(very) long term survival strategies

[Stinky socks]

How do you handle:

• food

• weapons

• clothes

• medicine 

...or other essential survivor items?

 

At some point, ammo will run out, clothes will be all ruined, and canned food will be eaten up. What next? If you plan to go in for the long run, share your strategy! Thank you!

[peteloud]

I have had a number of runs over 1,000 days at Stalker or Voyager level without a major problem.  On one occasion I was running low on matches, another time cured leather and birch saplings for arrows.  I presume that was on a Stalker run not a Voyager run.  It is possible to survive without most resources by adapting  your life style and using alternative resources.  I have not tried beach combing but I assume that could provide some hard to find resources.

Lack of canned food should never be a problem.  Killing rabbits with stones would always provide enough food even when ammo runs out.  I suppose that there could be a point when you run out of material for repairing clothes and when fire-lighting devices run out but before that happens, assuming that you are playing sensibly, you would probably have become bored with the game and give up.

[Schrodingers Box]

LOng term survival in any difficulty even interloper is not even an issue. I have several characters with over 1000 days on interloper. 
  there is no Strategy to it. Once you have a base established in each region your food and resources just stockpile more and more beyond what you can ever use.   There is literally food and hides/guts almost everywhere and even if there wasn’t, at a level 5 bow skill you can easily create more and any time. I don’t even fish- I have enough bear and moose meat to last another 500 days even if I stopped hunting. 
  In the easy levels you don’t need to even worry about it but in Interloper one strategy is to stockpile raw meat and then use a Maglens to save matches and just binge-cook masses of food and water to optimize use of  matches. Even after 1000 days of interloper I have literally hundreds of matches still. also while not necessary, a final base in CH allows replenishment of some key resources by beachcombing but you should easily be able to go thousands of days before needed to beachcombing. 
  it’s short term- the first 30 days that is the challenge and requires strategies. 

Edited February 1, 2021 by Schrodingers Box

[UpUpAway95]

Food - Infinitely available, even after you run out of ammo... 1) You can always kill rabbits with stones or by snaring them because harvesting ruined snares will return the reclaimed wood used to make them and any new rabbits you trap will eventually provide guts.  2) You can always run deer towards a wolf and the wolf will kill it... then scare off the wolf with stones or torches and steal his kill.   On some modes, animals will spawn less frequently over time (adjustable setting in Custom), but they never stop spawning completely.

Weapons - There are a lot of saplings and scrap metal in the world so you can craft new bows and arrows for a long, long, long time.  You can also craft knives for self-defense in struggles and those will ultimately kill the wolves you struggle with.  You can also repair tools and guns at the Mill in Bleak Inlet and reload your ammo as long as you have the ingredients for that).  You can conserve a lot of ammo early game by simply refusing to take more than one shot to injure a wolf, deer, or bear and allow them to bleed out rather than pumping them full of lead to watch them drop.  Animals left to bleed out will run off but if left undisturbed will generally return to their regular patrol area once they slow to a walk and will die within the normal zone they patrol.  Bears will often return to their dens, go to sleep, and die in their sleep.  By listening for crows, I can usually find most of my bleed-out kills without much difficulty.

Clothes - Several items of clothing can be crafted without the use of cloth and can also be repaired without cloth.  Even the bear bedroll takes less cloth to repair than your regular bedroll.  Fishing line (made from cured guts and scrap metal hooks) can be substituted for sewing kits.  There is also a lot of cloth in the world... as you run low, look around for chairs with red seats and arm chairs... they give cloth.  Old bedrolls provide a whopping 10 cloth when harvested.

Medicine - I use up any "commercial" medicine I find first since it decays.  Teas keep forever, so I use them up after I run out of the commercial stuff.  After cooking Level 5, food poisoning and parasites are no longer a concern.  You're generally rocking good crafted clothing, so staying warm is not as big an issue as it is at the start.  The animals take longer to respawn and you've gained a ton of experience avoiding them, so you'll probably have fewer struggles too.  Stay under the carry weight and watch your footing and you should be able to avoid getting sprains as well (although these can always be slept away without medicine).

Matches - By then, you probably have at least one magnifying lens, which also doesn't decay with use.  It can get damaged in a struggle though.

Personally, going long enough to need these steps gets way too boring.  I regularly jump my characters off the back of the plane at TWM before 500 days and start a new file... the struggle at the start of a run is much more fun.

[Serenity]

There are a huge amount of saplings in the game. Just in the new Ash Canyon map you get about 80 arrows. It's pretty insane.

Food is no problem. Even if you don't actively hunt you can snare rabbits and catch fish. That costs you nothing. Or you spend some resources and hunt bears or moose. One of those can last you a month and more.

Medicine might not be infinite, but there is a huge amount of it in the game. If you don't use those teas just for warming up you're not going to run out. And most conditions can be just be waited out. As said, you eventually won't get food poisoning unless you do something stupid like eating raw meat.

 

In general you will get bored long before you run out of anything vital

[AdamvR]

the only issue i'm slightly worried about is wolf struggles/bleeding.
to stop bleeding you will need bandages (cloth) and either disinfectant omb lichen or mushroom tea to fight infection (risk).
aren't these the last resources ultimately limiting your survival? (other than boredom of course)

Edited February 1, 2021 by AdamvR

[Serenity]

29 minutes ago, AdamvR said:

aren't these the last resources ultimately limiting your survival? (other than boredom of course)

You have to distinguish theoretical from practical concerns. Yes, in theory you will run out at some point. But in practice there is so much that you can have plenty of struggles in a reasonable amount of time and still have enough

[UpUpAway95]

42 minutes ago, AdamvR said:

the only issue i'm slightly worried about is wolf struggles/bleeding.
to stop bleeding you will need bandages (cloth) and either disinfectant omb lichen or mushroom tea to fight infection (risk).
aren't these the last resources ultimately limiting your survival? (other than boredom of course)

Both cloth and lichen will wash up on the beach, so they are actually infinitely available.  Here's a link to the Wiki list of items that are available through beachcombing:

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Beachcombing

Edited February 1, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Stinky socks]

The chairs!! I didn't realize those have cloth(some of them). 

Re: magnifying glass, I guess that will limit you to daytime fires unless you keep them long enough.

[Gun Tech.]

23 hours ago, Stinky socks said:

How do you handle:

• food

• weapons

• clothes

• medicine 

...or other essential survivor items?

 

At some point, ammo will run out, clothes will be all ruined, and canned food will be eaten up. What next? If you plan to go in for the long run, share your strategy! Thank you!

Food: loot first few days, then do a day 5-10 forge depending on spawn

Weapons: See above

Clothes: See above

Medicine: Um... pick some plants?

Currently on day 761 on Interloper and out of things to do. This is the real question for long term

I gather stones for stone caches to store all the firewood I harvest, build blizzard lines connecting all fishing huts, craft wolf skin coats from spare wolf skins, and look for bears when I can. Moose are 134 days apart in various regions noted in the Calendar. Ash Canyon gave me 60 more matches, or I would be down to 21. But I've learned to do big cook-outs when maglens chance appears long ago.

I catch Auroras to get cool screenshots. I forge new knives and hatchets because all the whetstones are spent. I have a 1% Flare Shell in the chamber of one of my flare guns, and trying to think of a good use for it before it ruins. No flare shell crafting in Bleak Inlet, which is great for maglens and in which I've spent 60 days. 

I've explored the entire world, and I still don't do Cartographer until Hinterland lets us do it once and carry the maps into a new Survival Sandbox run.

I do coal runs and birch bark runs when the tea plants are gone.

The real challenge is not running out of things, but running out of things to do. 

Late game, you will be the Janitor of the Great Outdoors for this reason. My Will has made all the major locations beautiful! Not one thing in the improper place, all the things in the proper place.

That will be so, until more gameplay is added! 👍

[Ahatch]

@Gun Tech.You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Boredom and letting your guard down are the biggest dangers once you are late in a run. Once a base is established it doesn't take long and you soon have a big pile of raw meat (usually rabbits) more gut and rabbit hide than you would ever need. I find myself repairing my rabbit hat / mitts when they reach 98%. 

[DrZ]

Thanks to everybody here - some good points and insights. I appreciate them as well, as I am currently on interloper on day 150 and aiming to reach the 500 milestone.

So I do not have the actual experience to run out of stuff but I would like to add some of my considerations for my current interloper run:

• food: it is infinite if you keep moving. However, non-smelly food is not. So I use cattails and such sparingly as I want to have them as long as possible in the game as emergency snacks if I am ambushed by a blizzard or to sneak into the canary (see below)
• range weapons: In interloper you only have arrows but I know from several people that the saplings last quite a long time. Still, it is finite so I try to stay conservative: Shoot only if it is a good shot, go for big game, some deer (usually for the hide) and never shoot rabbits
• melee weapons: I think whetstones are a too rare in the game given that you need to wear down your tools a lot to craft some clothing items. So I am conservative with those and try to use the canary to sharpen knife, hatchet and hacksaw.
• clothes: Also finite so switching to fur helps. I noticed "Even dark" on youtube (currently on day 1650+) stoped wearing cloth-clothing indoors. Looks like a pain in the neck... So I suggest to not fix clothing too soon. I personally aim for 80%-70% condition depending on the warmth bonus.
• medicine: not an issue - especially if you drink your teas down 90% if you need the warmth/calories but save the last sip for treatment.

One other item that I consider regularly is matches. I like Athenon's advise to not hesitate in the first 30 days but after that you should conserve them. As already mentioned bulk cooking and boiling is the key. If you have lots of food and water in one place just accumulate wood and raw meat until the sun comes out. Then go for it. One member here stated to have gone 220+ days without using a match and I think that is quite doable once you set up your bases.

[GuJaMan]

i have 314 days (Pilgrim), iwant to collect all the resources in the Camp site administration

[UpUpAway95]

2 hours ago, DrZ said:

Thanks to everybody here - some good points and insights. I appreciate them as well, as I am currently on interloper on day 150 and aiming to reach the 500 milestone.

So I do not have the actual experience to run out of stuff but I would like to add some of my considerations for my current interloper run:

• food: it is infinite if you keep moving. However, non-smelly food is not. So I use cattails and such sparingly as I want to have them as long as possible in the game as emergency snacks if I am ambushed by a blizzard or to sneak into the canary (see below)
• range weapons: In interloper you only have arrows but I know from several people that the saplings last quite a long time. Still, it is finite so I try to stay conservative: Shoot only if it is a good shot, go for big game, some deer (usually for the hide) and never shoot rabbits
• melee weapons: I think whetstones are a too rare in the game given that you need to wear down your tools a lot to craft some clothing items. So I am conservative with those and try to use the canary to sharpen knife, hatchet and hacksaw.
• clothes: Also finite so switching to fur helps. I noticed "Even dark" on youtube (currently on day 1650+) stoped wearing cloth-clothing indoors. Looks like a pain in the neck... So I suggest to not fix clothing too soon. I personally aim for 80%-70% condition depending on the warmth bonus.
• medicine: not an issue - especially if you drink your teas down 90% if you need the warmth/calories but save the last sip for treatment.

One other item that I consider regularly is matches. I like Athenon's advise to not hesitate in the first 30 days but after that you should conserve them. As already mentioned bulk cooking and boiling is the key. If you have lots of food and water in one place just accumulate wood and raw meat until the sun comes out. Then go for it. One member here stated to have gone 220+ days without using a match and I think that is quite doable once you set up your bases.

Anything that washes up on the beaches loses the distinction of being a finite resource in the game.   Sure, they are in very limited resupply and I agree that conservation is still necessary... but a resupply mechanic exists nonetheless.

"Non-smelly" food is also infinite in the form of birch bark teas (100+ calories per tea).

[DrZ]

1 hour ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Anything that washes up on the beaches loses the distinction of being a finite resource in the game.   Sure, they are in very limited resupply and I agree that conservation is still necessary... but a resupply mechanic exists nonetheless.

"Non-smelly" food is also infinite in the form of birch bark teas (100+ calories per tea).

Thanks for pointing these out. Of course, you are correct. Although I would say "technically correct". I personally do not count on beach combing as it is very limited, not predictable and, most importantly for me, I suck at it. 😆

And yes, birch bark tea is, I think, the only non-smelly regenerating source for calories. And I really like to use it for that and stretch my other non-smelly food as it also quenches your thirst. However, living on it purely would waste a lot of water (and therefore fire wood) and also requires a lot of preparation (i.e. collecting it over several maps), especially if you want to maintain "well fed".

But yes, I agree with you. There are some "*" to my statements.

[piddy3825]

I remember hearing about a guy who had 10,000 days in game! At one point there was talk about creating a special badge for this guy.  dont know what became of that of that story but it was thoroughly discussed in these forums as memory serves.  

you also might wanna check out a thread by @Drifter Man called  "1000 Days in the Dam: An exercise in inventory control"
he does a unique detailed analysis of items, decay rates, usage etc. 

yeah, so getting to 1000 days isn't necessarily difficult based on items/resources in the game, its more like can you launch a new game and stick to it playing in the sandbox for 1000 in game days?

[UTC-10]

I have played Pilgrim for a very long time.  I always think about the ultimate long-term run in my three Pilgrim runs.  It infects my thinking and because of that I have to sometimes remind myself often that "this run was supposed to be more limited, such as getting feats, so loosen up on using matches, for god's sake".  It is one reason why even if I had 1000 cloth onhand I would think, "what happens when I run out"?  Same for matches, tools, whet stones, you name it. 

[UpUpAway95]

3 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

I have played Pilgrim for a very long time.  I always think about the ultimate long-term run in my three Pilgrim runs.  It infects my thinking and because of that I have to sometimes remind myself often that "this run was supposed to be more limited, such as getting feats, so loosen up on using matches, for god's sake".  It is one reason why even if I had 1000 cloth onhand I would think, "what happens when I run out"?  Same for matches, tools, whet stones, you name it. 

I don't doubt it.  There is a lot of cloth in the world on any difficulty.  For example, I just finished a count of guaranteed cloth in Broken Railroad... i.e. cloth from curtains, blankets and chairs only (i.e not including any of the cloth pieces I found lying about, like the one that spawns on the one shelf with a book that I'm pretty sure is a guaranteed spawn).  I also did not include any cloth from clothing found in the zone.   My count was 99 pieces... which is the absolute minimum that would appear in that zone even on the most brutal loot settings.

I admit that for some zones (like HRV) there is no such absolutely guaranteed sources of cloth, but like anything in Interloper, it's all about knowing the maps well enough to know where you can go to get it guaranteed.  No doubt, the larger zones with more buildings than Broken Railroad (e.g. Coastal Highway) have much, much more of this guaranteed cloth available.

Still, it is something that a lot of people tend to stress out about.

[Stinky socks]

Maybe we need hinterland to introduce microtransactions with supply parachute drops!

[Schrodingers Box]

It’s easier to survive from day 200 to 3000 than it is to survive from day 1 to 200. 
  long term survival is not difficult- it’s the opposite in fact. It’s actually easier the longer you go. 

[piddy3825]

10 hours ago, Ps4Methuselah said:

I wish...no my friend, I'm not Osman...i was just there on Steam when he showed up & told everyone that he just spent 10 years on interloper. As you can imagine...we were awestruck by his accomplishment. I just thought i would let you know who deserves a badge of his very own for doing the impossible. 🦊

well thank you for setting the record straight!  He truly deserved an award or at the very least community recognition of his outstanding accomplishment.  I dont know of anyone who has even remotely come close to that longevity!  

[piddy3825]

2 hours ago, Ps4Methuselah said:

Please delete your earlier comment that implied that i was Osman...i wouldn't want folks to get the wrong idea.

Thanks

this message will self-destruct in 24-hours

per your request!

[vidholf]

On 2/1/2021 at 7:48 PM, Gun Tech. said:

...build blizzard lines connecting all fishing huts... 

How are doing that? What are you using?

[Gun Tech.]

On 7/29/2021 at 3:36 AM, vidholf said:

How are doing that? What are you using?

Near the North/South Pole they use rods in the snow connected with rope, it's nothing like that. But you can drop anything in a line a few meters apart, I collect charcoal from the burned out fires and stoves and use that 👍