1000 Days in the Dam: An exercise in inventory control

[hauteecolerider]

I'm trying to understand how this affects my own gameplay, too. It may not be that big of a deal, though, since pre-update I frequently found items that were already partially degraded. So it shouldn't make any difference to me, especially since I'm not going for 1000+ day survivals. I just want to explore the game, and I'm likely to get bored with a current play through and start over with a new character to liven things up. So this may be purely academic for me. 

But that said, I eagerly await the findings of your research!

[Vhalkyrie]

As I mentioned on my story thread, I haven't played the new changes yet, so I don't want to comment too much without seeing it in practice first. However, I am most concerned about the ignored torches and the parasitic infections.  

I agree the torch method was borderline exploit, however, I really dislike the wolf dodging aspect of the game.  I don't like shooter type games, and if they take away a pacifist method of choosing to avoid confrontation, well, I'm not particularly excited about that.  There is still the baiting method for now, which I had experimented with several times, so I will see if this will work for me.  I expect that I will end up getting into more melees than I want, regardless.  It's not the end of the world.  It's not fatal unless I'm really stupid with low condition or the like.  However, it will mean that the melees will degrade my clothing more frequently.  No matter what I've tried, I'm simply not fast enough clicking to avoid torn clothes.

The parasitic infections I'm not opposed to per se.  I think it's an intriguing idea.  Replace 'food poisoning' with 'parasites' for predator meat.  That makes sense.  However, I really dislike the cumulative effect.  30kg of bear meat gives 60% risk of parasite infection if you eat the whole thing.  That makes harvesting bear meat worthless, especially since the parasite counter doesn't seem to reset until after you get sick.  Eventually you will hit 100% infection risk.  While you can harvest the meat to perhaps use as wolf bait, most of it will still likely go to waste unless you're running into one wolf per day for 30 days.

When I saw the change that all items in the world start degrading whether you find them or not, I immediately thought of you and how it would effect your gameplay.  I'm an explorer, and I just want to see all the maps.  I explored each map in about 30 days on average, which I don't think is a landspeed record compared to the min/max players.  For me, the extreme degradation rate on matches was a serious penalty for me searching all areas of the world.  Because I opened all containers as I searched the maps, my matches started disintegrating.  I was actually forced to use more than I would have liked because it was either use it or lose it.  I had to use them, or they were useless.

The degradation on everything else was pretty much a non-factor.  I could take it or leave it.  However, for you, the instant degradation from the moment time starts unnecessarily forces you to take everything.  I don't think that's a great thing, either.  My preference would have kept the degradation "on discovery", but rebalance certain rates, such as matches.  I might be fine with matches degrading, but they needed to be much, much slower than I was experiencing.

[Pillock]

15 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Funny. While thinking about torches and intestinal parasites I overlooked the proverbial elephant in the room.

All items in the world start degrading when the sandbox is started. I assume this means that all items in my world will start degrading once I resume my old sandbox. All degradable food items I haven't yet found and touched - at the Quonset station, at Hibernia Processing, in the crates on the top of Timberwolf Mountain - begin spoiling, starting today. When I set out for my next trip in a few hundred days as I planned, some or all of this food will be gone and won't support me out there. It's a lot of calories placed in advance where I need them most.

My objective is survival (for as long as possible), so there is only one correct course of action: to go out immediately, sweep all maps for all resources, then hunker down for thousands of days. Even if food spoils more slowly now, I'll be hurt by every day I put it off. I wanted to explore the world gradually, but the new system does not reward this approach. I'm forced to rush and greedily take all there is to take, now. But I don't want to play like this. What should I do?

1. To play the way I want and accept "punishment"
2. To follow the optimum strategy and rush out immediately
3. To quit this sandbox and join the "challenge troop"

I'll definitely test the new degradation rates first before making a decision, but I wonder what you think!

I'm not sure you should do anything very much different as a reaction to food degradation. Packaged food is going to keep long enough in its spawn location for you not to have to rush about collecting it all immediately - whether you collect it and store it in the Dam, or you leave it in a cargo locker on Timberwolf Mountain, it's going to degrade at the same, relatively slow, rate.

Some food may go to waste, that's true, but if you suddenly start running around trying to scoop up all the loot as fast as you can, it's likely to cost you much more in calories and other resources to carry out this relatively high-energy activity than you would gain from what you collect. You certainly won't be hurt by putting off the exploration for a few in-game months, at the least, giving you time to prepare and asses the new parameters in the mean time.

Besides, if you're enjoying the slower, more deliberate pace of your current project, there's no reason to completely upset that.

[Drifter Man]

Thank you all for your ideas. I took something from each of you.

@hauteecolerider - as you say, whatever has changed, it is not such a big deal. It is just a game and it can be played in many different ways.

@Vhalkyrie - do you mean that there is no way now to avoid wolf confrontation using a torch? I understand that wolves will ignore torches that were dropped (so they don't make themselves easy targets anymore), but not torches held in your hand... As for the parasitic infection, I will do like you do - the four wolf steaks left over from v.302 in my locker will go down the toilet. A single case of infection would wipe out half of my medical kit.

@Pillock - actually, I need the food where it is. When I go out to Coastal Highway, I collect cloth, also by harvesting benches, chairs, curtains etc. Doing this in one single house easily takes the whole day and leaves you with a 4000-Calorie bill at the end of it. Using local food makes things a lot easier - hunting locally is a full-time occupation, and a dangerous one at that. Which brings me to the idea - I probably need the food only in locations with lots of furniture to break up. And there is only one such location left that I know of: The Coastal Townsite. So maybe I just have to go there, in other places the lack of food will not make such a big difference.

Anyway, let's stop theorizing and return to the game

[Drifter Man]

Day 546 (504th Day in the Dam)

Interestingly, the 501st Day in the Dam (Day 543) was the first one after updating from v.302 to v.325. On Day 543 I continued my regular routine and collected three snared rabbits in the Ravine. I'm running a test there in that I place 28 snares (all I have) in a single zone. I mark locations of caught rabbits with a rabbit pelts (characteristically) in a hope to determine the extents of the rabbit zone. I already suspect that the zone close to the fallen tree actually consists of at least two spots and therefore can produce more rabbits. The one just behind the bridge (closest to the entry point from Mystery Lake), on the other hand, seems to be only one spot and usually produces two rabbits at once at most. However, more rabbits can show up while you are harvesting the first two.

A deer hunt was on schedule on the next day. I haven't noticed any difference in the behavior of the deer. The arrow degraded by the same 27% on hit as before. Knife appears to degrade by 1% per hour, like before. Forgot to check the bow. The density and general location of sticks appears not to have changed.

Some things did change. First, the wolf patrolling before the Dam now comes closer to the Dam and spends more time in the vicinity. It is much harder to avoid and there will be confrontations. I moved out to the Ravine or back to the Dam four times - and four times I had to maneuver and sneak around it. Also, there are more trees and tree stumps now that make it more difficult to see.

Second, there's been a major cave-in in my blizzard cave in the Ravine. Somebody at Hinterland gave the cave a serious make-over. They surely thought it was a brilliant idea but they buried my stuff there under rocks in the process. A hatchet, a flare and a bedroll (ouch!) were lost. So much for my cabin fever getaway. I'm missing another hatchet in a rabbit zone that has probably also been buried. Don't leave your gear lying on the ground when an update is due!

I noticed that meat degrades at much slower rate in containers now (raw and cooked) - in fact, there was no degradation over three days. On the other hand, cooked meat spoils much faster in your backpack than before. Normally I used to finish my 11-hour cooking session and only the meat I cooked in the morning was at 99% in the evening. Now I read 98, 97% by midday. Cooking itself hasn't changed, 20 minutes are still needed for each piece of meat. 90 sticks give me 11 hours 33 minutes of fire, like before.

About 200 more Calories are needed per day, probably because I'm forced to sleep for fewer hours now. Water consumption may have increased slightly. Bedroll degradation is slower, probably much slower. I repaired all my clothes to 100%, including the pieces I didn't wear (toque, wool underwear, socks), and wear everything constantly for test purposes. I crafted an extra pair of rabbitskin mittens that I keep in a container for comparison. Even the toque remained at 100% after three days.

[hauteecolerider]

Thanks for taking such detailed notes! I had already noticed that cooked food degrades very slowly in containers - I shoved cooked venison in the locker in Trappers Cabin right after cooking, and two or three days later it's still at 100%. So that's great news for my Voyager character currently parked on Jackrabbit Island while I play around with my new Pilgrim character. My other 113-day Pilgrim character will probably be very happy about the food situation on TM and PV while spending time on CH. 

I'm hearing that cured pelts now degrade if left out. I'm wondering if you have seen that yet? I have a couple of deerskin pelts curing right now, so I don't know yet. I will have to keep a close eye on them and see what happens once they cure. 

Again, thanks! It's great information to add to my repertoire.

[Drifter Man]

Day 547 (504th Day in the Dam)

[Hotfix to v.326]. Yesterday I took a trip to the bunker above Mystery Lake to take the tools and food from there. I don't plan to use the bunker in the future and I wanted to get the canned pork and beans I knew was there for decay rate tests. There were no wolves on the way until the rabbit zone at the Southern Access to Mystery Lake. Weather was bad and I couldn't avoid an encounter. At first I heard the wolf yelp and run away, but a few minutes later I met it again and this time it followed me. It was probably in the new curiosity mode but the terrain and weather didn't allow me to focus on what the wolf was doing, so I lighted a flare. The wolf followed me until I reached the ice fishing hut, in which I dropped 50 more coals for a total of 200 for future use. With about 65% left in the flare, I followed the wolf into the storm and although I came very close to it, it ignored me completely and eventually got stuck on a steep slope as it tried to leave the lake to return to its patrol zone. Wolves may still need some tweaking.

I went around the slope and returned to the Southern Access to climb to the bunker. The weather turned into a blizzard at about the same time the flare died off. I ran up the slope until I reached the bunker. Some of my newly repaired clothes degraded to 99%, but considering that I was in the blizzard for about 10 in-game minutes, it wasn't too bad.

In the bunker I collected all I came for (1 lantern, two large cans of kerosene, 1 hatchet, 1 knife, pork and beans, a box of matches, two bandages, a bottle of antibiotics) but also found some extra goodies that were not there originally: two whetstones, one rifle cleaning kit and the new emergency stim. When the blizzard ended, only two hours were left of daylight and I decided to stay overnight. I had enough food and the bunker was supplied with some water, so there was no problem. In the morning I collected all my stuff (leaving a lantern and a water bottle behind), took a picture of Mystery Lake from above, and went home.

The return trip was uneventful except that as I was approaching the Dam, I mistook the rumble in my stomach for a wolf bark and set my torch alight. Then, realizing my mistake, I wanted to extinguish it, but I brandished it instead. I think they swapped the control buttons. Great - I already see that when I need to brandish the torch at a wolf, I will extinguish it instead!

V.326 Hotfix makes wolf meat an option again, albeit an emergency one. Until I get the chance to test the mechanic of parasite infection, I still don't want to go down for five days with one.

[Jolan]

On 4/16/2016 at 3:02 PM, Drifter Man said:

Day 517 (475th Day in the Dam)

I finally completed my "walking tests":

All tests were performed with fatigue bar above 50% (rested or winded) and with still or light winds that did not affect walking speed. Two consecutive walks with 22.27 kg load have shown that fatigue does not affect the results (this may not be true when the fatigue bar is below 50%, when carrying capacity is reduced). Walking speed is constant up to 30 kg load, then falls with increasing load. Calories per hour increase linearly with load both below and above 30 kg. Calories per 1 km are then determined by walking speed and calories per hour.

charts! I love charts

[Jolan]

On 4/17/2016 at 3:05 PM, Drifter Man said:

Day 527 (485th day in the Dam)

Did I say there's nothing to report? Did I perhaps think Iknow all there is to know about life in the Dam?

I've just discovered an area right next to the Dam covered with an insane amount of sticks. I had known already that many sticks can be found in two small areas next to the train bridge, but this was a third one that had escaped my attention for 500 days. Whether it is by design or bug, an incredible amount of sticks piled up there and it took me five trips to collect them all. About 600-700 sticks in total. I only had to click LMB and watch out for wolves.

I find that there's a couple of big stick areas where if you don't collect them they build up - there's a little spot near the camp office, one on the way out of coastal highway heading for dp.  But the build up only seems to happen if you're in the area.... now I have to go map them

[Drifter Man]

15 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

I'm hearing that cured pelts now degrade if left out. I'm wondering if you have seen that yet? I have a couple of deerskin pelts curing right now, so I don't know yet. I will have to keep a close eye on them and see what happens once they cure. 

Two deer hides curing on the floor (one of them is pre-v.320) started degrading already during the curing process. Three rabbit pelts have also partially degraded, but I don't know whether it started before or after they cured. The pre-v.320 cured rabbit pelts i used to mark spots where rabbits were caught remained at 100%. So yes, something is happening. I can't see the purpose of this mechanic, but we'll hopefully find out.

[Drifter Man]

2 hours ago, Jolan said:

charts! I love charts

I'll keep that in mind

2 hours ago, Jolan said:

But the build up only seems to happen if you're in the area.... now I have to go map them

Let us know if you find anything

[Drifter Man]

Day 547 (504th Day in the Dam), second entry

I searched the Dam thoroughly for new items with a lantern in hand and found another emergency stim (aren't they supposed to be rare?), a whetstone and a candy bar, which will also be used for food decay testing. All these items were lying in the open, none was found in containers. The new whetstones already make up for the loss of two hatchets in the remodeled locations. Hinterland is forgiven

I returned to the Ravine with a replacement hatchet and a flare, but this time I left them in "containers" - corpses - rather than on the ground. I also saved some coal and firewood that was half-embedded inside the new rocks that turned up in the cave. The rest is, unfortunately, buried too deep and beyond recovery.

[Jolan]

2 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Two deer hides curing on the floor (one of them is pre-v.320) started degrading already during the curing process. Three rabbit pelts have also partially degraded, but I don't know whether it started before or after they cured. The pre-v.320 cured rabbit pelts i used to mark spots where rabbits were caught remained at 100%. So yes, something is happening. I can't see the purpose of this mechanic, but we'll hopefully find out.

I've had post cured pelts degrade if they're not in a container.  If we could do something with rabbit other than mittens I'd change what I'm doing, but as of now they make good road markers

 

[Drifter Man]

On 1/15/2016 at 3:09 PM, nicko said:

nice detailed post for an alpha game, meaning anything can and will change all the time. so don't expect same results next time

Amen to that.

Day 567 (524th Day in the Dam)

I’ve completed two full 10-day cycles and I’m ready to report first findings on the changes that happened in TLD and in the surroundings of the Dam after the v.321+ updates. Many of them are already being discussed in this forum, but I hope that some of the information will also be new.

Changes in the world

•           The two caves in the Ravine have been remodeled and additional rocks were added. In the other cave, my stored items were buried the same way as in the first one – fortunately just water and firewood this time.

•           The small cave in the Winding River region has also been remodeled. A box of matches that I haven’t touched since the start of this sandbox is gone and probably buried under the rocks.

•           No new items were found in Winding River, the Cave System (which appears not to have been altered) or the Ravine. A backpack has spawned under the window used to return to the Dam from the Winding River. Upon searching it turned out to be empty.

•           Ruined items now persist in the world and small pieces of meat (not worth cooking) and brands taken from fires started to litter the interior of the Dam. I have assigned a few dark corners for garbage.

•           Burned out campfires also persist, and since I start fires before the entrance to Upper Dam (with the magnifying lens, then take a brand and bring it in), they are piling up at the door. It is funny how big a campfire remains after just two sticks.

•           A rope anchor point has appeared in (or above) the Ravine, providing access to the bottom. I’ll see if I can get a rope, but it is not high on the priority list.

•           A tree with old man’s beard lichen has also appeared, conveniently marking the mentioned rope anchor point. It is hard to miss if you know you’ve harvested everything long ago.

Food & Drink

•           My calorie consumption is up 200 Cal per day, although I am no longer skinning rabbits (it is energy-intensive and I have enough rabbit pelts already). This is consistent with ca 4-hour reduction in sleep time per day that resulted from the change in sleep mechanic. I used to sleep 11 hours, now I sleep only around 7. My average calorie consumption is 3160 Cal per day now.

•           Water consumption has increased from 1.85 l per day to 2 liters. Before v.321 my character slept 11 hours a day and needed 0.056 l per hour while sleeping and 0.095 l while awake. When I assume 7 hours of sleep per day now, I get 2 liters with the same hourly rates. So the character hasn’t become inherently thirstier, he just sleeps less and therefore needs more water.

•           There are fewer deer in the Ravine and it is likely I will only be able to get two per 10 days instead of the original four. Initially in the game I hunted four times in 10 days, but reduced this to three hunts to save arrows when it turned out that birch saplings are quite rare in the world. Now I have to reduce further to two and compensate with rabbits. The standard 10-day schedule is now two deer, 30-31 rabbits.

•           The Ravine can provide that many rabbits (and more) but the problem may be with cooking them all. Around 75 pieces of meat need 25 hours of fire, water needs another 10. This means spending at least 3 days out of 10 at the fire barrel. I will discuss firewood requirements later, but just finding the time to cook is a major challenge now. Fortunately I have 500 liters of water ready in reserve!

•           I decided to stop eating wolf meat, although the risks look manageable now. I was only hunting the wolf in the Winding River for pelts.

•           Meat put in containers – both raw and cooked – now does not spoil, meaning that I do not have to worry about having too much food or not having the time to cook it. This is especially useful on longer voyages – I know that when I return to the Dam, it will be well supplied and not just full of rotting meat.

•           “Industrial” food placed in the open (on shelves) degrades approximately 1% per 10 days (pork & beans, soda) and 2% per 10 days (candy bar). I’ve now put them in a locker to continue the test in a container. In around 150-300 days much of the degradable food placed outside of containers will be too risky to eat.

• 

Firewood

•           35 hours of fire require around 270 sticks, or 27 per day. At this point I’m able to get 23 sticks per day (on average) in the Ravine and in the Winding River. A second visit to the Train bridge area, 25 days after the first one, produced around 125 sticks, meaning 28 sticks per day are possible.

•           Moving to even more rabbits and fewer deer could be partly covered with coal from the cave system (Winding River), which provides 12-14 coals each 20 days, an equivalent of 5 sticks per day. However, I would inevitably have to start using my hatchet.

Clothes

•           I’ve been wearing all clothes (the furs + wool scarf, heavy wool sweater, toque, wool longjohns and wool socks) for 24 days constantly for test purposes, even though such a combination is heavy and inefficient. I spend most of the time indoors and generally stay out of blizzards except for brief moments while running towards shelter.

•           Cloth degradation rates have been greatly modified compared to v.302. Some patterns can already be seen, more precise numbers will be provided later.

•           Wool scarf, toque and socks are “fast burners” with 8-11% drop in 24 days, but even that is a reduction by a factor of 2-4 compared to v.302. Rabbitskin mittens are in this league too with 8% in 24 days, around the same as before.

•           Deerskin boots degraded by 5% in 24 days. Around twice as much as in v.302.

•           Wolfskin coat degraded by 3% in 24 days. Again, twice as much as in v.302.

•           Wool longjohns, sweater and deerskin pants degraded by 1-2% in 24 days, a dramatic reduction compared to v.302.

Bedroll

•           Bedroll has degraded 28% in 20 days. I assume that the rate has changed from 0.5% per hour of sleep to 0.2%

•           To maintain my bedroll, I will need only 9 pieces of cloth per 100 days instead of 36, almost a fourfold reduction (the rest is caused by the reduced length of sleep) per day. This effectively eliminates the main problem of living in the Dam – the lack of a bed – making it a suitable long-term base. I expect that everyone will want to live in the Dam in v.321+

Misc.

•           After the first two days when I had hard time avoiding the wolf patrolling at the Upper Dam, I didn’t see a single wolf for ten days and even after that it didn’t cause me any trouble. However, the fields of view are now more limited and as I mentioned before, encounters will eventually happen here. I’m not worried about struggles an injuries (the Dam is close and I can get all the first aid I need), but about possible increase in the consumption of flares.

•           Weather seems to be more stable, there are fewer dramatic changes in weather in one day. For example I had one almost whole day that with light fog and still winds, from the morning to late afternoon.

•           Guts and hides degrade until they finish the curing process, then stop degrading. I suppose that the intended effect is to ruin guts and hides that the player does not allow to cure (e.g. keeps carrying them in the backpack).

•           Making fire with the magnifying lens is now more efficient because only three sticks (two if you’re fast) have to be put into the fire to get a brand instead of four for a torch.

•           The degradation of knife, whetstone, bow and arrows has not changed. I have confirmed that knife degrades by 1% per each 60 minutes of work on a carcass.
• 

[hauteecolerider]

2 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

  Guts and hides degrade until they finish the curing process, then stop degrading. I suppose that the intended effect is to ruin guts and hides that the player does not allow to cure (e.g. keeps carrying them in the backpack).

Yes, that's what I've seen. My deer hides degrade to 96% before they are fully cured, then they seem stable. I can't remember quite how long they take to cure, but if it's four days, then it's about 1% every 24 hours. 

[Vhalkyrie]

Furiously taking notes - I have a lot to catch up on.  

[Pillock]

 

3 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Day 567 (524th Day in the Dam)

•             The Ravine can provide that many rabbits (and more) but the problem may be with cooking them all. Around 75 pieces of meat need 25 hours of fire, water needs another 10. This means spending at least 3 days out of 10 at the fire barrel. I will discuss firewood requirements later, but just finding the time to cook is a major challenge now. Fortunately I have 500 liters of water ready in reserve!

•  

   

            35 hours of fire require around 270 sticks, or 27 per day. At this point I’m able to get 23 sticks per day (on average) in the Ravine and in the Winding River. A second visit to the Train bridge area, 25 days after the first one, produced around 125 sticks, meaning 28 sticks per day are possible.

•             Moving to even more rabbits and fewer deer could be partly covered with coal from the cave system (Winding River), which provides 12-14 coals each 20 days, an equivalent of 5 sticks per day. However, I would inevitably have to start using my hatchet.  

Have you considered fish? One fish only takes 10 minutes to cook, and can give as much as 1500 calories - you get between around 400 and 550 Cal for the small Whitefish, and between maybe 1000 and 1500 for the Bass (and never any 'garbage' small bits to clutter up your dark corners!). Whitefish are by far more common to catch, but the average might be around 6-700 Cal per fish, at a guess? When you consider that half the cooking time means half the fuel value, fish would seem on the face of it to compare pretty favourably with all meat - but especially rabbits - if you have concerns about fuel (and time, of course).

By the way, any thoughts on how Cabin Fever might affect your findings? You said that you spend the majority of time indoors - so if you keep doing that, you're going to get it, aren't you?

[Drifter Man]

17 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Yes, that's what I've seen. My deer hides degrade to 96% before they are fully cured, then they seem stable. I can't remember quite how long they take to cure, but if it's four days, then it's about 1% every 24 hours.

That's probably in Pligrim. In Voyageur they hit about 87% during their curing time.

[Drifter Man]

17 hours ago, Vhalkyrie said:

Furiously taking notes - I have a lot to catch up on.  

So am I

[Drifter Man]

16 hours ago, Pillock said:

Have you considered fish? One fish only takes 10 minutes to cook, and can give as much as 1500 calories - you get between around 400 and 550 Cal for the small Whitefish, and between maybe 1000 and 1500 for the Bass (and never any 'garbage' small bits to clutter up your dark corners!). Whitefish are by far more common to catch, but the average might be around 6-700 Cal per fish, at a guess? When you consider that half the cooking time means half the fuel value, fish would seem on the face of it to compare pretty favourably with all meat - but especially rabbits - if you have concerns about fuel (and time, of course).

By the way, any thoughts on how Cabin Fever might affect your findings? You said that you spend the majority of time indoors - so if you keep doing that, you're going to get it, aren't you?

I have, but fishing isn't possible anywhere near the Dam. If I wanted to live off fish, I would need to move. But I wondered how much fuel I'd need for fish and it is good to know that living off fish has lower demands on firewood. I may have to turn to fishing after I'm forced to leave the Dam.

As for Cabin fever, I haven't contracted it yet and I probably won't because it is evaluated based on your behavior 6 consecutive days, and I'm long past that. I guess I spend enough time outdoors. My plan for Cabin fever is to take my bedroll to a cave in the Ravine (after the one I originally left there was buried under the cave-in) and spend a night or two there.

[Vhalkyrie]

2 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

My plan for Cabin fever is to take my bedroll to a cave in the Ravine (after the one I originally left there was buried under the cave-in) and spend a night or two there.

I lost a bedroll to a "cave-in", too, at the Burnt Ridge Cave in PV - lol.

[Drifter Man]

Just now, Vhalkyrie said:

I lost a bedroll to a "cave-in", too, at the Burnt Ridge Cave in PV - lol.

Yes - and there are more such reports. I found some other items half-embedded in rocks or hovering above ground level. It is hard to live in a world whose gods haven't finished their work.

[Pillock]

13 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

I have, but fishing isn't possible anywhere near the Dam. If I wanted to live off fish, I would need to move. But I wondered how much fuel I'd need for fish and it is good to know that living off fish has lower demands on firewood. I may have to turn to fishing after I'm forced to leave the Dam.

As for Cabin fever, I haven't contracted it yet and I probably won't because it is evaluated based on your behavior 6 consecutive days, and I'm long past that. I guess I spend enough time outdoors. My plan for Cabin fever is to take my bedroll to a cave in the Ravine (after the one I originally left there was buried under the cave-in) and spend a night or two there.

There is a grace period of 50 days in Voyageur, where cabin fever doesn't take effect. It could be that the grace period is applied to older save games from the time of the update, and you are still within that time? Hope you can avoid it, anyway!

If you wanted to include fish in your diet, it isn't that far to wander along to Mystery Lake; if you were to dedicate a fishing day into your cycle, you could probably get quite a lot of fish. But you do run the increased risk of coming across wolves, I suppose. And then there's the weather... being trapped by a blizzard in a fishing hut can ruin you entire day.

[Drifter Man]

12 minutes ago, Pillock said:

There is a grace period of 50 days in Voyageur, where cabin fever doesn't take effect. It could be that the grace period is applied to older save games from the time of the update, and you are still within that time? Hope you can avoid it, anyway!

If you wanted to include fish in your diet, it isn't that far to wander along to Mystery Lake; if you were to dedicate a fishing day into your cycle, you could probably get quite a lot of fish. But you do run the increased risk of coming across wolves, I suppose. And then there's the weather... being trapped by a blizzard in a fishing hut can ruin you entire day.

Yes, I've been thinking about the 50-day period, too. I'm only about 25 days in.

Mystery Lake isn't far away, but for the reasons you mentioned, it is not a way I want to take regularly. Southern Access to the Lake is a dangerous choke point in v.321+ as much as previously. It would be more efficient to live in the Lake Cabins and rely on fish 100%, then. The Lonely Lake Cabin is my pick already!

[Vhalkyrie]

Just now, Drifter Man said:

Yes, I've been thinking about the 50-day period, too. I'm only about 25 days in.

Wait, do they start the 50 day grace period from the time you reload your game?  I thought it was from your calendar start date.  IE on Day 240 I am more than 50 days over.  If the grace period starts from the time after the patch, I have a ways to go until I can see what happens.