Tips for new survivors

[Doc Feral]

It's a videogame, so the best weapon is the hatchet. It deals the more damage, and the wound is always fatal, while I've seen wolves attacking me again after being knifed.

Wolf coat is easier to obtain and to repair. Both are supposed to have a chance to scare off wolves. Bear coat is heavier, warmer, gives more protection, probably scarier, but good luck repairing it.

[Jacksy]

7 hours ago, Doc Feral said:

It's a videogame, so the best weapon is the hatchet. It deals the more damage, and the wound is always fatal, while I've seen wolves attacking me again after being knifed.

Wolf coat is easier to obtain and to repair. Both are supposed to have a chance to scare off wolves. Bear coat is heavier, warmer, gives more protection, probably scarier, but good luck repairing it.

Think i will convert my moose coat in to the moose satchel then.

[Doc Feral]

If you let your 6 years old son play don't watch too closely. My son was thrashing the mouse so wildly I almist threw up from looking at the screen...

[stratvox]

On 5/5/2018 at 2:01 PM, Jacksy said:

Think i will convert my moose coat in to the moose satchel then.

The moose cloak is awesome on TWM where shelter is hard to find; makes it take much longer to get wet to frozen clothing and is a real life saver. The moose satchel is also extremely awesome there because of all the rope climbs. With the new region coming with no shelters at all the moose cloak will be key to surviving when the weather turns nasty.

[cekivi]

Welcome to the forums @GamerPS and @Jacksy

[Doc Feral]

When you're in horrible places such as Forlorn Muskeg don’t be surprised when a crack in the ice appears under your feet. You slip out of your depth and out of your mind with your fear flowing out behind you as you claw the thin ice. And apart from awesome song quotes I was about to say you CAN'T play tough thinking that  taking a dive or two in freezing water is not so bad if only you can reach the other shore and light a pyre. When you get out of water you go BACKWARDS. No matter how many times you try, you won't make it through by swimming. Thin ice can't be crossed.

[Naia]

Stones are excellent when hunting deer.

 

( sorry for reposting, but no edit option )

Edited May 24, 2018 by Naia

[cekivi]

Welcome to the forums @Naia  

[TheEldritchGod]

Oh cool. A thread to put my Tips and Tricks Videos!

Sleeping, Healing & Cabin Fever

Enjoy.

[Klobberthon]

Spotted this on a reddit post and thought I'd share it here.

It is best to store all food items outside with the exceptions listed below that actually decay faster outdoors.  The interesting bit is to remember this list as "poor man's surf and turf"  

Sardines (surf)

Pork and Beans (turf)

Sodas (gotta have something to drink with your meal!)

Pinnacle Peaches (dessert)

**You can store tea, water, coffee, salty crackers and cat tail stalks anywhere you like as they do not decay**

[Krait]

Probably mentioned, sorry if that's the case!

To get fire starting skill up I used to use a mag lens and wait for sunshine..

Get in a cave while it's sunny, have 100+ sticks in a corpse or backpack (or on the floor) .. and start 1 stick fires at 3 campfires.

I still use that 'technique' (if I'm lucky to find a lens..)

..T'was a sunny day, truth be told.. then the weather changed.. surprise!

Cave I'm talking about is the one at ML, near Western Entrance (Doesn't have a name?)

I was so close to getting to lvl 5 when the sun disappeared

Lightbulb appeared.. Gather loads of wood, make 4(!)  fires in the cavern; One to use all the firewood to let it going for 2 days if needed.

Have your bedroll, food (fishing huts nearby) and sleep at the back of the cave if needed.

Take torches from the one long lasting fire to start the other 3 fires.

Even with a 21% torch you can start 6 fires.

Still think a mag lens is a blessing..

[Dan_]

On 19/06/2018 at 5:19 PM, Klobberthon said:

**You can store tea, water, coffee, salty crackers and cat tail stalks anywhere you like as they do not decay**

Great advice there, I'll just add that both tea and coffee only stop decaying when cooked. That said, coffee tins decay at the rate of 1% to each five days in interloper and tea is even more durable, you can leave them for a long time and they'll still be good. 

[Pisces0314]

Got a firearm but missed your shots when trying to kill wolves charging towards you? To ensure enough time for lining up a good headshot, you may want to leave a piece of meat (whatever kind) in your backpack all the time. Every time hearing a bark, simply press the drop decoy key ("3" for me) and step back a bit from the wolf. The meat you dropped distracts the wolf and it won't pose any threat on you immediately. Shoot the wolf before he eat your dropped meat so you can both eliminate the wolf from the area and reuse the meat as a decoy. For the meat, it can either be fresh or cooked. Be aware that cooked or ruined meat can still distract a wolf but will make it charges towards you after inspecting the decoy. The best choice would be cooked meat. As its scent is smaller. Besides, to reduce the weight of the decoy (cooked), simply eat it but stop the action when it is halfway done by pressing "esc". Do this for a few times until it weights about 0.1 kg.

Edited July 6, 2018 by Pisces0314

[Doc Feral]

If you play at stalker or higher level (or the highest in Wintermute) and you are chopping up a wolf or bear for food make the largest pieces available. Yes, I've said it. The risk of parasites is based on the number of pieces you eat, not the weight. So you'd better eat a big chunk instead of two or three munchies. On the other hand, for the purpose of harvesting and kitchen practice you'd better make the tiniest slices you can of deer, moose and rabbit And while meat is cooking, if you're in the open with a big store of sticks and tinder, you should pull torches from the fire and light some single-stick fires around you. Go on like this, pulling more torches and re-lighting fires, you'll rack up experience for fire without using matches.

And remember there's no skill advancement in Wintermute!

Edited July 9, 2018 by Doc Feral

[Krait]

If you're a new player setting up base at the PV farmhouse (..wait, what?) you store your meat outside, as one does. If there's a blizzard (...) and you want to get some sleep with a full stomach you have few choices: Take off your clothes and sing and dance in -70C while getting your cooked (hopefully) steak!

Or you can 'store' meat on the porch, enjoy the blizzard's sound and just be in awe while safe! (Don't get nekkid on the porch, please..)

I actually didn't know that meat stored at the porch has the same decay rate as meat stored outside proper, live and learn. (Maybe it's not the same but decay is very low for sure!)

Edited July 18, 2018 by Krait

[Maikleeps]

On 18.7.2018 at 2:52 PM, Krait said:

I actually didn't know that meat stored at the porch has the same decay rate as meat stored outside proper, live and learn. (Maybe it's not the same but decay is very low for sure!)

Can I store cooked meat in a container that is outside and have the benefit of a much lower decay rate?It would only make sense. Do you know this for certain?

[Krait]

On 24-7-2018 at 1:22 PM, Maikleeps said:

Can I store cooked meat in a container that is outside and have the benefit of a much lower decay rate?It would only make sense. Do you know this for certain?

(Bit late, sorry!)

Not certain about a container.. can test it on a corpse outside ML CO (bit gross..)

Or store food in the trunk of the car outside the PV farmhouse?

I can test it, or you can test it or we all can test it!

[MrWolf]

I recently tested this in Desolation Point.  I had two pieces of cooked bear meat, same weight, at 80%.  I put one piece in one of the lockers beneath the outside stairs in Hibernia and put the other piece in the snow next to the locker.  I checked on them every few days or so, until they were down around 20%.  Both pieces decayed the same amount every time I checked. 

Edited August 14, 2018 by MrWolf

[peteloud]

When I started playing TLD I hardly ever used the radial menu. I hadn't even bothered to check it out to see what it did. After several hundred games days I needed to check it out about making snow holes and became a little familiar with it.  Only a few days ago, with well over 1,000 games days completed, I examined it in more detail again.  I now find that dropping decoy food for an attacking wolf makes the game much easier.

 

So if you are new to TLD make sure that you are familiar with, and use, the radial menu.

[ThePancakeLady]

1 hour ago, Hawk said:

 

How often in real life do you use your own radial menu?

How often in real life do you press a hotkey to drop something or pick it up? Or for anything "typical"? 

*presses 1 to look inside my purse*
**presses 2 to take out wallet**
***presses 3 to eat Pancakes I bought after pressing 6 to pay the waitress at IHOP***

[ThePancakeLady]

It's a very subjective thing @Hawk. If you are a PC gamer only, and only use kb/m... radial menus are foreign. If you are a console gamer, and are used to controllers, switching to PC gaming used to be foreign, and difficult to get used to. Now, modern times, we can play PC games with a kb/m set-up, and controller set-up, and mixed kb/m + controller set-up, VR alone, VR + kb/m, VR + controller...

It is an option, and obviously, not a "must" use. You can play using hotkeys and mouse clicks in UI's only, if you like. Others can use the radial if they prefer. Some of us will use both. I just find making overly dramatic statements about something that is optional, as I feel you did, is a bit silly. Don't use it, if that suits you. That should be fine with everyone else. Roll back to an earlier version, fine, But don;t pester Tech if you do roll back and have bugs. They have enough to deal with right now with the current version, and getting the redux episodes of Wintermute, and Episode 3 (finally) shipped to us, in *hopefully* good, working order. Play older versions at your own risk, using whatever input method you prefer.

 

It is a game. It isn't going to "play like reality". If you want that, go crash a plane in the far North-west part of Canada, without appropriate clothing or supplies, and make sure you make arrangements for a fictional geomagnetic disaster to take place, really.  Using in-game "reality" as a reason why the radial menu is bad is,again, IMHO, a silly remark. It may be more realistic than many games, but it is still a game. Not real life. 

1 hour ago, Hawk said:

...

The radial menu, however, is just a little out of reality for a game that plays more like reality than a lot of games, IMHO.

 

[ajb1978]

I think it's moderately well-known now that you can heat coffee and tea by leaving it near a campfire.  However in Story Mode, you can take advantage of the permafires in Grey Mother's house, or Jeremiah's cabin to keep them warm all the time.  Simply drop your coffee and tea near the fire, and just...leave it there.  Mouse over the ones farther away from the fire, and if any are outside the heat radius, keep picking them up and dropping them until they all fall within the heat radius.  They will not boil dry since they aren't being cooked, and by storing them this way, you can have a nice hot beverage on-demand.  It's the Keurig of the quiet apocalypse.

[Gaudia Certaminis]

Don't eat any poor quality food (i.e. with a low % score) unless you have some antibiotics on you. I ate a sketchy energy bar (around 22%) and got food poisoning. I thought I could sleep it off, but died. You need to take an antibiotic (or drink Reishi tea) and then have 6 to 10 hours sleep for a cure.

[Gaudia Certaminis]

You need a tool of some kind to break open the ice holes inside fishing huts (I first thought these might just 'melt' if you lit a stove, but no). You can use a knife or hatchet, but these get damaged by the ice. If you have one, use a pry bar to break open ice holes.

[Doc Feral]

If you have a choice, when using your bow always have your targets to your left. Nothing political, but the character's right hand blocks a significant part of your field of vision.