Journey Planning - A pathing strategy

[Tactical Ex]

I'm currently playing a custom game (stalker-lite would be an appropriate name for it) in order to get the last 2 achievements which have been alluding me. One of them being 500 days surviving. To do this I've planned out my long term survival journey all over the map. In a nut shell, ML Dam is home base because of it's central location and I am slowly moving ALL of the resources in the game towards the Dam. I'll leave furniture mostly in place but boxes, curtains, ... everything gets broken down and hauled to home. From there I'll build up a huge stock of food and water and basically run the clock so that I can move on to a more difficult custom game.

I have already cleared out Broken Railroad, Forlorn Muskeg, Timberwolf mountain. Mountain Town, *most* of Pleasant Valley, and now I'm working towards Desolation point via Coastal Highway. 

At some point I will have opened every container and searched every dark corner and have all the loot in the Dam (Some of it is sitting at the entrance to Bleak Inlet). It is at this point that I will go craft all the ammo possible (since I will have all of the supplies which spawn to do so) and use it to do some major hunting. After that I'll be able to run the clock in bursts before another hunting session and so on...

Doing this has caused me to develop a strategy to efficiently and safely move all the goods so I figured I'd share my strategy with CH since its a nice visual to work with. 

Step one - decide on a path with outposts.

As you can see in the above image, the outposts I have selected are the hut in the rabbit grove, a house in the fishing village, the house at jack rabbit island and Misanthrope's Homestead. 

Step Two - consolidate all the map's loot onto checkpoints along the path

In this image the green represents how the loot is distributed before the player interacts with the map.

... and this image represents how the loot distribution looks like in the map once everything is consolidated

Step Three - Move loot along the path, stopping to grab things along the way from outposts. 

This takes many trips of course but this survivor has time to kill/be productive so why not? Note that in this game type there seems to be enough packaged food in the map to make it to step 3 without hunting but once the line is set I'll go get a bear and distribute a bunch of food and water along the path. In this case, once the loot has reached 30% of what it was I'll set up the same type of thing in Desolation Point.

 

[Guest jeffpeng]

I like it when people actually go in-depth about the strategic aspect of the game. I keep mentioning how and why TLD is a strategy game to me (then again.... to me that is true for life in general ...  ), and that it is really less about mechanical skill or good reaction, but good long-term decisions and well thought out planning. Well - and patience. As to your route... yeah, pretty damn approved. In your scenario I wouldn't know how to do it otherwise.

As to long term survival on sub-Interloper (maybe even on Interloper?) .... I feel like accessibility of a fishing hut, especially those farther out on CH, really outweighs the lack of a workbench in the immediate vicinity. I've been doing a lot of back and forth and back again of thinking out the several advantages and disadvantages, and all things considered I'm starting to cast my vote back on the all-time favorite Jackrabbits. But the dam, in any case, is a good choice.

[Jimmy]

Nice maps! When I'm doing this run, I use a slightly modified route.

I usually move from the Ravine to Crumbling Highway, so my route is based on this direction. I also begin fully rested coming into the Ravine from the trailers at Carter Hydro Dam. Since there's plentiful rabbits in the Ravine, I use the opportunity to fill my belly with meat before entering Coastal Highway.

From the Ravine transition, instead of making your way straight to the Rabbit Grove, continue towards the Train Unloading and loot the trailer here. Along this route you'll likely find some scattered coal as well, so keep your eyes open!

Swing east down the mountain for a cabin, a bunch of reishi and rosehips, and a possible birch sapling. Loot at your leisure.

Head west from the cabin to the second trailer for some reishi mushrooms and sticks. Beware of the wolf that patrols along this route, but there's plenty of terrain available to shake your tail if you get sniffed.

Climb back up and follow the cliff below the train unloading, grabbing the saplings along this route if they spawn. You'll want to end up at the top of the frozen river below the bridge, then follow this downstream, harvesting the cattails and picking up some more scattered coal.

Bag the rabbits near the cabin, carry them to the deer carcass at Bear Creek Campground, start up a campfire and harvest some meat. After filling up, you should be looking at nightfall by this stage, so grab any reishi or rosehips around the cabin, then dump your dead weight and rest at Rabbit Grove.

Following the river from Bear Creek Campground and harvesting cattails towards the Rockfall, you should be able to bag some rabbits and a few saplings along this route, plus loot a car. A deer carcass up the hill from the Rockfall is a good spot to cook the rabbits and grab some venison for breakfast while warming up.

Follow the road towards the Fishing Camp, and possibly bag a bear for your dinner. If you get the bear, spend an extra day at the Fishing Camp cooking, otherwise duck up the hill to the cabin and bag the rabbits nearby for lunch, then dump your loot and move on to Jackrabbit Island.

If you hit the fishing huts along the way and bag the rabbits giving the island its namesake, it should be reaching night by the end of your trip and have left you with plenty of rabbit leftovers for breakfast, provided you also filled up at the grove near Fishing Camp.

The next morning is a straight shot from Jackrabbits to Misanthrope's, then tagging the fishing huts whilst ice-dancing with wolves. If you're really keen you could instead loop north from Jackrabbits to the Log Sort fishing hut, but that one's just infested with furry demons, so I usually wait until I'm going wolf hunting and take them out instead.

From the fishing huts around Misanthrope's, its a straight shot across to the Waterfront Cottages. A few rabbits should serve for lunch here, and a quick loot for goodies before making for Crumbling Highway, checking for saplings and looting the car near Commuter's Lament.

I find this two or three day route keeps my survivor fed and warm enough to remain healthy, plus covers half of the map's loot locations. As jeffpeng said, it's all about strategy when you're route planning, but there's always the reality that no plan survives contact with the enemy. A well-timed blizzard can ruin your day and destroy your plans, so improvise, adapt, and overcome!