There should be ample wood inside to cook/brew (might want to bring some anyways depending upon how much water you bring). You won't need it for warmth. Just bring enough food and watch the cabin fever.
For one of my longer forays in there (cabin fever was not an issue), I stockpiled food by the elevator and when I was ready, I loaded up and went down.
So, you're asking for the ability to construct buildings where none exist? Sounds like a Wish List idea but that one could be hard to implement.
You always have a cave or temporary snow shelter!
It's been a while since I've played, but don't they stop and dip their head to the ground? Animals will do that when "rooting through the snow" looking for grass just below the surface.
The one-way, brown arrow path appears to be a risky goating shortcut. Not sure why you would take the risk when you can easily take the normal path and end up at the same spot.
Welcome!!
Possible spoilers:
My advice: Try to figure out as much as you can on your own (while still enjoying the game!). The exploration and discovery are some of the greatest strengths of the game and once you play enough to memorize areas, that is gone forever (I'm still looking into a selective "long dark brain/memory wipe" :))
https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Research_book
"The achievement "Penitent Scholar" requires reading all varieties of Research Books in a single save file."
Not that I'm aware of. I believe I kept a log when doing that ach. Good luck!
I don't think anyone is arguing over your opinion - everyone is entitled to that. My only point is your constant use of "sensible person". What you consider "sensible" may be completely different for someone else. I also would not spend hours upgrading a pair of socks from cotton to wool, but perhaps someone really wants a parka in the early game and don't want to make the hike to TWM summit? I can see someone spending some time save-scumming. Perfect case of this: Gambling. Millions of people partake in it with a very low chance of gain, but that carrot dangling out there is hard for some to resist!
If you look at the mailbag @ajb1978 posted, you can see that is the case:
Loot gets rolled when you enter. We save it so you can't just exit, reload, and reroll to try to get a better set of loot. The game state persists in memory when you leave so we don't need to save it at that point. We could save again but I'm not sure what the benefit would be.
Trying to define "most sensible people" can be a tough nut to crack but HL must have thought it was a relevant enough issue to address directly.
I believe the original intent behind saving when transitioning was to prevent people from reloading an interior over and over, which was done to get the item you wanted from the randomized loot table.
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