Bears in Mystery Lake

[Hesha]

Where are the bear caves in Mystery lake? I am aware of the one at the lake (south-east corner) and the one nearby the trapper's homestead/max's last stand... but neither have bones in them in this game. Since the game ate one of my bear skins I obtained in Broken Railroad, I need another one to finally make that coat... and then two more to make the bedroll, but I'll probably have to travel to CH or PV for that...

[TROY]

Occasionally a bear spawns in the clear cut area, and one can sometimes be found near unnamed pond, in addition to the two places you've mentioned. Bear sitings are fairly rare in ML. 

[Hesha]

Thank you! Do bears respawn, btw? I killed the one living in the cave underneath the Hunting Lodge in BR and the one in FM near the exit to ML...

[RossBondReturns]

12 minutes ago, Hesha said:

Thank you! Do bears respawn, btw? I killed the one living in the cave underneath the Hunting Lodge in BR and the one in FM near the exit to ML...

Yes they should eventually.

[TROY]

Bears do respawn but keep in mind that the spawns aren't as static as wolves. If there's a bear spawned at the lake, there may only be one other, or none, in that region. This is especially true in ML. So a bear "respawning" may not be in the same location.  

[Hesha]

So do I understand you correctly,

...that there will always be at least one bear in ML, unless you kill it, in which case you have to wait for it to respawn?

...that there can be a bear, even if none of the bear caves on the map are "active", i.e. have bones?

...that I am correct in that there are only two bear caves in ML?

[Stormwolf1O1]

5 hours ago, Hesha said:

So do I understand you correctly,

...that there will always be at least one bear in ML, unless you kill it, in which case you have to wait for it to respawn?

...that there can be a bear, even if none of the bear caves on the map are "active", i.e. have bones?

...that I am correct in that there are only two bear caves in ML?

Indeed, there are only two bear caves in ML. And as far as I know, the cave doesn't have to have those weird yellow bones for it to be a bear cave.

Here's a complete map of ML which I use, as opposed to all other fan-created maps: https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/intothelongdark/images/2/21/Mystery_Lake_map_by_whiteberry-toarda.png/revision/latest?cb=20151231022838

[Carbon]

 If one does look at the spoiler map above, the two bear caves are there and accurate (though the overall map is not since the FC update). The bears will re-spawn in the same areas but take quite a while to do so; I have never seen a bear spawn outside of it's designated map location.

 Predators have pathing and zones that they will exclusively follow/stay in until something anomalous happens. Injuring them will send them into a tizzy and have them running in the most unlikely (and impossible) locations and they can be led quite far from their paths by the player remaining visible to them and 'luring' them away (use the fishing huts on ML for this purpose). Additionally, when a wolf is hunting another animal, they both may venture far from this path. Just as they have a range of vision (aggro range), they also have a range of movement within a location which can be exploited. Thus, wolves can simply be walked away from; when you leave their zone and if they aren't charging but just following, they will simply turn around when you leave their area.

 Coding an actor's (bear, wolf, deer, rabbit) pathing on a map is done somewhat manually; a bear isn't programed to go all over a map until somehow forced. As with 'bots' in other games, if you look at their paths in a map editor you will see that they actually have quite a limited set of options for roaming naturally that doesn't change. In a given region, you will always find animal X in area X. You will never open the door to the camp office have have a wolf in the area directly in front of it, for example, as they are not coded to go there on their own. They can be made to go there, but will not venture there without motivation.

 So, in ML, there are 2 bears and they have very predictable paths. This says nothing of the frequency with which they will make their full circuit, but they will be on that path at some point, somewhere.

[Hesha]

So, it turns out the reason why I couldn't find any bears in ML was the old "invisible bear" bug. He was at the Unnamed Pond, but invisible, so I didn't spot him at first. Only becomes visible when it attacks or flees.

Thank you for the map, Stormwolf, but as Carbon mentioned, it is no longer fully accurate (although the cache locations still seem to be about correct).

[JAFO]

On 8/25/2017 at 10:11 AM, Carbon said:

If one does look at the spoiler map above, the two bear caves are there and accurate (though the overall map is not since the FC update).

It's also worth noting that in later versions of her maps, Whiteberry removed the animal spawn locations, as they also had proven to be no longer completely accurate.. (even before FC was released)

[Mroz4k]

This is based on my experience:
When the game is generated, the animals will be chosen to spawn in certain places. For example, one game can have a bear in that lake cave in ML, and another one doesnt have to have them there. The same with the wolves in a Train derailment, for example - there may be some there but there might not be any in there. Some locations have a 100% chance of spawning certain animals in a location - for example deer at the plains before Trappers, or wolves around gas station in Coastal.
Now, bear "spawns" are chosen when the game generates. Whenever a bear spawns, it will spawn the "yellow bones" in his den, and that is where you will always find a bear, unless you kill it. And once you kill it, in a long time after, you will find another bear in this same location, again.

However, if no bear spawned in the lake cave in your game, there will be no bones by that cave, and you will never find a bear in that area in this specific game you play. The same can be said for all animals - which means that as soon as you learn the locations of animals, you can better chose safer routes to travel by avoiding the areas which you know have the predators in.

These are the bear spawns I am aware of in Mystery Lake:
- Cave by the lake,
- little ledge by the Max´s last stand, right next to the rabbit patch that is in there. This is no real cave, just a little stone ledge that the bear made den under. Bones will lie there if there is one, and it patrols mostly that area with rabbits.
- Cave above the unnamed pond. There is a real cave there. The bear will cross down and patrol the pond and the areas next to it.
- a little ledge on the left from the bridge next to the Dam. This bear will patrol the end of the bridge and the river area underneath it. But I have seen it wander all the way to where the little "lake" on the right of the bridge is.
- another ledge den somewhere at the river entrance at the lake, on the way to Alans cave. It is somewhere in the meandr of the river - you can find the bear patroling the entrance around the river and the edge of the lake.
- another ledge den around the clearcut area, right below the old ruined forestry lookout. Never found this one but I suspect it is somewhere where the "lone rock" is, because I saw this bear patrol the meadows and road in the direction of Trailer town as well.

[Carbon]

2 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

These are the bear spawns I am aware of in Mystery Lake:
- Cave by the lake,
- little ledge by the Max´s last stand, right next to the rabbit patch that is in there. This is no real cave, just a little stone ledge that the bear made den under. Bones will lie there if there is one, and it patrols mostly that area with rabbits.
- Cave above the unnamed pond. There is a real cave there. The bear will cross down and patrol the pond and the areas next to it.
- a little ledge on the left from the bridge next to the Dam. This bear will patrol the end of the bridge and the river area underneath it. But I have seen it wander all the way to where the little "lake" on the right of the bridge is.
- another ledge den somewhere at the river entrance at the lake, on the way to Alans cave. It is somewhere in the meandr of the river - you can find the bear patroling the entrance around the river and the edge of the lake.
- another ledge den around the clearcut area, right below the old ruined forestry lookout. Never found this one but I suspect it is somewhere where the "lone rock" is, because I saw this bear patrol the meadows and road in the direction of Trailer town as well.

 Are these spawns or just sightings? I mean, actual spawn locations are very hard to know with certainty unless you happen to be there when one beams in, but sightings on their circuits are more likely.

 I have never seen a bear near the dam, Clearcut nor on Winding River. Sure, only 350 hours, but still...never. The lake and in the Max's LS area extending to Unnamed Pond are common places for sightings.

[Mroz4k]

2 minutes ago, Carbon said:

 Are these spawns or just sightings? I mean, actual spawn locations are very hard to know with certainty unless you happen to be there when one beams in, but sightings on their circuits are more likely.

 I have never seen a bear near the dam, Clearcut nor on Winding River. Sure, only 350 hours, but still...never. The lake and in the Max's LS area extending to Unnamed Pond are common places for sightings.

Like I said, the only one I have never found for sure was the Clearcut, but I found a ledge (on a map spawn with no bears in that area, tho) where I can suspect the bear den could spawn, on that "lone spike" stone.

I wasnt talking about the Winding river, which is the transition zone from Dam to PV, I was talking about the river that connects the Dam and the "Mystery lake". The bear frequently roams somewhere below where the rope is - but the lair I found somewhere on the river in the past. The "river access" is the area called, I think. But yea, these are spawns - I have always managed to find the bones there, othervise I would simply assume it is a bear that wandered away.

You can locate the bear "spawn" area by discovering the bones in their lair. That is a place where you shouldnt sleep, or really mess around in - that is where the bear often circulates. If there are no bones, there is no bear. If there are bones, it is somewhere in the vicinity. But bears can sometimes wander off quite a far away, I actually used to think the bear under the bridge was just a lost bear from the "river" spawn, until I found the bones beneat the ledge in a cliff to the right from the bridge. 

[Hesha]

So the initial conclusion that there are only two bear caves capable of containing bones on ML is incorrect then. You have found yellowed bones in locations other than the cave on the lake or the rabbit grove near Trapper's Cabin?

[Carbon]

3 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

Like I said, the only one I have never found for sure was the Clearcut, but I found a ledge (on a map spawn with no bears in that area, tho) where I can suspect the bear den could spawn, on that "lone spike" stone.

I wasnt talking about the Winding river, which is the transition zone from Dam to PV, I was talking about the river that connects the Dam and the "Mystery lake". The bear frequently roams somewhere below where the rope is - but the lair I found somewhere on the river in the past. The "river access" is the area called, I think. But yea, these are spawns - I have always managed to find the bones there, othervise I would simply assume it is a bear that wandered away.

You can locate the bear "spawn" area by discovering the bones in their lair. That is a place where you shouldnt sleep, or really mess around in - that is where the bear often circulates. If there are no bones, there is no bear. If there are bones, it is somewhere in the vicinity. But bears can sometimes wander off quite a far away, I actually used to think the bear under the bridge was just a lost bear from the "river" spawn, until I found the bones beneat the ledge in a cliff to the right from the bridge. 

 Right....Winding River was my mistake. I think we mean the Northern Access to ML but again, I've never seen a bear in there. And yes, the bones are a warning!

[Carbon]

1 minute ago, Hesha said:

So the initial conclusion that there are only two bear caves capable of containing bones on ML is incorrect then. You have found yellowed bones in locations other than the cave on the lake or the rabbit grove near Trapper's Cabin?

 I don't think this is wrong mate, at least in my experience. 2 spawns and 2 areas of patrol; the far end of ML and local area and again, around MLS and UNP.

[Prestermatt]

I've definitely seen bears wandering around the Clearcut on multiple games.  Maybe they came from Unamed Pond?  Don't know.

[Mroz4k]

16 hours ago, Prestermatt said:

I've definitely seen bears wandering around the Clearcut on multiple games.  Maybe they came from Unamed Pond?  Don't know.

The bears wander but they dont wander that far. I have a decent Mystery lake charcoal map screenshot, I will mark the known bear locations that I know of on that map. Edit: nevermind, I had that screenshot on my old laptop which is currently a pile of scrap. No map : /

There are no "patrol" places, only spawn, and then the bears will wander around the den. Sometimes they can go quite far, but no far enough to be on a different side of map - I believe they have a radius where they can come.

Then again I have seen bears in Pleasant Valey come from a cave way up in the mountains to the west and wander all the way to the Farmstead, which is almost third of the map. So it is possible, but such wandering happens very rarely. If so many people seen bears in that area, I think it is rather safe to assume they do have a spawn there. Once I get a new PC, I might go researching.

Also, it pays to remember what I said about the spawns - the animals have higher chance to spawn in certain locations. I believe that those two spawns people often think are the only bear spawns on Mystery Lake are simply higher chance spawns, and I also noticed that the amount of bears in individual locations seems to be always the same. What I mean by that, there may be up to 5 spawns for bears in Mystery Lake, but I have never seen more than two bears spawn in Mystery Lake per game. I also never noticed more than three bears on Timberwolf mountain, but this is something I am not that sure about. Still, I believe the amount of particular animal spawns in each location is limited to a specific number. This requires further testing, though.

[Mroz4k]

I took the mystery lake map by Whiteberry_toarta, I crossed out the bear spawns I know are done incorrectly, and I put two bear spawns I am not sure about into a blue circle. By "not sure about" I mean I am sure they spawn somewhere in there. The clearcut spawn Whiteberry had in the map originally puts the bear somewhere in between the logs - I assume this is a "sighting" spot, as there are 100% no bear dens in there. I think I found it empty in one of my games. Someone who can play the game, you are welcomed to go searching for it - I believe it is on the back of that spiky rock, the one which has a backpack laying next to it, but the bear den is on the opposide side of that rock.

Not sure where exactly does the river bear spawn for sure, but I know I found the bones in a ledged cliff somewhere right next to the river. I remember it has awed me a lot, because that location looked very unnatural - bear would never make a lair so close to the river, because ice attracts cold - so the real lair would be a bit away from the river.
Whiteberry also had a bear spawn in an incorrect cave, the one that is behind the lonesome cabin, but I am pretty sure the cave which spawns the bear is the one behind the group of cabins. But I want to stress out, maybe I am wrong about these things. Honestly I am starting to doubt whether my edit on the lake cave bear was correct - I know there are two caves next to the lake, and one spawns bear, the other one doesnt - and I believe the one which does spawn is the one close to the "rope", behind the lake village.

I am 100% sure that a bear spawns in a cliff right next to the bridge, or at least it did before the Wintermute came in. I have seen that bear lair there at least in two separate games.