ajb1978

If you alt-tab out of the game, then click on the game to go back in, do you have keyboard and mouse control? This is a check to see if something else is stealing focus after starting the game.

I previously tried rose hip and reishi tea, just to see what they were actually like in real life, and now it seems fitting that I give birch bark tea a try. It's store bought, so I'm basically trusting that the manufacturer portioned it out appropriately. I'm not sure what "real" birch bark tea would be like, but I figure it's pretty hard to screw up putting tree bark in a bag. Anyway, here's my initial analysis. Color is very pleasant, kind of a pale pink/orange. The color is actually very similar to rose hip tea, although much paler. The flavor reminds me of super watered down maple syrup. It's ever so faintly sweet, and has a kind of woody aromatic quality to it. Not like chewing on a pile of sawdust or anything, more like the fragrance of...well...fresh cut birch. It's basically exactly what I expected it would be like.

And I suppose the sign over the toilet paper says "Not a salad". Pfft...don't you tell me how to live my life.

If you play Interloper that's to be expected. I do custom runs with loot tables jacked to the maximum. The most recent corpse pistol I found was in the Lonely Cave in HRV.

That first shot is the hardest because you basically need to score a critical hit or he eats your face. The rest, just use normal bear hunting tactics. Get to a place where the bear's pathing can't reach (such as on the side of a rock or something) and then fire.

It does degrade with use. 5% per shot if memory serves, and some flare pistols found on corpses can be below 100%.

Don't worry about it, it was my mistake. The game had registered that fog was rolling in, but since weather doesn't happen with a snap of the fingers, my mag lens quit working well before the fog appeared. The fact that I'm playing with 4x length of day exacerbated it.

Anyone else's mag lens quit working with 1.53? I'm outside, bright sunny day, no wind and not a cloud in the sky, tried to use the mag lens to light the fire barrel at Paradise Meadows, and it gave me 0% chance. I figured heck, maybe they patched that out...gotta actually be OUTSIDE outside for it to work. Makes sense to me. Went to start a campfire outside in full view of the sun...still 0%. Level 5 firestarting too. Edit: Disregard. 4x time dilation, fog was rolling in. It just had not yet become visually apparent yet.

Definitely. I've played custom games where I've dialed the weather change to various extremes. I'll get crows, and no weather change. I'll get crows, and weather change. I have a suspicion that the crows fly by at very specific times in the day, like exactly 10:00am game time crows fly by, as a hypothetical example. But since there's no in-game clock that we can see, I can't really confirm that. ....or can I? I know it's possible to make a functional sundial by placing twigs around a pole or post or something in the game... Well now I know what I'm doing tonight.

Yeah 35 is definitely not old. And you'd better not say it is because then what does that make me? I'm gonna be turning 41 in just a few days here! I miss the old C64 days... LOAD"*",8,1

Man I wish you guys worked in my IT department. The general attitude towards bug fixes seems to be "wait six months then ask if it's still an issue. If yes, wait six more months."

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's not possible. I play Custom games with the loot tables cranked to max, and I haven't been able to pull it off. I've been able to get all the way to about 1/3 of the way from level 4 to level 5, but never the full 5. With Interloper loot tables, I just don't think it can be done.

One thing I've wanted to see for years is the ability to use a torch or flare to cauterize a bleeding wound, instantly removing the Bleeding and Infection Risk afflictions, in exchange for additional Condition loss, and a Burns affliction.

Like comparing myself today to pics from the 90's....

Oh definitely. Each stick adds 1C to the temperature, so if you can get in the habit of just picking up sticks as you see them, you will very quickly accumulate enough to have a viable fire. 80 sticks is enough for a 12 hour fire, plus a few extra. You don't actually need the full 80 for the 12 hour fire, it's just an easy number to remember.

The short version is peaches, beans, sardines, and soda, store indoors. Everything else, outdoors. There are some exceptions like coffee, tea, cat tails etc. that don't decay anywhere. But as a rule of thumb, I find this an easy way to remember.

In Pilgrim and Voyageur, the heat bonus from a flame immediately overcomes the ambient temperature. So if it's -30C and you light a fire with a single stick, it overrides that -30C and the temperature next to the fire is instantly 1C. On Stalker and Interloper, and on custom games where you opt out of that ability, you need to build that fire up to counteract the ambient temperature. Since you're on a stalker game, if the ambient temperature is 30C, you need a fire producing at least 30C before you can warm up, assuming you are naked. If your clothing gives you +20C warmth, then the fire would only need to be 10C. What you describe from the caves is the indoor and outdoor sections. The back of a cave is considered indoors, and is always naturally warmer than the front. So you don't need as hot a fire to receive the benefit.

Yes and no. My original method no longer works, but VorpX now supports The Long Dark directly, so I don't have to go through as much shenanigans to play it. Also, playing it in virtual 3D Screen mode is best. Instead of trying to shoehorn the game into VR, which causes problems any time you have a full-screen thing going on (basically any menu interaction), the game is rendered on a giant virtual 3D display. So you can still turn your head to look around, but it doesn't control your character's perspective. It just changes what part of the virtual screen you're looking at. Since you don't have to warp the FOV to fill your entire field of view, the game overall is more playable that way. It's a nice blend between pancake and VR. (And we all know how you feel about pancakes.) However, weapon aiming is very difficult. In pancake since there's only one "eye", when you aim the rifle or bow or whatever, the sights are aligned to that one eye. When aiming in VR, the sights are aligned somewhere between your two virtual eyes. Like instead of lining the sights up with your eye, the character lines them up with their nose. You can learn to compensate with practice, but honestly that part sucks. That's one thing I really miss about the TriDef prototype--you could declare a dominant eye, so when you aim, the sights were aligned to that eye.

Hehe I've already played this in VR.

Ten burners, if you include the 6 on the stove, the 2 on the fireplace, and the 2 on the fire barrel outside. But as you said, the weather is abysmal, and the sheer size of the region makes it infeasible as a settlement. To me it's a transition zone, nothing more. The Coastal Highway is the best region IMO. Yeah, there are no default cooking opportunities, of Pleasant Valley's caliber, but it has hunting, fishing, beachcombing, work benches, and a forge not far away.

Agreed, with a caveat. Advanced Guns Guns Guns should increase both revolver and rifle skill simultaneously, provided the character has attained level 2 in at least one of them. 25 hours is a major commitment, and deserves to be rewarded. Make both the Small Arms and Frontier Shooter Guide books affect levels 1 and 2 only, respectively. Advanced Guns Guns Guns should increase the Revolver and/or Rifle skill by 10 points, depending on whether or not you've attained at least level 2 with the respective firearm. i.e. Level 1 Revolver, Level 3 Rifle, reading Advanced Guns Guns Guns, you gain 10 points for Rifle, but none for Revolver. If you're level 1 with both, this book is too advanced for you. If you're level 2 or higher with both, well then you get 10 points in each firearm.

While making my way from the Mystery Lake transition cave back into Milton proper, the tree bridge just before that first rope climb down seems to be missing something. When I got to the root end I was unable to walk up to the ledge with the rope like I could before. I kind of phased through the snow texture, and ended up down sort of inside the log. This persisted after restarting the game, so I ended up just walking off the tree and eating the fall damage. Has anyone else encountered this, or am I just "lucky"? Edit: It occurs to me I encountered similar difficulty with the tree bridge in the Raven Falls Ravine, although after some shuffling left and right, I was eventually able to get up.

Not to mention you wouldn't be able to see out of the windows if you spent more than a couple minutes in there. Frost, and all that. And after a blizzard, forget about it.

I tend to keep a book on me at all times early on, so if I get stuck in a blizzard or something I can use that time for something productive. Other than that, it doesn't really matter when you read books, with the exception of the Frontier Shooting Guide. That book only works up to level 3, at which point the game will say "Your skills are too advanced for this book" or something like that. So try to save any copies of Advanced Guns Guns Guns until after you reach level 3 with the rifle. Also, you gain the full benefit of a book as a lump sum when you finish the final hour of research. So say you're level 1 and need to pass time, you can read the first 24 hours of Advanced Guns Guns Guns without getting a benefit, then stash the book to finish later after you hit level 3, and read that final hour to get the full benefit applied to your skill. I personally try to avoid using a skill whenever reasonably possible, until I am confident I have searched the entire game world and have completed researching all skill books that apply to that skill. Just so I don't inadvertently master the skill ahead of time, then find a book I can't use. But that's just my overly-miserly play style.