A hundred days of excess meat

[mystifeid]

Interloper: Mystery Lake

I shudder to think what's possible in the other modes but after starting to hunt here on day 284 up till now which is day 383, I have 200kg of meat at the Camp Office and 170kg at the Trapper's Cabin. Without ever starving. (I actually have another 20kg that I am using for food at the moment). My average cals/day is hovering around 2926.

At this rate it looks possible to collect a ton of meat in under three hundred days.

I think it would be good to see spawn rates continue to taper off and do so much more rapidly than they do now.

[Seshins]

Haha just the time spent laying it out so neatly is impressive. Care to elaborate on the how, where, what?

[mystifeid]

Not much to tell - it's wolf, bear, moose and dear. All killed with bow/arrow. I wipe out everything around the Camp Office then harvest and cook it. When I have 10kg of one type of meat, after leaving myself a considerable safety buffer, I add a line to the meat pile. Then walk over to the Trapper's Cabin and do the same there before coming back to the Camp Office and starting over.

[Seshins]

what kind of wastage do you experience? i assume its all kept outside on the ground.

[mystifeid]

26 minutes ago, Seshins said:

what kind of wastage do you experience?

Zero. That's another big thing wrong with this game at the moment - you can eat 0% meat. (See : Eating Ruined Meat)

In reality though, in total I've experienced 370kg of wastage because I'll never touch it.

[Seshins]

Oh yup cool. In theory the meat should keep for months if frozen but we won't get into that old chestnut.

[mystifeid]

4 minutes ago, Seshins said:

In theory the meat should keep for months if frozen

According to the wiki, in Interloper, cooked moose and bear decays at 1.666%/day when stored outside while cooked deer and wolf decay at 2%/day. Before I reach level 5 cooking this gives me a bit more than two weeks to eat the meat before it drops to less than 70% and there is risk of food poisoning. (This might have changed but it's still how I play)

Stalker decay rates are half these values which means deer meat will go from 100% to 0% in a little over three months.

Voyageur and Pilgrim decay rates are 80% and 25% of the Stalker rates respectively.

[Revantulet]

I can imagine getting into a groove  like this after getting the bow made.  

What I don't get is how you survive the first week while your stuff is curing.

im playing on custom with Intetloper everything but with a rifle.  Even with the rifle it's so hard.  I'm starting in either CH or DP and if I make one mistake I die like a dog.

some runs are just not possible.  It's usually when I don't get enough matches.  I know ten matches are pretty much gauranteed at  Hibernia.  But I just can't make them last at first.  I need one off the bat if I start in DP to make water.  Then if I don't get the hacksaw -- which you don't always - I can't quarter a deer I shoot - so I need a fire going while I harvest meat.

i can kill rabbits all day but they give no calories.

cant fish on looper the first week until the guts cure

i know these maps like the back of my hand!!

am I screwing up some fundamental way or are these zones too hard to start in?

cant imagine how I'd get enough calories in the first few days without the rifle !!

 

[mystifeid]

51 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

am I screwing up some fundamental way or are these zones too hard to start in?

Desolation Point is an acquired taste.

Here is one strategy (speed is essential):

Head to Riken. Chance for scarf on corpse in doorway. Chance for tomato soup upstairs.

Head to Hibernia. Find matches in one of the three spawn points. Loot corpse on top of the awning. Chance for torch and second box of matches. Chance for lantern in bunkroom. Loot the rest of upstairs.

Head downstairs. Loot safe. Chance for hacksaw hanging on wall (this also gives firestriker in No5 mine) .Chance for prybar. Find the flare. Go up through the pipe, crouch down and loot the upside down boats. Chance for bedroll here. Go back upstairs and sleep for an hour to recover warmth.

Head to Scruffy's cave under Broken Bridge. Harvest a couple of branches to get sticks. When you can see no further light a fire with one stick and add one more. Take a torch from the fire. Keep going into cave but do not go past the fork. Chance for a deer carcass at the fork. Light fire at the fork. This will prevent Scruffy coming out. Take the right hand path with another torch in hand. At the dead end loot corpse. Chance for bedroll here. Go back to fork and harvest meat from carcass if it is present. Make 3 litres of water. Eat the meat (Don't carry any). At this point, with some practice you can learn how to explore the left path while keeping the wolf at bay with small fires. Otherwise, if you are not feeling brave, retreat to Hibernia. Sleep for only as long as it takes to recover fatigue or until morning.

Head to No.5 mine. If no lantern has been found, light a 2 stick fire and take a torch. Chance for hacksaw. Chance for firestriker. Exit at the other end.

Head to No.3 mine. Light flare. take around 10 coal and anything else found. Exit at the other end in Crumbling Highway.

Walk out to the pickup truck - look out over onto the ice for the wolves. If they are there, go the other way - past the Abandoned Harris home. Otherwise go to the Arch Cave. Chance for matches here. Look out onto the ice past the Arch cave for the wolves. If there, go back and go the other way. Otherwise take a wide berth around near the edge of the ice until you are back onto the road. Hurry on to the Crumbling Highway exit. From here take your preference of Misanthropes or Coastal Townsite.

So, within a day or two days tops, you should be safely ensconced in Coastal Highway. If you try to stay very long in Desolation Point or even loot a few more locations that are not mentioned above, life will become very tough. Finding a bedroll in Desolation Point makes things easier but it is not necessary and ultimately will usually just slow you down - to your detriment.

[Revantulet]

Thx for the response, and Great advice, but I do know about all those drops, and I have made a bee line for CH on a few tries (or I start in CH first ) but I still don't get how you maintain your calories b4 you have the bow.

 

i mean you've gotta get the heavy hammer and make arrowheads AND get the hacksaw to harvest the birch and maple 

what are you eating while the birch is curing -- even assuming everything else lines up for u? You mentioned the deer carcass -- but there's not much meat on a frozen carcass and you gotta thaw it out

[mystifeid]

1 hour ago, Revantulet said:

what are you eating while the birch is curing -- even assuming everything else lines up for u? You mentioned the deer carcass -- but there's not much meat on a frozen carcass and you gotta thaw it out

Some deer carcasses have as much as 2kg of meat. If you are starving yourself, this is food for two days. There are also cat tails on various maps. I try to have 100 cat tails on me when I reach a forge (just in case) - again, with starvation this is food for two weeks and I have done it with as many as 200.

Besides that, no matter where I start, I try to cover as much ground as I can, as quickly as possible. At the very least I try to loot PV Farmstead, Barn, Signal Hill, Winding River, Carter Hydro, Logging Camp, Trapper's Cabin, Camp Office, both ML Hunter's Blinds, New Lookout, ML huts and cabins, Ravine wreck (not down in the Basin), Rabbit Grove, Bear Creek, Fishing Camp, either Jackrabbit plus Misanthropes or Coastal Townsite (or all with DP spawn) and Desolation Point in a similar manner as mentioned above. My goal is always to do all this and arrive at a forge within ten days with a full complement of gear including five cured deerskins and curing maple/birch. (but I don't always get there on time - nevertheless, that's the goal)

With starvation this can require as little as ten thousand calories and thirty thousand calories without starvation. A significant portion of this can be looted from buildings and the rest taken from deer carcasses and cat tails.

With regard to harvesting deer carcasses: you also need water. Turns out that melting and boiling 1.5 litres of water provides enough time for your fire to thaw out a carcass to 49% when it can be harvested by hand. If you have already found a hacksaw you can harvest at 100% frozen. Going from Signal Hill to the Dam provides opportunity to harvest four deer. Take the opportunity and leave the hides and guts to cure in the Upper Dam while you loot Mystery Lake. Another deer carcass can be found either just outside or in the Ravine. This will provide your fifth hide. You can also stone some rabbits in the Ravine and leave their hides in the Dam. Leave uneaten meat at the dam too. Once you return from your ML tour, another day or two curing may be required in one of the Ravine caves or at Train Unloading in CH. Cross CH with uncured hides/guts/meat at your peril.

If you don't get that many deer hides (or any), don't worry. There will be ample hides taken from hunted deer later and not taking any hides may even be an advantage.

Unless I have been unlucky and found a hacksaw at the very last, my maple and birch will be cured or almost cured when I reach the forge. In the Riken I usually break down a lot of metal shelves during my first daylight hours, drink a lot of coffee then, into the night, make a knife and around 14-16 arrowheads. (Later before I leave DP I have a second session to make the hatchet and another 14-16 arrowheads). I sleep then head to Hibernia pronto to make the bow and three arrows. I smash a few crates then take my three arrows and shoot a deer. Everything is downhill after that.

[Revantulet]

 Thx ALOT man.  I'm clearly not moving enough and not starving myself enough.  I'm trying to set up an initial "base" when I should be on the move sooner and looting more maps I guess.

[mystifeid]

3 hours ago, Revantulet said:

I'm trying to set up an initial "base" when I should be on the move sooner and looting more maps I guess.

It is possible to do this - especially in CH I think. There are other ways to play the game besides the way I play it.

[Revantulet]

Mind if I ask you what your condition range is your first week?

Reason I ask is that I'm afraid to starve myself early because I am already taking condition hits from freezing so much.

[mystifeid]

43 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

Mind if I ask you what your condition range is your first week?

Depends on the game but 30% condition loss is no big deal - see the wiki - sleeping in any bed for 10 hours in Interloper restores 32% condition and some beds are better than others (or at least they used to be). Losing more than this is usually ok too because usually you will not sustain such heavy condition loss day after day.

Just make sure you can sleep for 10 hours (and ensure you eat 750 cals and quench your thirst first). If necessary, pass time for as long as it takes before you sleep but at least in the beginning of the  game I'd suggest learning to set stages that guarantee long sleep periods.

[Pillock]

On 1/7/2018 at 2:26 AM, mystifeid said:

I think it would be good to see spawn rates continue to taper off and do so much more rapidly than they do now.

Respawn rates, possibly. But I really think that the ability to eat ruined meat and the ability to become immune from food poisoning should just be removed. Alongside that, it'd be good if the scent mechanic was applied to non-player-carried meat as well - so dumping meat outside for longer storage would result in that place becoming infested with wolves, and even bears. And the meat being taken by them.

[mystifeid]

5 hours ago, Pillock said:

the ability to become immune from food poisoning should just be removed

Agreed. At the same time it prevents the eating of ruined meat.

 

5 hours ago, Pillock said:

so dumping meat outside for longer storage would result in that place becoming infested with wolves, and even bears. And the meat being taken by them.

I think this will only work is if for example you never see them - otherwise I will be just be left with a much bigger pile of meat and I won't have had to go anywhere to get it. Sheer numbers alone won't cut it. There needs to some other mechanism that prevents the scavengers from joining their brethren on the meat pile.

[cekivi]

3 hours ago, mystifeid said:

I think this will only work is if for example you never see them - otherwise I will be just be left with a much bigger pile of meat and I won't have had to go anywhere to get it. Sheer numbers alone won't cut it. There needs to some other mechanism that prevents the scavengers from joining their brethren on the meat pile.

Your character has to sleep sometime

Otherwise animals too small to hunt or effectively trap (i.e. weasels, crows, etc.) could scavenge the meat. 

[mystifeid]

10 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Otherwise animals too small to hunt or effectively trap (i.e. weasels, crows, etc.) could scavenge the meat

And that would be fine.

[Revantulet]

Well the game is screaming for a meat curing process.

Ruined meat should not be able to be revived, but making beef jerky should be added.  Perhaps you could take sea water, and evaporate it to make sea salt.  Then you have to construct a tanning rack and with some effort you can make jerky or hard tack or whatever.  

Also -- yes -- scent mechanic should be non player dependent.  

-------------------------------------

BTW Mystified I used a lot of your ideas and had a pretty epic run.  Epic from the standpoint of careful self starvation.

Started in CH and there were NO matches there -- NONE.  No fire striker, nothing.  Only place i didn't check was the lookout.  I'd scoured the rest of CH and was at the gas station.  I'd been nursing toilet water, cat tails and looted food.  So I thought, "well I know there are matches in Hibernia, so lets push on there."  Got to DP without incident and looted everything.  ONE FREAKING box of 12 only!

So I thought -- hmm I'm going to have to explore totally new territory to get matches (I've only ever played on CH and DP -- so I was looking at the total unknown).  I decided it made some sense to stay put and make some warmer clothing before heading off, b/c I really didn't have great clothing.  Killed a deer and harvested 2 more carcasses, and got all those guts and hides curing.  Had a great fight with Scruffy using your tactics.   Cornered him with a fire at the fork and then flanked up for the bed roll.  Threw torches down to until I could see him and shot him with the rifle.  Very satisfying!  My ears were ringing though and and from then on my voice sounded like I was stoned.  I liked it.  Anyway....

Here's what got me.  NO MORE DEER.  None.  Bambi had fled the coop.

I searched all over and there were none to be found.  No more carcasses.  No more prey.  I've never seen that map with so few deer.  Its like the game knew what I needed and conspired against me.  I've NEVER seen that map without tons of deer.

I had 2 hours to go on my deer pants when I couldn't sustain myself anymore!  I had to start eating wolf meat and got the parasites.  Was at like 10% health when they hit and I just died outright.

Made it 16 days on 8 matches.  If I'd been able to cook a lot of deer at once I could have made it.  Difficulty was custom -- LOPER + RIFLE. 

Hung on with nothing for so long.......

Anyway I credit your advice for an epic run.  Thx.  Starvation IS the answer.  Hey it works for super models.  I should try it IRL!

[mystifeid]

44 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

Only place i didn't check was the lookout.

Pretty funny. The Lookout seems to be a guaranteed spawn for matches. Quite often the cars pop up the odd box too.

 

44 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

I've NEVER seen that map without tons of deer.

Happens. Depends on the weather I think. None there one day. All back the next. Try walking the length of Bear Creek first next time and harvest all the cat tails. And there's a lot of possible carcasses in DP - from memory:

- Katies (guaranteed)
- Scruffy's (at least 2 possible)
- behind rock between Hibernia and Scruffy's (possible)
- Little Island (possible)
- past Matt's Truck near the waterfall (possible)
- the high path between the church and no.3 mine (possible)
- on the rocky wall bordering the route taken when walking from Katies in the direction of the Lighthouse (possible)
- plus ?

 

44 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

Starvation IS the answer.

Well, it's one answer. Good to hear about your adventure though.

44 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

Then you have to construct a tanning rack and with some effort you can make jerky or hard tack or whatever.

Great. Then I end up with 370kg of jerky.

[mystifeid]

+ @Revantulet, I particularly like reading about Interloper runs in the Survival Stories section of these forums. Think about writing about your experiences there as you go.

[Revantulet]

I will.  I feel like I'm turning the corner with my skills.  I just can't put down the rifle though.  The rifle game is super satisfying.  I think I'll save pure Loper for after I've gained familiarity with the other maps

-----

Holy crap I just had a huge Coho Salmon wash up on the beach near the CH bridge fishing hut!!  gonna remember that spot!

 

[mystifeid]

19 minutes ago, Revantulet said:

I just can't put down the rifle though.  The rifle game is super satisfying.

I think the screenshots at the start of this thread should show I don't really care about what's used for hunting. It's more the weather, the lack of things, the urgency and the decisions made under duress that make these stories good to read.

[Hotzn]

18 hours ago, mystifeid said:

I think this will only work is if for example you never see them - otherwise I will be just be left with a much bigger pile of meat and I won't have had to go anywhere to get it.

This. They should come at night while you're sleeping. In the morning, the meat would be gone and you would just see pawprints.