Interloper experts..?

[Robbiieeee]

How do you guys survive in Interloper? 

I play this game annually every winter and have done since launch many years ago. I mastered Stalker a long time ago having 100s of days survived a few times, dying only because I get bored (or I delete the save).

I have tried Interloper many times but for me it's just too difficult. Even if I can survive the early game, by mid game I am struggling for basics like light and food and I die. My record is 19 days lol. 

I play on Custom now. I use Interloper settings as my baseline and I adjust a few things: Medium resources so that tools and higher tier clothing can spawn, slightly increased the available loot outside of containers, weather change and blizzards are on high, enabled a revolver (but no rifle) and decreased the wolf attack damage slightly (I think its on High for condition and clothing damage) with a low struggle bonus. I believe my temperature in the world is equivalent to Interloper; even with animal crafted clothing, it is now the late afternoon that it is safe to 'travel' on day 50 otherwise it's just too cold. And resources are slighltly more difficult to obtain than Stalker but manageable.

With these settings it is slightly harder than Stalker but not as tough as Interloper.

Without access to weapons, tools and with incredibly low resource amount on Interloper, how do you guys do it? It is truly impressive to reach day 100 on Interloper. I have died multiple times in the early game on Interloper (or restarted) simply because I can't find a light source or matches lol

 

[Shadox]

Its just really hard until you get the bow and your first forge run done. Also the difficulty depends on what region youre starting. If you get a PV start and find a hacksaw early, you can have the bow around Day 8-9 (remember to stone a few rabbits for guts and the pelts). A few tips helping for early Loper:

- Torch+Stone trick to deter wolves when wind is low, helpful until you get the bow

- Always ignite the torch first, and ignite fires with the torch until you get 100% fire chance. Matches are much less common, and you dont want to lose matches on fire fails. Always fully use up the fires, if you are done with cooking, take as much torches as possible out of it. By chain-torching (throwing almost burned out torches on the ground and ignite a new torch with it) you can get around safe from wolf ambushes and with a little warmth bonus, as long the wind lets you.

- Use Reishi Tea if the warming up bonus would make a difference in the freeze meter, so you can move around longer while losing less health. After cooking 5, reishi tea have no other use

- Dont settle too early, being a Nomad early is key to survive early loper. If you start in PV and dry the saplings in CH or DP close to the first forge run, dont spend 3-4 Days gathering sticks, but rather to loot ML and/or Milton

- Dont get afraid if freeze meter hits zero. As long you just lose 50% health before sheltering, youre fine. Avoid Wolfs, sleep 10 hr straight (not 12 like on stalker because of higher thirst loss) and youre full again.

- It helps alot to use the starving technique early on. Health loss from hunger is very little, so before you get your bow, its better to keep calories to zero the entire day, and eat around 750 calories just before sleeping. Thats the amount you need for 10 hours of sleep regeneration. Go for well fed bonus only after you got the Bow.

- Since they made Bearcoats cost only 1 Pelt, its much easier to craft them early. If you got the bow, kill the Milton Bear. That one is a safe kill without any danger, since you can duck in in one of the dozen cars and get a pretty much free Coat.

Im sure i forgot to mention quite a few things, but i hope it helps anyways. Especially the starve technique is almost essential early. My pre-DLC Loper was almost 500 days, and my current one is on 200ish Days. If you have been on Day 19, youre very close to the brink where loper gets much easier. Bow and first set of animal clothes, and it gets much easier. Cooking 5 and you have never again shortage on food. Just avoid eating more than 1 wolf/bear meat a day, because intestinal parasites take twice as long to cure on loper. You can glitch it by making hundreds of tiny steaks (hitting esc every time after taking meat results in lots of 0.1 kg slices to cook) but thats a boring exploit and i prefer to skill it normally and with lots of tea. If you want to make your loper get established faster, that will help though.

[mfuegemann]

Very good tips, Shadox. Maybe some things to add are carrying coal and some sticks with You, instead of firewood. And You should push on a little more than You think possible. Especially in the evening You can travel quite far in the remaining light and the temperatures are not as harsh as in the morning.

Map knowledge is key too, and You always can sleep in cars or a snow shelter without a sleeping bag.

[Serenity]

5 hours ago, Robbiieeee said:

by mid game I am struggling for basics like light and food and I die. My record is 19 days lol. 

Food shouldn't be a problem. At least on the right maps. You can survive for hundreds of days on cat tails alone. There are hundreds of them and you need only 5 a day. In addition to that there is quite a lot of found food if you loot everything.

Mystery Lake is a good map to get to for the early game. Not all that big. Good chance for loot in easy to reach locations. Lots of cat tails. Lots of deer carcasses to harvest for hide and guts. That gets you some extra food and allows you to make deer pants and boots fairly on. Get some rabbits too for the mittens. And you can make a quick run to FM (or maybe DP) to craft your tools and some arrow heads.

With matches you can splurge a bit early on, but eventually you should rely on the magnifying lens. When there is a clear day make use of it and cook water for a few hours. Be ready to change your plans for that. That way you only need a fire every other day and can save the matches for something like a bear, or emergencies.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Serenity

[MrWolf]

8 hours ago, Shadox said:

- Use Reishi Tea if the warming up bonus would make a difference in the freeze meter, so you can move around longer while losing less health. After cooking 5, reishi tea have no other use

It's still a good idea to keep some mushrooms around or know where some are in case you get parasites.  You won't get parasites from eating cooked predator meat after cooking 5, but you'll get 'em if you accidentally eat a bit of raw predator meat.  Eating raw meat is fairly easy to do if you're not paying attention, like going too quickly and double-clicking a piece of raw meat in your inventory.  Depending on your location, supplies, and experience, surviving parasites on Interloper can be difficult.

I wouldn't take chances eating cooked predator meat at all before cooking 5.  I've gotten parasites more often from a 1% chance than I have from a 75% chance.  It just seems to be the way those chances work in this game.

Edited January 4, 2023 by MrWolf

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

Here's a few, in no particular order:

Get cooking and archery to level 5 as soon as possible.  These will make your life so much easier.

Always carry five pieces of coal and a stick.  This will get you out of many blizzard-related crises.

Wolves are easily killed by confronting them on a flat surface, and backpedaling with your bow.  They will be forced to run at you head on, instead of dodging and weaving.  Shoot them in the face, by aiming below their chin and firing just as their chin touches your aim point.  If you have level five cooking, you can get piles of meat this way.  Just walk out on the ice with some stinky fresh guts and take on all comers.

Travel between noon and ten PM or so.  This is the warmest part of the day.

[ManicManiac]

@Robbiieeee

I think that the best tip I might offer is to not put too much importance on getting to a Forge right away.  I've found that while the improvised tools and arrow heads certainly come in handy, I can speak from my own experience that we can certainly survive without them.

We can strip carcasses by hand (at first only until a carcass gets to be 50% frozen - and even a campfire can help with that).  If we focus on our Carcass Harvesting skill, by level 3 we can harvest at 50% frozen, by level 4 - 75%, and at level 5... frozen carcasses won't matter anymore; we can harvest whatever we want.  Even with just rabbits and ravaged deer carcasses we can get what we need to craft up some good animal hide clothing (hat and mitts from rabbit; pants and boots from deer).  If we take the time (and careful enough of the cold) to strip those carcasses by hand... means we don't really need the improvised knife.

If we are diligent about picking up sticks (and if weather permits) breaking down branches by hand... we can usually get more than enough firewood for our needs.  This means we needn't bother about chopping up limbs, which means we don't really need the improvised hatchet (and also save wear and tear on hacksaws - if we've been lucky enough to find one).  Also, coal... coal is as good as gold.  

For clearing out fishing holes... I tend to favor the prybar; but the heavy hammer is more sustainable long term (again if we are lucky enough to find one).

For larger game... if we are careful enough, we can get solitary wolves to hunt for us.  All we need is either push a deer towards a wolf... or draw a wolf to a deer.  Once the wolf takes down the deer, we can run them off by pitching stones at them.  Still risky if we don't drive them off far enough, but it can be done.  Plus, if we have a fire at the carcass, we can also use that as a bit of a wolf shield (though I find that's not always 100% effective - but again, it can be done), we can then pelt the wolf with more rocks to run it off again.  ***just make sure not to aim in... but rather just "throw from the hip."  Hopefully you get my meaning, because if you "aim in" it will almost always trigger a charge if they are already stalking.  So, if we get good enough at that... then we don't really need the bow and arrows either.

When it comes to defense, I'd say the most effective strategy is to evade and avoid.  If we pay attention to our surroundings, we can go entire runs without ever getting into a wildlife struggle with wolves, bears, or moose.  Granted that can be tricky at times... but it is doable.  I find that just a few rocks in my pocket are sufficient enough to deter most stalking wolves.  If we're not encumbered, we can also usually keep well enough ahead of a stalking wolf to get to shelter before they can really get to be much of a threat.  For Timberwolves though, better to just keep a sharp eye out and avoid being detected by them in the first place.  Again, that's tricky at times, but it's also doable.

All things considered... this is why I say it's better not to try and push hard to get to a forge right away.  That can wait until we're ready... or happen to be in an area where one is easily accessible.

I hope some of this is helpful for you.  I know my playstyle doesn't suit everyone, but these strategies work for me and I hope others can find them useful.

Edited January 4, 2023 by ManicManiac

[conanjaguar]

I’m hardly an expert, but I’ll try and share my (faulty) wisdom.

• In my opinion, the hands down best weather on Interloper is a blizzard. The reason: you can travel without fear of hostile wildlife.
• On that note, if you have trees nearby, you can make a fire anywhere in the middle of a blizzard. This is accomplished by crouching and slowly circling the tree until you find a wind-sheltered spot.
• The weather is usually warmest in the late afternoon.
• Travel light and travel fast.
• You can never have too much coal, give that resource too priority when managing your inventory.
• Don’t travel while carrying meat. Cattails should be your prime pick for “fast food”.
• If you think that you’ll be good with X number of torches, double that amount. It’s surprisingly easy to lose track of how many you’ve used.
• The last torch should be used to light a fire.
• The Improvised Knife is basically useless. For harvesting, there is the hacksaw or just bare hands, and the hatchet is much better in a struggle.
• If you come across a revolver by some lucky bug, then use it.
• Especially in a blizzard, if you are going to be cold anyway, travel naked to lessen the wear and tear on your clothes.

Hope this helps .

[Semple Fi]

Sometimes when you can’t find matches, flares show up.  Light fires with the flare and start cooking water or anything that will give a warmth boost (or food); and use the remaining flare time to search dark corners.  Getting to ML, CH, or PV via WR; you’ll find some sort of good loot and a lot of cattails.  
Also, get to the flare gun in the bottom of the ravine early.  There’s also lots of cattails there, deer hide x2, and no wolves.  Harvest meat after starting a fire close to the deer to keep up health and purify water at the same time.  
I go straight to ML after spawn, then to the Ravine, then CH, then hopefully DP if I’ve found metal and a hacksaw.

[tulkawendark]

I believe the most important key is to move as quickly as possible early game. 

Unless there is a raging blizzard in my way, I tend to take the risk of travelling, yes even early morning when it's freezing - this means find a big loot hub, grab loot asap and move onto the next big hub until you find a heavy hammer. Collect and carry all the metal and coal along the way. Once you've got the hammer, beeline for the nearest Forge. You need arrowheads and knife/hatchet/both depending on how much metal you've got.

Food: Interloper has a high harvestables availability - take advantage of it early game to survive. Cattails are a life saver. Teas are also a life saver. They keep you warmer during travelling and give you much needed calories, those 100 calories don't look like much but they help a lot. Smack bunnies with stones - two bunnies per day is enough to earn supper. Possibly deer carcasses - especially if you run into a hacksaw while looking for the hammer. If there is a shielded deer (ex near trappers cabin at ML in a barn) you can make a fire and take guts/hide/meat even without hacksaw since the fire is shielded. Drop those guts at trappers cabin to cure for the bow and keep walking to return once you have arrowheads.

Don't carry meat or anything stinky. Drop guts to cure where you harvested them and either eat the meat or drop it into snow as a stash in case you are walking back through the area.

Don't stay at any spot over a day unless the weather makes you - move it move it move it.

Feats: Efficient Machine -  by 10% burn less calories. Cold Fusion - additional bonus warmth. In my opinion this is the most OP perk there ever was. When you are starting your first hardest days, when you enter indoor buildings, the temperature inside might be small negative. If you have cold fusion this pushes you over the edge into plus zone where you're warming up without clothes. This allows you to loot and warm up. Saves my butt soooo much early game.

Once you have your arrowheads and knife/hatchet - you'll be able to chop down birch and maple for your bow (unless you found the hacksaw before the hammer and cut them down already). Trees don't stink - so drop them on the floor while you sleep and travel with them during the day towards a workbench location - so you don't stay in one spot waiting for stuff to cure.  If you had time to harvest bunnies for guts or managed to grab a deer carcass, you can backtrack to the cave/cabin where you dropped those guts, while you were running around looking for a hammer those guts were curing. Feathers are self explanatory, find around carcasses.

If you have a spare gut - make fishing tackles. Bunny traps are good to have too, but since I move around so much I find them inefficient early game because I already moved on from the area by the time it caught something. They're more useful once you already have your bow and can afford to camp a spot for a longer period of time.

Once you've got the bow and fishing tackle, you're good on food. This means you passed your early game and became self sufficient. Then it's simply the matter of fine tuning your equipment and getting the luxury items.

If you begin your run in Milton - you are golden. It has a lot of food and you'll be able to get great clothes while looking for tools. This will make your Forge trip easier. If I start in ML or HRV, I beeline for Milton. ML is great, but it has matches problems.

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by tulkawendark

[odium]

for me, surviving loper means have a good plan in the first 2-4 weeks.  you have to know where to look to get the tools you need, mag lens is essential.  i always started in FM, tons of cattails and theres usually good tools.  hit the main spots and book it for ML. Loot the major spots and get some saplings drying.  stabilize a bit and jump back to FM with enough coal and metal to make a handful of arrowheads.  head back to ML and craft your bow and arrows as well as starting on crafting clothing.  i ride out ML til i have some decent clothes then move to CH for the easy bears.  

 

i made it over 400 days in loper without lighting a single match, all about managing time wisely and ALWAYS light a fire whenever its free (sunny).  make torches, tea, water, cook meat, just always take advantage when you can.  as others stated too you really only need 5 cattails a day for a while so get used to starving, and use your condition as a resource.  you can starve and freeze quite a bit in return for progress

[Nicholai]

I am not an expert but a few of my ideas may work.

For me, TLD is only about the weather for any difficulty. Food is the goal, wildlife is the hazard, and weather determines the duration for you to reach your goal while avoiding hazards. 

Even in interloper, you can always avoid the wildlife and you can find abundant of cattails or animal carcasses, but the problem is the much shorter duration. Weather conditions significantly limit the time you can spent outside. You can't see during the fog or blizzard, gale turns you into a snowman in the blinking of an eye, and the worse, you can go out only in the afternoon if you are lucky. You're not gonna have premium clothing and you won't be able to craft clothes in the early game. 

I would also travel as long as I can during the early game. My priority would be finding good clothes and fuel to increase the duration for reaching food. MT, HRV and FM have enough cattails to keep to alive for a long long time. Once I stock a good amount of food, I would go after a forge. In the end, I would settle in CH (Jackrabbit Island, specifically) since it has the warmest climate, fishing huts and cute little bunnies and vast straight ice to notice predators. Not even mention the less frequent blizzards. 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Nicholai

[JMK]

Until you are more seasoned, I would advise to move fast to a forgiving region where you can safely experiment interloper build up (like Mistery Lake: cattails, fish, carcasses, rabbits, loot, coal, connexion to Forlorn Muskeg and its forge or Mountain Town and its loot)

Early interloper:

I - Staying alive (run Forrest, run lol)

II - Improve your clothing (rabbit & deer skins)

III - Find hammer & Hacksaw

IV - Trip to a forge

V - Bows and Arrows

VI - Hunting and telling the wolves who's in charge now

 

 

[melcantspell]

My top 3 tips for playing interloper: 

- DO NOT RUSH. Walking slowly makes less noise and allows you to plan your next steps. If you get surprised by anything - especially if it puts you in danger - hit the escape key, sit back and think about your options before making your next move. Playing slowly makes the game a lot easier. 

- BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS. You can avoid wildlife completely if you listen to your surroundings. You can hear wolves, bears, deer and rabbits. You can hear the crows that announce weather changes, the wind picking up etc. Listening to all these cues helps so much. It also helps to aim for higher elevation levels when planning your travel routes. This will allow you to see your surroundings better. Is there a hill in front of you, and you don't know what is behind it? Do not walk the straight line. Circle it and try to get on higher ground so you can see any possible predators early on. But listening is the most underrated skill in TLD, it helps so much if you really tune in to the sounds of your environment. 

- BE MINDFUL OF WHAT YOU REALLY NEED. Resources are scarce in interloper, so it is key not to waste them. Do you really need to cook today, when it is overcast and will cost you a match? Or could you wait until tomorrow and use the magnifying lens if the weather is clear? If you plan to cook tomorrow using the magnifying lens, maybe you should hunt today so you have enough meat to prepare etc.  Avoiding wildlife attacks helps to save a lot of resources too. Oh, and it is easier to collect a lot of sticks and keep the fire going than to find new matches. 

Enjoy  

[Paddyjack]

20 hours ago, melcantspell said:

- BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS. You can avoid wildlife completely if you listen to your surroundings. You can hear wolves, bears, deer and rabbits. You can hear the crows that announce weather changes, the wind picking up etc. Listening to all these cues helps so much. It also helps to aim for higher elevation levels when planning your travel routes. This will allow you to see your surroundings better. Is there a hill in front of you, and you don't know what is behind it? Do not walk the straight line. Circle it and try to get on higher ground so you can see any possible predators early on. But listening is the most underrated skill in TLD, it helps so much if you really tune in to the sounds of your environment. 

Enjoy  

Good advices, but I want to point out the bolded part. Zaknafein made a great video about this on youtube, and the conclusion is there is no such thing as crows announcing weather changes. The developer even confirmed it. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Paddyjack

[stirfoo]

1. start interloper game
2. die
3. goto 1

All the above advice is good but really, you'll just have to keep playing and dying to get good at interloper. And don't try using the same strategy every run. I've found that fire management is the best skill I can learn. When to use a match, flare, strike, lens, how many torches to make and carry and when to chain-burn them, when to make/use a 100% torch. How to get the most out of each fire. How to use coal efficiently in outdoor fires. I always have a minimum of 2 chunks of coal on me.

And do keep in mind, the game is not what it used to be. The latest changes have made interloper even more difficult (and less fun in my opinion).

[Shadox]

8 hours ago, stirfoo said:

And do keep in mind, the game is not what it used to be. The latest changes have made interloper even more difficult (and less fun in my opinion).

I do agree with you on the other parts, getting comfortable with interloper takes a bit practice. But why do you think its more difficult? Only thing i can imagine is that you cant learn the loot tables.

This is the first Interloper where i got climbing socks, revolver, cowichan and a fishers sweater. Thanks to awesome momentos. Also Bear pelt just take 1 hide instead of 2. I'd rather say its a bit easier now. And more fun as well

[Dan_]

On 1/4/2023 at 8:08 AM, Robbiieeee said:

 I have tried Interloper many times but for me it's just too difficult. Even if I can survive the early game, by mid game I am struggling for basics like light and food and I die. My record is 19 days lol. 

You're already doing pretty well! It only gets easier from here. 

I believe my temperature in the world is equivalent to Interloper; even with animal crafted clothing, it is now the late afternoon that it is safe to 'travel' on day 50 otherwise it's just too cold. And resources are slighltly more difficult to obtain than Stalker but manageable.

Freezing is inevitable, taking cold damage is not really detrimental if you know your A to B's. I know a lot of people like to be warm outside everywhere but that's just not possible in Loper, you can get up to 30C clothing and feel pretty warm in the afternoon in some regions, but some like Forsaken Airfield, Bleak Inlet, etc are just too cold even in the late afternoons. Accept taking damage, the healing rate in Loper is crazy high as well, condition is a resource you can use. 

Without access to weapons, tools and with incredibly low resource amount on Interloper, how do you guys do it? It is truly impressive to reach day 100 on Interloper. I have died multiple times in the early game on Interloper (or restarted) simply because I can't find a light source or matches lol

Need to memorize where lightsources are, flares, matches, firestrikers and actually move. You can't just sit around and enjoy some camping time this early in the game when you're learning, need to acumulate resources, get a maglens, pair of bear coats, bow and at least a dozen arrows and a flare gun with shells. Food is only an issue if you don't know where the cattails are, there's too much of it. Not much in the way of canned food, but after you got your bow, the sheer number of bears, moose and deer is staggering. Final tip, learn the way of Legolas. The bow is by far the best weapon, infinitely renewable ammo and materials, you can reuse shots so 15 arrows will last you forever. Practice on bunnies, they don't bite back and are quite tricky to hit when you're just starting, you'll be conquering GB in no time with a bow in your hands. 

If you're playing with medium resource availability you should find bows scattered around the world, just start using them. The progression into forging and crafting your bow in Interloper is only natural from there. There's no hope for survival if you are still unable to feed and defend yourself with a bow in hand, need to cull the wolves in many places to explore and collect resources. 

Good luck!

[melcantspell]

On 1/12/2023 at 5:01 PM, Paddyjack said:

Good advices, but I want to point out the bolded part. Zaknafein made a great video about this on youtube, and the conclusion is there is no such thing as crows announcing weather changes. The developer even confirmed it. 

I totally believe that this may be correct. I think this is a confirmation bias thing - you see crows a lot, and the weather changes a lot as well. 

Still, as a reminder about potential weather changes I find the crows useful. They do have this "reminder" function in general to me. Whenever I hear crows, I focus my attention on them - is it a bear? a corpse? Or just crows flying above my head? 

If it is the latter, it forces me to look at the sky more closely, thus making me aware of any weather changes, even if there is no direct correlation to the crows.  

[Paddyjack]

18 hours ago, melcantspell said:

I totally believe that this may be correct. I think this is a confirmation bias thing - you see crows a lot, and the weather changes a lot as well. 

Still, as a reminder about potential weather changes I find the crows useful. They do have this "reminder" function in general to me. Whenever I hear crows, I focus my attention on them - is it a bear? a corpse? Or just crows flying above my head? 

If it is the latter, it forces me to look at the sky more closely, thus making me aware of any weather changes, even if there is no direct correlation to the crows.  

You are correct to do so. This is like the various character comments we get in game such as "All I can think about is food" or "surrounded by snow, nothing to drink" etc that reminds me to keep an eye on the food and water levels.

[cullam]

On 1/13/2023 at 1:53 PM, Dan_ said:

 The bow is by far the best weapon, infinitely renewable ammo and materials, you can reuse shots so 15 arrows will last you forever.

Isn't the birch for the arrow shafts a limited resource?

[mfuegemann]

1 hour ago, cullam said:

Isn't the birch for the arrow shafts a limited resource?

It is, but there are quite a lot birch and maple trees spread all over the island. And You can find complete arrows too.
Oh, and there is beachcombing for saplings too, in which regards "infinetly" might be true, but at a very slow renewal rate.

[Dan_]

21 hours ago, cullam said:

Isn't the birch for the arrow shafts a limited resource?

Nope, I always beachcomb saplings at a decent rate. Almost every pass I took from CH to DP yielded at least a birch and a maple, not sure if this will change with the beachcombing rework HL has on the roadmap, but it's pretty much limitless. 

[Serenity]

Even without beach combing there are huge amount of saplings in the world. Enough to last at least a thousand days. You don't need to live "forever".

Ash Canyon is a great source. Every possible sapling spawn there actually has one, whereas on other maps it's only a chance.

[RegentRelic]

Start in a region without a forge. Go to the forge. Only be full before you sleep. Win.