Vince 49

Do you have firewood?

@wilsonaka, Thanks. I missed that. I'll go over the post again. @Stinky socks, all the things you mentioned help, but don't prevent surprise attacks. Less than an hour ago, while playing a Stalker game, I was walking through a usually wolf free area and a wolf came over a rise and attacked me without warning. Things like not letting your condition get too low, wearing cloths with high protection*, and having your defensive weapon of choice as sharp as possible can make the difference between an inconvenient struggle and having to start a new game. * My favorites items that combine good protection with reasonable warmth/wind bonuses are the Moose-Hide Cloak and the Gauntlets.

Hi @wilsonaka, I did learn a lot from your posts with I originally saw them. However, I can't find anywhere where different protection levels were compared to wolf struggle damage. If I missed it, please do let me know.

I've read several posts providing information on the mechanics of wolf struggles. From them I've seen that the heavy hammer will usually get the wolf off you the quickest, but it only scares the wolf who may come back to attack you again. Also, that the hatched is usually a bit better than the knife as a bleed out weapon. Relative to injury to the player, all the posts state that the player's condition is the most important factor. However, none of the posts I've seen address the effect of protection on the amount of player damage. With the Moose-Hide Cloak and the Gauntlets, it's possible to have a protection of 50% or more. I would think that this would have a significant effect on the outcome of a wolf struggle. Does anyone have any hard information on the effect of clothing protection on the outcome of wolf struggles?

I recently made a post where, near the beginning of the game, I used an arrow to get my bearings. As I read it over a few minutes later, I thought to myself, how would I have an arrow at the beginning of a game? I realized that I had accidentally combined parts of two games, so deleted the post. Below is the post as it should have been. If you have an arrow with you, you don't need to loose your bearings. You may not know exactly where you are, but you certainly can know in which direction you are heading. I recently started a game in PV that began a couple of hours before dawn. Within a few minutes I was in a full blown blizzard. I though I knew where I was and luckily made it to the barn, already at risk of hypothermia. Finding no new clothes, I was still below 0, so needed to make it to the farmhouse if I was to survive. I left the barn and took the time to get an arrow from the archery target. Without the arrow, I would have wandered around until I was dead. As it was, I started walking in what I thought was due south were I should eventually encounter the river just north of the farm house. Every little while I would walk backwards a bit so I could see my footprints, then drop an arrow. Since a dropped arrow always points north, I knew how to adjust my direction to keep heading south. I did finally make it to the river and from there to the farmhouse--alive.

Two Things: First, if you have been playing TLD for quite a while, you may be surprised when you are attacked by a moose while you are next to a fire. In the more recent versions of TLD, I believe starting with Fearless Navigator, moose are no longer scared of a fire. Second, if you don't have a cooking pot, you can still cook a full 1 kg of meat. Just drop it on the floor or ground near the stove or fire, then pickup the slab of meat with right-click and drag it onto one of the cooking hot spots.

An unusual thing happened recently after I posted an issue about lost key bindings in the Technical Discussions sub-forum: I got bumps to my reputation corresponding to about a 15% boost to what I had accumulated over the post couple of years. Although that's a good thing, I wondered why. I occurred to me that it might have been the specific keys, so I thought I should share them here. As you know, the default key for Sprint is [Left-Shift]. I found that awkward. Sometimes, like the beginning of an interloper game where you haven't been to a forge yet, sprinting is really, really important. I liked the idea of using the [R] key. It's easily accessible while you are pressing the [W] key to walk and 'R' stands for run. Since the default binding of the [R] key is for Reload, why not use the [L] key for that (as in Load). So, I changed the key for reloading my weapon to [L], then changed the key for Sprinting/Running to [R]. While traveling in a tight situation, I have my middle finger pressing the [W] key, with the finger to the left resting above the [2] key (to ready my weapon if needed), and my finger to the right on the [R] key (to run away, if that's the best option). This is my 'Fight or Flight' travel mode. Try it, you might like it.

UPDATE: Yesterday and today, up to a few hours ago, the key binding would consistently revert to the default whether I quit the current game and returned with Resume or quite TLD entirely, restarted it, and Resumed. This happened about a dozen times all together. However, now the game remembers the new bindings! I was trying an experiment to examine how wolves reacted to the player if the player had aimed (evoking the wolf's charge) while standing next to a fire. During that experiment, I quit and reloaded more than a dozen times and the key bindings did not revert. I thought that STEAM might have applied a hot fix, however the game version remains 1.92 70699 S. I have no explanation for this.

I encountered an issue with the latest build as of December 19, 2020, build 1.92 70699 S on STEAM. It does not remember custom key bindings. In this particular case, I set Sprint to the [R] key, and Reload to the [L] key. It works fine for the current session, but after returning to the game with Resume, the bindings are reset to the defaults. Although I don't think it's unique to me, if necessary I would be happy to provide a saved game and other details.

I just tried this again. 'Not especially fast (27 days 5 hrs) but intense and fun. I took screen shots, but won't use up the bandwidth to post them unless someone wants to see them. This time I took my time (sort of) and examined where the hard parts were. I see three. First, it's easy to have almost everything, but find you are missing one item, such as a magnifying glass. Second, it is challenging to get three skills up to level 3 in about three weeks, while still working on all the other aspects of the challenge. Third (and I didn't see this previously) it would be extremely difficult to get the protection up to 36 or more, without having to craft a moose or bear coat. I still would recommend this challenge to anyone who wants to try a flash game. I should note that I made a post, buried in this topic, where I reduced the required warmth+wind bonus from 38 to 36 and the protection from 36 to 34. Good luck--you'll need it. For reference, my best is 19 days, but Bean did it just over 15 days!

Something occurred to me recently. Earlier in this topic, I suggested that having an option to disable strains would be great. However, if the developers don't want to do that, maybe they would be willing to provide an option to turn off all alerts and warnings about strains. Getting a strain every once in a while, although startling and not too realistic, isn't all that bad. The part that drives me nuts is the constant warnings and the red feather of tripping. I could do without those.

@Serenity, 'Got it, thanks.

I know this sound simple. I mostly play an earlier version of TLD, before the sprain warning system. In that version, pain pills fix it. I've seen comments relating to the newer versions that pain pills are virtually useless now. So, for the latest version, how do you treat a sprain?

@jeffpeng, I agree. Besides the recent changes in wolf behavior discussed here, the new "improved" sprain system was introduced in 1.56 Steadfast Ranger (the first update after Vigilant Flame). As I, and many others with significant experience in the wild have posted elsewhere, the new sprain system is not realistic. Worse, the constant warnings and alerts add unneeded stress and discourage exploration. It is unfortunate that the "bad" changes decrease the value of great changes like the complete rework of Pleasant Valley plus many subtle improvements, such as slight increases in light level in many interiors. In Vigilant Fame, even in the middle of the day, you really need a torch or lantern to navigate inside the PV barn, while the later versions increase the lighting just enough to enable navigation without a light source. This is probably my second to last post. I haven't kept track of the number of hours I've played TLD, but the sum of the in-game days of my current saves is 1369 days. I truly believe the Vigilant Flame version of TLD is one of the best PC games ever made. I've really enjoyed the play and this forum. I've been a part of several topics here where there was wide disagreement, but everyone was polite and respectful of other's opinions. I wish that was true everywhere. I will make a last post about my "Warm Interloper" soon. It is the closest I have found to a viable level intermediate between Stalker and Interloper. As a famous frog once said "It isn't easy being green--but being orange is far, far worse".

@darkscaryforest, no I do not. I was concentrating on surviving. Like you, I've never seen anything like this in all my time playing TLD, which is part of the reason I made this post. @haft2doit, based on what you say, you should definitely try Warm Interloper. If you do, it would be great if you post your experience with it. Good luck.

Although just surviving isn't exactly boring (especially on Interloper), it's usually less intense and satisfying than the early game where every day you are finding or crafting new clothes, tools, or weapons. Depending on the level and your skill, somewhere between 30 and 80 days, you have all the tools and weapons available and your clothing is maxed out or nearly so. Why go to Bleak Inlet if you know there is nothing you will find that you don't already have? Additions to the game that would address this would be welcome. As a specific example, let's say that there are legendary stainless steel cooking pots that weigh only 40% as much as the cast iron ones--but they can only be found in Bleak Inlet. Or maybe, advanced arrows that have a 50% chance of an instakill, but they are only available in Hushed River Valley. Another possibility is especially dangerous portions of regions where there are unique items or books that aren't available elsewhere. The danger could be dense wildlife, thin ice, falling rocks, or something else. The idea is the regions would become known by notes left around, signs, or similar. The player would know they need to be skilled and well equipped before seeking the rewards there. Of course, this is just my 3 cents. (Inflation)

@Azdrawee, I may have missed something. What are the late game improvements included in the last two updates?

I discuss two things here: a custom Interloper that works surprisingly well and a wolf bomb (really). I've been playing Stalker without a rifle for a long time. Barring a surprise attack by multiple wolves, I can survive as long as I want (> 200 days). For me, Interloper is possible, but very depressing. I did 100 days on Interloper a while back and recently started a new one. I quite after 60 days although I had no immediate issues. I had warm clothes, including a moose-hide cloak, and all the weapons and tools available in Interloper, except a magnifying glass. It was just that my attitude responding to the world is against you of Interloper was starting to affect my real life. So I tried again to find a custom mode intermediate between Stalker and Interloper. This time I tried a custom Interloper with the only change being three weather parameters: Weather variability, Blizzard frequency, and World gets colder over time. For Interloper, they are: Very High, Very High, and High. I changed them to High, High, and Medium (these are the Stalker values). I expected this would provide a small, but welcome improvement. I was wrong, it made a profound improvement. I call it "Warm Interloper" and would recommend it to anyone who is ready for more than Stalker, but not for the every moment struggle of Interloper. So I was playing Warm Interloper and just made a hatchet, knife, and some arrow heads at the forge in Forlorn Muskeg. As it looked like a fog might roll in, I decided to avoid the islands and go back along the western side then the railroad tracks to ML. As I noticed wolves to be less prevalent than in Stalker, as I had in previous Interloper games, I expected to encounter a couple along the western edge and 2 or possibly 3 along the tracks--wrong. I encountered 18 or 19 wolves between the forge and the Mystery Lake office! In all my hundreds of hours playing TLD, I have never before seen anything like this. Rather than the 2 or 3 I expected, I encountered 8 wolves between the western end of the railroad tracks and the accessible rail car. I encountered another 8 between there and the office in ML. Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Although I made some arrow heads at the forge, I didn't stay to craft a bow and arrows, so my only weapon going back was the flare pistol I got from the Ravine basin. So I sneaked by all the wolves by crouching. Because of the number of wolves, all together this took several game hours. On regular Interloper I would have frozen to death several times over. Due to good weather and the Warm Interloper changes, I survived just fine. Right now I'm waiting for Moose and Bear hides to cure.

@WillemD, thanks. I had forgotten that one. I need to go to the lake anyway with the hope that I may find a bed roll in the lake office. If I go the back way to the overlook, I have a good chance of not encountering any wolves.

@Danielviomusic, thanks. Although I knew most of the locations you mentioned, I was hoping there was one near the Ravine. For the one near the ML destroyed lookout tower (usually in the big box), I asked myself: does the risk of going there with no weapon out weigh the added protection (by enabling me to get a flare gun) on my way to the forge in FM? However, your answer reminded me that I made a serious mistake in this current game. Usually I play on Stalker, often starting in TWM. I always see the rope in the Mountaineer's Hut, but don't take it because I couldn't afford the extra 5 Kg due to the climb down to PV. On Interloper, I got so little loot I could have easily carried the rope with me, but didn't. I'll try to remember that next time.

Although I climbed down to the Ravine Basin in my last long Interloper run, that was a long time ago. So far this time I haven't found a rope. I've looked in the explorable rail car and the cave area beyond the break in the rail line to no avail. In the previous Interloper run, I used the flare pistol as a temporary weapon on my way to the forge in FM. I know the Ravine area well (before the addition of Bleak Inlet) and have run out of places to look. I did check the snow pile on the second floor of the bay area of the hydro dam, but don't remember finding one there after Steadfast Ranger. Any help would be appreciated.

I guess I'll start subtle: I hate the current sprain system! Besides the strains themselves, the constant alerts and warnings add significant unneeded stress to the game and it discourages exploration. You don't have to be a mountain goat to get a strain. I got a strain while collecting twigs in the enclosed area in front of the Carter Hydro Dam. Another player posted recently that he got a strain while harvesting a carcass--twice! More importantly, from my personal experience, the current system is not realistic. For a couple of years a long time ago, I and two friends went backpacking almost every weekend, with a few extended expeditions. We were planning a two week trip to the Snake River region when my friends suddenly got married and escaped to Texas. All together, we spent several hundred hours in the wilderness. Although we certainly experienced many issues, none of us ever got a sprain. @ManicManiac, spoke of the power of player choices--I agree. Personally, I would like to see either an option to disable the sprain system (like that currently available for the auto walk feature) or the ability to earn badges in Custom mode. Although there would likely be those who would abuse it, they do not harm others, so I don't see a downside to it. // End of rant // Actually, I should add that in a separate post, several of us discussed this issue. Although we did not all agree, all were courteous and respectful. I just wish we could have more of that in the real world.

That certainly wasn't on my radar when I asked the question, but you're right I certainly did benefit.

'Got it, thanks.

I saw a post in the survival subforum where a new member posted a question about wolves attacking while in a fishing hut. I thought the question was pertinent and clearly worded, so tried to bump up his reputation by 1. I left clicked the '+' button next to his reputation, but nothing happened. I was logged in, so don't know why that didn't work. I think I've used that method before, but my memory is fading. So, how does one bump up the reputation of a fellow forum member?