Tips for new survivors in The Long Dark

[Sgt Socks]

3 hours ago, Iriskl said:

Maybe a weird one... But if you're lost and you need to find a path, follow the grass. Most of the time this is a route to a bigger path. Beware of cliffs though! 

Ooh this is a good one! I've been playing since 2016 and I hadn't worked this out. Thanks mate! 👍

(I'll just have to make sure I don't have auto walk enabled.... 🙈)

[acada]

Recently I found one tip although I play TLD for long time. Write your journal. I dont mean the story of your survivor (of course you can do it too). I mean notes where you left what. There is many items in the Great Bear and you cannot haul all of them on your back. Journal will save you questions like "Where I left my rifle and ammo?".

[AdamvR]

2 hours ago, acada said:

Recently I found one tip although I play TLD for long time. Write your journal. I dont mean the story of your survivor (of course you can do it too). I mean notes where you left what. There is many items in the Great Bear and you cannot haul all of them on your back. Journal will save you questions like "Where I left my rifle and ammo?".

indeed great idea. In some of my longer games I had a full log by region/main base(s) within about how much and what type of ammo/ammo ingredients/and pelts i had where. it is getting impossible to keep it in mind, as the game keeps growing.

[AdamvR]

I'm not sure if it is a new feature, or I was just blind to notice it before: when selecting the amount to store/pick up to/from a container, you can mousescroll to change the amount, do not have to click 50 times for 50 sticks.

[xanna]

23 minutes ago, AdamvR said:

I'm not sure if it is a new feature, or I was just blind to notice it before: when selecting the amount to store/pick up to/from a container, you can mousescroll to change the amount, do not have to click 50 times for 50 sticks.

I didn't know that until I started watching streams this year - years after I started playing 🤦‍♂️
In my defence, use of the scrollwheel is not consistent in the TLD UI.

[AdamvR]

On 10/1/2021 at 9:50 PM, UTC-10 said:

A thought when using a forge.  (This was in Pilgrim so YMMV but something to keep in mind)

The most efficient, uses least amount of coal, to fire the furnace to forge operating temperature of 150 C would be ten sticks followed by seven coal.  At level 5 fire starting ten sticks would be almost two hours of fire duration (about 1:50)  and +10 C and seven coal would be 10.5 hours (7 x 1.5 hours) and +140 C.  Total +150 C and you can forge. 

Note that:

1) the maximum fire duration is 12 hours so you might have to wait a while - make a can of potable water - before that last coal can be put in the fire, and

2) if for any reason, while the furnace is at +150 C, you decide to pull a torch from the furnace, taking that torch REDUCES TEMPERATURE BY 1 C so now your furnace is at +149 C and you can no longer at forging temperature.  Because the maximum temperature with wood is +80 C, you will have to add another coal to the fire. 

Naturally if you end up with the furnace temperature much greater than 150 C to begin with it won't be a problem. 

Good luck and happy forging.

If the amount of coal is really a problem, then using 80 sticks to get the fire up to 80C and then only 4 coal gets it to 160, which is sufficient. You will need to wait a bit till all those sticks burn down, so you can add your coal.

‘Growing up’ in Mystery Lake - as many of us do - might leave you imprinted believing that coal is a rare and valueable commodity. Valuable it is, for the best heat and time to weight ratio, but it can be found in ample amounts, renewing every week or so in most (transition) caves. The closest to ML is the one towards Milton.

I only had to rely on the above ascetic forge use in FA recently, where coal is available, but very far and you might actually need to use coal during your coal run itself not to freeze to death on the way to a safehouse...

Elsewhere you do not need to be stingy about it.

Edited June 29, 2023 by AdamvR

[JohnLovesCoffee]

Starving is not an emergency most of the time. Finding food is obviously essential for surviving and should be a priority and one of the main reasons to move to a new place. But don't panic and put yourself in a deadly situation just because you are beginning to starve, even if it means losing your Well fed bonus.

[JohnLovesCoffee]

The Warming up bonus that you get by eating or drinking cooked or reheated items (except meat or water) is very powerful. And reishi mushrooms and rose hips are relatively easy-to-find resources. Consider using the tea that you can make with them only for the Warming up benefit instead of their main use as natural remedies, especially in the early game when you don't have good clothes yet and/or if you need to travel in the morning.

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

I'll add my favorite interloper cheesy tactic.  Bows wear out fairly quickly.  It's wise to have a spare on hand when you're traveling, but who wants to carry the weight of a secondary bow?  Also, you can't even wear out the first one and get rid of it because the radial menu seems to randomly pick one of the two bows you're carrying!

The solution is to 90% complete a new bow, to the point where it requires no further raw materials.  This unfinished bow weighs zero kg, and can be completed with an hour of work at any work bench.

This idea works for other items as well, but the bow is where you really need it.

[TiffTastic]

When you kill a moose or bear, you can slaughter it and dump the meat, then spray paint a food symbol on the ground and it marks it on the map for later. That way you can make several trips easier if you dont want to cook there and get attacked by all the wolves ever.

[ajb1978]

On 8/1/2023 at 3:57 AM, JohnLovesCoffee said:

Starving is not an emergency most of the time. Finding food is obviously essential for surviving and should be a priority and one of the main reasons to move to a new place.

This game does a really good job of reinforcing the priority of shelter -> water -> food.

Because that is the priority in real life as well as in this game. Those are the things that will kill you fastest if untreated, and in that same order. (Barring injury or disease, of course.)

[xanna]

14 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

This game does a really good job of reinforcing the priority of shelter -> water -> food.

Because that is the priority in real life as well as in this game. Those are the things that will kill you fastest if untreated, and in that same order. (Barring injury or disease, of course.)

agree, I consider that a strength of TLD.

I suppose keeping the starvation damage at a reasonable level might have been a reason to introduce Well Fed. It's only Well Fed that keeps me scared to run out of food since the condition loss is relatively trivial.

[GothSkunk]

In areas where there is an intricate cave system contained within the zone (especially true of the Hushed River Valley) use spraypainted symbols on the outside of the caves to identify which cave entrances lead to where.

 

So for example, mark one cave entrance with a symbol like Firestarting supplies, and then traverse the cave system. When you come out the other end, spraypaint THAT end of the cave with the same symbol as before.

[hozz1235]

On 9/30/2023 at 6:13 PM, GothSkunk said:

In areas where there is an intricate cave system contained within the zone (especially true of the Hushed River Valley) use spraypainted symbols on the outside of the caves to identify which cave entrances lead to where.

 

So for example, mark one cave entrance with a symbol like Firestarting supplies, and then traverse the cave system. When you come out the other end, spraypaint THAT end of the cave with the same symbol as before.

I've actually come up with a more complex system:
Each entrance has it's own symbol.  As I traverse the cave system, I spray paint intersections so I know how to reach each exit.  One drawback to this, is that until you memorize which exits connect, you won't know exit A leads to exit B until an intersection is reached.

[James Hickok]

On 8/4/2023 at 3:15 PM, I_eat_only_wolf_meat said:

I'll add my favorite interloper cheesy tactic.  Bows wear out fairly quickly.  It's wise to have a spare on hand when you're traveling, but who wants to carry the weight of a secondary bow?  Also, you can't even wear out the first one and get rid of it because the radial menu seems to randomly pick one of the two bows you're carrying!

The solution is to 90% complete a new bow, to the point where it requires no further raw materials.  This unfinished bow weighs zero kg, and can be completed with an hour of work at any work bench.

This idea works for other items as well, but the bow is where you really need it.

Yeah i heard that trick in one of recent @Zaknafein videos. Clever. 

I always hate when carrying two bows the system always picks the one with the most condition. 

[AdamvR]

[DLC only] If you want to use the Handheld Shortwave Radio to locate caches/bunkers under the snow, you not only need to repair the radio transmitters relevant to the region (one transmitter covers multiple regions!), it is also important, to turn the tower on, before searching through the entire region during the most dangerous conditions...;-)
(talking from experience...)

[KingFuzz]

I don’t know if this was covered yet but sprains and pain will remedy themselves fairly quickly. (At least in stalker. Not much experience in loper) That being the case try using your rose hips for the warmth bonus instead of for healing pain/sprains. 
 

Edited November 3, 2023 by KingFuzz
I mistakenly said to use reishi’s for warmth bonus. Don’t do that. Rose hips only.