Bleak Inlet and Timberwolves - Notes

[stratvox]

I'm going to use this as a scratch pad to make notes about dealing with BI and the timberwolves there.

Note: playing Voyageur, which seems to be a good difficulty to use to get a handle on timberwolf behaviour and how to exploit it; I would not want to be trying this on Stalker as my initial experimental run.

If you start there, get out of the region fast and do not return until you are very well equipped.

It's almost always very windy there; dress accordingly.

You can move around the very edge of the map around the Frozen Delta area in almost complete safety.

It seems that the moose is the primary meat bearing animal; I've seen only one deer, up on the plateau, and only after I broke the pack up on the plateau. I eventually hunted that pack to extinction. I'm hoping that my theory that if you kill ALL the wolves in a pack it greatly lengthens the time it'll take for them to respawn and may permit deer to spawn into the region. On the other hand I've only been in there for a few weeks of game time and I've killed two moose so far. N.B. - moose still cannot path into the blinds, but they can see you and will try to get in, which is great if you can get the moose to trip out on you; turns it into an easy kill. This means that it is entirely possible for your main prey animal to kick the crap out of ya. If I see a third moose show up in a week or so that'll pretty much confirm that the moose is the intended grocery larder for BI because that'll far exceed the spawn rate I've ever seen in any other region. Like hugely exceed it. If you want moose, it looks like BI is your spot. Enter from FM.

The Hunter's Blinds in the Frozen Delta area are well situated for tempting timberwolves into attacking so you can pick them off. I used smell to pull them over and bows and arrows to dispatch them. Their appears to be a new change in pathing; timberwolves can come right up to the entrance and if you're standing close enough to the entrance, they can take a bite; however it doesn't appear as if they can come right inside. I'm curious if this is true for plain wolves now, but I've not had a chance to find out. It does require a different way of using the bow; it seems that pull release is how you want to do this rather than lining it up; lining it up takes too long and the wolf will have enough time to get out of the way.

I suspect that logs/fallen trees (which I hear they can path up on) are going to be useful in the same way; by confining the path they're on you can guarantee a hit with a bow and arrow by just pulling and releasing without stressing about the aim too much; just so long as the path down the trunk is in the centre of the screen you're going to hit anything that's on it when you release.

Anyway, I found that if I was in the back corner away from the stairs up, they couldn't reach me, at least not before I was able to put an arrow into them while they were confined by the door opening and staircase and couldn't veer away from my aim as they tried to get in to get me. The hunter blinds used properly are incredible for dispatching the TWs with minimal risk and damage to the player. I've used thrown stones and meat/guts to get them to come to me and then arrows to kill them twice and it has worked quite well so far. There's one closer to the broken bridge along the south eastern edge as you work your way around is the one I'm hoping to use to get the wolves between the delta and the cannery island to come to me so I can see them off too. At that point if my recon is right there are the TWs on the ice on the outside side of the cannery and the TWs right around the cannery itself. I haven't made my way around the cannery and across the long bridge yet to get to that part of the map, so I'm not too sure what the disposition over there is; this is all based on spending time cave living in the Frozen Delta part of the map. Guess I'll find out.

So far, it is definitely true that one wants to be well prepared going in. However, I can say that I've been doing this without firearms and I've been remaining alive. It's just that one needs to recalibrate the expectations going in; I'm expecting that it'll take me a few more weeks before I will have sufficiently depopulated the timberwolves to make moving around the map safer than it is now. I'm pretty sure that this is the key; not only do you have to break the pack (which seems to happen when there's one left that hasn't taken an arrow), but after it breaks you must hunt the now-fleeing from the player remnants of the pack to ensure a decent amount of time before they reappear on the map. To me this is an extremely cool gameplay element; I've found my best luck to be by trapping the last member somewhere where they must pass you to escape so you can gift them a fletched iron-tipped stick  and wait for it to return to you.

Also I think that it's also possible to find paths that will get you almost every where while avoiding the timberwolf packs, though I'm not one hundred percent certain of that yet... a lot will remain to be seen when I finally get to cross the long bridge and explore on the other side of the radio tower promontory. 

Finally, I've seen people complaining about disappearing arrows. I've been on this map for weeks and I've lost two arrows... and I'm pretty sure I'll find them again. I entered with 25. At a couple of times (doing long range shooting at the moose, mostly) I've gotten myself down to seven, but I've always been able to find them again, though sometimes it has taken a significant amount of time to do so. I think that when you exit a building or wake up from sleeping the game is checking the locations of those things and if they fail their sanity check for location it places them on the surface of the snow so you can find them again. I head canon that by thinking that blowing and drifting snow has unburied the arrow from the snow bank it disappeared into.

[ajb1978]

I've noticed that Timberwolves don't actually hunt deer for food, they simply hunt to kill.  I didn't witness the kill, but I found a 100% frozen deer carcass up by the lookout tower.  I did not shoot this deer (Fishing 5 = easy eats), but the interesting thing is that unlike deer dropped by Wolves, this was not a Ravaged Deer Carcass. It was merely a Deer Carcass.

Edit: And I am 100% positive it was not a placed carcass.  This was definitely a deer that was once alive, and is no more.  It also despawned after a few days.  (I was swimming in salmon, didn't need it.)

Edited December 26, 2019 by ajb1978

[Guest jeffpeng]

22 minutes ago, stratvox said:

If I see a third moose show up in a week or so that'll pretty much confirm that the moose is the intended grocery larder for BI

A moose a week? I could live with that, I could live off that, actually. I mean .... you can do the math: Even assuming you're a bad cook, and you expend a lot of calories - say 4000 - a day, the average moose (35kg) will feed you for 35kg * 900 / 4000 = ~8 days. Add the bear to the diet, which you can actually lure rather easily to the bridge and take down safely hiding in a car .... the food situation looks rather plentiful.

32 minutes ago, stratvox said:

if you're standing close enough to the entrance, they can take a bite; however it doesn't appear as if they can come right inside.

Confirmed. Unless you stand really close to the edge ... you're safe there.

41 minutes ago, stratvox said:

To me this is an extremely cool gameplay element

If your assumptions hold true this indeed is one of the better ideas I've seen.

42 minutes ago, stratvox said:

Also I think that it's also possible to find paths that will get you almost every where while avoiding the timberwolf packs

They indeed do exist. They are even relatively easy to avoid once you know where they usually camp out. Every point of interest can be reached without confronting a pack, and even the Workshop can be accessed without having to fight the pack. Just be light, and be quick - and know where the rope is. Getting out .... is a bit harder, but you can widdle them down from the small platform under the pier (which i am certain is the reason that platform is there for in the first place)

[stratvox]

2 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

A moose a week?

No, not that often. One about every fifteen to twenty days or so.

I was frankly shocked when I saw the moose return as quickly as it did. It's possible that the RNG god smiled upon me, which is why I want to hang out for a bit more time in this area of the map, to see if the pattern holds. Even so, I would've expected to see the respawn happen every fifty days, not fifteen.

39 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

Edit: And I am 100% positive it was not a placed carcass.  This was definitely a deer that was once alive, and is no more.  It also despawned after a few days.  (I was swimming in salmon, didn't need it.)

You should take the hide, at least. Repair materials for your boots and pants are hard to come by in Bleak Inlet, at least so far for me. 

That might mean the deer spawns in immediately, and I just didn't see it until after I'd broken the pack. Still, I'm hoping to get back up there in another month or so to see what's happened to the wildlife up there after I lived there for a week or three earlier while I explored it. I'm esp. curious about the wolves because I made very sure I killed them ALL before I left. Think of it as a control group.

15 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

If your assumptions hold true this indeed is one of the better ideas I've seen.

Well, they're being treated as a unit, so I think it makes sense to attempt to play with unit respawn rates as well as individual wolf respawn rates. I'm hoping that part of the gameplay is that destroying the unit completely will result in a long clock before the unit respawns.

If that's true, the smart play is to use the blinds or whatever to pull in and kill all but one wolf. Depending on what kind of shape you're in, wait for another one to respawn into the pack, and then pull the two in, kill one, and then hunt down the other because killing the one cost you nothing.

Basically I've been hanging out in the Frozen Delta for a long time to give me time to figure out the right ways to deal with the timberwolves, both in terms of avoidance and elimination. It seems that smelly meat can pull them from a LONG way away, which means that they become controllable by the smell of meat. Bringing the pack to your impregnable position by manipulating their behaviour via thrown stones and scent looks like the smart way to deal with them to me.

[ajb1978]

Just now, stratvox said:

You should take the hide, at least. Repair materials for your boots and pants are hard to come by in Bleak Inlet, at least so far for me. 

Wearing Mukluks.  I have dozens of deer hides in other regions, hundreds of scrap leather, and a couple thousand scrap cloth....  I ain't hurting for resources lol

[LkP]

6 hours ago, stratvox said:

timberwolves can come right up to the entrance [...] I'm curious if this is true for plain wolves now, but I've not had a chance to find out.

the same, they avoid difficult path/area, but if you try to get too close or if it is a straight line, all animals will charge.

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I suspect that logs/fallen trees (which I hear they can path up on) are going to be useful in the same way;

I've tried some, they can't climb most of them, but the horizontal ones can be used like that (beware that they often try to surround you). The ones they can't climb are still a good spot to shot, yet very tricky (first time I tried, I could kill one but I had to run and come back later to retrieve all my arrows stuck in the snow...).
I don't like the hunter blind, I don't know, I'm not good when they are running so close, but to each hunter his style

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but after it breaks you must hunt the now-fleeing from the player remnants of the pack to ensure a decent amount of time before they reappear on the map. To me this is an extremely cool gameplay element; I've found my best luck to be by trapping the last member somewhere where they must pass you to escape so you can gift them a fletched iron-tipped stick  and wait for it to return to you.

I hope that's true. I'm trying the same. You can also use the Aurora to your advantage. If you are in a safe spot, they'll keep coming at you. I had the 3 packs roaming below me in the cannery (the cannery one, the trailer one and I guess the marsh one), that was fun... kinda...
I've tracked one last member like you would do with a highly susceptible deer. Basically : check the path, take a high ground, move forward crouching, take a long shot, wait if you miss, long shot, etc...

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Also I think that it's also possible to find paths that will get you almost every where while avoiding the timberwolf packs, though I'm not one hundred percent certain of that yet...

I think so too. It's like with bears, if you don't want to hunt them, you just avoid their path. Except that their awareness range is huge, and when the wind turns, better be ready to run.

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I think that when you exit a building or wake up from sleeping the game is checking the locations of those things and if they fail their sanity check for location it places them on the surface of the snow so you can find them again.

Yep, but sometimes arrows don't really reappear where you expect them to (the wind, the slope, maybe the animals can push it)

 

5 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

I've noticed that Timberwolves don't actually hunt deer for food, they simply hunt to kill. 

I can confirm that. I pushed a deer to a timberwolf near the tower. I've heard the kill, so I went for a easy-old-school-wolf-hunting, but the timberwolf was just ignoring the deer and growled at me, followed by its two buddies in a matter of seconds.

Btw, they can climb stairs........