The Relentless Night Mod

[ShieldHeart]

Hey fellow fans of The Long Dark, 

It's been ages since I checked back here, but it's great to see some mod discussion. First, a huge thanks to the Hinterland team for being open to mods during continued development, I hope and believe that decision will do a lot of good for the game and community in the long run. As a modder myself, I will keep that openness in mind and do my best to bring about mods that are worthy of the game and mesh as seamlessly as possible to vanilla content.

As suggested by some other players, I've decided to post the latest release of Relentless Night here. I look forward to your thoughts and feedback, this has been a mod that's been in development for over 5 years, and it's now become one of the most extensive gameplay mods offering a lot of replayability for the game, and thanks to your feedback, it's become quite a success in the modding community.

First I will note that for those who use the mod, please report any potential bugs you find to myself at our mod discord group, we do not want to take time away from the Hinterland development team with potential mod issues, only go to them with bugs if they persist with a fresh run and all mods removed. You'll find the discord group useful for any mod questions and announcements as well.

So What is the Relentless Night Mod?

Relentless Night is a gameplay mod introducing a new sandbox scenario where the spin of the planet is slowing down. Slowly but surely, days and nights are getting longer, leading to a world with continuously changing temperatures, weather patterns, wildlife changes, and more.
 

As the world slows, each longer-dark brings even colder temperatures to the Canadian North, the resulting temperatures give way to stronger winds and blizzards, even adapted wildlife slowly start to disappear as they succumb to the worsening conditions of the frigid nights.
 

Realizing what is happening, you must take advantage of the longer days and the warmer temperatures to prepare for the next even longer, and colder, darkness. All of this eventually leads to the final challenge where all your preparation will really determine how long you survive - the planet finally slows down enough to become tidally locked with the sun, with the survivor now left in the perpetual darkness of the new “dark side of Earth”, and its ever-worsening and frigid conditions.
 

The mod will add a progress difficulty into survival mode that at first doesn't seem any different than a regular run, but the effects will slowly add up and bring about conditions that make gameplay harder, leading to a world that's incredibly harsh and difficult to survive in for even expert survivalists of the game. Under the right mod settings, nowhere will be safe from the cold.

Mod Features and Configurable Settings
 

 

What you see above are the classic Relentless Night settings, though you are free to configure your games as you like. Detailed descriptions of each setting/feature are below:
 

How Fast Days And Nights Get Longer

Controls how fast the earth's spin slows down, and so how quickly the duration of days and nights increase.
 

Perpetual Night Endgame

Enables the Relentless Night endgame where the earth eventually becomes tidally locked with the sun and you are left to survive in perpetual darkness for the rest of the game. If disabled, the earth's spin will simply keep slowing down forever.
 

Endgame Start Day

The endgame will start during the next nightfall after this many days survived, measured in 24 hour days.
 

Permanent Aurora At Endgame

The aurora borealis will be present throughout the endgame, ensuring you some light at the new dark side of earth.
 

Minimum Air Temperature

The minimum air temperature that will be reached at the endgame or during a sufficiently long night.
 

Outdoor Affect On Indoor Temperatures

Controls how much of an effect outdoor temperature will have on indoor temperatures, with a high enough setting no place will be completely safe from the cold.
 

Carcass Moving

Add ability to haul medium sized kills such as deer and wolves around the world map, including indoors.
 

Electric Torch Lighting

Add ability to light torches using live wires and household outlets during auroras.
 

Fire Heat Retention

Fires indoors will keep the building warm for much longer, even after the fire has burnt out. The hotter the fire, the longer it will keep the place warm. Better insulated indoor locations will keep warm for longer.
 

Realistic Freezing Damage

For temperatures below a 'feels like' temperature of -40C, the rate at which you suffer freezing damage will be increased.
 

Wildlife Final Minimum Population

The wildlife population and respawn rates will decline over time as longer nights make temperatures outside harsher for you and wildlife alike. This setting determines the minimum population that the wildlife population can fall to.
 

Day Wildlife Decline Reaches Minimum

Day at which wildlife populations will reach the minimum value set above.
 

Fire Fuel Burn Time

Extends how long books, wood, and coal fuels for fires will last after being placed in the fire.
 

Lantern Fuel Burn Time

Extends how long lantern fuel will last while in use.
 

Torch Burn Time

Extends how long torches will last while in use.

Installation Instructions

1. Ensure you are using the latest game version, as shown on the top-left of the main menu, currently 1.99 is supported.

2. Follow the intructions at the top of Xpazemen's Hosting Website for TLD Mods.

3. Ensure you have placed both the ModSettings and Relentless Night mod files into the "Mods" Folder indicated.

4. Launch and enjoy!
 

Best of luck! Your survival skills will be tested to the extreme in this eerie cold world 🥶

Edited February 19, 2022 by ShieldHeart
Clearer wording

[piddy3825]

Holy Smokes Batman!  This is gonna be epic!  
I could see this as a new addition to the challenges section.  How long can you make it in a world that has gone dark?

@ShieldHeart, I have one request, maybe two!

Would it be possible to break out 

Carcass Moving
Add ability to haul medium sized kills such as deer and wolves around the world map, including indoors.

and

Electric Torch Lighting
Add ability to light torches using live wires and household outlets during auroras.

and just have these two features as a stand alone mod?   I'd love to be able to utilize these capabilities in the normal game world without having to be reliant on installing and enabling the Relentless Night mod in order to utilize the benefits that these two features alone would bring to the game. 
If I could only have one, I'd opt for Carcass Moving. 

I'm curious if such a thing is even be possible? Or worth your time?  
 

 

[Catlover]

@piddy3825I'm not a modder but I really like your first option. It could be done in a way similar to carrying survivors in ep 3, except but with a deer or wolf

 

[bladerunner900]

Thank you ShieldHeart. Nice to see you here. I've been playing this from day 1 and am very grateful that you keep pace with the games evolution. As an ex-modder of other games myself, I know how hard it can be to keep up the enthusiasm for what you do.

 

Once again. Than you.

[piddy3825]

8 hours ago, Catlover said:

@piddy3825I'm not a modder but I really like your first option. It could be done in a way similar to carrying survivors in ep 3, except but with a deer or wolf

 

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking, but with the added benefit of being able to place the carcasses where I want them. 
I bet the wolves would give me a wide berth as they see me walking along with one of their dead packmates drapped over my shoulder!  
 

[ShieldHeart]

Quote

Would it be possible to break out 

Carcass Moving
Add ability to haul medium sized kills such as deer and wolves around the world map, including indoors.

and

Electric Torch Lighting
Add ability to light torches using live wires and household outlets during auroras.

and just have these two features as a stand alone mod?

Yes definitely @piddy3825, in fact I am planning on doing exactly this for not just these features but others as well. 

Though even now you can essentially configure the mod settings and shut down all features other than the exact ones you want.

You just want to play with carcass moving for example? You can shut down day lengthening, the endgame, and every other feature you see above, and essentially have a sandbox run with just that feature, through the current Relentless Night.

I should also note that you cannot convert an existing vanilla sandbox game to a mod run, you have to start fresh using Relentless Night if you want to play with any of these features. This is to ensure your vanilla saves wont get corrupted in any way between updates to the game with unexpected changes. Like you mentioned, the future plans to break down Relentless Night to submods is in part to address this and bring in the ability to use these features in current vanilla saves.
 

Quote

I'm not a modder but I really like your first option. It could be done in a way similar to carrying survivors in ep 3, except but with a deer or wolf

Yes this is a great idea @Catlover, one that I plan to implement, or at least leverage as much as I can for carcass moving. Relentless Night's current carcass moving feature came about before episode 3, so it's using a different system, though now there is a lot of value to adopt parts of this where/if possible, I'll be exploring it.

Edited February 20, 2022 by ShieldHeart

[piddy3825]

@ShieldHeart,  Thanks for the heads up!  I was hoping that might be possible!   
I really enjoy playing with mods that don't impact game play than other to "enhance" playability, especially as it relates to existing save game files.  
I am excited about playing "Relentless Night" on a newly launched game as it brings a completely different feel to the game.  It's a brilliant addition and I equate the game play of your work with that of one of the existing challenge quests like Whiteout, Nomad etc.   There outta be a badge in there for players to achieve!

Again, thanks for making my day!

[Catlover]

4 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking, but with the added benefit of being able to place the carcasses where I want them. 
I bet the wolves would give me a wide berth as they see me walking along with one of their dead packmates drapped over my shoulder!  
 

Haha I can just imagine that. They'd definitely leave me alone, for once

1 hour ago, piddy3825 said:

@ShieldHeart,  Thanks for the heads up!  I was hoping that might be possible!   
I really enjoy playing with mods that don't impact game play than other to "enhance" playability, especially as it relates to existing save game files.  
I am excited about playing "Relentless Night" on a newly launched game as it brings a completely different feel to the game.  It's a brilliant addition and I equate the game play of your work with that of one of the existing challenge quests like Whiteout, Nomad etc.   There outta be a badge in there for players to achieve!

Again, thanks for making my day!

Agree completely! I can't wait to play relentless night and see for myself how harsh this new world will be. 

And @piddy3825 your recenf posts have also made me want to get a fox pet too, lol! It's too cute

[piddy3825]

59 minutes ago, Catlover said:

And @piddy3825 your recenf posts have also made me want to get a fox pet too, lol! It's too cute

the fox is really a fun little diversion!  It's especially cute when you sprint down the road and then quickly turn around and there it is running after you!  
too cute, indeed!

[ShieldHeart]

Mod's been updated to version 4.50. You can follow the same instructions above to update it or simply get the latest mod file if you already have it installed.

Added a new feature for fish population decline over time, similar to the Wildlife decline feature - configurable/toggleable as all features.  

Some bugs were fixed as well. 

Enjoy and take care!

[TheUnknown]

i have been loving this mod. Ive been doing nothing but relentless nights with custom interloper settings (wolves bears moose turned up) and its been fun. i havent turned on perm night at endgame though. have it set to 100% for increase of time 24hrs added every day. endgame set to 1year.

 

this mod alone spices up survival.

[bladerunner900]

8 hours ago, TheUnknown said:

this mod alone spices up survival.

Couldn't agree more. Interloper with this mod and its extra configuration menu is my go-to nowadays