decay rate crates and (cargo)containers?

[solide]

Does anybody know if items (cloth/food) decay when they are still in closed cargo containers? I'm thinking about the summit. If these items do not decay untill you open the containers (as seems reasonable since they are in closed metal containers) then summit serves as a beautifull second change to replenish supplies mid- to end game. It would become a strategic decision to go to timberwolf region and open those treasure chests. 

If they do decay a similar rates as other items in the world then what's the point of timberwolf region? A thorough search of the other regions will have given the player most of the desired high-level gear needed, and plenty of tools that can be repaired or crafted. When arricing at summit the food and clothing is ruined, and the guns/tools are obsolete since you already have them (and probably they are too heavy to carry anyway) then the only reason to go would be the change of some ammuniotion and possible matches (obsolete if you alreay have found another way of making fire on a Sunny day).

So can anybody tell me if the stuff in the airplane cargo containers does decay? Has anybody been there late game and found the food/clothing at 0%? And possibly the same applies to other closed (green) crates in other locations?

[UpUpAway95]

I have found stuff in very low condition (21%) at the summit; but I don't know if it just spawns in that way or if my getting there later in the run made a difference.  I've also arrived at the summit later in the game and found stuff in great condition, so I'm sorry, I have nothing consistent enough to be sure.

Edited August 17, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[Serenity]

Items start decaying as soon as the game starts. And stuff in container's despawns when it hits 0%. It's not an issue though with the standard 100% decay rate of Stalker. Much less the lower difficulties. You have plenty of time and don't have to rush anything.

Only Interloper's 200% is annoying and may require some meta gaming around the decay rates

[Jimmy]

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Decay

So a 100% wool toque in the tail section on Interloper will decay 0.26% per day, and despawn after 385 days, regardless of whether you've ever visited the region. The same decay rate applies for the wool ear wraps and wool socks.

Of course, many items spawn with lower than 100% condition. If you want a 90% chance of the wool items in the tail section on Interloper, you should visit within the first 38 days.

[UpUpAway95]

16 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Decay

So a 100% wool toque in the tail section on Interloper will decay 0.26% per day, and despawn after 385 days, regardless of whether you've ever visited the region. The same decay rate applies for the wool ear wraps and wool socks.

Of course, many items spawn with lower than 100% condition. If you want a 90% chance of the wool items in the tail section on Interloper, you should visit within the first 38 days.

Which is not what happens at all.  On my 500-day run, I did not summit for the first time until after the 400th day.   Furthermore, I have been in the zone for aobut 30 days before I summited (since I was going for my Faithful Cartographer achievement).  I found some clothing items in very low conditon (21%) but others in fairly good condition (71%).  If decline rates for every were consistent and every started out at 100%, I really should have found nothing in the way of clothing or food at the summit by that point in the game... but I found plenty and all at different levels of condition.   I think it's somewhat random (that is, some things will spawn in at low condition and some things will spawn in in good condition... perhaps the ratio of low/high is based somewhat on the numberr of days you've been in the world).  I think decay begins the first time the game actually loads that cell.

[Jimmy]

1 minute ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Which is not what happens at all.  On my 500-day run, I did not summit for the first time until after the 400th day.   Furthermore, I have been in the zone for aobut 30 days before I summited (since I was going for my Faithful Cartographer achievement).  I found some clothing items in very low conditon (21%) but others in fairly good condition (71%).  If decline rates for every were consistent and every started out at 100%, I really should have found nothing in the way of clothing or food at the summit by that point in the game... but I found plenty and all at different levels of condition.   I think it's somewhat random (that is, some things will spawn in at low condition and some things will spawn in in good condition... perhaps the ratio of low/high is based somewhat on the numberr of days you've been in the world).  I think decay begins the first time the game actually loads that cell.

Interesting! Can you verify if this 500 day run was on Interloper? Do you remember specifically which items you found at 71%? Certain items have little to no decay, such as salty crackers. My own Interloper run when I hit the tail section at a few days past 100, I found a wool ear wrap in single digit condition, but four 95% condition boxes of salty crackers.

[UpUpAway95]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

Interesting! Can you verify if this 500 day run was on Interloper? Do you remember specifically which items you found at 71%? Certain items have little to no decay, such as salty crackers. My own Interloper run when I hit the tail section at a few days past 100, I found a wool ear wrap in single digit condition, but four 95% condition boxes of salty crackers.

It was not on interloper.  It was a pilgrim game.  However, we know from the custom settings that the "base resource availability" changes with difficulty, so I would say the ratio of low/high spawn in condition would be higher in interloper.  That is, when the cell is first loaded, the game rolls the dice as to what it spawns in and the condition in which it spawns.  In cases where the "base resource availability" is high (pilgrim), the ratio of high condition items is high; and in interloper (where the "base resource availability" is low, the game spawns in a higher ratio of low condition items.  It may adjust the max condition based on the total number of days you've been in the game so that the CHANCES of something spawning in at 100% condition decreases as you go... but it is never 0%.  Then, the first time you enter the cell (not the zone), the game creates/fills the containers in that cell and decay begins.  Until the game first loads the cell, those items don't exist in the game at all... so they can't begin decay until after they are spawned in.

[Jimmy]

Ah, if you were playing Pilgrim, that explains it!

Interloper has 200% decay rate compared to Pilgrim's 25% decay rate.

Thus, an item would decay 8% in Interloper for every 1% in Pilgrim.

The reason you found stuff still in the tail section is because it decays so slowly in Pilgrim mode you'd still have a 75% chance of finding wool clothing in the tail section after 400 days.

[UpUpAway95]

25 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Ah, if you were playing Pilgrim, that explains it!

Interloper has 200% decay rate compared to Pilgrim's 25% decay rate.

Thus, an item would decay 8% in Interloper for every 1% in Pilgrim.

The reason you found stuff still in the tail section is because it decays so slowly in Pilgrim mode you'd still have a 75% chance of finding wool clothing in the tail section after 400 days.

Still, it doesn't explain why some things were at very high condition and others were not.  I believe I even found "new" food items... and that's after 30 days in the zone.  I had also found "ruined" clothing in Coastal Highway on that run... and I reached there probably about 40 days into the run.  Regardless of difficulty leve, it's too variable to say that game starts with everything spawned in and then everything starts to decay at a constant rate after that.

[Jimmy]

There's difference between static loot and random loot. Guaranteed spawns will have condition loss calculated based on time elapsed, with initial condition set by the game seed. The loot in the tail section is an example of this static loot, as are other guaranteed items such as the caches in hushed river valley. Random loot, such as that found in metal boxes, lockers, and other containers throughout the world, are spawned using RNG for their contents and condition.

It's possible to find random 100% items throughout the world, but they're always a product of chance, not guaranteed loot such as that in the cargo containers.

[UpUpAway95]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

There's difference between static loot and random loot. Guaranteed spawns will have condition loss calculated based on time elapsed, with initial condition set by the game seed. The loot in the tail section is an example of this static loot, as are other guaranteed items such as the caches in hushed river valley. Random loot, such as that found in metal boxes, lockers, and other containers throughout the world, are spawned using RNG for their contents and condition.

It's possible to find random 100% items throughout the world, but they're always a product of chance, not guaranteed loot such as that in the cargo containers.

I don't believe the loot inside the containers in the tail section is all static loot though.  Some is... the stuff that can be pegged by the 4 Loper loot tables, but other items are random.  I also think, regardless, the starting condition of the item is random (I've found pistols under Grey Mother's bed on several runs at varying levels, not Loper, varying in condition from 98% to 26%) all within the first few days of a run (since I was deliberately testing the spawn of the pistol on those runs).   I recently watched a Loper run on Youtube where that player reached the tail section on Day 1 and found a clothing item (I think it was a Mackinaw) at something like 20% condition.  The food I found in the tail section, in cargo containers, after 400 days was in too good a condition to have been decaying there for 400 days... even on Pilgrim mode.

[Jimmy]

This obviously requires further testing!

I'm gonna create a Pilgrim file and start in Pleasant Valley, save before entering Timberwolf Mountain, then make a backup of the save file and document the loot in the summit.

Let's see whether there's identical condition items or if it's all RNG!

[ajb1978]

A couple years back I had a Pilgrim game where I was just trying to get to a full 10 years survived, and I basically just passed time and fished while drinking beer and listening to podcasts.  (It was so boring that I couldn't even finish.)  But I do recall on like day 1000 or whatever I found a 100% can of soda in a plastic container between Jackrabbit and the Fishing Camp that I had somehow missed.  That threw any and all theories I had about decay rates for newly looted items clean out the window.

It does seem that items found later in the game are in lower condition than items found early on....but that also seems to be variable.  Like there's a random chance that an item will randomly decay by a random amount.  Random random random.

[solide]

If items (clothing) does not start to decay from the start this will change the way i play a lot. At the moment I, and i think a lot of other players, start a new game. Then i visit pretty much every region and clear out the most important location. This gives me some decent clothing however all clothing i do not repair loses condition. If the idea items only start to decay after they spawn (when entering a region?) It would make more sense to leave some region untouched until i realy need more/better gear.