Sprains and Pains

[DarkTreader]

Greetings, all! (Hopefully this is the correct location for this question!)

I picked up TLD back in 2017, played a while, put it down, and just recently picked it back up after getting sucked into trying Survival by reading @DrifterMan 's insane runs - because of him, I've jumped from 10 hours to 165 in just a couple of weeks. I'm easing myself into Survival, so I'm playing on Voyageur, and have just completed my first (and second) climbs up to TWM.

I'd remembered reading somewhere on here in passing that it was possible to goat down the mountain behind the plane, and figured I'd give it a try... turns out, yes, it does work! Now, onto the question.

The first time I made it from the Summit down to the east entrance to... I believe I've seen it referred to as Cave of Engines (the cave that goes from the left side of the mountain to the right), I was nursing 2 sprained wrists, 2 sprained ankles, and 5 stacks of pain. The second time, I had 1 sprained wrist, 1 sprained ankle, and 2 stacks of pain. Now, on neither one of these descents did I notice an actual impediment to continuing my far too reckless path. This was also trucking down something like 60kg, so I was already moving slow like turtle.

I suppose my questions are:

1- Can you only sprain each ankle/wrist once, and then that location becomes locked? (i.e. can you ever have 3 sprains on, say, your right ankle at the same time?)

2- If so, does this mean that on descents like this, it's more reasonable to just suffer through the injuries and repair them on completion? I know that resource-wise, it makes more sense to just let them stack up and then deal with them when you're on stable land.

3- Is there a point or maximum for pain? I know it gives you tunnel vision and you can't do long-term tasks like researching or crafting, but it doesn't seem to actually do anything to you in the long run. Is there ever a point when you have so many stacks of pain that you have a reduced weight, or increased wakefulness burn, or an increased chance of injury?

I've looked through the various wiki entries for answers to these, and haven't seen anything specific about them, so figured I'd ask the experts here.

[ManicManiac]

@DarkTreader, I'm no expert... but I can give you what I've seen from my experience.  

1. Yes a wrist or ankle is either sprained or it's not.

2. This is a player choice.  For example if you are making your decent by bouncing down the face of Timberwolf Mountain, and you find that there are some wolves out that you didn't spot ahead of time... it might be worth it to wrap up your ankles quick and sprint out of there.  Like wise it might be worth wrapping up your wrists so you can blast your way though them.  It's all up to the player and how they read their situation.  I myself was just very careful, scouted the route ahead as much as possible and I've never "wasted" a bandage on a sprain.  I make due until I can get to a spot where I can sleep it off.

3. Pain doesn't really hinder the player much at all, so I wouldn't worry about it.  As far as I can tell it only keeps you from being able to read a skill book, it applies edge blurring to your field of view, and it creates a sound dampening effect (representations of the pain the character "feels").  As a result, I don't even bother with pain meds anymore... and for me rosehip tea is just calories.   

I've never known pain to stop my character from crafting... so I don't if that's a thing, I've never had it happen.

Edited September 22, 2019 by ManicManiac

[DarkTreader]

Ah,  thanks for responding, @ManicManiac!

For all of them, I was hoping that that was the case. I tend to play as a hoarder, at least for now, so knowing that I don't have to necessarily fix everything immediately is quite useful.

I'm slowly working through each of the maps, doing experiments along the way to figure out what is/isn't needed so that I can wean myself off of Voyageur, work my way up to Stalker/Loper, and knowing how far I can push my luck with injuries is good to know.

[ManicManiac]

My general method is to refuse to let myself "graduate" to the next level of difficulty until I've managed to survive 500 days in the current difficulty level I am in.

[DarkTreader]

Not a bad strategy.

That means I have... 456 days remaining on Voyageur. >_<

Maybe in that time, I'll get better with a bow - it does get irritating to pull wolves over to me so I can drop an arrow in their eye at point blank range.

[ManicManiac]

Don't worry, I'm currently stuck on the task of mapping 100% of Great Bear, and I've fallen victim to tragedy three times now   

[Stone]

@DarkTreader welcome back to TLD! You can certainly game the game, it's definitely tempting to over carry when hoarding. However, it's surprising how little you need to function. If you're trying to tour the map taking everything of value you'll have too much to carry and be making loads of trips, but this is the boarder way!

I think the game fundamentally changes on Interloper for lots of reasons. The cold, and lack of warm clothes early game, mean you want to move fast. Because the weather gets worse after day 10 in Loper, rather than hoard, players often use that window to rush a TWM accent. But whatever you're doing on Loper, you land usually rely on a window of opportunity which can be ruined by a sprain. 

[ManicManiac]

No doubt!  When I'm just roaming around, I tend to only run around with 17-19 Kg in the inventory (just my very barebones kit).

Interloper is definitely a game changer for all those reasons you mention (and more).  I'm sure almost all of my strategies will have all changed dramatically by the time I let myself "graduate" to Interloper.

Edited October 13, 2019 by ManicManiac