V1.30 Stalker Achievement Run II

[Hotzn]

So yeah... I've moved, was without internet in my new home for a while. So now I'm online again and decided it's time to get back into the game. My current achievement run was interrupted when V1.21 was out, so there have been considerable changes. Above all, word is on the yard that all achievements are working now. Looking at you here, Faithful Cartographer. To make sure I have the opportunity to go for as many as possible in one run, I'll start a new one. Stalker, for the same reasons as before... hmmm... which starting location? Why not Mystery Lake? Back to the roots.

[Hotzn]

Why the hell can't I edit my first post?

EDIT: I can't edit the first one, but I can edit this one here. Someone explain this system to me. Anyway...

Back to the roots. Pick the girl, no badges... and go.

Day 1:

I spawn sometime well during daytime, right at the train tracks. The weather is clear, but a stiff wind is blowing. I don't even open any menu but head straight for the Camp Office. Hmm... what... something feels off... have the key bindings been reset? I play around a bit with the settings until I'm more comfortable. So what have we got? 12 cardboard matches, some antibiotics, a chocolate bar, a bedroll... and some ridiculous clothes. Not exactly much. 

[Hotzn]

Well, would you know it. Can't edit my second post either now. I can quote myself, but no options to edit appears. Brilliant.

[Hotzn]

Yay. Can't edit any of my previous three posts, and the game just hung up on me for the first time. So here is the rest of day 1:

Searching the Camp Office, I find some food, a decent cotton toque, some painkillers and more antibiotics, a magnifying lens (yay!), a whetstone, the usual fishing hook & line on the workbench, a jerry can with 1.13 litres of, erm... lamp oil, aaand - volume 1 of "Field dressing your kill", to be studied later. There was this strange feature I recall that instructional books can only be read before the corresponding skill level goes up to 5. So I better read those books before levelling up too much, lest I miss one achievement (the 'read all books' one).

Anyway, my clothes are too tattered to keep me warm even inside the Camp Office, so I better get moving. Turning Towards the lake, I see no wolves and decide to take a look at the ice-fishing huts. The first one yields a hatchet and a sewing kit, the second one working gloves. Nice. Now I see some wolves in the distance, off towards the single hut to the left (where sometimes the bear hangs out). Of the three shacks straight ahead one is burnt down, and on entering the second it seems it’s getting dark. Not getting dark outside, but… inside.

So much for this time. Either there is something wrong with the forums and the game... or with my rig. Likely the latter.

[Hotzn]

So, logging in from another PC with a different browser on another day - same problem. No option to edit any of my posts above, although options to quote or delete are there. So what's up here, @Patrick Carlson? Any known issue?

[Stone]

Well I'm on edge. What will happen next on the search for the illusive edit?

[Hotzn]

34 minutes ago, Stone said:

Well I'm on edge. What will happen next on the search for the illusive edit?

Haha, so far it's not the most exciting survival story I've written on these forums. But I rely heavily on editing, since I usually play and write more or less at the same time. Granted, I could put things together in a Word file or other editor first and then transfer that chapter-wise. But I've always worked with editing in the past and am really curious why it doesn't work now...

EDIT: Ha, could edit this once. Strange - I can only ever edit my last post, and only once...

EDIT 2: Now it seems I can edit this post here twice...

EDIT 3: Who would have thought - I can edit this one here more often. But all the ones above are still un-editable...

[Ruruwawa]

Not sure about the Edit problem but I've encountered it too.  Seems like a forum bug to me.

I did the Faithful Cartographer cheevo myself a couple weeks ago after coming back from a long hiatus.  It definitely works now, even on a Custom mode game (I turned off character chatter "I hope no one needs this stick! Or that one! Or that one!" and sprains).

[Patrick Carlson]

On 5/14/2018 at 5:37 AM, Hotzn said:

So, logging in from another PC with a different browser on another day - same problem. No option to edit any of my posts above, although options to quote or delete are there. So what's up here, @Patrick Carlson? Any known issue?

@Hotzn There is a time limit for how long you can edit your own posts, and there's always been one. I'll look into it more to see if there is some other issue with this setting. 

[Hotzn]

14 hours ago, Patrick Carlson said:

@Hotzn There is a time limit for how long you can edit your own posts, and there's always been one. I'll look into it more to see if there is some other issue with this setting. 

Thanks, @Patrick Carlson. I knew there was a time limit between writing a reply to a thread and submitting it. But I didn't know there was a time limit for editing my own posts as well. If there is - and if you say so I have no doubt about it - then I am pretty sure that this time limit has been shortened considerably. I've written quite some survival reports here over the years, and I've always had this habit of making one post per ingame day. And I used to interrupt my reports often for a day and was then still able to edit my previous post to continue reporting the interrupted ingame day until (its ingame) nightfall.

[Hotzn]

Checked this, and yes - there seems to be a time limit for editing which apparently is somewhere between 3 and 30 minutes. I presume this has been shortened recently, and I would advocate to prolong it again to 2 hours at least. Thank you for the help, @Patrick Carlson.

[Drifter Man]

2 hours ago, Hotzn said:

Checked this, and yes - there seems to be a time limit for editing which apparently is somewhere between 3 and 30 minutes. I presume this has been shortened recently, and I would advocate to prolong it again to 2 hours at least. Thank you for the help, @Patrick Carlson.

I second that - not because I care about rules for editing posts, but because I want to read Old Hotzn's stories. Please

[Hotzn]

Day 2:

Soda cans kept me from drying up during the night, but today I should start making some water. I leave the lakeside cabin at dawn and search the second one (third is burnt down), then intend to cross over to the other cabins. No luck, I am barked up by a wolf. Can’t make out where it’s coming from, so I dash back to the cabin I slept in and mend some clothes. Peeking outside again, no wolves are to be seen. I decide not to take too much risk and head back to the Camp Office via Lake Trail. Half-way through I veer off to visit that open cave-like structure which used to have a name. Seems the name is gone, it doesn’t appear as discovered in my diary either. There’s a worn down vest here in a green backpack. Well, better than nothing.

I make it to the Camp Office unscathed, but very thirsty and with hypothermia risk. Using some lamp oil and a book without a name for the 100% chance, I light my first fire in a long time, draw a torch and… throw it against the wall. Okay, so extinguishing ist the left mouse button. It’s been a while.

I draw more torches for the torch fire lighting exploit, make my first water and drink some, then produce a lot more until night falls. Utterly tired and loaded with over 8 litres of drinking water, I drag myself upstairs, drop some water for future use, eat some beef jerkies and chocolate bars I have collected here and there, drink to my satisfaction and go to bed.

[Hotzn]

Day 3:

When the little sun icon comes up, it’s still pitch dark inside. I have a feeling that outside and inside lighting is somehow still not in tune. And it is still tedious to micromanage sleep, rest and exhaustion over the night. I really wish there was an option like 'sleep and rest until dawn' which would have me continue at dawnbreak.

Anyway, I take a look around the Camp Office. There is definitely more stuff lying around than in the olden times, but I have to say it unnerves me that I cannot clean the place up. That should be a feature, I think many players would feel more cozy in their base if they could pick up the garbage and set chairs and tables upright.

So, Hotzn… what’s the plan? This is the grand achievement run, so which ones are a priority? I guess I should target Resolute Outfitter (fill all clothing slots with 100% gear) and Penitent Scholar (read all books) for now. So I should move around and look for books, at the same time improving my gear. And be on the lookout for accessories, since those are the clothes most difficult to find. And I should find at least two of them before they decay.

Setting off towards Trapper’s Homestead, I am startled to see that there is now a powerline connecting Camp Office with another line running along the train tracks. I wouldn’t have missed those lines, but it makes sense that they’re there. Hitting the tracks, I turn left and soon check the corpse on the other side. Ha! Has a ski jacket, albeit a worn one. I put it on and head onwards, cutting straight across to Max’s Last Stand. Hey, Max. Ah – ironically, Max has a copy of 'Survive the Outdoors!' in his green backpack. And a windbreaker on himself as well. So I can… break wind. Haha, sorry.

Careful now, so as not to stumble into any bear which might be skulking around here… no, nothing. I make it safely into Trapper’s. Ah, the loot… some food, a storm lantern (yay!), another sewing kit, the usual snare on the workbench, a copy of 'Wilderness Kitchen', a box of rifle rounds, an old cotton scarf, another jerry can with 1.57 litres of lamp oil, some antibiotics. I want to open the locker, since it does not show the 'locked' symbol. But it IS locked, says it requires a prybar. Bug? The safe on the other hand DOES show the locked symbol, but not for long… hehe… aha, a flashlight and a single rifle cartridge inside. I now carry roughly 26 kg of stuff. Harvest some excess clothes and repair others while warming up. It’s just past noon, no real reason to stay here at this time. So it’s over to the cabin by the pond with the hunter’s blind. I approach it from the cliffside to have a better overview. There is a deer carcass down there on the pond… I might collect that later. Then over at the cabin with the outhouse I find the usual prybar which the two dead guys apparently used in a desperate attempt to use the toilet. The corpses yield nothing of interest, but there is a can of Pinnacle Peaches and an MRE in the cabin. Which means I could stay here for one or two days. So I place the snare outside where the rabbits are hanging out, collect some sticks 'n stones, optimize my clothes a bit and then call it a day.

[Hotzn]

On 16.5.2018 at 2:26 PM, Drifter Man said:

I second that - not because I care about rules for editing posts, but because I want to read Old Hotzn's stories. Please

Old Hotzn does it again.

[Drifter Man]

9 hours ago, Hotzn said:

Old Hotzn does it again.

Excellent.

[Hotzn]

Day 4:

Checking my snare the next morning, there is no rabbit in it. I relocate the snare, then light a fire on the cabin’s tiny porch to make drinking water. Then I grab a torch and move over to the pond. Aha, we have a bear here, but it’s far enough for me to approach the deer carcass. I light a fire, but a wind picks up and blows it out right away. It’s not too cold, so I harvest the carcass without fire and take some freezing damage. There’s 0.7 kg of venison on it – food for another day. Returning to the cabin, I watch out for wolves which might be attracted by the meat and guts I am carrying, but there are none to be seen.

Dropping the deer hide, the guts and two Birch saplings (collected underway) on the floor, I leave the cabin again, make another fire, roast the venison and make more water to stash here in the cabin for potential future visits. Then I head back to the pond to inspect the hunting blind. Carefully circumventing the bear in the process, I find a broken arrow, simple tools, a can of dog food and another bandage. Not bad. Incidentally, I remember I should have made bandages first thing. But I forgot. It's been a while.

Back at the cabin, I eat the venison, study Survive the Outdoors! for 2 hours and then sharpen my hatchet a bit. Interestingly, I can sharpen it in pitch darkness while being hungry and deadly tired (no fatigue left). I think doing this should come with a downside, for example a risk of cutting myself.

Then I eat part of my MRE (interrupting with [esc]), drink water and it’s off to bed.

[Hotzn]

Day 5:

Waking up to nasty weather (sounds like a blizzard), I decide to spend the morning in bed, reading. When the blizzard subsides, I have finished Survive the Outdoors! and am 1 hour into Wilderness Kitchen. Then I check the snare and find it has caught a rabbit. I harvest it completely, drop the gut and skin in the cabin and light a fire to cook the meat and make more water. In the late afternoon, I set out for an expedition to the lookout tower where I plan to stay over night. Alas, on reaching the tower I remember it has been destroyed and the new lookout tower is not directly accessible from here. I collect some loot around the remains of the tower and admire the frozen guy at his burnt-out fire, then return to the cabin via the unlucky guy who fell through the fence half-way up to the (destroyed) lookout. I arrive deadly tired and with my clothes soaking wet. The remaining daylight is spent reading on more hour of Wilderness Kitchen, then I eat my rabbit meat, drink and go to sleep for 10 hours.

[Hotzn]

Day 6:

The next morning, I find the snare empty and decide it’s time to move on. I make my way to Logging Camp, avoiding a bear and three wolves on the way. The camp itself seems safe, I find wool socks, trail boots (yay!) and some minor goodies. Continuing onwards, I hit the rails again. There is a corpse and a deer carcass here, but I am freezing, and this is wolf territory, so I turn left, cross the bridge, run from another wolf and make it safely into the fence surrounding the dam. Donning the wool socks, I notice that both sock slots say 'inner layer'. Probably a bug.

So… the dam. I have to say that I do miss Fluffy. That was always an excitement, always a little thrill to enter the dam. It’s a bit sad Fluffy had to go, and the dam in survival mode is now just a heap of loot. Anyway, lessee… wow. There is so much stuff in the dam I have the feeling it is throwing the whole map off-balance. Only mentioning a couple of items: emergency stim, hunting knife, insulated boots, work boots, trail boots (several), military coat (interesting, haven’t seen that one before), Canada-style wool toque (x2), thick wool sweater, firestriker, hatchet, several flares & sewing kits, box of rifle rounds. Aaand – good for my quest – woolen ear wraps and another book (Frontier Shooting Guide). If I saw that correctly, there is no bed in the dam (otherwise it would be overpowered as a base). So I drag myself – heavily overloaded – back into the entrance hall and drop some stuff. It is late and I am completely exhausted, so I just eat and drink – there is plenty for the time being – and go to sleep in my bedroll for 10 hours.

[Hotzn]

Day 7:

The morning is spent sorting my stuff, optimising equipment and mending clothes. The military coat seems a little too cumbersome after all, it goes into a locker and I stay with the ski jacket. The same goes for the work boots and insulated boots. I keep the trail boots. One thing I find weird is that it makes more sense to wear two Canadian toques one over the over than a toque plus a scarf. This seems unnatural.

When I have finished, I have a +13°C temperature bonus, an additional +4°C windproof bonus (since I break wind, ahaha… sorry), 16% protection and 90% sprinting ability. It is high noon already, and I move on to stripping the deer carcass lying outside the dam door. The hide & guts go into the dam to cure, the 2 kg of venison soon cook merrily over a fire on the steps to the dam. The same fire gives me more water as well. Before nightfall I retire into the dam and read 2 more hours of Wilderness Kitchen before eating & drinking and going to bed for 10 hours.

[Hotzn]

Day 8:

Don’t lose focus, Hotzn – you need a second earwrap. Which can only be found by staying on the move. Now where would be the best chance to find it? In Mystery Lake, locations of mention I still haven’t visited are the trailers outside of the fence by the dam, the new lookout tower, the train & wagons on the tracks and some cabins on the lakeside. My gut feeling tells me it’s unlikely to find another pair of earwraps in any of those. The highest chance could be the plane wreck on the summit of Timberwolf Mountain. The downside to this is that I still don’t know the TWM map very well. So it’s risky. Which means fun. Which means I’ll do it. Now… hmmm… how do I get there? Dammit, I am out of practice! Ok, I can go over the Ravine to CH and then through the mine. I remember that. And then alternatively… hmmm… I think it was out the back door of the dam and then… somewhere round the back. Not sure I ever really went that way. That sounds interesting, so I’ll do it!

So I cross the dam again to the one-way door. I have to appreciate how Hinterland redid the interior. It now distinctly feels like an abandoned industrial building. I exit on the backside of the dam and walk down the little trail. Suddenly I hear the death cry of a rabbit and the very angry growl of a wolf. Very close, as if it was standing right next to me. What the…? Then I hear running paws, and yes, a wolf comes running up the path and right off goes the battle. I pick the hatchet as my weapon, and before the fight really starts the wolf runs off already, yelping. There is blood on the floor, but it seems it is not mine – I only have a sprained wrist and hardly noticeable damage to my clothing. I take a painkiller, but before I do anything else, the wolf comes running back up the trail and gives me another fight. This time the fight takes some clicking until the wolf runs off again. My condition is down to 90%, a foot sprained, and – worst of all – my earwraps are down to 44% condition (from 100%). Aaargh! And I don’t have spare cloth on me to repair them! Nononono! I walk down onto the ice to see where the wolf is at and in so doing discover the potential source of the the previous attack: It seems the wolf has killed a rabbit down where the trail arrives at the ice. And then the wolf somehow sensed me through the terrain - probably because I was horizintally very close, only high above. This is of course buggy, a wolf should not see me through terrain.

But back to the wolf - it has run down the river, and I see it limp and then drop in the distance. Halfway up to the wolf carcass, there is a cave to the left. Since I start freezing, I enter the cave. There is a burnt-out campfire there, and I notice the cave has the ‚temperature border‘ – at some point there is a temperature jump inside. I consider staying here for a day or so to harvest the wolf. But on checking my equipment, I realize I do not have my bedroll on me. Can this be true? I must have left it in the entrance hall of the dam. Things can get really sticky without a bedroll, and although my heart goes heavy, I decide to return to the dam and retrieve it. I place the snare in front of the cave, then it goes back up to the dam (on the way I search a corpse lying on the outcrop of a cliff up on my left - crows led me there), and up there where the window is I see a deer carcass. How that deer got here is a mystery, it must have balanced along the dam. I make a fire next to it and harvest what is there, then climb through the window into the dam. I drop the deer hide and guts there to cure. And since night has fallen by now, I get out my newly reclaimed bedroll and sleep on the floor next to the one-way exit door.

[Hotzn]

Day 9:

After a good night’s sleep in the dam, I slip out the back door again and head back to the cave. Then I see something really interesting: Right next to the corpse ahead on the outcrop (the one I searched yesterday), there is a deer carcass. 

I am 100% sure that wasn’t there before. So do deer carcasses now spawn during the game? That would be awesome and allow for more chance and variety. It would be even cooler if those newly spawned carcasses would be consumed by wolves and bears after a while, so the player would have to hasten to discover and harvest them. But not to digress – I make a little detour and harvest the deer, then descend to the frozen river to look for the dead wolf again. It’s still there. Now… can I cure the deer hide in the cave? I mean in the rear part with the temperature jump? Lessee… ah! Before the cave, I see a dead rabbit in my snare. Anyway, cave-testing… I drop the hide and it’s already 1% cured. So this seems to work. Brilliant, I like it, since it allows me to establish at least a temporary base in a cave. So I leave the deer hide and guts here and return to the wolf. The hide and guts go into the cave, but will I take the risk and take the meat? Hmmm… I’m a risk guy, so I take 3 kg. After harvesting the rabbit as well (and placing the snare again), I explore the canyon a little bit further. Where the wolf carcass lies on the frozen river, it branches. I explore the right turn, which soon leads me steeply down to another frozen river. It’s getting dark, so I return to the cave, light a fire (cozy, cozy), do some reading (finished Wilderness Kitchen, start Frontier Shooting Guide), cooking, water-preparing and clothes-mending (repair the crucial earwraps, which I am not wearing any longer). Then I eat a piece of wolf venison (ah, the thrill of potential parasites!), drink and go to bed.

[Hotzn]

Day 10:

Waking up to a blizzard, I check the temperature inside the cave… hmm, cold. I do some little clothes repair, but end up at a felt -6°C. So I light a fire with my last remaining few sticks which is just enough to warm me up. Slowly, slowly. I pull out my book ‚Frontier Shooting Guide‘ and finish it in 3 hours. The fire goes out during that time, but luckily the blizzards ends shortly after, so I’m good. It would be exciting to have the occasional longer-lasting blizzard. In this case that would have forced me to venture out and seek shelter in the dam. Which could have been exciting. But whatever.

Now that the blizzard is over and I am out of firewood, I should either procure lots of new wood or move on. But why stay at this time? The hides & guts need more time to cure and besides that there is nothing to do here which brings me closer to my second earwrap. So I leave some provisions (cattails, water, medication) in the plastic container in the cave and head out. I turn left and reach the intersection where the frozen river branches off to the left and right. Which way leads to Pleasant Valley? I try the left one. Haha – dead end after 20 meters. So, the right one… leads down to the lower frozen river… can only turn right… after a while there is a cave to the left. Is this the transition? Let’s enter… hm… this is a spooky cave – first there is a deer carcass in here (which I leave for later), then there are numerous of these little „cairns“, all of them saying, „its story is not yet written…“. Still, I make it through, collecting quite some coal on the way. An old habit, I really don’t need that much coal right now, but I may deposit it somewhere for future use. I take a look outside the cave mouth on the other side, and yes, this is Pleasant Valley. But I am exhausted, it’s getting dark, and since I have my bedroll with me (yes) and enough provisions, I decide to sleep in the cave.

[Drifter Man]

9 hours ago, Hotzn said:

And then the wolf somehow sensed me through the terrain - probably because I was horizintally very close, only high above. This is of course buggy, a wolf should not see me through terrain.

I've also noticed before that the wolves' sensing radius only applied in the horizontal direction - so a wolf below you would sense you no matter what the elevation difference was. But terrain seemed to block it, a direct line of sight was required. Maybe there was an opening in the rocks you weren't aware of?

[Hotzn]

12 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

I've also noticed before that the wolves' sensing radius only applied in the horizontal direction - so a wolf below you would sense you no matter what the elevation difference was. But terrain seemed to block it, a direct line of sight was required. Maybe there was an opening in the rocks you weren't aware of?

I had considered that, but couldn't see any opening. So I doubt it.