One year of Interloper

[Andy_K]

Today marks one year on my latest interloper game

So.. is that one year of real time, or one year in the game? Both! A year ago today (9th March 2021) I set myself a challenge: Play interloper in real time. One day on the game per day in the real world. I've now completed a year of the challenge, so I came to write up some of my experiences

You survived? How close did you come to dying? What from?
Yep, I'm 365 days in and still alive. The closest I came to death was dropping under 5% health around day 100 when I slept in the mountaineers hut and a blizzard started. Not a mistake I'll make again!
I also came very close to death hunting timberwolves around the factory in Bleak Inlet, and had to make a desperate escape late at night with a broken bow while nearly freezing to death.

What was most fun?
Mapping the whole of Ash Canyon for what was really the first time I'd spent any time there. Learning a new map from scratch on interloper is a unique challenge.

What supplies were the biggest problem?
To be honest... none of them really. I still have a ton of matches, arrows, cloth, bows, teas, and more or less every other non-renewable. Only thing I really came close to running out of was leather, and that's only because I spent most of the run using work boots instead of deerskin ones. I expected arrows to be much more of a problem, but there are a LOT of birch saplings on the island, and if you're reasonably careful not to go shooting at hard surfaces you won't run out. I did not need to do any beachcombing.

What were the biggest unexpected difficulties?
1) Patience. When you're in a dangerous area and know you should go back for supplies, it's really hard to do that when you know it could be two weeks of real time before you're ready to return again.
2) Remembering things. When you don't visit a location for weeks (or MONTHS) you just won't remember what you left there. After 100 days when I misplaced every set of quality tools, I knew I had to start writing down what supplies I'd left where.
3) Boredom. After a hundred days or so on the same game file, you WILL try stupid stuff you normally wouldn't on interloper. Like trying to get to the bleak inlet ammo factory just for the hell of it

Did you learn anything new?
At some point during this run I learned food doesn't decay if you leave it on the slot after cooking.
There are a lot of easy ways to deal with timberwolves involving fire.

Favourite and least favourite base?
Favourite is Coastal highway garage. Lots of Bear meat, moose meat, and wolf meat on your doorstop! I don't fish much. Didn't even level that up to 5.
Least favourite is the Camp Office in Mystery Lake. It's frustratingly dark inside at lower light levels, and it's just too close to two other bases (Dam & Hunter's cabin) I'd generally rather be in.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Andy_K
typo

[Comet777]

Hey thanks for sharing! 

Just wondering, is this your longest interloper run ever, and if so, what was your previous longest interloper run. Also, have you been playing where you have maintained the well fed buff throughout? 

Like you, boredom is a big problem for me. I am currently at just over 70 days on my loper one (which is already the longest I have stuck at it), and things are just too easy. Super warm in caves, excess resources, one shot killing animals with bow, and like you, I am just fine with taking chances because if the run ends, then I will just start another one - and I love the start of runs when the going is tough. 

[hozz1235]

Thanks for sharing!  May I ask what prompted you you to limit your daily RL play time to only play a single day game per day....make sense? 😋

[Admin]

Thank you for sharing! 

[Andy_K]

10 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

Thanks for sharing!  May I ask what prompted you you to limit your daily RL play time to only play a single day game per day....make sense? 😋

 

11 hours ago, Comet777 said:

Hey thanks for sharing! 

Just wondering, is this your longest interloper run ever, and if so, what was your previous longest interloper run. Also, have you been playing where you have maintained the well fed buff throughout? 

Like you, boredom is a big problem for me. I am currently at just over 70 days on my loper one (which is already the longest I have stuck at it), and things are just too easy. Super warm in caves, excess resources, one shot killing animals with bow, and like you, I am just fine with taking chances because if the run ends, then I will just start another one - and I love the start of runs when the going is tough. 

To answer both questions... my longest previous run on interloper has been about 100 days, and I have several of those - but not ended through death, I just end up feeling burnt out. There's generally little motivation left to continue after that point, when it's much more fun to start a new file or even (god forbid) play a different game entirely! So the 1 day per day limit was to limit how long I play the game for in a session, in an effort to keep me looking forward to the next installment and keep the motivation up for a year. There were time when I really wanted to play just another day but had to hold back. The flipside is that the times where things felt a little slow, I only needed to play one day to keep the challenge going.

I also wanted to see how it impacted my decision making in game. The intention was to create a greater attachment to my character, and see if I could get closer to a feel of roleplaying rather than beating the system.

[peteloud]

16 hours ago, Andy_K said:

Yep, I'm 365 days in and still alive. . . . .

Did you use, loot tables, mods maps, or info. from spoiler websites to help you?

[Andy_K]

29 minutes ago, peteloud said:

Did you use, loot tables, mods maps, or info. from spoiler websites to help you?

I've never used any loot tables or mods (xbox), but have played interloper enough that I know which locations are likely to contain 'key items' and just go through enough of them till I have what I want for early game, and then revisit the rest later.

Limited use of maps, generally topography only. No looking at spawn points. Aside from Bleak Inlet, Timberwolf Mountain, Ash Canyon, and Blackrock, I'd already spend extensive time on every map before starting the challenge, so there's not much I'd need a map for.

As for tips/info/gimmicks, I'll use whatever I feel I can justify in a roleplay sense. For example, in these temperatures it would be pretty easy to store frozen meat for years, so I don't have much issue with cooking 0% steaks or leaving food on a hob. But I won't game the level up system with micro harvesting or anything like that.

[DiscoJonny]

On 3/9/2022 at 9:20 AM, Andy_K said:

Did you learn anything new?
At some point during this run I learned food doesn't decay if you leave it on the slot after cooking.

wait a minute?!?

are you saying that meat does not decay at all if you place back on the slot after cooking or are you saying that you time things perfectly to allow the fire to die out before the food is burnt beyond recognition and if not picked up it does not decay at all?   

If either scenario actually works then you have single handedly solved the age old mysteries of extended cooked meat storage!

Somehow I am skeptical of your claim.  No offense intended but given the communities intense debate over cooked food storage, I am wondering why this has never come up as a strategy to indefinitely store food.    I have more questions now, like inside vs outside?  fireplace or firebarrel?  campfire vs stove?

 

[Andy_K]

Make sure the fire runs out after it's cooked, but before it has burnt. You can examine the meat to check the condition after this, but don't remove it from the hob or actually pick it up into your inventory. This appears to work both outside and inside, although given you can only store 2 pieces of meat per fireplace, you're better off outside where you can set up a large number of campfires.

[Bearimpaler101]

Omg 😲😵😵😵😵 I'm inspired

[DiscoJonny]

On 3/13/2022 at 2:54 PM, Andy_K said:

Make sure the fire runs out after it's cooked, but before it has burnt. You can examine the meat to check the condition after this, but don't remove it from the hob or actually pick it up into your inventory. This appears to work both outside and inside, although given you can only store 2 pieces of meat per fireplace, you're better off outside where you can set up a large number of campfires.

Outstanding!  I haven't played in a while so this is
something I'm definitely gonna check out!  
Lighting a bunch of fires isn't necessarily difficult if you pull out a torch each time
to start a new fire.   

[Andy_K]

So it appears the meat on campfire exploit has now been mostly fixed. I've tested this today on my existing and previous interloper runs, and cooked meat left on the fire will now degrade faster than cooked meat just left on the snow.

However... at the risk of getting this patched again, it's still a viable strategy. The new degradation for cooked meat left on a campfire now stops at 50%, and does not go below this value. I presume this is likely related to how the +50% condition bonus for cooked food is calculated. So you can't keep perfect ready to eat meat around any more, but you can keep it at a state which is reasonably low risk - and no risk at all if your cooking is 5 since cooked meat has no chance to hurt you then