Wolves or Furry Zombies?

[K63]

I have a couple questions about the wolves. How often do they spawn, and do they continue to spawn if they are not killed. In one game I killed two wolves in the same area and then the next day there were even more of them. I would think they would avoid an area where they had taken loses, at least for a while.

It just seems like they are paroling every inch of territory. Every time I turn around there is another wolf. I am beginning to think that I would rather play on pilgrim mode. I don't mind a changing game, but I would rather have the challenge come from realistic survival decisions rather than through the wolf threat. There are enough shooter games, what is refreshing to me about this game is that it can be more about survival in the wilderness.

Perhaps playing pilgrim on one of the more challenging maps would be a better fit for how I would like to play.

[ThresholdSeven]

I primarily play Stalker and have learned to deal with the wolves well enough that they are not really a concern anymore. Much of this is avoidance.

Each wolf has a set path that it patrols, only wandering from the path if they chase a bunny or deer (or you) and have to find their way back to their normal path. Sometimes they will take a roundabout way to get back. I encountered a wolf once that was walking right up the driveway to the farmhouse in PV. That is super uncommon but wolves can end up in weird places like that if they chase a deer or rabbit a long ways away from their normal area.

Once you kill a wolf another will respawn in its place after a few days. There are always the same amount of wolves to my knowledge. Killing one will not cause more than one replacement to spawn and the replacement will always be in place of the one you killed. Because of this I too have jokingly called them zombie wolves because they always come back from the dead.

It seems that wolves are always in the same place every new stalker game. Bears are different. There are multiple bear spawn possibilities in each map, but only a few of them will have a bear each new save. One game you might have a bear that patrols by the Trapper's cabin and not the lake in ML, but the next new game there might be a bear by the lake but not the Trapper's cabin.

To deal with the wolves I primarily learn where they patrol and simply avoid those areas. PV is a perfect example and is in my opinion the safest map once the wolf patrols and map are known. It is very possible to walk from the mine to the barn to the cave to the radio tower to the farmhouse to the entrance of TM without ever encountering a wolf because there is a safe route where wolves simply don't patrol. There is a slight chance that you will encounter a bear and or a wolf walking through the crossroads (buildings by the bridge in between the barn and the mine) but other than that the only wolves you will encounter on the safe route are wolves that are off of their normal patrol route (which is a very small chance).

All the maps have similar safe routes but the routes I take in PV are by far the safest. Every other map has a pretty much certain chance that you will have to encounter a wolf sooner or later when traveling between points of interest.

The best passive way to deal with a wolf is to drop a piece of meat and walk away. Make a tiny scrap of meat by hitting escape (or equivalent controller button, the one that opens up the options menu when you are not performing an action) right before the loading bar finishing filling when you are eating. That will leave a tiny piece of meat in your inventory that you can give the wolves and avoid dropping an entire juicy steak that you may need to eat. You can use the hotkey (3) to quick drop a piece of meat, but that way chooses a piece of meat randomly from your pack without considering weight. It will prioritize raw meat, then cooked meat, then jerky, then other things like candy bars and even tea if that's all you have. Even tea will distract a wolf for a few seconds to let you get way but it doesn't work as good. Meat, cooked or raw, works every time as long as you are not too close to the wolf.

If you are quick, you can manually drop a scrap of meat to avoid dropping a big one when a wolf starts to stalk you by going into your pack, clicking on the exact piece of meat you want to drop and then click "drop".

You gotta be fast though or the wolf will charge while you are rummaging through your pack.

If the wolf is too close and starts to charge, you have to either shoot it or fight it off by hand. Keep bandages and antiseptic on you at all times for this reason. If you get too close to a wolf that is eating a rabbit or deer, it will charge you and ignore any meat that you drop.

You can also use the dropped meat to lure a wolf in for an easy shot. You have to be in the sweet spot that isn't so close that the wolf charges you anyway regardless of the meat but not so far away that you can't get a good shot.

You can use deer and rabbits to your advantage also to clear a path for you. Scare a deer or rabbit into a wolf to distract it so you can get through an area otherwise guarded by a wolf, but beware as this can trigger the "I don't care about the meat you dropped" response of a wolf guarding its dinner if your timing is bad.

There are many ways to deal with wolves from just shooting them in the gob when they are at point blank range when they are charging to simply circumventing their patrol area, but by far the best bit of advice I ever received that drastically increased my survival time was learning how to make and use tiny bits of meat to distract wolves. I carry at least 5 or 6 scraps of meat for this reason at all times.

If you drive a rabbit or deer into a wolf and the wolf takes it down, you can kill the wolf and get two carcasses for one shot. I'll intentionally get the wolf to charge after it kills it's prey and just shoot it in the face at point blank with an arrow or bullet. You can also try to shoot the wolf from a distance (before getting so close that it charges you) while it is eating. This method sometimes results in the loss of an arrow though as you might not get a kill shot and the wolf runs off into the wilderness with your precious arrow sticking out of its hide. When the wolf finally bleeds out, the arrow will forever rest where the wolf fell. I've found arrows that I thought I lost hundreds of days after the wolf had rotted away.

A safe way, if you are worried about losing an arrow, is to shoot the deer carcass or the ground near the wolf. If an arrow shot lands near a wolf, it will scare it away. You can then safely retrieve your arrow and harvest the deer/rabbit.

In a pinch, you can also whip out a flare to scare away a wolf and or a bear. Sometimes just shooting your gun will cause wolves to run away in fear even if you don't hit it (as long as it's not already charging).

Here's a video I recently recorded of a close call with a bear and wolf. I always carry a flare but rarely have to use one. This time it saved my life.

[bBvideo 560,340:2d63kk6k]http://www.twitch.tv/thresholdseven/v/34488473[/bBvideo]

[K63]

Thanks for the info!

Your video was really good. I like that you have the shot of yourself in it too. I have never seen that before.

The flare really did the trick. My experience so far is that flares are more dependable than the rifle.

[K63]

I also like the little meat trick. I will try it!

[ThresholdSeven]

The webcam is used when I stream the game live on Twitch.com. It isn't necessary but it helps to improve interaction with viewers.

I hope you have luck with the scraps of meat. That is the best tip I can give when people ask me what is the best advice I have for survival.