I just survived 71 days!

[Moose]

A strong start is critical to long-term survial. That's my theory at the moment. Getting a solid foundation early in the game will make things much easier later. For me, that was foraging as much as possible early, so I didn't need to worry about anything down the road.

Item degredation in storage is a pain though. Not sure I can rationalize why items would suddenly start degrading just because I "touched" them.

This play through, I believe I found the trappers hut with a few hours of crash landing. I looted that, and dropped everything off in the Camp Office. Then, each day, I would go on a looting run. The Lake Cabins, the Dam, the Dam again, the Logging Camp and Forestry Tower. I looted everything. I looted every corpse, container, and animal I could find. Everything was collected in the Camp Office. The warmest clothing was sorted, and worn. All meat was cooked. Every other ounce of wood went into melting snow/boiling water. Fir wood was reserved for fixing the hatchet, and the rifle. All pre-made foodstuffs were reserved for emergencies and end-of-game.

My general routine was to go shoot an animal (wolves are easier to shoot as they walk right at you, shoot them when they are very close). Skin it with a knife immediately, before it freezes, that seems to reduce wear on the blade. Every day I would forage for wood (not with a hatchet) for an hour. Over time this builds up a good supply of wood. If it didn't work out, I would use a hatchet now and again. So when I did have to kill an animal, I could immediately cook it all. Any left over burn time was devoted to boiling water. Then I would kick back, and sleep. Each 12 hour sleep cycle would be started by eating and drinking until full. Do a minor chore here or there. Then sleep for 12 hours. This would repeat until I was mostly out of fresh meat. Then I would go and shoot another deer, and begin the cycle again.

As the shoot/cook/eat/sleep cycle wore on, my clothes wore down. I would harvest cloth only as needed from the stockpile of unused clothing. I didn't want to burn any extra calories I didn't have to. Likewise, I kept my hatchet use down to a minimum, and only scrapped metal (usually storm lanterns, prybars (once all lockers were opened), extra can-openers) when I had to fix it. I kept my clothing repaired to >90% at all times. The extra warmth helped during extended hunting trips and foraging for wood in the cold.

Despite my schedule, I suffered set-backs. I destroyed my hatchet out of desperation, trying to find Fir wood to fix it. I found 2 rifles, but both were mostly destroyed already. Further, I had a run on the runs, and was out of Antibiotics. One more case of food poisoning would kill me. Without a hatchet, and with a 10% rifle, I went on a scavaging trip around day 28. Amazingly, I found a Prepper's cache! Just in time! I managed to pull lots of gear out of there, including two new hatchets, and Antibiotics. With the new hatchets, I was able to get enough Fir wood to fix the rifle, and keep one hatchet operational.

Despite being very careful with my bullets, I did miss 4-5 shots. But I was very organized with my meat/water/wood cycle. After finding the Prepper's Cache, it was back to hunting/cooking/boiling water and findiing wood in the meantime.

Regardless of how well organized you are, eventually, you run of bullets. At that point, I had be careful with how I expended my calories. I closely monitored how much wood I had, how much water I had, and how much food I had. Pretty much I just ate/drank/slept. When the meat ran out, I started eating all the canned goods, just to keep going. Finally, with the food gone, I just had to stay in bed and drink water every 12 hours.

Finally, with 2% health left, I celebrated. I grabbed every storm lantern I had left, and every flare, and lit them all up around the house, a big lightshow inside. I drank my last drink. 1 litre of water remaining. And went to sleep one last time. 71 days of survival.

[Sioux]

Nice story, good tips and a beautifull ending. Lighting all your flares and lanterns, drinking your last drink and then go to sleep; never to wake up again. I almost cried.

[indianajonas]

I have goose pimples right now. Epic end.

This is why I love The Long Dark so much. Thanks for sharing your story with the community.