on prepping my water caches in my long playing game because I'm travelling for work, and I was rather surprised to discover the the Sandbox save games aren't stored in the Steam cloud.  So I had to start a new game to play with on my laptop.  I started in Mystery Lake/Trapper's cabin again because I just love that place.  Got super lucky and got both the rifle and magnifying glass in the cabin!  So this game I am working on match conservation, though this going to be a pretty freeform game for the most part without anything in particular I am trying to do.  I am going to continue my strategy of living mostly with the magnifying glass and few matches, even though I will have access to them.  New game is a pretty safe place to experiment with the techniques.

Experience really is everything.  This is the easiest game I've started to date.  I know exactly what to do, and how to do it.  Already have rabbit mittens, deer pants, deer boots, and wolf coat in record time.  I started the game with 6 bullets.  A bullet under the bed, and a box inside the safe.  I drove deer into wolves, then killed the wolves.  That gave me 4 wolf pelts and 4 deer hides with 4 bullets.  Having the rifle in hand at Day 0 is a huge advantage.

The bear didn't spawn at the Trapper's cabin, which I am greatly relieved.  That means I have access to rabbit meat whenever I want.  I will have to look around to see where the bear is.  I'm hoping that it's at the hunting blind, or Mystery Lake, as those are the safest places to hunt them.  If it's at the Lookout, I'm screwed on this map, and I'll have to go elsewhere.

I'm going to meander around Mystery Lake for a while, then I'll mosey over to another map.

[Drifter Man]

I've made the exact same observations about impeding blizzards as you. I know exactly what you mean by that "prediction" that is hard to describe. It is interesting how our brains are wired to pick up subtle signals that we cannot even put into words. One important exception, though: I watched birds in Mystery Lake and Ravine and couldn't link them to weather. Sometimes they fly overhead and weather changes at that same moment. In other cases nothing happens then or one hour later, the weather stays the same. I will continue observing, however.

Hatchet wear: did you try to collect sticks instead? I burn about 22 sticks per day (on average) to cook meat and boil water and have no need to chop wood. Ravine is a good place to collect sticks, I can get about 70 from there each time. I allow at least 3 days for them to reappear and come for another 70. In addition there are two places at the Train Bridge close to the Dam where you can get insane amounts of sticks (100-150) from a few square meters. Are there places around your home where sticks appear densely enough to be worth collecting?

Rabbits: How many snares do you use at once? I get more consistent results if I place four snares rather than two in one rabbit zone. Usually there are two rabbits caught next morning and often a third one appears while I'm working on the two. My experience can be skewed by the fact that I leave the map after placing the snares.

[hauteecolerider]

I've been hanging out at Trappers for several days now in my Voyager play through. I've been keeping four snares going at the Rabbit Hollow just to the east of the cabin (around the rock pile behind the old barn). I seem to get two to three rabbits daily there, even though I have yet to leave ML. 

Except for the fact that I'm out of cloth scraps, and thus no way to maintain my clothing (mostly the woolen stuff - I already have coat and boots and mitts), I could probably live there indefinitely - without hibernation. I've been picking up sticks on the hills around it. Sometimes I'll go up to Unnamed Pond or even the Murder Cabin to hunt, other times I'll go east to Deadfall Area. 

However, due to the clothing situation, I'm going to have to head up to the Dam. No gun yet, but at least I have a bow and an arrow . . .

[Vhalkyrie]

5 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Rabbits: How many snares do you use at once? I get more consistent results if I place four snares rather than two in one rabbit zone. Usually there are two rabbits caught next morning and often a third one appears while I'm working on the two. My experience can be skewed by the fact that I leave the map after placing the snares.

I think there is just something wrong with the spawns on the Timberwolf map.  I place 4 snares too, and I know that I'm placing them in the right place.  However, after the first catch, the others are messed up.  I don't have this issue when trapping on Mystery Lake.

Yes, I collect sticks, however the spawns on TWM are broken for that too.  I've written a bug on the forums and support said they are looking into it.  I try to reload my game after every sleep save, but it disrupts my flow, so sometimes I don't do it, and I don't collect many sticks. Currently with broken stick spawns, it's not possible to use as primary fuel like other maps.

As for the birds, I'm very confident on the weather change.  However, there are a couple of exceptions.  The birds fly in the morning after dawn, and leave at dusk.  At those points, that doesn't mean weather change, just that night is coming/ending.  The weather changes that happen instantaneously is when the weather changes from bad to good, but weather change from good to something else is about one hour or less. This works consistently enough for me to put faith in it.  I don't have access to my game journals right now, but I'll post in a week or so.

[Vhalkyrie]

4 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

However, due to the clothing situation, I'm going to have to head up to the Dam. No gun yet, but at least I have a bow and an arrow . . .

Have you gone to the hunting blind?  You should be able to snag some deer and a couple of wolves to get out of those cloth clothing.  The hunting blind should be a great place to line up your arrows.

Edit: Oh sorry, I missed the part where you said you already had the coat and boots, etc.  Did you check out Drifter Man's posts about clothing wear?  I've found that maintaining the scarf and heavy sweater are worth keeping, as suggested, and the rest can be scuttled if you're in a bind for cloth.

[hauteecolerider]

1 hour ago, Vhalkyrie said:

Have you gone to the hunting blind?  You should be able to snag some deer and a couple of wolves to get out of those cloth clothing.  The hunting blind should be a great place to line up your arrows.

Edit: Oh sorry, I missed the part where you said you already had the coat and boots, etc.  Did you check out Drifter Man's posts about clothing wear?  I've found that maintaining the scarf and heavy sweater are worth keeping, as suggested, and the rest can be scuttled if you're in a bind for cloth.

Already figured that out in my Pilgrim play through! Julian (my character in that one) is hoarding her heavy wool sweaters, wool socks and scarves! The knit cap is okay, but she could do without it. In my current Voyager play through (just hit 40 days! Yay!) my character SeJin is trying to collect enough deer hides to make a pair of trous so she can lose the jeans. There are plenty of wolf skin and rabbit hide already cured and ready for repairs. There are now one cured deer hide, and four more curing in the Dam. 

Yup, my character finally moved to the Dam. By a stroke of luck, she found a rifle under the bridge, so she was able to one-shot Fluffy coming up the stairs. It was early morning so she could just see the passage from the upper room. 

Things are beginning to look up for SeJin.

Oddly enough, the wolves are not as bad as she thought they were going to be . . .

I'm noticing that the ones that run off are the ones that were previously scared off by near misses or flares. I'm also starting to leave the carcasses partially harvested, so they last longer and keep new ones from respawning . . . 

[Vhalkyrie]

Congrats on 40 days!

[Drifter Man]

19 hours ago, Vhalkyrie said:

As for the birds, I'm very confident on the weather change.  However, there are a couple of exceptions.  The birds fly in the morning after dawn, and leave at dusk.  At those points, that doesn't mean weather change, just that night is coming/ending.  The weather changes that happen instantaneously is when the weather changes from bad to good, but weather change from good to something else is about one hour or less. This works consistently enough for me to put faith in it.  I don't have access to my game journals right now, but I'll post in a week or so.

There's no need, I believe you  It just doesn't seem to work in the Ravine, the only map I spend enough time in. I will continue observing the birds and I will definitely seek shelter when I see them in PV.

[Drifter Man]

17 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Yup, my character finally moved to the Dam.

I regret to say that the bear has already been eaten! But if you are looking for cloth, you should find some in the lockers in the dark room on the right. Feel free to take some if I'm not at home

[Vhalkyrie]

In my laptop game, the bear is at the Lookout.  Boo.  There's no safe shelter there for bear hunting.  I'm about ready to move my stuff from Trapper's to the Camp Office, so I'll check if there's another bear at the fishing hut. I'm not sure if more than one spawns on Mystery Lake, though.

[hauteecolerider]

19 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

I regret to say that the bear has already been eaten! But if you are looking for cloth, you should find some in the lockers in the dark room on the right. Feel free to take some if I'm not at home

Why, thank you very much!

 

3 hours ago, Vhalkyrie said:

In my laptop game, the bear is at the Lookout.  Boo.  There's no safe shelter there for bear hunting.  I'm about ready to move my stuff from Trapper's to the Camp Office, so I'll check if there's another bear at the fishing hut. I'm not sure if more than one spawns on Mystery Lake, though.

In this game, so far I've only seen one bear, and he is at the Forestry Lookout/Clear Cut, too. I haven't yet explored that area. I'm not going to go Bear Hunting here at this point. I think I will try to do so either in PV or in CH. 

Finally explored the Ravine, and oh, it is so beautiful! And a good location for deer hunting too, without worrying about wolves!

[stapeliad]

I died once while making deerskin pants. In the camp office.  Now I know if my numbers start dropping i can press ESC to cancel an action, except for sleeping. (I think we should be able to wake up too)

I have also died of food poisoning from a granola bar, ironically while trying not to starve to death.