Heading to the Bleak gunsmith, what should I bring?

[CMT1984]

Stalker run, day 170ish. I'm down to my last 12 revolver rounds so I think it's a good time to checkout ammo crafting at Bleak Inlet. I haven't been to Bleak before.

I normally take a pry bar, knife, a couple cans, some matches, cat tails and basic meds. Cloth for a snow shelter, I don't like carrying a bedroll. I'll have my revolver with 12 rounds, a new bow with 10 new arrows and 6 flares. Also 38 pounds of gunsmith material, enough to make about 250 cartridges.

Anything else I should bring? I fought the Timberwolves in the story mode but haven't yet on a stalker survival run so I'm not sure what to expect. I'm thinking a hatchet may be better than a knife. Also I have quite a few more flares I could bring. I also have the moose cloak and/or bear skin coat I could add to my wolf coat for better shield? I just hate wearing those heavy coats.

Edited March 2, 2020 by CMT1984
Spelling error

[peteloud]

33 minutes ago, CMT1984 said:

. . .  Also 38 pounds of gunsmith material, enough to make about 250 cartridges.

Do you have 250 empty cartridge cases?  If not a bedroll might be more useful than a kilo of all that lead.

[CMT1984]

21 minutes ago, peteloud said:

Do you have 250 empty cartridge cases?  If not a bedroll might be more useful than a kilo of all that lead.

I have just over 250 casings. I'm sure I'll be back eventually to craft more ammo as I haven't looted PV or TW so I'd like to take all the lead there now. But that will be the 1st thing to go if I need to save on weight. 

Just seems like more often than not, my bedroll gets ruined in a wolf struggle and it's annoying. Sticks are plentiful and cloth has multiple uses.

Edited March 2, 2020 by CMT1984

[peteloud]

26 minutes ago, CMT1984 said:

I have just over 250 casings.

How did you manage to find 250 casings?  On two of my games I had only about 6 empty casing and less than 10 cartridges.

[CMT1984]

2 minutes ago, peteloud said:

How did you manage to find 250 casings?  On two of my games I had only about 6 empty casing and less than 10 cartridges.

I always find an abundance of ammo in stalker. I looted DP, CH, ML, Milton, FM and BR. I think it's about 40 rifle casings and the rest are revolver casings. 263 total if I remember right.

[UTC-10]

How much do you want to know?  Excuse me if you know all this or didn't want to know. 

Bleak Inlet was set up as two areas that can be but are not connected by default - player action needed - that have to be accessed in order to get to the main objective of the region.  There are timber wolves in both areas - one to four packs depending on which area.  Food can be a problem as a moose makes up the bulk of the food/game on about half the map.  There are deer, rabbits, and ice fishing huts on the other half, but they have to be found.  In the other area that you have to access there are some deer and rabbits.

The furnace on the ammunition work bench does not have a required temperature, like the Rikken's forge, just an active fire going so sticks will do and coal is not necessary.  To make 250 bullets you'll need a lot of wood. It cannot be used for any other purpose though there are nearby fire barrels.  There is also a nearby work bench so you can craft other things. 

Although you may find one in Bleak Inlet, you may want to bring a hacksaw and make some scrap metal when you have the chance and put that near the ammunition work bench. It will be probably be very worthwhile.

I would recommend that if you have any Practical Gunsmith books that you read them (you get more from them the lower skill you have) before crafting ammunition.  Also make all your bullets and gunpowder first before crafting any ammunition, if you can. 

If you plan to do any fishing, you may want to bring some fishing tackle or some line as you can make hooks from scrap at the work bench once you get to it. By the way, there is no other general purpose work bench in the region. 

Good luck.

[CMT1984]

9 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

How much do you want to know?  Excuse me if you know all this or didn't want to know. 

Thanks that was all very helpful.

[UTC-10]

To expand a bit about my fire barrel and work bench point, the first was for cooking food and making water while the second was ordinary crafting. 

There is no means to actually forge things like improvised knives, hatchets, or arrowheads, ala Desolation Point/Forlorn Muskeg/Broken Railroad which have actual forges.  Some players saw forge on the ammunition work bench and thought it was a FORGE that they could use to make those things until they tried and couldn't. 

There is weak ice especially (only?) in the main part of Bleak Inlet.  Be aware of the possibility, be alert, and you should be fine.   

 

[romerabr]

Don't go without bedroll. No beds there, you'll need to go to the trailers and back trought the elevated pathway every time you need to sleep.

[peteloud]

I have been puzzling why you have so many cartridge cases and I have so few.  In the end I guessed that it must be due to my having played most of this game, (it is a 975 day Stalker game, not customised or modded), before the revolver was available, then played more with the revolver before the gun-smithing facility was available. On top of that I can't be bothered to go over all of the territory again. On returning to ML, Milton, CH and now PV I have found very few revolver cartridges.   I have found plenty of batteries giving me far more lead than I could use.  I have wondered if this is a little joke by Hinterland, getting us to carry tons of lead all over the region, then find that we don't need it.

I agree with romerabr   about going without a bedroll, although it would make an interesting extra challenge to your game.  There is a very easy-to-kill bear there so making a bearskin bedroll is an easy but time-consuming task.

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by peteloud

[CMT1984]

9 hours ago, romerabr said:

Don't go without bedroll. No beds there, you'll need to go to the trailers and back trought the elevated pathway every time you need to sleep.

Yup, no bedroll wasn't the best idea. Luckily I found one on day 1 at BI, had to go back through 2 Twolf spawns to get it once I found no bed in the gun shop but it all worked out.

 

9 hours ago, peteloud said:

I have been puzzling why you have so many cartridge cases and I have so few.  In the end I guessed that it must be due to my having played most of this game, (it is a 975 day Stalker game, not customised or modded), before the revolver was available, then played more with the revolver before the gun-smithing facility was available. On top of that I can't be bothered to go over all of the territory again. On returning to ML, Milton, CH and now PV I have found very few revolver cartridges.   I have found plenty of batteries giving me far more lead than I could use.  I have wondered if this is a little joke by Hinterland, getting us to carry tons of lead all over the region, then find that we don't need it.

I agree with romerabr   about going without a bedroll, although it would make an interesting extra challenge to your game.  There is a very easy-to-kill bear there so making a bearskin bedroll is an easy but time-consuming task.

 

 

Yeah when the revolver update came out, I heard multiple people say that old saves will be disappointing when it comes to ammo.

 

No bedroll turned out to be a fun challenge for sure, and I was doing great until I got parasites, must have eaten raw wolf meat by mistake because I'm level 5 cooking or it was a bug. But I found a bedroll and got all my ammo crafted so just another TLD experience.

[Fuarian]

On 3/2/2020 at 12:35 PM, peteloud said:

How did you manage to find 250 casings?  On two of my games I had only about 6 empty casing and less than 10 cartridges.

by shooting and picking up your casings

[acada]

The crucial you need are two ropes. One to get to bottom of Ravine, one to get down from upper plateu. Of course you may be good with one if you accept longer way to get the code. or you can find a goat way.

[Bean]

When I first go to BI in Stalker I follow a pattern:

1)bring your gear down the rope to the cave in the transition zone.  It may take a couple of trips but that’s ok.  
2)sleep and cross over in good weather to the upper side of BI.

3)make sure you aren’t encumbered and sneak over the hill, ready to kill some timberwolves.  If they don’t see you, it can be easy to snipe them with bow or rifle (especially easy).  Take them all out, 4-5 wolves.  
4) butcher a couple wolves and cook up the meat, put that at the top of the lookout tower with the hides and guts. 
5) go get your extra gear and bring all gunsmithing supplies to the top of the rope down to lower BI.  
6)Go to the radio control tower and get the code. 
7)take a minimal amount of gear and go down the rope.  the goal is to kill that pack of wolves that spawn near the rope.  Same strategy: stay sneaky, see them first!  Listen for howls.  Don’t carry any bait!!!!!!  These don’t bait and it will attract the pack.  
8)kill the pack, take some meat if available and go to the cannery worker housing on the coast.  There’s a bear around here, so watch for that one.  You’ll want to kill it.  
9)find wood and cook up bear.  The bear cave across the river is a good place for that and also camping rough to avoid cabin fever

10)go get your gear from the rope, bring to your new base.  
11) take as much gear as you can carry without being encumbered and cross the bridge to the cannery.  
12)when you get close, sneaky mode again.  Take out whichever wolves you can at the entrance.

13)next is to go into the middle building and find the rope up in the middle.  Then start your path to the workshop along the rafters.  
14)kill as many wolves as you can from the rafters above.  They’re tricky bastards but you can get them with skill. 
15) get to the workshop and drop whatever gear you may want to leave.  Then leave and go back to your base to get the rest of your gunsmithing stuff and some bear meat to sustain you.

16) Once all your gear is at the burn barrel outside the workshop door you need an aurora.  Wait for that either here (if you can) or at your base, across the bridge.  
17) when you get an aurora, open the door.  Don’t go in tho.  Fluffy is on steroids and pretty bad ass.  Better to kill him in the morning.  
18) butcher and cook Fluffy then get to work making bullets!  I like to craft bullets at night and sleep in the day outdoors.  You’ll have to go get wood a lot.  
19) the deal with this plan is that it’s doable in steps, and the element of risk is managed.  You should be able to not die while accomplishing it.  

[Bean]

Oh and you only need one rope to hang in Ravine.  The other rope you need is at the lookout tower.  

[Bean]

On my best Stalker game so far I left BI with 200 rifle cartridges and 330 pistol cartridges.  Holed up in Coast Highway for a while and then lost all interest. 

[Daymo]

Heading to the Bleak gunsmith, what should I bring?
 

A minigun 😉

[acada]

On 3/17/2020 at 4:08 AM, Bean said:

Oh and you only need one rope to hang in Ravine.  The other rope you need is at the lookout tower.  

That is not always true. I got it on my run. But have seen the Accurize video on YT, where the rope was not hanging on hook. I think it depends on difficulty level. My was voyageur.

[Bean]

Maybe not, but every game I’ve played so far in BI has the rope hanging next to the door at the lookout tower.  Includes mostly stalker and one Loper game. 

[Gun Tech.]

Warm clothes with good Protection and coal, plenty of bandages and lichen, 30 rounds or arrows depending on how well they dodge your shots, snow shelters are good for if they get the upper hand, and then the usual stuff. And casings, lead, and gunpowder (although on Stalker there should be quite a bit of that inside BI). Also some mushrooms for the rotten sardines :D

If you go in by Forlorn Muskeg, you don't have to bring a rope (but normally there's always one by the outlook door).

[peteloud]

I have found that the game, in BI, can vary a great deal.  I have had many trips to the cannery.  My games have been, one at Voyager, one at straight Stalker and two, perhaps three, at customised Stalker in which I have tried to reduce the wolves by one notch, also reduced the loot by one notch.  These are long games usually over 1,000 days, which means that some resources are depleted or ruined.

In BI Timberwolves are usually a problem.  Where possible, if need be, try and creep past them and avoid conflict.  There are routes where the timberwolves are less of a problem.  Finding and using those routes will save many problems, but not all.   Marine Flares are usually a better way of getting out of the t-wolf situation than shooting your way out, but that is for situations where there is a nearby safe place to which you can rush.

I thought that I had sussed out areas where I could easily kill deer and a bear without wolf problems, but on my latest run  I did not see one living deer or a living rabbit in BI.  I saw the bear, as soon as I arrived,  even put an arrow into it,  then it ran off, then I could not find the carcass and didn't see another bear, even after many days.  Not seeing any deer meant that finding food was my problem.

My games were particularly difficult as I started them a year or two ago when recovering cartridge cases was not possible. It seems that I used up most cartridges and lost the cases before they became collectable.  Therefore I have had very few cases to refill.

Depending upon the level you are playing at, taking a load of heavy lead might not be a good idea.  For me, it was more important to take weapons to be fixed as whetstones had run out.  If you are playing at Pilgrim or simple customised or modded games then your objectives are so different to mine you might chose different strategies.