Bleak Inlet Strats

[Kitsune_Wizard]

This is more or less my professional how-to guide for surviving Bleak Inlet. In my opinion, this place is far, FAR harder than Hushed River Valley.

And I was *just* playing on voyager. 

Honestly, if you're playing on interloper, steer well the heck clear of this entire region. Two-shotted by unblockable or avoidable wolf attacks, RIP.

It might be worth it on Stalker for the bullets, but again, PREPARE. 

Step 1- Preparation.

REQUIRED!
1-Revolver, plus at least twenty rounds
2-Multiple days worth of food (firewood is plentiful enough to boil water, but winging a wolf with the revolver will seldom kill it. And they will sprint across the entire map when hurt, they don't limp like normal wolves. Don't count on getting anything back from fighting them.)
3-Plentiful medical supplies. Bandages and antiseptic is your main thing. Rarely will you get bitten enough to cause bleeding, but when it does, the wolves don't stop attacking while you bandage up. Be quick.
4-A defense rating of around thirty. Military pants/boots/coat are cheap to repair and have high DEF. There's enough shelters not to worry about the cold.
5-A moose hide satchel and being well-fed. I don't know how I would have survived without that satchel.
6-The usuals, a knife and hatchet. Leave the lantern since you can just chain torches from a fire of a few sticks.
7-spent shell casings. There's plenty of gunpowder in BI but not enough casings. Shoot some wolves first.
8-lead, or a hacksaw. There's plenty of car batteries around the cannery but it'll save you time if you're carrying a few pounds of pre-made led.

Nice, but not required.

1-A second climbing rope, it is heavy but increadibly useful. You can climb back up to the plateau with it. Find the tie-off rock next to the fire-watch tower. However it is not required. You can 'skyrim' your way down the cliff. First, face the climbing rock. Go to the right, there's a snow-covered ledge. Follow that, crouch, and inch your way down the rocks. Keep moving to the right, safely and slowly. Eventually you will find a little snow-ledge with some art bugs. From there, you can see beneath the ground but the ground is solid. It's easy to walk down the snowdrift from here, as long as you are crouching and careful.

2- smithing skill books. You can grind gun smithing very easily by just making seven hundred bullets from car batteries. I recommend you do this, actually. So when you make actual ammo, you get better quality.

3- Marine Flares. Technically they can deter timberwolves, but you generally want them not alive rather than deterred. They can be handy but don't count on them. I tried to cheese the game by dropping one at my feet and shooting from inside the blue fire. Apparently it only works if you hold it in your hand or throw it. RIP dying light strat

There's an exit to forlorn muskeg on the opposite side of the cannery you will approach from. You won't get stuck.

For the love of all that is holy do NOT go into this region unless you've gotta gun and twenty bullets. Twenty is enough to be safe, but having more couldn't hurt.

Timberwolves lose morale in survival mode a lot faster than in story, thank you Ralph. Three shots from a revolver was enough to disperse every pack I ran across.

However, shooting two wolves will eventually kill them, and timberwolves will never attack (at least, not as a pack) if there is only one timberwolf. If there's a pack of timberwolves at a choke point you cannot avoid (like below the firewatch tower) it is better to kill them outright. Otherwise, timberwolves will attack again after one day has passed.

1- Start from the Ravine entrance. IE: rope climb down from the train cars.
2-shoot timberwolves at forest lookout. Go for killshots but if they don't die it's whatever. 
3-if you have it, hook your rope to the climbing rock
4-rest in tower if needed. 
5-pick up the note from the desk in the radio hut. It looks like the hut from signal hill. It doesn't show up in your inventory and you don't need to remember the code that's on it, just pick it up.
6-booty-scoot your way down the cliffside, or climb down.
7-there's timberwolves here because of course there are. Use more gun. Don't forget to pick up your spent casings.
8-you should see a cabin on the waterfront. Stop there for supplies and a rest. and refill your condition.
9- head toward the long bridge in the morning. There's a bear here, but man, it's so easy to avoid them compared to the timberwolves. 
10- the cannery is guarded by more timberwolves. Introduce them to your freedom stick. There's a trailer you can rest in but if you didn't shoot at least two wolves they will be back in the morning.
11- There's a rope climb section coming up. But there's a broken staircase in the building closest to the cannery. You can drop something on the floor there and reach it from the catwalk, if you want to take something with you but are too encumbered to carry it. Like a gun or a car battery or a bigger gun. 
12- the rope parkour section is pretty simple. Do it, and despair that there is no jump button. Just kinda akwardly fall onto things beneath you.
13-you've made it to the cannery! You can use the ammo bench without an aurora, but the lathe requires one. Spend your time crafting bullets and gunpowder (you only need a small fire in the ammunition forge. It doesn't have to be a certain temperature.) until the aurora. You need some scrap metal to fix your gun and tools, but luckily there's plenty of metal shelves and such around.
14- notice another revolver beneath a pallet. You cannot reach it, and for some reason you cannot break the pallet down with a hatchet. If only you could duel wield.
15- there should be plenty of supplies around for bullet-making. I found some gunpowder, and enough to make even more gunpowder. 1 single can of gunpowder will give you fifty (50!!!) bullets. Assuming you have the cases and the lead.
16- if you didn't drop a rope down, or you have so much gear you can't climb it, you can exit the region by following the road left from the cannery to its end. On the broken bridge, look right and you'll see a muskeg-like area with snow over ice. Scoot down from the bridge and head that way. Look for the hunting blind, the exit is around there. And make sure you're carrying a gun! There's timberwolves here too because why not. Try to fight the temptation to go back and make the ammo you just wasted, and leave with your new arsenal.

I'm not sure if timberwolves respawn after a certain amount of days. I really hope not. If they don't, that may make this region a survivable base. I would adore it if once you took them out, a normal wolf would spawn in their place. Still, as long as you were willing to abuse the free repairs during the aurora, you might be able to do it now. For your sake, I hope that bear at the end of the bridge respawns quickly.

I would also really love like, being able to place a plank down to skip the parkour section after you've done it once. That seems like such an obvious thing there might already be a way to do it that I just haven't seen. Mainly because it's increadibly tedious carrying tons of animal meat with you and having to go up and down that rope. Even that staircase trick will need a few goes to get it all since there's just so much meat you're dropping.

As it stands now, your main objective is to get into this region, get what you need, and get out ASAP.

You do not know the relief of dealing with timberwolves for so long, then leaving into the muskeg and getting chased by a normal wolf. It is a walk in the park compared to timberwolves, and you will never curse a wolf for attacking you again. Even as you're slowly bleeding out from his attack, you can take comfort in the knowledge that you died because of a mistake you made. Not undodgeable, unavoidable hellhound nonsense.

 I hope this helps! Certainly this region is quite a bit different than anything we've gotten before.
 

[Ahatch]

Good post  I generally play Interloper now so likely not go there until I get a pistol in one of my runs. 

[Serenity]

Quote

notice another revolver beneath a pallet. You cannot reach it

This should have been fixed with 1.69. But not retroactively

Edited December 22, 2019 by Serenity

[Morrick]

On 12/21/2019 at 12:57 AM, Kitsune_Wizard said:

There's enough shelters not to worry about the cold.

First off: this is an excellent post in every aspect. Great work! 

I just wanted to add another piece of advice based on personal experience: the Frozen Delta area is tricky, and is the one that gave me the worst flashbacks from Forlorn Muskeg, as there are spots of thin ice you can fall into. The waters aren't as deep as in Forlorn Muskeg's thin ice spots, so any fall is survivable provided you have heavy warm clothing and you're in top shape health-wise, but it's still a major nuisance if you fall into thin ice while you're already caught in a blizzard and are trying to find shelter. It happened to me on Pilgrim and only a stroke of luck saved me: as I was frantically trying to reach the Washed Out Trailers, I ended up in the completely opposite direction and reached the cave that leads to Forlorn Muskeg. The cave is naturally warm (on Pilgrim, at least). I was able to make a campfire and sleep 12 hours straight to dry up and recover condition. 

Bleak Inlet is a fascinating region to explore in the relative safety of Pilgrim mode; but in all my explorations, I feel this is the worst region when it comes to weather. It's the only region (with Hushed River Valley as close second) where I really felt weather (and temperatures) as a threat, especially if you're not close to a shelter when weather turns on you. And weather changes a lot here.

Edited December 22, 2019 by Morrick
Forgot a couple of words...

[Kitsune_Wizard]

3 hours ago, Morrick said:

First off: this is an excellent post in every aspect. Great work! 

I just wanted to add another piece of advice based on personal experience: the Frozen Delta area is tricky, and is the one that gave me the worst flashbacks from Forlorn Muskeg, as there are spots of thin ice you can fall into. The waters aren't as deep as in Forlorn Muskeg's thin ice spots, so any fall is survivable provided you have heavy warm clothing and you're in top shape health-wise, but it's still a major nuisance if you fall into thin ice while you're already caught in a blizzard and are trying to find shelter. It happened to me on Pilgrim and only a stroke of luck saved me: as I was frantically trying to reach the Washed Out Trailers, I ended up in the completely opposite direction and reached the cave that leads to Forlorn Muskeg. The cave is naturally warm (on Pilgrim, at least). I was able to make a campfire and sleep 12 hours straight to dry up and recover condition. 

Bleak Inlet is a fascinating region to explore in the relative safety of Pilgrim mode; but in all my explorations, I feel this is the worst region when it comes to weather. It's the only region (with Hushed River Valley as close second) where I really felt weather (and temperatures) as a threat, especially if you're not close to a shelter when weather turns on you. And weather changes a lot here.

Oh right I forgot to mention this area! The safest path through here I've found is just sticking to the left (approaching from the cannery) for as long as possible and avoiding the ice like it's lava. Eventually you'll stumble on the hunting blind that marks the exit. There's two warm caves along the left wall that are enough to get your temperature back.

Or, if you want to be super over prepared like me, make sure you're carrying enough supplies for a snow shelter lol.

[Guest jeffpeng]

I've given Bleak Inlet a few brief tries, and even on Stalker surviving the onslaught without a weapon is improbable at best. Somewhere I heard stones were the new hawt sheet when it came to Timberwolves, but I don't see how. The best result I got is accelerant up a fire with my back to the wall and throw torches like they were confetti. Which is probably as repeatable as blue flares given the limited availability of accellerant.

I have yet to take an Interloper to Bleak Inlet. I plan to, eventually, take a well equipped bowtank there and see how far I get. Until then .... no way. If Hinterlands intention was to make a region so terrifying no Interloper goes there .... they kinda did it.

10 hours ago, Kitsune_Wizard said:

Or, if you want to be super over prepared like me, make sure you're carrying enough supplies for a snow shelter lol.

I ALWAYS carry enough supplies for a snow shelter lol.

[Kitsune_Wizard]

7 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

I've given Bleak Inlet a few brief tries, and even on Stalker surviving the onslaught without a weapon is improbable at best. Somewhere I heard stones were the new hawt sheet when it came to Timberwolves, but I don't see how. The best result I got is accelerant up a fire with my back to the wall and throw torches like they were confetti. Which is probably as repeatable as blue flares given the limited availability of accellerant.

I have yet to take an Interloper to Bleak Inlet. I plan to, eventually, take a well equipped bowtank there and see how far I get. Until then .... no way. If Hinterlands intention was to make a region so terrifying no Interloper goes there .... they kinda did it.

I ALWAYS carry enough supplies for a snow shelter lol.

I weep for all the arrowheads that stick into a timberwolf that runs off the map and falls into the ocean.

[SampleText]

Interloper in Bleak Inlet is more or less just a stealth game if you don't have a bow. I didn't have one but didn't care and made it out fine. I only encountered a timberwolf "attack" at the Summit near Ravine's End where I exited the region after many days of chilling there waiting for an aurora.

[peteloud]

On 12/20/2019 at 11:57 PM, Kitsune_Wizard said:

13-you've made it to the cannery! You can use the ammo bench without an aurora, but the lathe requires one.

In UK we would call that lathe a milling machine.  Or at least we did when I was an engineer apprentice 55 years ago.

[Mistral]

On 12/21/2019 at 1:57 AM, Kitsune_Wizard said:

In my opinion, this place is far, FAR harder than Hushed River Valley.

What's your argument for that?

Even the fact that you start without bedroll and matches on Interloper means HRV start is 100 times than BI start. At BI, you can just stumble on any of the cabins and sleep immediately, and start looting before you exit for Forlorn. Whereas at HRV you just want to get out as quickly as you  can as it's otherwise death sentence.

Bleak is technically colder than HRV most of times, but you can find better clothing items there, plus you know basic cloth to repair your kit, so the temperature aspect is "compensated" there. Meanwhile HRV is mostly empty of those. The hidden caches have some good items at the times but not much on Interloper

Timberwolf packs in BI are concentrated on regions you can easily avoid (with the exception of Canery and perhaps the upper region) whereas regular wolves are all over HRV, mostly in narrow corridors and in blind because of the hilly terrain. Plus it's hard to hear them because of waterfalls everywhere. Timberwolf morale meter, if turned on, immediately alerts you of danger, much earlier than with HRV wolfes.

Navigating Bleak is also easier as you can always see far ahead, whereas HRV, even after exhausting the map constant times still gives me occasional navigation problem, at least at the center of the map.

Even little things as fishing hut & crafting table of Bleak Inlet immediately makes living off there much easier.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Mistral