Doc Feral

I've noticed a couple of details. I kept walking like that along a slope (i call it crabwalking, for some reasons) and the screen flashed red several times, but no new sprains appeared despite having a still working ankle. Could it be that when a new sprain is "rolled" it's randomly placed and it may be wasted on an already sprained joint? Or does the "sprain risk" occupy an affliction slot, if something like that exists, preventing the sprain from having effect? Yes, I know I'm talking like a role playing game manual. Despite new red flashes even the "pain" countdown didn't reset. That's weird and somewhat disappointing, it would make sense that hurting yourself again makes pain as stingy as before. I'd say sprain "dice" should be "rolled" even if no more limbs are available, just to push the pain recovery time back.

I did. Just once, so I may guess it decreases significantly the chances.

Just yesterday I started carrying all the loot from Timberwolf Mountain to the Pleasant Valley access. So I overloaded myself and made some trips. On the way out (meaning fully loaded with stuff) I noticed some birch barks on the ground. Do you think I managed to just move along and pick them up on the way back? There should be support groups with meetings, badges and all that for lootaholics.

Looks like I goofed a little when I assumed only meat benefits from cold. But a container doesn't make any difference in spoiling times. Things on the floor in a house count as "indoors", things in an abandoned backpack near a tree count as "outdoors". The difference is that putting ruined items (such as worn whetstones and sewing kits, or the mysterious piece of ruined fresh leather) in a container causes them to disappear unless they can be harvested and recycled. This is a convenient way to get rid of rubbish, but may cause stored food to disappear when it reaches 0%, denying you the fearless pleasure of eating it anyway. So avoid putting food in containers.

"Industrial" food spoils faster outside, meat spoils way slower. The reverse applies indoors. Don't store food in containers, place it on shelves, your base will look better and food won't disappear when reaching 0% condition. Remember that reaching level 5 in cooking you'll be able to eat everything (apart from raw meat) without worrying. Food spoils anyway, I've opened cargo containers (which should hold many items) only to find a single soda can, meaning all other food had rotted away, and found plenty of 0% items scattered in houses. Late in the game industrial food will be precious travel rations which doesn't attract wolves. So keep hoarding, and remember crackers and cat tails are eternal, and that rotten raw meat can be cooked to edible.

I can easily imagine myself walking through a birch grove. "Ok, I'll pick up the last piece of bark. Yes, it's the last one. I'm only carrying 55 kgs, it's fine. Just another piece. I can handle it..."

The new sprain system is nice but scary. I mean, we all got used to the fact that stepping on a snow flake could cause a sprained wrist&ankle combo, and we got over it. Now there's the warning icon when walking on uncomfortable terrain, and it's like a ghastly voice whispering in my ears "you're gonna fall and you'll be sorry...". Sprains are probably less likely, but the warning icon makes me feel guilty. The pain affliction and healing method are a welcome addition, even if it enhances difficulty. But now bandages will be used more frequenthy, making indefinite survival even more unlikely. I still didn't see animal attacks, but they look really good when they walk around.

Concerning the Steadfast Ranger update. I have an ongoing 200-something days run, but being the slow and steady type I've never been to the coastal regions. Will the still unexplored regions count as "new" when I'll go there? Meaning: may I find the new items in them or loot is determined at the start of the game?

Sleep under it.

Oh well, I'll just go the other way.

Concerning perishable items: apart from food (the only eternal ones are water, crackers and cat tail stalks) you should store pills outside containers. When items degrade to 0% condition they disappear from containers if they can't be recycled (clothes for cloth or leather, torches for sticks, tools for metal and so on, not sure about canned food for cans). I suppose 0% pills don't work anymore (never tried), but pills make a wonderful path marker, especially in caves. Dropping a single pill will create a pill box (I know it doesn't make sense but it's ok for me) which is quite colorful and easy to spot. When the tunnel forks I put two pills (one for each "doorway") to mark the correct path. I use antibiotics even if they're still good, since they're almost useless, unless you're unlucky enought to get parasites before raising cooking skill to 5. Water purification tablets are even more useless and create larger boxes, but they're not as plentiful. If you loathe using such vile exploits of graphics you can use tinder bundles or cat tails heads, which you can spin and arrange in place to create nice arrow signs. Stones work too, but you may be confused by the naturally spawning ones you find in caves. Pills are the best because of their negligible weight.

Did you use the stim before going for the spear or after? Just asking, because using it before exiting the hole may be enough.

Using a small piece (the 0.1 kgs or so harvesting leftover) of cooked meat is better. While effective as a decoy, it doesn't smell as bad as a gut and won't draw so many wolves to you. It does smell and attracts them, just not as much and from a smaller distance. Check the hud: a single gut gives you a full stinkpuff, a small piece of cooked meat doesn't.

Once I was having a hard time dodging wolves, my cat walked into the room (she was like two pounds of cute purring fluffiness) and I almost fell of the chair.

I personally didn't use the stim, hatred was enough.

To cut a long story short, I nailed the buck with a running powerslam and wolfie foolishly got in the way. After more than a thousand gaming hours (and around 170 days in the current run) I've finally managed to explore PV thoroughly enough to find Timberwolf Mountain. Been there three days, and I've already killed a moose, three rabbits, four wolves and a deer, without leaving the Crystal Lake zone. And a bear passed nearby once or twice. More like CAMP Crystal Lake. This place is violent. Truth be said, I personally killed only one of the rabbits, while I sent the other two and the deer to die by wolf. The second rabbit in a mostly spectacular way: I threw a stone from an impossible distance to scare it towards a wolf and the stone unbelievably hit it. The wolf approached to check the noise and the rabbit got up right under its nose. A bad way to wake up.

Wolfish weirdness. Trapped under ice. Nice shot Something strange. Yesterday a wolf followed me into a cave and attacked me, causing a bleeding wound. I decided it was a good moment to quit the game and go outside. When I resumed the game it restarted inside the house where I was before going to the cave where the attack happened, for some reason the wound didn't trigger the autosave. One of the few times I was happy with a wolf attack...

It looks like my typical first hour after sunrise in FM, so much crabwalking...

Blizzard going on as I travel. My wife passes by: "It gives me the shivers just by looking at it!" so I proceed to explain that traveling in a blizzard is wolfproof especially when you carry meat. As I reach the farm's yard the blizzard starts to fade away. "Just in time, I made it." I say. And then "woof arf ruff" a wolf jumps me out of fraggin' nowhere. "What you were saying about wolves?" says my sweetie. As I furiously click to hack at the wolf I hear the impatient growl of another wolf waiting for its turn. In the end I managed to defeat both of them. Here are the traces of the fight. I'm sure Toothy and Stinky were hiding under the hay truck during the blizzard.

I was making the last trip to collect the remaining chunks of the moose from the previous day, and from the distance... I was like "Are you kiddin' me?!" then I realized it was just a deer. By the way, crows circle over quarters (they are not in the image but they were just there), no mistake since the leftovers from the original carcass disappear after a few hours. Feathers aren't rare, but maybe quartering an animal and scattering the sacks may be a way to summon multiple flocks for mass production of arrows. I've just noticed this! Epic! Down but not out, ready for one last glorious flight. But it's the one which slew the moose, so maybe I should just treasure it as a talisman.

Looks like the meltin Witch of the West, since she came up recently somewhere else. Or more epically speaking, some demon bear being banished and sinking back to Hell.

He came with a knife at a... frostbite? It wasn't that. Oh well. What a steteotype, in all natural disaster movies there's some no-gooder who stubbornly sticks to his original plan even if it's totaly pointless, causes trouble and then bites it.

It's too cold now, but I'll get you. Just wait for the morning to get warmer! Now's more like it! I'm coming for you! I really wanted to demonstrate my "hidden fire" technique. "I'm a servant of the Secret Fire... YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" No, not that. The point is to hide the fire behind something so the moose will notice it when he's a few feet away, so it will stop and turn around granting me a huge and almost still target for the second arrow. Anyway, it didn't go as planned. Moose.mp4 And so I went full Legolas, I'm just sooo cool. Quartering a moose takes two hours, like a bear.

It just means they come near houses and this allows safe sniping from inaccessible porches and stairs, not to mention ducking indoors if they're too near for comfort.

Whaaat?! Since when? I got the "deep forest" achievement on the 27th of march and I've read "Advanced guns guns guns" by the fire. Unread books appear in the tools (the one with the hatchet) section of the inventory, or at least they did last time I checked. Unless it's in Wintermute (it wasn't stated), in that case it may work in a slightly different way but I don't remember the details. There was another similar topic a while ago. Wintermute is picky. You may need to find all clues, do things in the right region, fully harvest and all that.