A good custom Interloper and a wolf bomb

[Vince 49]

I discuss two things here: a custom Interloper that works surprisingly well and a wolf bomb (really).

I've been playing Stalker without a rifle for a long time.  Barring a surprise attack by multiple wolves, I can survive as long as I want (> 200 days).  For me, Interloper is possible, but very depressing.  I did 100 days on Interloper a while back and recently started a new one.  I quite after 60 days although I had no immediate issues. I had warm clothes, including a moose-hide cloak, and all the weapons and tools available in Interloper, except a magnifying glass.  It was just that my attitude responding to the world is against you of Interloper was starting to affect my real life.  So I tried again to find a custom mode intermediate between Stalker and Interloper.  This time I tried a custom Interloper with the only change being three weather parameters: Weather variability, Blizzard frequency, and World gets colder over time. For Interloper, they are: Very High, Very High, and High.  I changed them to High, High, and Medium (these are the Stalker values).  I expected this would provide a small, but welcome improvement.  I was wrong, it made a profound improvement.  I call it "Warm Interloper" and would recommend it to anyone who is ready for more than Stalker, but not for the every moment struggle of Interloper.

So I was playing Warm Interloper and just made a hatchet, knife, and some arrow heads at the forge in Forlorn Muskeg.  As it looked like a fog might roll in, I decided to avoid the islands and go back along the western side then the railroad tracks to ML.  As I noticed wolves to be less prevalent than in Stalker, as I had in previous Interloper games, I expected to encounter a couple along the western edge and 2 or possibly 3 along the tracks--wrong.  I encountered 18 or 19 wolves between the forge and the Mystery Lake office!  In all my hundreds of hours playing TLD, I have never before seen anything like this.  Rather than the 2 or 3 I expected, I encountered 8 wolves between the western end of the railroad tracks and the accessible rail car.  I encountered another 8 between there and the office in ML.  Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Although I made some arrow heads at the forge, I didn't stay to craft a bow and arrows, so my only weapon going back was the flare pistol I got from the Ravine basin.  So I sneaked by all the wolves by crouching.  Because of the number of wolves, all together this took several game hours.  On regular Interloper I would have frozen to death several times over.  Due to good weather and the Warm Interloper changes, I survived just fine.  Right now I'm waiting for Moose and Bear hides to cure. 

[haft2doit]

I think I would enjoy a similar custom setting.  I don't tend to play interloper due to the weather getting in the way of my goals too often.  Interloper does it's job and I'm sure plenty like that sort of challenge, but I like to sit down with a goal in mind and get it done.  On interloper I'm forced to consistently end the day (or play session) having done nothing of note, or not what I wanted to.  Stalker can throw a wrench in your plans as well but at a much more reasonable rate for my liking.  Some mixture between stalker and interloper is where I'm headed for sure.

 

[darkscaryforest]

On 9/1/2020 at 8:26 AM, Vince 49 said:

I discuss two things here: a custom Interloper that works surprisingly well and a wolf bomb (really).

I've been playing Stalker without a rifle for a long time.  Barring a surprise attack by multiple wolves, I can survive as long as I want (> 200 days).  For me, Interloper is possible, but very depressing.  I did 100 days on Interloper a while back and recently started a new one.  I quite after 60 days although I had no immediate issues. I had warm clothes, including a moose-hide cloak, and all the weapons and tools available in Interloper, except a magnifying glass.  It was just that my attitude responding to the world is against you of Interloper was starting to affect my real life.  So I tried again to find a custom mode intermediate between Stalker and Interloper.  This time I tried a custom Interloper with the only change being three weather parameters: Weather variability, Blizzard frequency, and World gets colder over time. For Interloper, they are: Very High, Very High, and High.  I changed them to High, High, and Medium (these are the Stalker values).  I expected this would provide a small, but welcome improvement.  I was wrong, it made a profound improvement.  I call it "Warm Interloper" and would recommend it to anyone who is ready for more than Stalker, but not for the every moment struggle of Interloper.

So I was playing Warm Interloper and just made a hatchet, knife, and some arrow heads at the forge in Forlorn Muskeg.  As it looked like a fog might roll in, I decided to avoid the islands and go back along the western side then the railroad tracks to ML.  As I noticed wolves to be less prevalent than in Stalker, as I had in previous Interloper games, I expected to encounter a couple along the western edge and 2 or possibly 3 along the tracks--wrong.  I encountered 18 or 19 wolves between the forge and the Mystery Lake office!  In all my hundreds of hours playing TLD, I have never before seen anything like this.  Rather than the 2 or 3 I expected, I encountered 8 wolves between the western end of the railroad tracks and the accessible rail car.  I encountered another 8 between there and the office in ML.  Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

Although I made some arrow heads at the forge, I didn't stay to craft a bow and arrows, so my only weapon going back was the flare pistol I got from the Ravine basin.  So I sneaked by all the wolves by crouching.  Because of the number of wolves, all together this took several game hours.  On regular Interloper I would have frozen to death several times over.  Due to good weather and the Warm Interloper changes, I survived just fine.  Right now I'm waiting for Moose and Bear hides to cure. 

I'm 50 days into my first "successful" interloper save. I was kinda hoping there would be a tipping point where supplies/crafted gear were established enough to allow me more freedom. Could you speak on what you found most limiting about it late game? Is it just that the weather is so cold that even with the best gear you couldn't accomplish what you were hoping day-to-day?

On 9/1/2020 at 8:26 AM, Vince 49 said:

I encountered 18 or 19 wolves between the forge and the Mystery Lake office!  In all my hundreds of hours playing TLD, I have never before seen anything like this.

I've never seen this occur in any of the standard difficulties, would you happen to have screenshots?

[Vince 49]

@darkscaryforest, no I do not.  I was concentrating on surviving.   Like you, I've never seen anything like this in all my time playing TLD, which is part of the reason I made this post.

@haft2doit, based on what you say, you should definitely try Warm Interloper.   If you do, it would be great if you post your experience with it.  Good luck.