Dogmeat - An experienced Stalker Interlopes

[cullam]

When Interloper fist came out, I gave it a few failed attempts. I've been reading a tonne of great survival stories of interloping, sleepwalking, and straight up death wishing. I'm hoping that all that book learning will help me live a little longer. So, we begin the thus far brief tales of Dogmeat. The first few will be turse, as I'm going from memory. (1-6 happened back when Interloper first dropped, so they will be skipped)

Dogmeat 7: 
I wake up around noon, on the side of TWM. As directly as I can, I scury/slide my way down to the Mountaineering hut. Grabbing everything I can, including a saw, I briefly warm up, then set my sites for the half a plane hovering upstairs, in a physics defying manner. I stop by the wing for some coffee, and rush my way to the deer clearing, warming up briefly at the halfway cave. Coffee shall be my hot drink of choice, to keep those climbs going a little easier. To my great fortune, the crate on the deer clearing contains 3 cloth! I make good time to the prep cave, and it's time to put all the book learning to the test! I get a fire going, and soon have some coal shovelled in. I'll be nice and toasty while I build my shelter! And I've found enough cloth that I only need to tear up my snowy sports socks. 

But then... utter incompetent failure! I can't find a place for a shelter, anywhere near by fire! I eventually need to build a second fire farther out, and pull torches from the first fire. I'm wasting time, awakeness, fuel efficiency and heat! But I get the second fire set up. 
Failure again! The fire is too far away from the shelter location to provide any warmth while I build. I move the fire as far out into the mouth of the cave as I can. There's a full blizzard raging, so at least I can tell exactly where the wind hits. I dump everything that I have into the last fire, and pull the fuel out of the second one. It's not enough, but it's better than nothing. I proceed to build my snow shelter, as my temp bar plummets. 

Inside the shelter, it's below 0, but warm enough that a full temp bar should last me for an hour of sleep. I spend my remaining 6 hours of fire sleeping an hour, warming up for a bit, then sleeping again. When the wood runs out, I've got over half of a sleep bar built up. This night has gone horridly, but it will just have to do. 

I manage to make it up the rope, but I'm completely exhausted. And of course, it's a blizzard again. I've lost much of my condition bar, so I have to spend another stressful night, babysitting a fire. I keep running out to cut open a case, then back to the fire to warm up. I end up having to smash up many of the crates, to keep the fire burning. But I can't sleep, and there's no way that I can make it back to the hut in this weather, as low as my condition is. 

Eventually, the weather backs off from awful, to merely bad. I'm out of fire wood, so it's now or never. I goat down the cliff, and make the straightest line I can to the hut, while avoiding more likely wolf regions. When I get there, it's warm enough that I can sleep for a couple hours. I collapse.... 

The temp is creeping back down, and I simply don't have the resources to stick around here. I heat up more coffee, and bolt for the exit. PV is also not the place to be when flirting with low condition, so I sleep as long as I can in the bunker. Then I play the Wait For Non-Blizzard Weather In PV While My Meager Resources Dwindle game. Eventually I take my moment, and go. Past the ridge, down the ropes, quick rest at the cabin, and straight on down to the farmhouse! Ooh that big beautiful bed. 

At this point, my memory gets a little hazy. But I believe after looting everything I could, I saw a break in the weather, and made haste to the radio control tower. After a brief rest up, I wanted to get the frozen hell out of PV, so I headed for the winding river. This might have been a mistake. Let's talk for a moment about making the change from Stalker to Interloper: 
In Stalker, you aren't as rushed, and there are far more opportunities. You can afford to waste some time. This means that, if you want to live a long life, you try to avoid unnecessary risks. This is of course also true in Interloper, but the bar for what's "necessary" is wildly different. On Stalker, you mostly don't do major travels at night. It's easier to get lost or eaten, so it's worth waiting for good visibility. I know that on Interloper, I cannot be so picky. But it also means that I'm just not that used to navigating while not being able to see where I'm going... 
This means that I make it to the cave by the blind without much issue, but I don't have enough wood to stay long. Enough of most resources, really. So I need to head out into the night, to find a cave entrance that is kind of up a hill, and slightly awkward to reach. In the dark, which is not my habbit. I sprain my ankle looking for the damn thing, and have to hobble through, very slowly, as my thirst and tiredness build. By the time I reach the other side, I've used my last few sticks to cook coffee, and there's nothing for it but to keep hobbling towards the dam. I take what I believe to the be the route up around the wolves to the left, but I end up back down on the ice with them. I've found a stick, so when I hear the growl, I'm able to light a fire to buy myself some time. Hobbling back up the hill in the dark, I somehow make another wrong turn, end up walking down the slope again, and meet my fate, as a mostly frozen dinner for a hungry predator. 

[cullam]

Dogmeat 8: 
Wake up by the waterfall in FM. I figure I'll try to get what I can out of this temp bar, and head over to the radio tower. I find an early cotton toque, and a can opener. Good start! I zip back to the cave and crawl around it in the dark, until I reach the other side. I know I can hike up, but I wanted to grab some coal, and maybe recover a little heat. 
The upper cave reveals some basic stuff and a stim, but no matches. This leaves me in an interesting conundrum. I still have a fair bit of daylight left, and part of a temp bar. What's my move? Thinking it over, I eventually decide to head into Milton basin, and up to the barker farm. I make the poor assumption that I might find some matches at the burned out cabin, seeing as it's a firewood depot. I manage to eventually scare a rabbit into a wolf, so I can get by him, but there's nothing of substance in the cabin, and my heat has run out! Snow. Nothing for it now, but to keep going, freezing the whole way. A bloody moose is by the ropes, so I have to waste more time and condition tiptoeing by him. Sorry Bullwinkle, I come in peace! 
Onto the ropes, and up. The midway cave has more firewood, but still nothing to light it with. Damn! 

I can make it halfway up the second rope, but then I'm completely exhausted. My condition is in the 20s anyway, so it's time to use that stim already. Straight up and sprint to the farm, coming in from the back to minimize wolf exposure. But now we have another problem. It's pitch black out. Finding the keys is not going to be easy. No sigh of them behind the farm house, in the tractor, the shed, or the truck. I have to assume that they were in one of those places, and I just couldn't see them. The vehicles especially was nothing but "feeling" around. I'm down to 10%, and I can hear the wolves barking. I embrace them. 

[Hotzn]

Ah... to become one with the wolves....