stratvox

The starvation mechanic, although nerfed, is still useful and widely used. I've used it myself, when necessary. However, in general, for roleplay reasons, I've generally tried to keep my guy in food when I play, because in the real world trying to use the starvation mechanic would greatly hasten your death in a long term wilderness survival scenario.

Yes, that is exactly what it is. In the earlier stages of the game's development there was a leaderboard for how long people had survived for, and people exploited the rest/heal mechanic to survive for very long periods on very little food. It's actually exploitable now, but more difficult and time limited due to the fatigue/starvation issue that @BareSkin mentions. When you are low on food, you want to tire yourself out, and then feed yourself just enough to make it through the night (480, 600, or 720 calories depending on skill level, based on thirst consumption; on Voyageur with a full thirst bar you can sleep for 12 hours without losing condition due to thirst, ten hours on Stalker, and eight hours on Interloper). Then you starve yourself over the course of the day; doing so results in condition loss of 1%/hour. If you're awake for sixteen hours, you can make up for far more than that loss by eating right before sleeping. In these fora, it's referred to as the 'starvation mechanic', and esp. in the early game can be a real life-saver until you get yourself established. The Well Fed buff was introduced as a way of disincentivizing the use of this mechanic by offering a condition and inventory capacity buff if you avoid starvation (i.e. empty stomach) for 72 hours in a row.

You have to be tired to sleep and recover condition. You can set yourself to sleep for 12 hours, but if your fatigue bar is only halfway down you'll sleep six instead... and if you're all in wakey wakey mode (i.e. full fatigue bar) and your condition is terrible you won't be able to sleep to recover your condition more quickly until you become tired.

You must have good clothing and good fire skill. It's cheap for my guy because he's got awesome clothes and fire 5. As a place to start out... not so much. If you're new, use the little mine if you have a bedroll, or Hibernia if you don't.

I see your guy is hanging out in the same place my guy is. I used to hate DP (I've croaked there lots) but I've come to really like it now. Mind you, on day ~650 those snares are a LOT less productive; I've got four out in the exact same spot you do and I'm only pulling a rabbit every three or four days.

It's a roaring fire in the fire barrel in the church. It benefits from the outdoor cold bonus, which is one of the things that makes the church a good place to live. Outdoor fires cut way back on the amount of wood you need... and I might add that I've been here for nearly a month now and I'm having no problem keeping the wood well stocked. There's plenty of it near the church. I'll allow that the distance to the work table in Hibernia is a bit rough, but overall this is really the spot in DP. In a lot of ways, it's a cave, in that you're invisible to predators while you're inside, you can cure hides etc on the floor, but you're outside so no cabin fever and your fires last a lot longer. I actually took a lot of shots while my breath was (mostly) invisible to get this one, to catch the peak brightness of the flickering fire. Here's inside the church right now.

Here's another stone church shot, as my guy's still hanging out in DP. Thought this one looked pretty good. The sunrise is going to be glorious.

Walk on over and find out. It'll be an adventure!

Crumbling Highway, on the little island on the opposite side of the big cave with all the coal in it. Handy spot.

Just as an aside... check out the armor rating of the mariner's pea coat vs. the expedition parka. You may want to consider pea coat on the outside slot (where the armor matters when in wildlife struggles) and keep the parka on the inside slot (where it will be safe from a wolf's depredations). Yes, the armor rating is only slightly higher, but that will result in slightly less condition damage, and the cost per unit of damage to your temperature modifier will be significantly lower than if the parka is what's taking the brunt of the struggle.

Yeah, I use that one to hunt the bear that lives in the cave next to the Broken Bridge. You can fire in complete safety from maulings.

I'm really digging DP and living at the stone church. So much pretty. Lots of wood nearby. Rabbit grove. I'm here because I've never lived long term in DP before. This game actually started in DP, but I just gtfo as fast as feasible... with arrowheads, saplings, some clothing upgrades, and one each of the improvised tools. I wanted to book to clothing central (i.e. CH) so I got the stuff I needed and hauled out looking for better clothing and fewer wolves. Anyway, I'm back. I got chased out of an earlier attempt a few weeks before because of an unfortunate encounter with a bear then wolf struggle that made me decide to head back to civilisation at the fishing huts in CH, where there's tons of food and water and wood. Just to keep my mountain goat dues up, I went and got this one on a nice bright day. Damn I love this game. ETA: couldn't stop. Somebody stop me. Okay, one more.

I've been spending some time in DP, at the stone church, which has become my favoured base in the region. This is in my long term save (Voyageur, 593 days). I've become quite enamoured with the deep game. Keeping it going becomes a challenge all its own after a while. Maintaining the daily routines of hunting, gathering wood, crafting and clothing repair can become challenging, and every once in a while you'll have something go down that nearly kills you, even with the awesome gear this guy has... resulting in him getting frostbite not that long ago. If it was day five, I'd probably fire up a new save, but on day five hundred and thirty, it's a little different... Anyway. Got stomped by a moose within a day or two of landing at DP. A few days later (still with broken ribs) he showed up again and I found the perfect vantage point next to the falls to rain death down upon him in complete safety. Also good for practicing one's medium distance archery; at this distance all shots are indirect. I'm only a few feet to the side of the falls. It was loud. The Stone Church appeals for quite a few reasons. Itss sheltered barrel lets you benefit from the outdoor fire duration bonus, and I believe it's like a cave in that it won't contribute to cabin fever... at least I've not had any of it while camped out in it. However, the main appeal of it are its aesthetics. Simply put, it's a beautiful location with a nice view overlooking the lighthouse: It's more than capable of providing a nice inviting warm corner in even the worst of weather. Pay no attention to the man in the pew. Finally, it's a fantastic place to be on aurora nights. Simply beautiful.

You should go cast an eye on the pinned posts in the tech forum for the recommended steps to start sorting your system out.

The trees all appear to be dead?

As is often the case when they release a major update, they've hammered out three or four patches to deal with issues uncovered by having the game played by the full user base, rather than just by the in-house testing regime. Big difference between having a few people hitting it looking for problems and a few tens of thousands of people hitting it looking for their entertainment... the simple truth is that there's no crucible for finding bugs like a public release of software

That's because that nook is on TWM, not MT. If you climb up from the cabin towards the rear you'll find a passage along the "back" of the map. It's up in there IIRC.

PV is huge, but it has its rewards. Personally, I found the Forest Cave (just down the hill from the pond) to be a great place to base. Lots of wildlife, lots of wood, lots of other resources. There's a bear nearby but not too nearby, the moose shows up at the pond from time to time, there's deer, rabbits... and the wolves are far enough away to not be a serious hazard. N.B. cave living means you want to try to keep a perma-fire going, but once you get Fire 5 that's not too difficult. Perma-fires are awesome because if you start to get cold you just amble on home and if you've had a fire going for a week you're warm again in under an hour.

That's the one on Crumbling Highway isn't it?

A spectacular early early morning in CH. Reminds me of one of the picture "styles" I got taught in grade school, typically made with pastels.

There might still be planned use with the aurora; Raph has said they intend to do more with aurorae in the future.

Not seeing this at all. Mind you, I'm on linux.

The Redux update made major major updates to the graphics quality and overall look in the game. I think you'll be very pleased.

Hm. I'm on PC, and while they were there before the Redux update, they're completely gone now. Here's old style: Note the lines next to the shack. Here's new style: No lines at all. Are you perhaps not updated yet? Alternatively, is it possible a graphics driver update could fix it?