Newish player looking for tips?

[dizinator]

Hey guys, I've been playing the game for just a couple months. I got through the 3 episodes pretty quick and started a custom sandbox, which is pretty freaking cool. I made 39 days and I was stubborn around a wolf and it took me out today haha. I'm going to start a new one, and I was wondering if voyageur would be a good next step.

I have a pretty good grasp of everything and I dont mind exploring everything. I was just wondering if any veterans have some wisdom to impart.

Cheers!

[Salty Crackers]

5 minutes ago, dizinator said:

Hey guys, I've been playing the game for just a couple months. I got through the 3 episodes pretty quick and started a custom sandbox, which is pretty freaking cool. I made 39 days and I was stubborn around a wolf and it took me out today haha. I'm going to start a new one, and I was wondering if voyageur would be a good next step.

I have a pretty good grasp of everything and I dont mind exploring everything. I was just wondering if any veterans have some wisdom to impart.

Cheers!

Depends. What do you need tips on? Resource management? Wolves? Not freezing to death? 

[dizinator]

I suppose just resources. I started at ML and stayed at the cabin office most of the time. I covered most of the map and went to the forge in BR and back. I was basically fishing a lot of the time which was cool. It's just really hard to find a rifle or anything at first. I ended up finally making a bow and I was trying to test it on the wolf that killed me. 

[Serenity]

Voyageur is fine to start with and to learn the maps.

Stalker isn't really too hard in the long run. There is tons of loot everywhere so equipment is not a challenge. The beginning is pretty cold, but that has more to do with the lack of good clothing to start with. Once you're equipped fully you can be warm most of the time. The gimmick is the huge number of wolves, which can make exploring somewhat annoying as you often get cut off in certain areas

It's just really hard to find a rifle or anything at first

Don't hesitate to explore other maps. Coastal Highway and Mountain Town are also good beginner maps

 I ended up finally making a bow

The bow is a fun to play with and it's a lot lighter.

If you have issues surviving wolf attacks invest in better clothing. Protection is what it's about. Also a single arrow hit won't necessarily kill a wolf with a low archery skill. But it's usually enough so that the hatchet can finish it off.

[Salty Crackers]

Fishing is really good. Never forget this.

ML isn't the best map to get the rifle. A smaller map with fewer spawn points is the best place to look. Every map has at least one rifle and revolver. If I remember correctly, Hibernia in DP is guaranteed to have a rifle, but there are several spawn points, sometimes hidden behind some crates. BR is also great. Between the Maintenance Shed and the Hunting Lodge (and one of the cars outside the Lodge) I never fail to find a revolver. The rifle is somewhat harder to find in this region, as sometimes it spawns down below the broken bridge where you need to put a rope down, but you will often find one in the Hunting Lodge.

Generally for the first few days, you should keep moving, hitting major loot areas to get clothing and food. I like to make my way towards CH, as there is plenty of food and clothes to be found in the houses if you can get around the wolves. After you are comfortable with the amount of stuff you're found, you can settle down and organize expeditions from your home base.

On the subject of wolves, there are a few things to know. On Voyageur, you have 12-24 hours before wolves spawn, so if possible, loot wolf-infested areas first. Wolves will generally not attack if you simply keep walking away from them. Try to either get inside a loading screen or break line of sight, although the latter may not work if you are carrying smelly stuff like meat and raw guts. Wolves also fear campfires. Recently the AI has been updated to make this less reliable, but it still generally works. Flares are your friend. While holding a flare, wolves are much less likely to attack, often just standing there as you walk past. You can also throw the flare (or a torch) to scare them off, but you have to aim the flare to land directly in front of the wolf.

Whenever you aim a weapon at a stalking wolf, be it a rifle, bow, flare gun, rock, or revolver, be prepared for it to charge. If you aren't comfortable hitting a charging wolf, fire the revolver without aiming. You're less likely to hit it, but it will be scared off.

Scent is really important. Even if you don't have a bar of scent, as long as you have anything smelly in your inventory, it is easier for animals to detect you. Minimize scent whenever possible. Wind carries scent as well, so if you stay downwind of an animal, it is harder for them to detect you.

[dizinator]

Right on folks. I appreciate the insight for sure. I just started a new one at CH. I did pilgrim this time though because I've never been here before. I spawned at the garage and there's already a moose and a bear patrolling the back. 

[Serenity]

2 minutes ago, dizinator said:

I spawned at the garage and there's already a moose and a bear patrolling the back. 

That place is a mixed bag. There are a lot of great things going for it. Lots of storage. Several other houses nearby for loot. Lots of sticks. The bear and the moose are easy to hunt with the cars.

But it can also be a wolf infested death trap. Normally the pack hangs out on the ice, but every now and then one or two of them take a stroll through the town. And the sight lines are terrible. So going in and out is always a bit nerve wrecking. Some people like to avoid it entirely because of that, but they can also be managed.

 

Be careful with Pilgrim though. You can learn the maps with it, but with the game mechanics it teaches you bad habits. You won't learn to deal with wolves and the weather is never any danger to you.

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

in case you haven't stumbled upon it previously, this thread may be of interest:

I learnt the game, tried out most maps and got my achievements on voyager, I would now say stalker is my 'default' but you do get a lot of wolves with it.  As previous posters have stated, it's not quite as simple as linear difficulty progression with the various difficulty modes- each has their own feel due to nuances of predators, weather, condition regain, resources etc. 

My rule of thumb is bow for when I'm hunting, revolver for when I may be hunted. Also the various additional weight options are well worth obtaining early on.  Finally, if you liked hanging around ML camp office, I'd suggest you head up to the mountaineers hut at Timberwolf Mountain at some point...

Edited December 17, 2020 by Valuable Hunting Knife
learned/ learnt

[Glflegolas]

I wrote a small essay on this on my userpage on the Long Dark wiki. You can check it out here.

One thing that I would seriously consider doing; if you haven't already, learn the layout of the Hushed River Valley. While it isn't the easiest region to survive in, you will find the Moose hide satchel very handy. You should also be able to find a rifle and revolver there if you haven't found one yet. Check next to frozen corpses.

If you're trying to figure out which region to live in, I wrote a small guide here.

This applies mainly to Voyageur and somewhat to Stalker. Interloper is it's own beast in many ways.

[UpUpAway95]

What difficulty level did you play Wintermute through on; that is, were the wolves passive or more aggressive?  In PIlgrim, the animals are passive to you.  You can pretty much just walk right up to them and, as long as you don't aim a weapon, they'll run from you - even the bears and moose.  This makes hunting them a little harder in some respects because they'll often detect you and flee before you can take aim on them.  In Voyageur, the wolves will attack you when they detect you, but there aren't as many of them and they don't detect you as readily as they do in Stalker or Interloper.  Bears and moose are aggressive as well.  In Stalker, there are lots of aggressive wolves and they can detect you very easily and from a long ways off.  In Interloper, there are fewer wolves than in stalker, but they do more damage when they attack and your resources in general are very scarce.  Rifles, revolvers, knives, hatchets and the high-end clothing do not spawn in interloper.

I did my Faithful Cartographer achievement and learned the maps in Pilgrim... but I would frequently break from that save and start an Interloper run to break things up a bit.  Those interloper runs were very short, but fun nonetheless.

[TiffTastic]

A few tips from someone who gets eaten by bears frequently....it happens cause I got a bad habit of rage shooting them as they walk away from the first mauling. But I usually live. Cause clothes. I make the animal skin clothes as soon as possible. Especially the coat. The resistance it gives you gives me many more chances. I play custom stalker games which have everything set to interloper except the loot, cause to me it’s not realistic for all the knives and guns to have vanished. I fire the revolver early if I hear the bark, revolver ammo is much more plentiful and unless I feel like fighting it’s better to just scare wolves off anyways. 
 

if you have bad clothes or it’s really cold (I’m on day 210 of a game with maximum cold and bad weather) carry cedar firewood and coal, 2 logs and 4-8 pieces of cold. This gives you two hot fires, which is helpful if a blizzard springs up and you get stuck outside. You need two cause if you have to scramble your sheltering place might suck, and you need to be prepared for the wind shift that ALWAYS occurs in blizzards to blow your first fire out. Coal burns MUCH hotter than wood, and it’s light.

 

Never sleep indoors in an industrial setting til you’ve seen an aurora there cause power lines can kill you in your sleep. If you find a bunker, always check the air vents. I’ve found ammo, MRE’s, flare gun ammo, and firestrikers in them.

 

If you hear the bear roar but don’t see it, try to run to shelter. If it mauls you, pick up your rifle and.....do not do what Tiffany does and rage shoot it. Stop the bleeding and run the opposite way. Don’t forget to disinfect the wound later as soon as you are safe.

 

sleeping or passing time during bad weather in one hour increments seems to generate a random number roll, which increases the likelihood of the blizzard ending if you’re outside. This doesn’t always work, but you won’t freeze to death as often cause your fire goes out.

 

The lightest food with the highest calorie amount is the salty crackers, good for traveling.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Tiff🦋