ajb1978

I've always wondered when we'll get sinkhole hazards. You see all these caves with shafts of light coming from high above, and sometimes dead people or animals on the ground where they fell through to their deaths. Now obviously insta-killing the player in the middle of a wide open field would be just a bad idea all around, but a sort of variant of Weak Ice might work. You get several seconds of hearing rocks crunching and cracking and know you need to beat feet. If you fall through, maybe it's not one of those massive caverns, but you should take some falling damage comparable to falling through the ice, and end up in the network of caves under the region. Sort of like how if you were in HRV and certain spots could cause you to fall through the ground and end up inside one of those two Ice Caves. Edit: Or it could be a one-off event, to "unlock" the region. Instead of a game of "find code, unlock door" it could be "fall through ground, navigate cave network, find dynamite, blast debris free to create a new exit and now you have full access to the region. Best part is, blasting caps are in the game already.

I never had a problem with fan noise. I heard some stories, but neither I nor my friend who also got one had any issues. So we chalked it up to manufacturing defect as opposed to design defect.

Oh ho ho, but now we have the Steam Deck so even true gamers are allowed to go outside once or twice in their life! A handheld capable of emulating every other system, in addition to playing most PC games? Magic! At least At least as long as the battery holds out. Totally takes me back to the good old days where I'd raid every remote in the house looking for batteries to power the Sega Game Gear only to have it drain them all dead in about 8 minutes, then put all the dead batteries back where I got them and quietly laugh at my family trying to figure out why nothing works anymore. *sigh* Good times... But now I'm getting way off topic.

I used to carry one of those but preferred to go with something more durable. Folding knives are great for daily carry, but they can't take too much punishment.

I always carry a simple knife with me any time I'm out of the house, so as long as I have my pants still, I'll have my knife. Just a basic 3" blade, full tang. The knife plus sheath fits comfortably in my front jeans pocket. So if I were able to find flint out in the wild, boom. I've got flint and steel right there. But assuming I already had some form of ignition, I'd use the knife to feather off small shavings of wood from a larger piece to make tinder and kindling. Of course if I had my way I'd just shove a few handfuls of wadded up newsprint under my tent of sticks, hose it down with naphtha, and chuck a match at it. Fwoosh, instant campfire.

I prefer things as-is. Animals typically do stick within certain territories anyway, particularly when they already have an established herd or pack. An animal that's been rejected from its herd or pack though might travel great distances, seeking a new place to call "home" that's far enough away that they won't be harassed by their former group. Solitary creatures like bear or moose also have a place that they call "home" that they typically don't stray too far from.

When Father Thomas tries to mansplain to Astrid "No no, you crashed yesterday, in the hills!" Look Padre, I just spent the last week straight grinding out all the side quests and pre-stocking the community center for that little grocery run you're gonna send me on in a bit. I know where I was yesterday, and it wasn't on a plane.

That's precisely my point--with party lines, the line stays active. If I'm calling my friend Dan, and your phone rings, you pick up and answer, I'm like "Hey angelfolks, I'm trying to reach Dan," you go "Oh ok sorry," and hang up, then I keep ringing. Then eventually Dan picks up and I have my conversation. If you wanted to be a jerk though you could just quietly pick up and say nothing. I would have no idea you're there, I would keep ringing, until eventually Dan picks up, then you could just eavesdrop while we were none the wiser. (Back then you wouldn't pick up and say "Hello", you'd pick up and say "Churchill residence, Winston speaking," or something to that effect.) So with a party line if Molly were ringing Astrid and Will approaches the phone, the fact that it just spontaneously went dead would simply mean that Molly stopped ringing the phone. Had will picked up, he could've heard Astrid/Molly talking (or whomever else was on the line). It's also worth mentioning that despite the plot device of party lines being used, none of the phones we see in the game are actually party line phones. Those are the old school ones where you pick up the earpiece, put it to your head, turn the crank (which powers a dynamo that triggers the chime on all phones on the circuit) and then you speak directly into the mouthpiece which was mounted to the wall. Edit: #3 on this list does a fair job of explaining party lines: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62876/10-aspects-old-telephones-might-confuse-younger-readers Another common misconception I've seen is the use of the word "party" in this context. It's not party as in "whose turn is it to bring the keg", it's party as in "party of 5, your table is ready." Party as in a group of people.

Looks like it pops up in an Amazon search now, but it's long since out of print. https://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Weather-Trends/dp/0812009576 Still, first time I've laid eyes on the cover in decades though!

Remember we harvest only a fraction of meat that we would in real life. You can reasonably expect to get around 4kg of meat off a wolf. 4!! Off an animal that weighs on average around 50! By the same token black bears are around 100kg, and you only get maybe 30 of meat in-game. And the ratio gets even worse with moose, which weigh around 500kg, and in the game yield around 40kg of meat. So it doesn't make sense for a new animal that weighs about as much as a wolf, to be worth 4x as much meat. It might not necessarily break the balance of the game if cougars are particularly rare, but it would make very little sense in light of how the other animals stack up by weight vs. meat.

As a wise man once said, "Ch ch ch...ahh ahh ahh..."

Most likely on par with wolves as they're pretty close in size. Not like comparing deer with moose or anything. And as cougars are predators, it would make sense that intestinal parasites (which are probably trichinella) are a risk too, as cougars can become infested same as any other predator. The pelt would probably have a unique purpose though. The low-hanging fruit would be to have the pelt used as a crafting material for the travois, although I REALLY hope they eventually decouple material with article when it comes to clothing crafting. Rabbitskin coat, wolfskin gloves, bearskin pants, etc. each with its own unique properties depending on the material it was constructed with.

Oh totally, in the winter that's actually an advantage of kerosene heat. You do have to make sure that your kerosene source is reliable and K1 grade. Underground pumps if they're not well maintained can introduce moisture seepage from the ground, which dilutes and compromises the fuel. The official stance is to buy prepackaged kerosene for heaters, unless you really trust your source. I'm fortunate enough to have a reliable distributor so I have the advantages of low-cost fuel pump, and high purity. Cleanest kerosene you can get from a pump. It's actually cheaper to heat my place with kerosene than the electric baseboards, but I don't like the smell lol. (Edit: Actually I do but only in small amounts. I run kerosene lanterns like some people burn candles. But the heater? Too much.)

Kerosene heaters are totally fine for indoor use, it's what basically everyone in Japan uses during the winter. It does give off an odor, but I mean it's not like running a diesel engine indoors or anything. It's got safety features like instant shutoff if it tips and stuff, and I have a carbon monoxide detector just to be safe. I know a guy who doesn't even put the metal safety cage on his. He just has it permanently set up in his home office, and when it's running he leaves a kettle directly on it to add humidity to the room, and also so he has hot water for tea on demand. But for me this is just a backup, so I attached the cage/handle assembly so I can store it away again when the power came back. Manuals always err on the side of caution and tell you not to do all sorts of things that are, really, 100% perfectly fine. But some guy somewhere did something stupid, and now they have to put in the manual "do not attempt to use this heater underwater" or something.

Some 100% Ketchup Chips.

Force Flamethrower

A couple years ago I started a new game and spawned in outside the Hunting Lodge. A Moose was right there. I went inside the Lodge and right there hanging on the wall was a rifle in pretty high condition, and enough rounds of ammo to give me a reasonable shot of taking the Moose down. I went outside, leaned against a car for a quick getaway, and put one downrange. Bullwinkle dropped in one! After scrounging around for some firestarting supplies I got a roaring fire going, and proceeded to harvest that Moose the hard way: by hand. But towards the end I got a little careless and overconfident, and went "Bah, heck with it, the fire's got enough fuel, let's just harvest the rest all in one go." Cue the God of Jerks blessing me with a blizzard and me dumping my tea in my lap as frantically I lurched forward to mash Esc. I canceled out of the state with like a severe frostbite risk, like 90% hypothermia risk and nearly dead from freezing. I hauled my popsicle ass and a handful of steaks back to the lodge. I was able to get another fire started and quickly get that steak and some water going, thaw myself out, and surprisingly make a full recovery. And on day 12 I had a satchel, and still tons of moose left. So yeah that first day was full of its highs and lows but overall that was a VERY lucky start. On a similar note, the last time I played Interloper I basically kept coming up jackpot after jackpot. Spawned in Pleasant Valley, got a ton of cattails on my way to the farmhouse. Found a mag lens and hammer in the basement, so I decided to take a gamble on the hacksaw in TWM and headed straight there. On reaching the summit the hacksaw was in near perfect, or maybe even perfect condition. I just know I didn't have to worry about it breaking on me and all the gear I found was also in near-perfect condition. Even the weather and wolf spawns were agreeable, like the whole time I was expecting the other shoe to drop and the game was like "Nope, this is Diet Interloper. All the cold, half the calories....and by that we mean half the wolves."

I have a feeling that's the role the Travois is going to fill. Not as a permanent 5kg buff necessarily, but an improvised means of hauling more gear around.

Ladies and gentlemen, unicorns are real. I present to you, the first 100% firestriker I've ever laid eyes on in my entire career as a Great Bear mountain man.

Found the Curator's Rifle on a dead guy by the gold mine in Ash Canyon, but it's in such terrible shape I haven't used it yet. Once I ransack the TWM Summit I'm gonna head to Blackrock to mill it back to health and see if it's any better than a regular rifle. Edit: Has anyone managed to hang one of the new rifle variants on a rifle rack yet? The Curator's Rifle wouldn't slot into the one at Angler's in Ash Canyon, but I didn't have another rifle to compare so I'm not sure if it's a bugged rack, or if it's the rifle. And I don't see myself being at another location with a rifle rack for a while.

And that's exactly it. What if you want to only live in the Far Territory? I mean right now it's just one zone and a couple transition regions so not much to see, but in another 11 months who knows what it'll look like.

Has anyone noticed that the Improvised Crampons decay MUCH slower than the regular Crampons? I crafted a pair on day one, and as of day 51 wearing them nearly non-stop they had only decayed to 98%. I just got the "real" Crampons from Ash Canyon, and in the 15 days I've had them, they're already down to 99%. Even though they weigh 0.25kg more, I'm inclined to think Improvised Crampons are actually superior due to the slower decay...

The backup heater is working well, and my half liter of melted snow is just about ready.

Movie tickets. Bear with me, it'll make sense. What does it cost to go to the movies lately? 20 bucks sounds like a fair appraisal if you consider cost of admission, plus the amount the cinema charges for snacks and a drink, plus sales tax. What you have is basically $10/hour charge for entertainment. (A two hour movie, $20 for the whole experience, works out to $10/hour.) That's my benchmark for "is this worth paying money for." Did you get 2 hours' worth of entertainment out of the DLC so far? If the answer is yes, you already got your money's worth.

BUNKER SMASH RARRRRRR *suplexes the couch*