ChillPlayer

Well I figured that at least he would've found it after hundreds of hours and only didn't know that it needs an aurora to work - that part could've been guessed from Wintermute. But he didn't play story so it's irrelevant anyways.

I proceeded as planned and reached Blackrock around day 190. By entering from TWM I managed to completely avoid timberwolves and went straight to the mine, I only had an almost-meeting with a moose and a bear but I could avoid a confrontation with both. When I went down the rope into the canyon I've got hit by a blizzard and I had to make my way blindly to the cave - which also was a blessing because this way I didn't had to deal with the wolves near the climbing spot straight on. Instead I could creep out of the cave after the blizzard and climb up on a cliff where the wolves could not reach me - but wait, what? Not plural, singular, there was only one wolf, on my Stalker and Pilgrim runs there were two of them. I thanked him for 5kg of delicious wolf meat with an arrow to the head and fetched the code. When I reached the prison I tried to spot through the fence where the wolves are in the yard but I couldn't see them. I then cautiously crouched into the yard, ready to direct the wolves with stones away from me - but there weren't any, not even one. I was reliefed first, worried second because now I needed to change my dinner plans 😕 I've set camp near the work bench and spent the first night inside the infirmary. The next day I heard a wolf hunting a bunny next to the double doors near the work bench and decided to try my luck. There was again a rock I could crouch up to an unreachable cliff, I took aim, shot, and half missed it, I only hit the body and not the head. The poor beast then went into a frenzy, running from side to side of the area until he laid himself to rest right before the fence door - that's what I call home delivery service This presented me with another unique opportunity, cowardly trickser that I am I packed myself with guts and meat and then closed the door, waiting for more pizza, err, I mean wolves. It didn't take long and two more approached the door but they couldn't reach me. Some funny/buggy interactions later (it left, when I moved it came back, I stand still it leaves, I move it comes back) I opened the door and shot it in the back - again, not hiding being a coward but I prefer that to being a brave dead. Rinse & repeat and the third and fourth beast was quickly down too - but I didn't manage to insta kill them and so had to look for the bodies later on. I could've sworn that I've injured four wolves in total and my arrow count seems to reflect that as well, but I could only find two additional carcasses plus the one by the door. No idea where the 4th went, either I was imagining things and one arrow is still somewhere lying around or I've got hit by another bug. Anyways, I then was blessed with an aurora, letting me fix my tools. After I left the workshop the next day I noticed some shuffling noise to my left. I crouched around the corner and lo and behold, the front yard wolf finally spawned. Only one but better than nothing. No cheating here, I had to take the honest approach and lure him to me with a stone, a critical hit later with my arrow I was harvesting another 5kg of meat. So only one wolf left, the one by the rope climb en route to the vest (no bear there, sadly). I have enough meat to get myself well fed before finishing my mission and going back to AC. I won't explore the other regions in Blackrock because it's way too dangerous and I don't know what loot I should hope for, other than maybe some more wetstones. But proper management should prevent me from needing to resharpen my tools for hundreds of days and then I'll probably just come back to the prison. At day 200 I have spend time in DP - spawned there - CH, ML, PV, TWM, AC and BRM and I don't think this list will get significantely longer other than maybe out of boredom. I too hate the unpleasant valley and the only reason for me to cross it again would be a trip to Milton, because I'm still missing a 2nd pair of longjohns which I'd hope to find there. And then HRV might follow before I ultimately retreat back to AC.

I have the bear outside and wolf inside, for the looks and also because I hope that this way the wolf coat won't scare off wolves that easily. But I am not sure if this makes a difference.

I only wear crafted cloths, if there is an option for that: rabbit hat and mittens, 2x deer pants and deer boots, wolf and bear coat. There are no top tier clothing in Interloper anyways and on Stalker and below it doesn't really matter, there's loot everywhere.

I have a way less idealistic approach than most in this thread, my house rules: - don't play custom settings except for exploring a new region - don't explore a new region the first time on a run that matters - use whatever the game gives you to survive - don't bore yourself to death I never even realized until this thread though - or I've simply forgotten it - that with cooking at 5 you can eat ruined food lol. I left a good amount of calories rot, which I won't from now on. This skill is the single most important for me because it allows me to put wolf and bear on the menu plan but I never forced leveling it with micro amounts of cooking (rule nr 4).

I am at day 186 Interloper and have spend the last 80 days at my favorite home, Miner's Folly. I've got the moose once and killed the bear twice and when I crafted the bear coat I realized that I made a huge mistake early on. Instead of preserving my improvised hatched and knife I freely used them everywhere, even when there was the option to do it with bare hands, like tearing curtains apart or harvesting meat. I only began using my hands when I noticed that I am on my last wetstone, I burned through at least 5 or 6 of them. And after finishing the coat my knife is down to 21% and the hatched to 37%. This puts me in a dire situation I was hoping to avoid, I need to get to Blackrock. For one I am confident to find more westones but there's also the milling machine which lets me repair my improvised tools. Technically I don't need to go just now, I could wait a few hundred days more until I need to craft something again but life in AC has become boring, as in unchallenging, and I decided to get over with it now. AC is a good staring point, the transition cave in TWM is just a horizontal hike over the map away and I know how to get to the mine and the prison without any (Timber)wolf encounter - well except for the two inside the prison front yard. Haven't decided yet how to deal with them, torch, stone or bow. But the milling machine is a legitim reason for me to go to BRM, I mean BARK 🤣

But to complicate things, when it comes to Cabin Fever the hut does count as indoors which I always found kinda strange. Open Caves are not indoors but cure hides, transition caves are indoors albeit you can start a fire in there and to absolutely confuse anyone, HTL decided that the back portion of the shack with the workbench in Miner's Folly also counts as indoors for both, curing/storage and CF, I've got CF risk there once while sitting beside the corpse. The indoor/outdoor mechanic is the least consistent concept in the game. When it comes to meat storage, I either put it on the ground when there's no suitable container (open caves), in drawers in fishing huts or coal bins, which tend to be around most of my longterm bases. I never store cloths though because what's the point? I either wear them or tear them apart to repair the cloths I'm wearing. The one exception was in Stalker when I wanted to make a full circle of AC in 24h in search of the polaroid, to move faster I left the bear coat at home. But usually I don't care about movement speed and just plan my route accordingly.

he's in the back yard of the prison, where the rope climb is to the upper level which you need to climb to get the vest. Might be a difficulty thing too, I did my first exploration of the region on pilgrim and there was no bear back there. Imagine my surprise when I went there with my Stalker character for the vest and heard the panting of the bear 😲

You could've guessed it from Episode 3, which is when the elevator was introduced to Survival Mode as well

Not to discourage you but I just stumbled over this video from a guy who went 312 days without sleep - on interloper!

this... actually makes sense, haven't thought of that. It also explains why the Stalker value is so high, in that case sorry for the confusion. [EDIT] guess my brain was frozen due to too long exposure in blizzards. All the journals from previous runs are available under "Extras" and this confirms @Salty Crackers assumption, I have expended even less calories then: So again, sorry for the mess...

The value is calories expended/days survived. Which means on my VT run (103 days) I must've expended 615'940 cals in total. I think the calculation was always the same but I was much worse prepared for the freezing temperatures and as I wrote above, firewood was a huge issue. I ran outside, broke down palets, ran back inside to warm up, then ran to the next wood source, rinse & repeat. And I stayed 72 days out of the 103 in CH as I noticed in the logs, so I guess there was a lot of running across the frozen sea. Sadly there was no Ash Canyon back then, otherwise I would've chosen a better camping site [EDIT]: btw, I forgot to ask: have there been any warm caves which counted as outdoors then? And was it still the old Ravine with just the bridge or was it already the new extended with cave and basin?

If someone has any doubt how much more difficult VT Interloper was, here's a comparison of the Average Calories per Day. Most of the All time stats have been updated by my current run but ACpD is from right after VT was released - I actually don't remember anymore why this was so high, or why Stalker is even higher. On my current run I stopped starving since day 105 and am constantly well fed:

BARK

I know that feeling, I think nothing makes me as focused in TLD as rope bridges, which is why I filed this as a stupid idea

wait, you have the code to TLD?

I just went over a rope bridge in AC on interloper and thought that this is kinda too easy. So the stupidest idea came to mind: make rope bridges sway more and have more gaps dependending on the difficulty setting. On pilgrim it would be as it is now, on interloper you would feel like Indiana Jones

I don't see your point. Are you saying that interloper is only doable if you use maps, wiki and mods? And because you refuse to do that, you instead prefer playing on a lower difficulty where you no longer have hunger nor are you freezing but at least you don't need to use maps? Well if that's your logic, try interloper with maps and fandom (not with mods though) and see for yourself how little this helps. If you need maps in interloper, you will fail, period.

When you're ready for interloper you don't need Fandom, maps and certainly no mods. A map is no good to you when you're trapped in a blizzard, either you know your way out or not. But you said that being hungry and freezing is the exciting part for you and I ment that in earnest, if you reached that point you are ready for the next level. If you are on Voyageur now then switch to Stalker and if on Stalker then to Interloper, it's the natural progression and will bring back the excitement you are looking for.

that reminds me of an old truth from physics: given an infinite amount of time, a monkey would eventually type out Shakespear's Hamlet on a typwriter

Which is why I find this the most useful skill which I always aim to develop first. I even cook wolf/bear meat without eating it just to get to 5 quicker, afterwards hunger is no longer a big issue on stalker/interloper, there's suddenly food everywhere

No Man's Sky is voxel generated - @jeffpeng was comparing hand crafted worlds.

Congratulation, you sir are now ready for interloper - constant hunger and freezing guaranteed

In my stalker run I am camping by the workbench inside the prison yard, next to the firebarrel. I sleep there to ward off cabin fever and the other days in the workshop or the bunkhouse next to the infirmary, which has beds. There's plenty of food (wolves/bear) and firewood in the vicinity, wolves especially can be easily hunted from the roof of the bunkhouse. Not sure though if I choose this place on my interloper run, should I ever decide to go to BRM. I'll certainly try it but the two wolves near the main entrance are a bit risky to go through.

lol I spilled my rosehip tea when I've read that