Crap! It's cold!

[Hu_man]

I've been trying Voyageur mode and the same thing has happened to me three times in a row, which is that I get stuck inside a building. If I step outside, I start freezing instantly, and if I stay inside I run out of food or water and die.

Some of the things I've noticed:

Fires don't start, and usually tinder is the bottleneck. It takes three or four bits of tinder on average before I can get a fire to start (according to the GUI, I have a 70-90% chance. Not so.). Usually I'll have tons of sticks and firewood but no tinder = no fire = can't warm up or melt water or cook meat.

(Incidentally, why is all snow in Canada yellow? In the Sierra Nevadas, if your snow hasn't been peed on, walked through or driven near, it's as pure water as you can get. The only problem is it takes a bucket to make an 8 ounce glass of water. Sierra Nevada snow is ridiculously fluffy.)

I'm really hungry. All the candy-bars and health bars and beef jerky burns out in a couple of days. And if I go outside, I can get hypothermia planting a single snare (let alone actually checking on it later).

Hypothermia is a death sentence. If I stay indoors for 24 hours, I starve, and if I can't get a fire going (typically, since I burn through tinder like tinder) I can't melt snow, and so I desiccate like a desert mummy packed in salt.

This is not because I'm naked or poorly dressed. Hiking boots, wool socks, down vest, wool long johns, all in 40% or better condition. It's just Yukon cold out there and like To Build A Fire, the dog doesn't make it either. I won't walk a hundred feet before I go from toasty to dying, in daylight.

As I said, I've tried three times. I want to play a game with feral wolves, but when I'm so tender-footed against the elements, it's just not feasible.

[LucidFugue]

Playing in Voyageur is a real jump from Pilgrim, and the game is pretty tough when you're a new player. Here are a few tips:

Sticks can be harvested for tinder. If you are running low, that's the best option. Books are fantastic early on when your firestarting skill is low. So is acceleant. Every successful fire increases your skill and so it becomes easier with time.

You do want to stay indoors as much as possible, but you want to travel around to find the resources you need, so every journey outside has to have a purpose.

Personally, I don't race towards fishing. You need very good clothes before fishing. Catching rabbits is always a good idea, but shouldn't be your sole source of food. Set them up, travel around to other locations, and come back in about 2 days.

You can't stay indoors 24/7. But in the early game it can be difficult because travel time is significant. The best hours are 12-6pm,the warmest parts of the day. Stepping out first thing in the morning is not a good idea. If there is a snowstorm, don't go out. This can seriously mess with your plans, especially when you're running low on food, but starvation is easier to recover from than hypothermia.

Early game is the hardest, but it's also the most exciting (at least that's what I find). Stick with it, you can make it through.

[Patrick Carlson]

Also keep in mind that your condition exists on a spectrum. If you are warm from being indoors for a while, you'll have some time outdoors before it will get dangerous for you. This can be tricky to interpret as you'll start getting "colder" immediately. Use these windows of relative safety to gather kindling, make runs to new shelters or cabins or explore the landscape. With more experience you'll start to understand how to manage time, and with that your condition, in a way that will be sustain your game a bit longer.

As LucidFugue states above--always have a purpose when you step outside. Hu_man, be sure to check back in and let us know how it's going for you.

--Patrick

[Hu_man]

ATTEMPT ONE: I started out at night and wondered around aimlessly until I ended up at the Trapper's Homestead. I was able to get my strength back up, but the food ran out quickly, and after I placed the one snare, found the nearby bunny warren was now occupied by a bear.

Sticks are super useful now that one can be rendered into a tinder-plug. Even when I was starving to death, I was able to keep warm and hydrated on sticks alone.

Dead men yielded no help. I also came by a couple of dear carcasses I lusted over for want of a hatchet or a knife. Eventually I sprained both wrists and an ankle from climbing over hills trying to find places, and came across Clear Cut three times in a row before feeding myself (at this point, starving, freezing, exhausted with three sprained limbs) to a convenient wolf.

But that beat being trapped between indoors and outdoors.

ATTEMPT TWO: I started out inthe Trapper's Homestead, with a rifle!

I got into a routine of waiting until afternoon, collecting sticks, setting the trap out in the warren. Eventually I went out to Davey's Last Stand and found a hatchet which allowed me to harvest frozen cadavers and tree limbs. I even shot a wolf charging me, which was pretty thrilling.

I attempted to hunt deer, and wounded one, who ran off leaving a trail of blood. At the end of a day's routine, I found a dead deer (don't know if it was the one I killed) but it had a lot to harvest. Sadly, apparently our hero becomes very obsessive when we start harvesting things, and I worked into the night, froze, got hypothermia and exhausted myself before I finished. I froze to death in moments.

Um...that probably shouldn't happen. I added my tale to the current thread about people dying from harvesting too long. It sounds like they've heard other complaints before about the things-that-take-time interface, and haven't yet figured out a solution. Beth and someone else argued that the interface is fine since it's possible to use it effectively, though my point -- that you shouldn't be able to skip three hours and starve / freeze / exhaust yourself to death like that due to a problematic interface -- seemed to be lost on the second guy. Hopefully it isn't lost to the Hinterland dev team.

ATTEMPT THREE: I started off on the edge of the map and made my way to Clear Cut and from there to the Forestry Lookout only to discover that it doesn't get very warm there, unless you either have a fire or are sleeping. So I melted some drinking water and ate and arranged to leave the next afternoon with full-ish stats...and it whited out by the time I got back to Clear Cut.

I traveled...West, I think, to the cabin with the outhouse. A nearby dead guy supplied a hatchet and I spent the night there, but low on water, I had to keep moving. I had a plan to get to one of the logging clearings that had cabins and a stove, but got lost and then found myself in familiar territory near the Trapper's Homestead.

All roads seem to lead to the Trapper's Homestead, and that place was decked out including a rifle.

I spent days there until the place was flush with firewood and water, but exhausted the food there pretty quickly. I did harvest the partial dear carcass by the barn. But afternoon blizzards kept stealing my daylight, and the rabbit warren was sometimes occupied by a bear. I planted a snare before I discovered that the bear was feeding at the warrens.

While breaking up a tree limb, a wolf charged me by day, who received a bullet to the head. It took into the night harvesting the beast (bit by bit so that I didn't suddenly die of everything all at once), and I got ambushed by another wolf. Bleeding, but with wolf meat for dinner, I made it back to the Homestead. And ate and medic'd myself back to health.

The wolf meat didn't last long, and soon I was starving again, and counting the days for a clear afternoon. I went out to the warren and there was a dead rabbit next to my snare, and a bear who didn't like me there. But the bear wasn't attacking and I was thinking about that bear-sleeping-bag-thing and the next thing I knew, I was taking careful aim at the bear's head.

To be fair, I was really hungry. One of us was going to eat the other. That's all there was to that.

I managed to piss the bear off, and then I had face full of bear eating me. But he (she?) left me for dead all blurry and bleary. So I went all Captain Ahab, crawled over to my rifle, and shot him again. Face full of blurry bear. Fade to black.

Good safety tip: Don't shoot at bears, even when you're starving to death.

[nicko]

Nice, sounds like your getting the hang of things. It does take a while and that is what makes this game great along with many other things you will come across.

I find first thing to-do is get some food and water to survive, then always think about upgrading your clothing. With decent upgraded clothing you can do so much more when outside without freezing to death. I.e gather more food and wood. Blizzards well yeah they aren't fun to be in no matter what you have on but you will have more of a chance to survive under a rock face or find your way back to a cabin.

As you aware find a knife and axe as soon as possible this allows you to harvest cedar/fir wood and frozen carcass. Once you can get some deer and rabbits start crafting the rabbit mits, deer pants and boots, get rid of those crappy cotten pants, socks, replace them with the woolen ones.

[Thelek]

the harvest interfaxe works just fine. you can contrul how long you spend harvesting in 10 minute increments and ypu can stop what you are doing at any time. there is no need to harvest an entire carcass all at once. if you managr to kill a bear, you will often have to make 2 or 3 trips between the bear and your base because 80+ pounds is more than you can carry in trip.

speaking of bears, never try to shoot one unless you have a flare or a safe spot to shoot one frim. also, never try to take a second shot if you have been mauled. go heal and if you did hit the bear with the first shot, you will find its carcass somewhere nearby after you have healed. safe spots include fallen trees, and fishing huts. the fallen tree at the rabbit warres near trappers is a perfect spot to shoot a bear from. if you wound it, it cant get to you and you can take your time lining up that 2nd shot.

you should always build a fire when you harvest a carcass. it serves 2 purposes. 1: it keeps you warm while you work and 2:it protects you from wolves and bears since they will not go near it. i know that wood can be hard to find if you dont haxe a hatchet, but remember that all crates and stools and most chairs can be broke down by hand. there 3 chairs, 2 crates, a stool in trappers. that with the loose wood can give you about 10 hours of fire.

hope this helps with future attempts. but honestly, you should play on pilgrim mode until you get used to the interface. hell, istill play on pilgrim since i cant seem to survive more than 5 days in voyager. i usually end up dead because of my own stupidity. like forgetting to put on that premium jacket and mittens i found in trappers safe, but staying out side as if i had put them on. i dont die by wolf much anymore since i figured how to use flares properly, i usally end up dead bexause i failed to watch my stats close enough.

[Amazombie]

They pretty much covered everything above. I would agree with last post , try easier level. There is not shame in it and it really will help you to get a good handle on thing. Also, I would suggest if you havent already, do a google search and download the maps you can find. I keep a copy of those on my Kindle while I'm playing to use as a reference, just keep in mind the bunker locations are random and they are not always there.

My second piece of advise would be to focus on an area and get good there. For example, I played Mystery Lake on easy for a long time, then when i moved to a harder mode, i already knew the lay of the land this helped alot. If I get caught in a snow storm I can find my way more easy because I know that area well. Keep us posted and good luck!

[Wasteland Watcher]

To all: this is a very interesting read and like the topic poster, I appreciate all the guidance.

I started playing 7 December and am totally hooked. This is a deep game and when I do something right I feel good about.

I had never felt that way at all while playing Fallout 4 (which I lost interest in).

Thanks also to Hu_man for talking about spraining ankles while out climbing. I generally "stick to the trails" so am glad I was correct in assuming I might sprain an ankle climbing on steep surfaces. I'll stick to avoiding those if at all possible.

Now I'm on my 3rd Life, "alive 20 days," and using all this info you've all provided I hope it will help me to live "forever" like some of the more fortunate players.

However it's starting to seem desperate because I'm down to one day's worth of food. Maybe 1300 calories worth.

I've got 10 matches, a magnif. glass, knife, ax, hammer (haven't found any nails), and prybar which I always use just to break ice to fish in but down to my last fishing hook. Got a bow and single arrow but never killed anything with it, and survived three wolf attacks with the knife (which is why I have no more meds).

I've raided all the shacks near the lake and live at the Camp Office so I'm wondering whether it's better to try to "live forever" off of either fishing (sometimes fishing all day grants nothing) or by rabbit snares (and I've never caught a rabbit yet though I set a snare in the clearing across the train tracks).

My plan is to wait until a sunny day and make a small campfire right outside the Camp Office, grab a torch to keep warm longer, and then walk along while gathering wood and exploring, making a campfire every hour to make a new torch and continue exploring until late afternoon before returning home. If it gets so windy that it blows out the torch that'll be a cue to return home early before the weather gets worse.

I ESC to main menu to pause while I draw my map on a piece of paper. I know I could find a map online but ...isn't that "cheating?"

[Amazombie]

If you want to catch rabbits, you can try checking where they are when you go into that opening (usually around the trees)

If you have scrap metal you can make some hooks on the table in the cabin.

If you have and guts you can make fishing line

If this wont work for you I would suggest taking a right and heading to the dam

.... or checking out one of the maps and seeing what else is there . Just google "long dark maps" Here is the mystery lake one personally I dont think its cheating, but thats your call.

[Wasteland Watcher]

If you want to catch rabbits, you can try checking where they are when you go into that opening (usually around the trees)

If you have scrap metal you can make some hooks on the table in the cabin.

If you have and guts you can make fishing line

If this wont work for you I would suggest taking a right and heading to the dam

.... or checking out one of the maps and seeing what else is there . Just google "long dark maps" Here is the mystery lake one personally I dont think its cheating, but thats your call.

Thanks for the advice. I've been reading a little in the forums on fishing and snaring:

It seems that majority favor using guts to make snares over fishing lines; fishing is only "good to do while waiting for something to cure" and that "it's more efficient to use guts for snares."

Is that the general consensus from long-living survivors?