Interloper

omoon66

By omoon66
in How To Play

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omoon66 Pathfinder

omoon66

Posted
Posted

Notice this is in the “How to play” section. I’ve been a Stalker player, and even with my custom Stalker, it’s gotten to be way too easy. So I’ve graduated to interloper. Nothing prepares you for interloper. I’ve played about 10 games in the past few days, and have struggled to get by 1 day. Most by wolves, but the latest was by stupidity. I shouldn’t have slept for 3 hours. That’s something I should’ve known. Now I know 90% of you people are interloper experts, so any strategies to get by the first few days?

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mystifeid Pathfinder

mystifeid

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You might try searching the forums. I seem to remember quite a few threads on the subject. They will help to provide some perspective as well as the location of various items essential for the first day (like matches). What follows is my own take.

Even now it might take me a few deaths to get a start and in the beginning it took a LOT of attempts to get past day 50 (when things start to settle down a bit) so don't despair.

So you need to get to a forge. And quickly. You need to have found a heavy hammer and it will help if you have found certain other items in the process. Personally I much prefer going to Desolation Point. Later on there is opportunity for visiting Forlorn Muskeg and restocking.

Anyway, my goal is to be walking into Desolation Point on day 10 and walking back out by about day 20-25. On the way to DP I try to always collect:

 


- heavy hammer
- bed roll
- lantern + jerry can
- crow bar
- quality tools
- hacksaw
- mag glass
- maple saplings
- birch saplings
- 100 x cat tails
- five cured deer hides and three+ cured rabbit skins
- other sundry essentials eg matches, feathers, sewing kits, whetstones etc

Why get there fast? Two reasons - the weather is still not too bad (around day 10 I have sometimes managed to walk from the Ravine into Desolation Point) and also if you die you haven't wasted much time. I assume you have completed the Hopeless Rescue challenge. Try and treat the early Interloper game like that challenge - a speed run.

There are a lot of possibilities depending on your spawn location and likewise many possible item spawn locations. Too many to cover here. Here though is my initial itinerary for my current game and although it will be of limited use, let it highlight how frantically you should use the early good weather.

Day 1
- spawn in Pleasant Valley.
- up rope to Timberwolf Mountain
- loot Mountaineers Hut and fishing hut. Chance for hacksaw/mag glass/hammer
- take about 30 cat tails from the lake
- down rope to sleep in abandoned cache

Day 2
- go to Misty Falls cave. Light fire and take a torch. Chance for lantern/bed roll
- back to cache to warm up.
- down Skeeter Ridge ropes to spend night in Draft Dodgers cabin.

Day 3
- go to Barn. Chance for hammer/hacksaw
- go to Farmstead. Chance for hammer/hacksaw/lantern etc. Chance for mag glass in basement (open) filing cabinet drawer.

Day 4
- go to Radio Control hut. Chance for good boots.

Day 5
- go to Hilltop Cave. Completely harvested (and cooked) deer carcass
- go to Carter Hydro cave. Completely harvested (and cooked) deer carcass
- slept in Winding River cave (chance for bed roll) I already found a bed roll - otherwise keep going to trailer outside Carter Hydro (used to have to keep going to Logging Camp - a hard day)

Day 6
- harvest two deer in Winding River
- through lower and upper dam
- go to Ravine and harvest deer carcass
- back to Upper Dam. Leave 5 skins and 10 guts to cure. Leave meat outside.

Day 7
- go to Logging Camp. Chance for crowbar
- go to Destroyed Lookout. Pointless (I think)
- go to cabin.
- go to hunters blind at Unnamed Pond (chance for hacksaw and used to be chance for firestarter)
- go to Trappers Cabin. Chance for various including mag glass.

Day 8
- go to Rail Tunnel
- from train tracks further down cross over high saddle to Lake Trail and then to Camp Office. Chance for various including bedroll and mag glass.
- walk up to Lake Overlook cave (not via the ropes)
- go to Forestry Lookout. Chance for hammer.
- go to Mystery Lake cabins. Chance for bed roll in last fishing hut.

Day 9
- collect cat tails
- through Southern Access via Alan's Cave to Upper Dam. More cat tails. Chance for bed roll in hunters blind.
- collect hides/guts and spend night in Ravine cave

Day 10
- blizzard/ waiting for hides to cure
- collect cat tails and jerry can from wrecked rail car.

Day 11
- through to Rabbit grove - Bear Creek then Misanthropes for the night. If you haven't found a hacksaw yet - go to Quonset.
- chance for hammer under crafting table at Fishing Camp or in last fishing hut (between the fishing camp and rockfall)
- lots of cat tails in Bear Creek.
- helps if all hides and guts are cured before entering Coastal Highway.

Day 12
- through Crumbling Highway to DP. Collect coal.
- through No.5 mine. Chance for firestriker/hacksaw.
- made it to Riken....

Day 27
- walk out, back to the Arch cave in Crumbling Highway.

General Tips (there is a lot to be said here and maybe this will be added to)
- I usually forge 30 arrow heads and a knife but it seems a hatchet has become more essential in wolf struggles. If you craft a hatchet - only use it in wolf struggles otherwise sooner rather than later you will find yourself running out of whetstones.
- get to level 2 archery as quickly as possible. Make arrows, read books, hunt deer/rabbit. Try to be level 3 before taking on wolves. Personally I think the wolfskin coat essential. It will save your hide many times from unseen wolves.
- once you get to a forge quickly make knife/arrowheads/bow/arrows and kill a couple of deer. Once you do that the pressure starts easing off.
- Pleasant Valley and Timberwolf Mountain are hard places to survive. If you want a real challenge go and survive on these maps after visiting the forge. Otherwise don't. But there is reasonable loot at the Summit - including a firestarter and head wear.
- Have strategies in place to deal with cabin fever. (Thank you @Ruruwawa).  It usually rears it's ugly head first in Desolation Point and then the wheelhouse of the Riken becomes my favorite place for a fire to cook, melt snow and sleep beside. Unless the bear is dead, in which case the bear cave is wonderful.
- Learn to hunt wolves efficiently. Since you carry scented items at your peril (but is sometimes necessary), it often helps to drop everything and clear out the wolves on the path in front of you.
- when you spawn the general rule of thumb is head for the nearest matches. In TWM for example, this might be the three-way cave.
- although matches are limited, don't worry about conserving them in the early game. Use them to survive - otherwise you'll just die a lot more often.


 

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mystifeid Pathfinder

mystifeid

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Plus :
- it can be extremely helpful, especially in the first few days, to judiciously brew tea from rosehips or mushrooms and drink it hot just before heading off into the cold. The warming up effect will delay freezing resulting in less health lost. It will give you confidence when you have to travel at night and/or in bad weather.

- until you have more experience only eat before sleeping and eat just enough to cover the sleep/recovery period. Starve yourself the rest of the time - at least until you are hunting and killing deer. Purists say this is not the thing to do but I think it fits in with the experience very well and really, when you are used to the game, not starving adds little extra difficulty. On the other hand I have seen someone starve themselves for 200 days with an average daily calorie intake of around 1000 calories. I think this requires much more skill and discipline.

- never stop picking up sticks.

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Timber Wolf Pathfinder

Timber Wolf

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8 minutes ago, mystifeid said:

Nothing new I'm afraid @Timberwolf and a lot of people do things differently but it's easy for a new player to get dispirited so best to pile on the info.

I know. :)  You've written up your strategies before, but it's still great info and worth repeating.  It certainly helped me get over the hump in Interloper. 

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Ruruwawa Pathfinder

Ruruwawa

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23 hours ago, Timber Wolf said:

Excellent information, @mystifeid!

It is, particularly the speed-run perspective!  My two quibbles are

1) the advice to carry a prybar to DP.  I always find one in Crumbling Highway or in the transition mine to DP.

2) living in caves to prevent cabin fever.  Certainly that works and I enjoy it myself, but it's extra challenging to stay warm.  It's a lot easier and less risky to just do all your cooking and water making outdoors.  It only takes an average of 6 hours/day outside to completely avoid cabin fever risk so between hunting/fishing/trapping, collecting fuel and outdoor cooking, you're typically free to sleep indoors in a warm bed without much planning.

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mystifeid Pathfinder

mystifeid

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20 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

the advice to carry a prybar to DP.  I always find one in Crumbling Highway or in the transition mine to DP.

Certainly. But for the first time ever (or that I can remember) - in my current game - I didn't. And it is a usable weapon in wolf struggles. If I had nothing else I think I would always pick one up.

20 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

It only takes an average of 6 hours/day outside to completely avoid cabin fever

While, as you say, this is usually easily achieved I find that in Pleasant Valley (my favorite and most hated place) it is not so easy. Also I have found that lately (once I have more or less equipped myself) I have never had to light a fire to stay warm in a cave - say in the early hours of the morning when a blizzard hits. But I suppose you are right and this item can be removed/ignored/modified. (Done)

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Riotintheair Pathfinder

Riotintheair

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My biggest advice is to treat each day as having a condition budget where various activities have a cost and you want to spend it. The condition deficit spending line is 65%. So ideally the day's condition budget is whatever I wake up with minus 65%. 

For instance starvation, if you're not eating except at bedtime, will cost about 12-14% of condition per day (about 1/3 of the budget at full health, more as my health at waking decreases). Early on, when traveling, I try to budget as much condition as possible to traveling (cold loss) and minimize starvation, baring in mind that I need to have ~700 calories at the end of the day. I don't use this to suggest not starving, but all condition comes from the same pot and it's a shared resource. You can use herbal tea to increase the next day's budget and get out of a deficit.

Early on you should take risks and deficit spend condition to ramp up your available resources and capacity quickly.

A few other useful tips (apologies if they're already mentioned): 

- I pick up sticks. Sticks are my bread and butter resource and each stick is 1 degree of fire warmth. I don't cut wood as it's the easiest way to freeze to death and takes too long.

- If a wolf detects me early on I move away from it and light a fire as soon as possible, especially if I can't deal with it otherwise.

- I take as many torches as possible when I leave a fire (take out a torch, dowse it, then put it away, and take another torch). I carry the last lit torch as it gives a warmth bonus and I can light another fire with it if a wolf finds me without using a match. When it starts to burn down, I throw it on the ground, then take out an unlit torch and light it on the still burning torch on the ground. After traveling I breakdown any unneeded torches for sticks.

- I light a torch before lighting a fire to save matches since the survivor never fails at torch lighting.

- I take breaks from indoor activities. If I'm warm I go outside and do something useful until I'm cold. I pick up sticks, harvest plants, stone a rabbit, check my traps etc. but I always do something.

- I find protected spaces outside to cook and make water and I use them. Fires last longer outdoors so I do more work per unit of fuel. It also helps keep cabin fever at bay. 

- I can sleep in cars without a bedroll. Mostly this will get me killed, but sometimes I can get warm enough to catch a few hours rest above freezing in the afternoon.

- If I know the way, blizzards are a blessing in the early game, especially for traversing CH and the Crumbling Highway maps, where navigating is relatively easy but predators can block rather narrow passages.

- I don't wait too long to take action in the early game. After a day or two sitting in place your situation early game will almost always deteriorate. If a blizzard has locked me down and I can't rest or have run out of food, I don't wait... I drop any gear to increase my mobility and move to the closest place I think I can rest or find food. It's not going to be better in 5 hours when it's midnight, and I've lost 10% more condition I can't recover (approximately half an hour of travel time while freezing). My rule of thumb here, is to wait about 2 hours max if the time of day is improving (ie. about an hour or so predawn through noon). If it's afternoon I just go immediately. This advice is a lot easier to heed if you know the maps, and there's a balance to choosing to stay or go, but I do feel a lot of folks wait too long.

- I always have a stim. In my current game it's saved my life twice for sure and turned a 31 or 130 day game into 400+ day game.

- I don't take the risk of intestinal parasites. 1% chance per day seems small, but if I live on one piece of predator per 48 hours for the 100ish days it'll take to get to cooking 5 without gaming the system I have ~40% chance of getting parasites at least once. Given the time investment of getting to 100 days that's too high a chance for me.

- I try to wake up at dawn if I'm trying to start a fire with the mag glass and I'm struggling to get decent weather.  For whatever reason, the first hour of daylight seems kinder on providing sunlight (I think partly the aurora mechanic causes this). Obviously this is more useful to established survivors.

- I'm American, but seriously metric is easier if you're more math inclined. Especially for calculating precisely how many sticks I need to hit a warmth bonus.

Welcome to Hell, and good luck, survivor!

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RetroGames546 Survivor

RetroGames546

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-Get a heavy hammer and hacksaw ASAP. If you spawn in Pleasant Valley, there's a good chance that you'll find at least one of the two. The most logical places to look for the hammers in Pleasant Valley are the basement of the Farmstead house, the Big Red barn, or the Signal Hill outpost. If you spawn in Timberwolf Mountain (provided you don't die from hypothermia, fall damage, or a wolf attack) you can generally find a hammer around the work bench. I don't think I've ever found one in Desolation Point if I've spawned there (probably for game balancing reasons; the developers don't want you crafting tools on day 1), but check the Riken and Hibernia Processing Plant. Hacksaws are pretty common wherever you can find workbenches or large tool chests. Also, only go to the Forlorn Muskeg forge if you have a death wish.

-Fishing is a great source of food, but you have to know how to do it well. First off, you need fishing tackle, which has to be crafted using line and a hook. Hooks are easy to make as they only require scrap metal, but lines require cured guts, which take days to cure (occasionally you can find one in a tool box). I'd suggest trying to find a Frozen Angler book and reading it in order to get your skill from Level 1 to Level 2, as fishing on Level 1 has a good chance of breaking the line which you spent days waiting to make. Always make sure to have enough firewood and water for 3+ hours of fishing. You'll also need something to break the ice on the fishing hole, so keep a crowbar, hammer, or crafted hatchet/knife on you when you go fishing.

-Cat tail stalks are a great food source. They provide 150 calories per stalk and almost never decay. They're also super common; you can probably find 10-20 on the Mystery Lake. If you have 40 cat tail stalks, that's around 6000 calories, or almost a week of food if you follow the Starvation Method. Speaking of which...

-The starvation method is the best (and in my case the only) way to play Interloper and have any chance of lasting longer than a week at most. Starve all day. It will only reduce 1% condition per hour, which you can regain by getting as tired as possible (around 12 hours of sleep required) and eating 900 calories and drinking water. Then, sleep for 10 hours and take a drink, and go back to sleep for 2 more hours. The cumulative condition restoration effect of sleeping 10 hours straight will yield a whopping 55% gain (if I did my math right).

-When hunting wolves, don't alert them and try to shoot them with the bow as they're charging you; more often than not you're gonna wind up dead or dying. Instead, what you want to do is try and sneak up on them, so you have a better chance of hitting your target. Also, aim for the head, and don't be surprised if it takes more than one shot to down them. In that respect, keep enough distance that you can run if needed. 

-I don't have much experience with hunting bears or moose, but I can tell you this: you're gonna need a hefty amount of arrows to take them down, and you're gonna need a good sniping spot (so get good with the bow). If you can, get to a spot that they can't access (such as a ledge that requires you to cliff-ride down). Other than that, you're on your own with that one.

-ALWAYS keep a heavy hammer on you if you can. It's arguably the best tool to use in a close encounter with a wolf. Just select it during the "select tool to defend yourself with" prompt, and spam the heck out of that LMB. They'll generally get scared off pretty fast.

-You can sometimes find a fire striker. The only two places I've found it are behind Jackrabbit Island on a corpse, or at the Hunter's Blind in Mystery Lake. The tool provides a higher chance of starting fires, and allows you to save those precious matches for another day.

Those are just some of the tactics I use when I play Interloper. If I had the time or the energy, I could probably double the size of this list. Good luck, and have fun. *Also please note that I wrote this while I had a concussion, so if some of the grammar or spelling is off, I'm sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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RetroGames546 Survivor

RetroGames546

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On 12/28/2017 at 7:13 PM, mystifeid said:

You might try searching the forums. I seem to remember quite a few threads on the subject. They will help to provide some perspective as well as the location of various items essential for the first day (like matches). What follows is my own take.

Even now it might take me a few deaths to get a start and in the beginning it took a LOT of attempts to get past day 50 (when things start to settle down a bit) so don't despair.

So you need to get to a forge. And quickly. You need to have found a heavy hammer and it will help if you have found certain other items in the process. Personally I much prefer going to Desolation Point. Later on there is opportunity for visiting Forlorn Muskeg and restocking.

Anyway, my goal is to be walking into Desolation Point on day 10 and walking back out by about day 20-25. On the way to DP I try to always collect:

  Hide contents


- heavy hammer
- bed roll
- lantern + jerry can
- crow bar
- quality tools
- hacksaw
- mag glass
- maple saplings
- birch saplings
- 100 x cat tails
- five cured deer hides and three+ cured rabbit skins
- other sundry essentials eg matches, feathers, sewing kits, whetstones etc

Why get there fast? Two reasons - the weather is still not too bad (around day 10 I have sometimes managed to walk from the Ravine into Desolation Point) and also if you die you haven't wasted much time. I assume you have completed the Hopeless Rescue challenge. Try and treat the early Interloper game like that challenge - a speed run.

There are a lot of possibilities depending on your spawn location and likewise many possible item spawn locations. Too many to cover here. Here though is my initial itinerary for my current game and although it will be of limited use, let it highlight how frantically you should use the early good weather.

Day 1
- spawn in Pleasant Valley.
- up rope to Timberwolf Mountain
- loot Mountaineers Hut and fishing hut. Chance for hacksaw/mag glass/hammer
- take about 30 cat tails from the lake
- down rope to sleep in abandoned cache

Day 2
- go to Misty Falls cave. Light fire and take a torch. Chance for lantern/bed roll
- back to cache to warm up.
- down Skeeter Ridge ropes to spend night in Draft Dodgers cabin.

Day 3
- go to Barn. Chance for hammer/hacksaw
- go to Farmstead. Chance for hammer/hacksaw/lantern etc. Chance for mag glass in basement (open) filing cabinet drawer.

Day 4
- go to Radio Control hut. Chance for good boots.

Day 5
- go to Hilltop Cave. Completely harvested (and cooked) deer carcass
- go to Carter Hydro cave. Completely harvested (and cooked) deer carcass
- slept in Winding River cave (chance for bed roll) I already found a bed roll - otherwise keep going to trailer outside Carter Hydro (used to have to keep going to Logging Camp - a hard day)

Day 6
- harvest two deer in Winding River
- through lower and upper dam
- go to Ravine and harvest deer carcass
- back to Upper Dam. Leave 5 skins and 10 guts to cure. Leave meat outside.

Day 7
- go to Logging Camp. Chance for crowbar
- go to Destroyed Lookout. Pointless (I think)
- go to cabin.
- go to hunters blind at Unnamed Pond (chance for hacksaw and used to be chance for firestarter)
- go to Trappers Cabin. Chance for various including mag glass.

Day 8
- go to Rail Tunnel
- from train tracks further down cross over high saddle to Lake Trail and then to Camp Office. Chance for various including bedroll and mag glass.
- walk up to Lake Overlook cave (not via the ropes)
- go to Forestry Lookout. Chance for hammer.
- go to Mystery Lake cabins. Chance for bed roll in last fishing hut.

Day 9
- collect cat tails
- through Southern Access via Alan's Cave to Upper Dam. More cat tails. Chance for bed roll in hunters blind.
- collect hides/guts and spend night in Ravine cave

Day 10
- blizzard/ waiting for hides to cure
- collect cat tails and jerry can from wrecked rail car.

Day 11
- through to Rabbit grove - Bear Creek then Misanthropes for the night. If you haven't found a hacksaw yet - go to Quonset.
- chance for hammer under crafting table at Fishing Camp or in last fishing hut (between the fishing camp and rockfall)
- lots of cat tails in Bear Creek.
- helps if all hides and guts are cured before entering Coastal Highway.

Day 12
- through Crumbling Highway to DP. Collect coal.
- through No.5 mine. Chance for firestriker/hacksaw.
- made it to Riken....

Day 27
- walk out, back to the Arch cave in Crumbling Highway.

General Tips (there is a lot to be said here and maybe this will be added to)
- I usually forge 30 arrow heads and a knife but it seems a hatchet has become more essential in wolf struggles. If you craft a hatchet - only use it in wolf struggles otherwise sooner rather than later you will find yourself running out of whetstones.
- get to level 2 archery as quickly as possible. Make arrows, read books, hunt deer/rabbit. Try to be level 3 before taking on wolves. Personally I think the wolfskin coat essential. It will save your hide many times from unseen wolves.
- once you get to a forge quickly make knife/arrowheads/bow/arrows and kill a couple of deer. Once you do that the pressure starts easing off.
- Pleasant Valley and Timberwolf Mountain are hard places to survive. If you want a real challenge go and survive on these maps after visiting the forge. Otherwise don't. But there is reasonable loot at the Summit - including a firestarter and head wear.
- Have strategies in place to deal with cabin fever. (Thank you @Ruruwawa).  It usually rears it's ugly head first in Desolation Point and then the wheelhouse of the Riken becomes my favorite place for a fire to cook, melt snow and sleep beside. Unless the bear is dead, in which case the bear cave is wonderful.
- Learn to hunt wolves efficiently. Since you carry scented items at your peril (but is sometimes necessary), it often helps to drop everything and clear out the wolves on the path in front of you.
- when you spawn the general rule of thumb is head for the nearest matches. In TWM for example, this might be the three-way cave.
- although matches are limited, don't worry about conserving them in the early game. Use them to survive - otherwise you'll just die a lot more often.


 

You also have a chance of finding Combat Pants at Signal Hill. I didn't even think they existed in Interloper, but I guess they're just wicked rare.

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