Long term survival?

[Robbiieeee]

How do you guys play out a long term survival?

Obviously this is very subjective and I'm wondering if my system can be improved. Key things to consider. I'm on stalker, I survived my first 40 days at Coastal Highway and have now declared the camp office at mystery lake my new home for the past 7 days

So here's my situation:

I tend to accumulate a whole bunch of food before cooking it so I can cook in bulk. This means less fires and more matches being saved in the long run. When possible, I even have a fire outside and use the magnifying lens to start that fire and then use the torch to start my better fire inside.

I fish at the lakes and snare the rabbits further upstream in the treeline and if need be hunt deer (im not a level 5 cook so i can still afflict parasites from predatory meat). All my meat im not using gets dropped outside behind the camp office. Just wondering, is this the best way to survive long term, turtling and saving matches? Or do you guys prefer to keep moving and cook as you go along? 

[Tactical Ex]

My current custom game is at about 270 days. The weather gets worse as time progresses so for longevity sake I don't want to be in a position where I need to trek out very far to get resources in late game. I've looted all of the locations and stuffed the dam full and operate out of the dam like its an HQ, making small stocks of resources for excursions out of ML. This also means I can travel lightly in close proximity to ML stations like the Mountaineer Hut. 

[Master_Arne]

My definition og long time survival is min +500 days.

Where you use as base is not that important. On this level, food is not an issue anymore.

Birch saplings are the key resource. Beachcomb as much as possible. I take for granted that you have made a few tools, 4 knives and 4 hatchets. Kill bears for hides and for food. Make a round trip in CH commuter and DP. Clean out the beach.  Do daily chores to keep you busy. Use only hides to fic up chloting to reach L5. Save the cloth. 

[odium]

what difficulty are you playing on?

that strategy will certainly work but playstyle depends on what your end goal is.  i shoot to explore and clear all maps, then im usually bored by 300-400 days (only done this long in voyageur).  on interloper, it seems birch saplings and metal will eventually be limiting factors if you intend on surviving forever.  there is always beach combing but i feel the average player gets bored well before its an issue.  other than for clothing repairs i only hunt bears, they are incredibly easy to bait and lure into a nice harvesting location.  trapping rabbits you can basically live forever but its incredibly boring to tend snares day in and day out.  fishing is great but on interloper it requires a fire much of the time, so its an opportunist activity in my opinion.  i keep a fishing hut loaded with wood and hit fishing outings to stave off cabin fever or if i have nothing pressing to do and the sun is out (free fire).  there are many many ways to survive long term in TLD, and no playstyle is inherently right or wrong, just whatever floats your boat!  you can certainly exist as a nomad and leave supplies all over at various bases, hitting some food supplies and moving on.  once you have level 5 cooking that ruined pile of bear meat will always be there for you if you need it lol

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

one thing to consider, items do tend to degrade over time, so if you do decide to explore further afield after 200-300 days, you may find a lot of ruined clothing and food that's well past it's best before date.

[odizzido]

The game is not set up so that you can live forever. While you may be able to prolong the inevitable you will eventually die because things like metal, cloth, and saplings are realistically a limited resource.

Matches will be one of the first things to run out if you're using them as a regular fire tool, so using the lens will keep you alive a little longer. After that I would imagine ammo would be a major concern as bullets and arrows are limited, so snaring/rocking rabbits as much as possible would be next. Eventually though you will run out of cloth so using as much animal clothing as possible is important. Animal clothing requires metal though which you will run out of. As master_arne said, beach combing is your only real chance for long term survival as the non-renewables can spawn there.

Eventually you will probably be naked in -80 degree weather though, relying on massive amounts of wood to keep you warm as you collect rabbits for food as you can no longer fish or hunt other animals. At this point you're pretty much doomed.

If you play perfectly, you will slowly burn through your thousands of kilograms of wood and food as you sit there naked, every piece of metal and cloth in the game consumed. And as life ebbs, terrible vistas of emptiness will reveal themselves before you finally fade into the long dark.

[Robbiieeee]

Interesting points. I got to day 150ish on voyageur and learned what I could. Inevitably got bored, got reckless and died to bleeding from a wolf attack in a storm. 

I'd really want to try and get further in stalker

Interloper however is a no go for me yet. Trying to accumlate as many tips as I can before then

[peteloud]

One problem I have come across with games over 500 days is bedrolls being ruined.  Whenever I found a bedroll in a cave it would be ruined and unusable.  A few times I was attacked by a wolf or bear and the bedroll I was carrying was ruined.  Bearskin bedrolls didn't seem to be any tougher then normal bedrolls in that respect.  I would then be desperate to find bedroll, then when I did find one it was ruined. So I suggest that you keep a number of bedrolls in good condition for when the hard times come.

Strangely this has been less of problems recently, even with Stalker & Voyager games of over 1,000 days.   I don't know if the amount of damage done to a bedroll in a wolf or bear attack has been reduced.  It might be that I have just become better at managing bedrolls, especially using bearskin bedrolls which can be created at any point in the game.  Perhaps we should be able to make a normal bedroll.

 

[ajb1978]

I'm going on day 700+ of a custom run and have had to come up with some personal challenges to keep things interesting.  First my goal was to loot the game world.  Then I went back and mapped everything, filling in every last black smudge.  Then I went and collected all the buffer memories.  Then I went and hunted down every single last cairn.  Once that was done, I went back and made a point to break down every single object in the game, resulting in thousands of scrap cloth, metal, etc.  (I did spare a few things for ornamental or sentimental reasons.  My main safehouse in each region is largely untouched.)  With overwhelming quantities of spare material, I took inventory then made some supply runs to homogenize my stash in each region.  Then I just kind of hung out and played house for a while, until Bleak Inlet was released.  Then I went and made several trips from each region to the Workshop, and used the milling machine to repair all my rifles, revolvers, knives, and hatchets up to 100%.

Now I'm in this post long term survival state where every region is fully stocked with high quality gear and tons of spare parts and cloth.  So I go on vacations now.  I just hit the road, no bedroll.  Just basic medical supplies, my boxes of rifle and revolver ammo, a revolver, and some provisions for the road.  When I get where I'm going, grab a rifle or bow I've left behind, go on a quick hunting trip.  Maybe go fishing if the region allows.  Spend a few weeks culling wolves and gathering sticks, hit up the Inlet to repair and reload, then move on to a new region.

Edited March 19, 2020 by ajb1978

[peteloud]

ajb1978,

Now try doing that in a straight Stalker game.

[LeeHarveyOslik]

On 3/18/2020 at 3:07 PM, Robbiieeee said:

 When possible, I even have a fire outside and use the magnifying lens to start that fire and then use the torch to start my better fire inside.

Better stay outside while cooking. Any fire used outside of building is still twice as fuel efficient as fire inside the building.

Edited March 20, 2020 by LeeHarveyOslik
typo

[Gun Tech.]

Rabbits & carcasses for skins and guts, drop em ASAP for curing, while looting as much as I can without taking risks. Then early forge, make rabbit/deer clothes & hunt. Wolves for coat and then build bases (food+water+firewood) at every major location one at a time and loot the rest at a slower pace. Normally I make wolf jerky so I get cooking+harvesting 5 and at that point I have firestarting 3 or above. So from say day 30-40 you can leisurely walk around and kill everything. Fishing and mending takes ages to get to 5 unless you purposely play wastefully.

[GarlicPops]

On 3/19/2020 at 4:40 AM, odizzido said:

The game is not set up so that you can live forever. While you may be able to prolong the inevitable you will eventually die because things like metal, cloth, and saplings are realistically a limited resource.

Matches will be one of the first things to run out if you're using them as a regular fire tool, so using the lens will keep you alive a little longer. After that I would imagine ammo would be a major concern as bullets and arrows are limited, so snaring/rocking rabbits as much as possible would be next. Eventually though you will run out of cloth so using as much animal clothing as possible is important. Animal clothing requires metal though which you will run out of. As master_arne said, beach combing is your only real chance for long term survival as the non-renewables can spawn there.

Eventually you will probably be naked in -80 degree weather though, relying on massive amounts of wood to keep you warm as you collect rabbits for food as you can no longer fish or hunt other animals. At this point you're pretty much doomed.

If you play perfectly, you will slowly burn through your thousands of kilograms of wood and food as you sit there naked, every piece of metal and cloth in the game consumed. And as life ebbs, terrible vistas of emptiness will reveal themselves before you finally fade into the long dark.

Lol, the Darkest Dungeon reference xD

[Jimmy]

On 3/19/2020 at 5:40 PM, odizzido said:

The game is not set up so that you can live forever. While you may be able to prolong the inevitable you will eventually die because things like metal, cloth, and saplings are realistically a limited resource.

Not exactly, since beachcombing allows renewal of every single resource except antibiotics. There's no theoretical limit to survival time in a single game, provided you don't get an infection (which could only happen if you're exceptionally careless).

Honestly, once the first ten days are over, you can pretty much survive wherever and however you want. You should have the critical tools by this stage, namely matches, a hacksaw, a hammer, and sufficient clothing to survive the cold. On Inteloper, if I've reached Day 10, I know I'm set for the remainder of the run.

Since @Robbiieeee asked for long term survival strategies, my typical Interloper plans run as follows:

At spawn, head for the closest source of matches on my current map. Fire is life, cold is death. Once I have matches, I'll make for Pleasant Valley to find a hacksaw. I usually check the farmhouse if I don't find one on the way, since it's a 50% chance of spawning here. From the Farmhouse or Barn, I run to Draft Dodger's Cabin, then up to the crash site for some good clothing loot. I keep going on up to Timberwolf Mountain, resting at Prepper's before climbing and bringing ten cloth for a pair of snow shelters to get to the summit.

After going to the Summit of Timberwolf Mountain, I'll usually have one or two ski jackets, a wool ear wraps, two pairs of wool socks, one or two thin wool sweaters, and enough food and loot to last for days. With careful planning, the rabbits and deer carcasses you find along the way should be enough to avoid needing any of the food you loot too. From here, it's back to Pleasant Valley and on to Carter Hydro Dam, grabbing enough gut, deer and rabbit hides to make boots, mittens and pants, plus a few saplings for a bow.

Letting those cure while I forge, I haul a hammer out to Spence's, forging a knife, hatchet and arrow heads, then go back to Carter Hydro Dam and make one set of deerskin pants, mittens, gloves, a bow and a half dozen arrows. Then I'll usually run out to loot Milton before grabbing the mackinaw jacket, second wool ear wraps and combat pants from Hushed River Valley.

After that it's a loop to loot Coastal Highway and Thomson's Crossing for any missing clothing items like a second pair of thermal underwear. Then I've pretty much got everything I need for the future, and start hunting bear, moose and working on my skill ranks. I might hit Broken Railroad for an extra firestriker, or Desolation Point for a heap of coal.

By this stage, it's all pretty much the same when it comes to survival. Just move steadily across the map, hunting calories and leaving caches of food and firewood wherever you stop. The best strategy for long term survival is to ensure you're constantly moving, not settling in one spot, and leaving enough resources for future you should you ever return.