How walk foward and look around?

[TheFromzzz]

 Ok, this must be a huge noob question, but how do you (seen others do it in vids) walk forwards and look behind you or sideways without changing walk direction as well?

I play on PC with my mouse and use W and A, D and such to walk, and mouse for looking around and automatic walk that way too. 🤨

Edited July 19, 2020 by TheFromzzz

[ajb1978]

It's a learned behavior.  I also use KB/M and use WASD for movement, and mouse for orientation.  I just get in the habit of altering which key I'm pressing when I use the mouse to change my orientation.  For example, I'm holding W and walking forward while looking forward.  I want to look to my left but keep traveling in the same direction I already am.  I use the mouse to turn 90 degrees to my left, and simultaneously release W and press D instead. Because the direction I want to travel is now to my right, D keeps me going in that direction.  Then if I want to turn around and look in the other direction, I whip the mouse around so my intended direction of travel is now to my left, then switch from D to A to keep moving in that direction.  With practice this becomes muscle memory and you don't have to think about it.

Edit: Attaching a real short clip that I hope illustrates what I mean.

Edited July 20, 2020 by ajb1978

[slackhideo]

@ajb1978 Wow, I had never seen so much water and sticks! 😮

[ajb1978]

34 minutes ago, slackhideo said:

@ajb1978 Wow, I had never seen so much water and sticks! 😮

Every one of those stick piles you see is 24 hours worth of fuel!  I have an almost pathological aversion to using matches or tools to extend their life as much as possible.  This means gathering sticks for fuel, and using the mag lens for fire.  If I stay ahead of the curve by having a few week's worth of meat and fuel ready to go at all times, I can afford to wait for sunny days to do my cooking.

[slackhideo]

18 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Every one of those stick piles you see is 24 hours worth of fuel!  I have an almost pathological aversion to using matches or tools to extend their life as much as possible.  This means gathering sticks for fuel, and using the mag lens for fire.  If I stay ahead of the curve by having a few week's worth of meat and fuel ready to go at all times, I can afford to wait for sunny days to do my cooking.

That's neat! Actually, I have a similar "problem" using items that degrade, such as the axe and the knife, because I know they will end some day (that happens with pretty much every game, I wonder how common this is). So I try to use sticks as fuel and harvest with my bare hands. But I never thought about grouping the sticks. I drop them in one "pile" and that's it. One thing I noticed is that doing this way I lose the notion of how many sticks I have after the pile has about 50 sticks.

[ajb1978]

2 hours ago, slackhideo said:

That's neat! Actually, I have a similar "problem" using items that degrade, such as the axe and the knife, because I know they will end some day (that happens with pretty much every game, I wonder how common this is).

Well since the introduction of Bleak Inlet, I've become a lot more liberal in my use of tools.  I will actually chop firewood now, and use my knife to harvest carcasses.  Swap out tools as they get down to 20%, then make one big trip to Bleak Inlet to mill them all back up to 100%.  Given the overwhelming amount of scrap metal available in the game, plus what washes up via beachcombing, I won't ever realistically run out.  Odds are I'll either make some critical mistake that gets me killed, get bored and start over, or some new big update comes out where you just have to start over to take full advantage.  (Like after Steadfast Ranger, if you already searched every container in the world, you're only going to find ammo and revolvers out in the open...so you gotta start over to get the full benefit.)

[slackhideo]

6 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Well since the introduction of Bleak Inlet, I've become a lot more liberal in my use of tools.

I've never been there 😬
I suppose it's beyond my level, so I never brought me to go there. I'm trying to learn the regions in the order: ML, CH, MT, PV, DP, TWM, FM, BRR, HRV, and BI. I think that's more or less in increasing difficulty order. At the moment, I'm at PV, cursing the weather for the almost daily blizzards...

[Serenity]

Even without Bleak Inlet you can make improvised tools and just craft new ones when they run out. Stick hoarding is necessary on Interloper because it's usually too cold outside to spend hours cutting up wood. But on Stalker you won't lose anything using a hatchet.

[slackhideo]

13 hours ago, Serenity said:

Even without Bleak Inlet you can make improvised tools and just craft new ones when they run out.

How can you craft new ones? (not improvised ones)

[atomic]

16 hours ago, slackhideo said:

I'm trying to learn the regions in the order: ML, CH, MT, PV, DP, TWM, FM, BRR, HRV, and BI. I think that's more or less in increasing difficulty order.

I would put BRR, FM and BI before TWM and HRV. The last two are really challenging big maps, with only two manmade structures (Mountaineer's Hut and Plane Wreck in TWM), a couple of caves and even cave systems. There are no roads or train tracks to help you orientate yourself. And a lot of climbing is waiting for you there too. 🙂

[Serenity]

2 hours ago, slackhideo said:

How can you craft new ones? (not improvised ones)

You can't. I meant "new improvised ones" as opposed to ones worn out from use. Improvised ones work just as well anyways

Edited August 6, 2020 by Serenity

[slackhideo]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

There are no roads or train tracks to help you orientate yourself. And a lot of climbing is waiting for you there too. 🙂

Oh, I had no idea.
One of the few things I dislike in this game is climbing. I avoid it like the plague, so I'm definitely taking your advice.
Thank you very much 😀

[slackhideo]

22 minutes ago, Serenity said:

You can't. I meant "new improvised ones" as opposed to ones worn out from use. Improvised ones work just as well anyways

You got me all excited for a moment...
Improvised tools are an option, of course, but they are not the same as the standard ones (after all, they are improvised), as they tend to be heavier and slower.

[ajb1978]

On 8/6/2020 at 10:15 AM, Serenity said:

Improvised ones work just as well anyways

Improvised tools actually do perform worse than "old world" counterparts.  They take slightly longer to accomplish the same tasks, and wear out faster.

[Serenity]

Doesn't really matter in practice though. Not the the point where you'd go "Oh, I'd really like a factory made tool now"