fauxjargon

It honestly wouldn't have made much difference to that run if I couldn't go into the cozy back parts of the cave. You want to build your fire "outside" for maximum burn time anyway, and a fire with decent burn time is warm enough that the temperature boost from "indoors" doesn't matter much. Now, not being able to take advantage of mines and loading-screen caves (which you used to be able to build fires in) absolutely would have made things harder. Not to mention, TWM and HRV are both basically pointless zones without the ability to go inside caves.

I don't know if this has changed, but my long-term plan (I will get back to this game, but life has a way of getting in the way), is to make a bow, scare deer into wolves and then kill the wolves. Back when I last played lots of TLD it seemed like the bow did a lot more damage to wolves that are distracted while eating. FM and BR are both no fun to hunt deer in! The new wolf behavior is much improved - it used to be rather trivial to steal whole deer kills with nothing but a series of campfires. I would like to play some DEADMAN, but without any realistic way to get the Cold Fusion and Fire Starting feats without spending hours starting another 700 fires and standing around in the cold forever on Pilgrim, I'm going to forget about that. Then again, I like playing TLD in the summer a lot more than in the winter...

Yes, I am explicitly doing this only on the loot table with the hammer, but without maglens or bedroll. It is hard, but not impossible. If you can accumulate ever larger caches of fuel and meat for every fire, you can stretch the matches a long time! However doing so requires a lot of dangerous travel.

Broken Muskeg Part Deux ended ignominiously, with massive internal injuries sustained after falling off a cliff while avoiding a wolf.

BROKEN MUSKEG: PART DEUX: Fires lit at start of report: 2 I am a little foggy on what happened this time, I was pretty engrossed in what I was doing and forgot to alt-tab to write down what I did or even take screenshots. I harvested most of the cloth in the Lodge, broke down a metal shelf in the basement for scrap (I took thirst damage for this....), made fishing tackle, got VERY lucky fixing my gear up. I made a risky trip down to the maintenance shed to get a rope (I would later find the rope on a shelf in the hunting lodge basement...) A moose and the lake wolves conspired to make me very cold on the way home. I made it anyway, and started my fourth fire of the game, boiling water with four cans and cooking bunny sliders with the other two burners. Fuel seems to be pretty scarce in Broken Railroad, unless you count the massive amount of stuff I can break with my hammer. A nice day lets me take a long walk to the maintenance shed, including a trip up to the train car just before the broken bridge, where I find a flare and a book about guns. I resolve to spend the night in the maintenance shed. My newly patched up clothes are warm enough that I can live without fire in there. Although it will have to wait for another time, my destination is the hat creek cave and Milton basin to look for more saplings, cattails, animal hides and guts. So far I have not found any tools, which means my hacksaw won't last forever and crafting arrows takes way too long. Animal parts status: 4 bunny skins and 5 deerskins curing. 1 maple, 4 birch. I think around 5 guts? Not nearly enough. Once I have a means of killing animals other than bunnies, the situation will improve.

BROKEN MUSKEG: PART DEUX: Fires lit at start of report: 2 I awake, incredibly thirsty, before dawn. I slake my thirst and go gather mushrooms in the snowy darkness. I spend the pre-dawn gloom crafting up medicine as hunger gnaws at me. In the final hours of darkness, I eat some cattails and sleep. I go for a walk. I get sticks, lichen, mushrooms. I harvest a dead deer, requiring a fire, and manage to move the fire to a second deer. I finish up with the second deer, leaving the four guts and two hides to cure in the cave: Onwards: Let's get a third deer and some birch! I travel onwards, sawing a solitary birch! The mighty birch defeated, I tarry on: A comfy clearing yields a deer, two bun-buns and four birch trees. I harvest EVERYTHING (leaving hides on bun-buns but taking their corpses). Weather goes south (north?) I am at a bit over 50% condition when I make the lodge. I collected all the animal bits I harvested today, leaving me with many guts.

BROKEN MUSKEG: PART DEUX: EPISODE II (ETERNAL FLAME, or HOW NOT TO SLEEP). Fires lit (start of report): 1 The day starts poorly. I slept for an hour to save the game, but my forge fire went out! I mourn the dead fire, and then notice that it is warm enough for some unheated sleeping. I sleep 2 hours - it goes well - and I sleep 3 - no good. I wake up freezing, and burn an accelerant to get the fire started. Oh well, at least I saved some fuel? I tool around the Spence farms, the weather is no good at all - I get some sticks and mushrooms, but that is about it. Dawn is beautiful but bitter cold - not a good time to move at all. I craft all my teas, I break down torches, I get a few random cattails, but not much else. Finally, excellent weather! I can't afford any condition loss and fuel up on cattails and get going. I take the longer route back through the muskeg to get cattails, rather than travelling along the ridge with the log bridge. Along the way I pick up a wolf admirer, and stop to warm up with a fire to scare him off. I lose some condition here, I am too scared to get close enough to my fire to properly fuel it before the wolf goes away. I take the meat and hide from the deer. The meat is stored safely in my stomach. I leave the guts, they are too dangerous to carry. I decide to go check out the high blind, and start a warming fire at the deer carcass nearby. I cook the deer's meat, and go check the high blind (nothing but a copy of Survive the Outdoors!). I get some sticks, lichen and cattails while I'm at it. Mr. Bear watched with interest while I skinned the deer - he is walking away now, the show is over (do animals ever actually attack while you're crafting outside?). I break down most of my torches to stay under 30 kg. The weather is excellent, I am warm with just a torch, no fire! I make my way to broken railroad, feeling pretty good about myself. I drop 20 of my cattail heads to stay under the 30.0 kg limit I need to avoid being wolf bait. The trip to the Maintenance Yard was as easy as it has ever been, I have no trouble checking all the trucks (no loot) on the way in. Inside, I find another can opener, two pork and beans, 24 matches, cured gut, spray paint, a prybar, a heavy hammer, and a coffee! The toilet gods are most generous and give me 1.85 liters of water! I wasn't short on water by any means, but this excellent discovery makes me happy. I forged a knife and ten arrowheads. I have a whetstone this time around, so one knife is good for now. It'll be a week or more before I can shoot the arrows into various woodland creatures, but it feels good! I work into the night, finishing up with a quick nap to wait for dawn. I creep outside to check the weather. Fairly windless, but quite cold. I'll definitely take a hit in condition - but carrying a flame from Spence's (could have been the Poacher's camp if I didn't screw up!) is quite an accomplishment. I leave, with possibly the last coffee I will ever drink safely stored in my stomach. I make it to the lodge, warm, nicely caffeinated, and with a fire I lit a day ago! THERE IS NO POT. Only a can of Pinnacle Peaches. Up to 4 cooking tools. A search of the premises yields firewood, 12 matches and wool socks. Pretty lousy. I load up the stove. 4 cooking tools is enough, there will be meat on the menu in the future. I harvest a granola bar and rose hips from the vicinity. The wolves are relentless. I load up the stove with pots and water, and head out to see what I can harvest! I get a maple, 0.8 kg of venison, and the deer's guts and hides! I make my way back to the lodge utterly exhausted, surviving by keeping the wolves distracted with rocks. I drop my curable resources on the floor and get some well-deserved rest.

I'll be doing the next run(s?) on custom difficulty with Interloper settings. It just takes too many tries to get a Forlorn Muskeg spawn with the right loot table! (Maybe this is deliberate, but it seems to me like Interloper is biased towards starting you in TWM, which normally I love because of the many delicious cattails and sewing kit). Broken Muskeg Part Deux: I spawn halfway through a bright, cold day on the upper edge of Hat Creek. The wolf who guards the Shortwave Tower is occupied, and I make off with a can opener and a cotton toque that has seen better days. With no heat sources, I move swiftly to the cave with the hacksaw, pausing only to collect a few mushrooms for tea and cattails for tinder. I make it to the Poacher's Camp without too much trouble from the local wildlife, and find a windbreaker, some fuel, a book about guns, and the flare that will save my life. I get a fire going using the book, and make some water and tea while I warm up. Once warm, I quickly tear down my fire into torches and head out. I am stalked by a wolf throughout my entire journey, limiting the amount of delicious cattails and other delicacies that I can collect. I do luck out with a wool toque at the broken building with a fire barrel though ! Spence's farm yields the usual goodies plus a down vest and ski jacket, spare pair of jeans, my favorite book, and some work gloves. With 2/3 of my sleep bar remaining, I briefly consider heading for the Maintenance Yard, but Great Bear Island has other ideas. I content myself with harvesting a collection of mushrooms and lichens from behind Spence's as the weather turns. As night falls, I consider my good fortune so far. I have 14 coal, two each of cedar and fir firewood, 25 or so sticks and 20 cattails. Of course, some of that will be burned tonight to keep me alive. I have a can opener, so my odds of getting up to a full six cooking tools for efficient use of fire at the Lodge are excellent. The Hat Creek spawn is definitely optimal for this run, as it gives you an efficient route to collecting the Hacksaw (if present) and the Shortwave Tower loot is a nice bonus that seems to have good odds of a can opener. I will have to be very careful when I infiltrate the Maintenance Shed - one thing I had on my previous run was a prybar, which is a lot better than nothing when dealing with a sneaky wolf. I am hoarding cattail heads, I plan to use them to make guidelines for getting around Broken Railroad during Blizzards - with the number of wolves and the small choke points into and out of the Maintenance Yard, travel during Blizzards is a great idea if you know exactly where you're going.

I snack on cattails, craft teas, and read A Sewing Primer for an hour before the blizzard ends. I'm greeted by reasonably warm evening weather, and leave the cave for the Milton Basin. I stone some bunnies, make a fire, and gather what cattails and mushrooms I can in the vicinity of the shed. I take the rabbits guts, and cook all their meat. Evening turns to night, complete with a beautiful aurora. I decide to test my luck, packing up two bunny corpses and their guts. Somehow I manage to sneak around the two Aurora wolves guarding the way back to the Muskeg. I manage to carry fire all the way back to my snow shelter, warm for a bit then gather sticks. I sleep as long as my meager fuel supplies permit, then grab a torch and head back through the cave. I do some dances with wolves and manage to score some nice granola bars from the shortwave tower. I'm cornered in the cave with a hacksaw by a wolf and have to use another match to light a defensive fire. It works. The new mechanic with fires and wolves, though harder than the old one, is great. I have little choice but to head onwards to the Poacher's camp and then must choose between an epic slog to the maintenance shed or to the closer, but cold bed at Spences. I make teas and warm up with the coal I find at the Poacher's camp. I chug Reishi tea to warm up as I start trudging towards Spences - but I have an absurdly strong headwind and cannot outpace the wolf that is following me - this seems new, I've never not been able to stay ahead of wolves before. I'm not overburdened - I am tired but am carrying little equipment and almost no fuel or water. In desperation, I use one of my stims and sprint to gain on the wolf. It seems to make no difference and the wolf inexorably approaches. I use the next stim, and make it to the broken house with the fire barrel before exhaustion takes me and the wolf gets a snack. Lessons learned: Don't waste so much time with bunnies, especially where you're burning fuel to stay warm processing them! Of course I want those sweet hats and gloves, and because I found NO sewing kits, needed the guts badly. Next time, get the guts and the meat out of a few, and forget about bunny accessories until later.

I only get one bunny. I'm out of water and very thirsty, so I decide to start a fire. 46 matches. I prep mushrooms, Old Man's Beard and rose hips while I boil up 15 liters of water. I fully harvest the bunny and a bunch of cloth from the curtains in the lodge. I go to bed once my fuel reserves get low. I eat my rabbit meat and my last two cattails and go to bed. I leave behind my dog food, I do not want to waste those recycled cans if at all possible. I walk to the cave, find some firewood and continue across the rickety bridge. A wolf traps me near a deer carcass, and I decide to harvest it. 45 matches. I harvest it while making tea and water. I lose a bunch of fuel to some hard wind, but my fire stays lit. I fully harvest the deer, and head towards the maintenance shed in OK weather. I manage to herd two deer in front of me to distract the yard wolves. One deer meets its end right in a fence opening, so I have to climb up a snowbank and parkour down into the yard, luckily uninjured. I drop off the deer's hide and guts and forge two knives and two arrowheads. Maybe I should have got a hatchet in retrospect. I don't think there is a bedroll in this game, so until I can craft a bow, which requires a hacksaw I have to go back to Forlorn Muskeg for or enough scrap metal to make a hatchet, my sleeping options are extremely limited. I eat my venison and go to sleep for 10 hours. I find one last surprise when I prepare to leave Broken Railroad. I leave one knife and the heavy hammer behind. I leave Broken Railroad without too much trouble from wolves or weather. I make it to the hunter's blind freezing and starving to death. I find a copy of Survive the Outdoors! and some random book. The snow shelter isn't present. I decide to light a fire and get the deer carcass. I left 36 matches behind at the lodge, so I am down to 7 on my person and 43 total. The deer was pretty thicc, yielding 1.6 kg of meat. I get cattails and sticks while things warm up. Thank you Mr Deer A wolf follows me up the frozen stream to the cave. A wolf blocks my path to the shortwave tower, so I decide to check out the cave and the ledge that there is sometimes a moose on. There is no moose, but I find abundant coal, a rope I can later use to make a shortcut down to the Muskeg, and BUNNIES. I also find a stim in the small outdoor cave. I use the torch I carried from the deer carcass to reiginite the fire in the cave. I go harvest 3 bun-buns, sundry sticks and 6 birch barks. Note to Hinterland: Given that tinder is not exactly scarce, why is birch bark first in the tinder selection window? I make a snow shelter and harvest the bunnies into delicious rabbit sliders (yes, I'm min-maxing some things this run). I harvest their guts, put the last of my fuel on the fire and get 8 hours of sleep. Morning yields one more bunny and two more birch barks. I have yet to harvest their hides. I get to the cave freezing. I skin the four rabbits, but gain almost no warmth, the cave is barely above zero. I really don't want to expend another match, but this initial resource-gathering stage is always expensive. A blizzard outside the cave. I have little food, and only six sticks to cook the rabbit meat I have.

I only get one bunny. I'm out of water and very thirsty, so I decide to start a fire. 46 matches. I prep mushrooms, Old Man's Beard and rose hips while I boil up 15 liters of water. I fully harvest the bunny and a bunch of cloth from the curtains in the lodge. I go to bed once my fuel reserves get low. I eat my rabbit meat and my last two cattails and go to bed. I leave behind my dog food, I do not want to waste those recycled cans if at all possible. I walk to the cave, find some firewood and continue across the rickety bridge. A wolf traps me near a deer carcass, and I decide to harvest it. 45 matches. I harvest it while making tea and water. I lose a bunch of fuel to some hard wind, but my fire stays lit. I fully harvest the deer, and head towards the maintenance shed in OK weather. I manage to herd two deer in front of me to distract the yard wolves. One deer meets its end right in a fence opening, so I have to climb up a snowbank and parkour down into the yard, luckily uninjured. I drop off the deer's hide and guts and forge two knives and two arrowheads. Maybe I should have got a hatchet in retrospect. I don't think there is a bedroll in this game, so until I can craft a bow, which requires a hacksaw I have to go back to Forlorn Muskeg for or enough scrap metal to make a hatchet, my sleeping options are extremely limited. I eat my venison and go to sleep for 10 hours. I find one last surprise when I prepare to leave Broken Railroad. I leave one knife and the heavy hammer behind. I leave Broken Railroad without too much trouble from wolves or weather. I make it to the hunter's blind freezing and starving to death. I find a copy of Survive the Outdoors! and some random book. The snow shelter isn't present. I decide to light a fire and get the deer carcass. I left 36 matches behind at the lodge, so I am down to 7 on my person and 43 total. The deer was pretty thicc, yielding 1.6 kg of meat. I get cattails and sticks while things warm up. Thank you Mr Deer A wolf follows me up the frozen stream to the cave. A wolf blocks my path to the shortwave tower, so I decide to check out the cave and the ledge that there is sometimes a moose on. There is no moose, but I find abundant coal, a rope I can later use to make a shortcut down to the Muskeg, and BUNNIES. I also find a stim in the small outdoor cave. I use the torch I carried from the deer carcass to reiginite the fire in the cave. I go harvest 3 bun-buns, sundry sticks and 6 birch barks. Note to Hinterland: Given that tinder is not exactly scarce, why is birch bark first in the tinder selection window? I make a snow shelter and harvest the bunnies into delicious rabbit sliders (yes, I'm min-maxing some things this run). I harvest their guts, put the last of my fuel on the fire and get 8 hours of sleep. Morning yields one more bunny and two more birch barks. I have yet to harvest their hides. I get to the cave freezing. I skin the four rabbits, but gain almost no warmth, the cave is barely above zero. I really don't want to expend another match, but this initial resource-gathering stage is always expensive. A blizzard outside the cave. I have no food, and only six sticks to cook the rabbit meat I have.

This will be a challenge where I stay alive as long as possible in only Forlorn Muskeg, Broken Railroad, and the lower area of Milton (no going up either rope) on the stock Interloper difficulty. No feats, because I forgot to backup my appdata folder when I reformatted everything and reinstalled Windows a year ago. I deliberately restarted until I got a start that has the Heavy Hammer, but NO magnifying lens. That means that the number of fires I will be able to start is very limited. If I make it a long time, I might allow a trip to the nearest magnifying lens. On the fateful respawn attempt, I spawn near the forge in Forlorn Muskeg (this took a LOT of games). I find jeans, a fancy shirt, work boots, two dog foods, a prybar and matches at Spences in addition to the usual stuff. I make the painful decision to use the copy of A Sewing Primer I found to start my first fire, which works - but given that the amount of cloth I will find is somewhat limited, getting to Sewing Level 2 without wasting any cloth on hamfisted attempts to fix my clothes would be nice. Either way, my first match got me a fire, which means that unless I absentmindedly run out of torches, 1 fire, one match for the rest of my life. I break down a crate to get two accelerants. A look back at the forge on my way to Broken railroad. The trip is uneventful, I am not bothered by any wolves and gather a few cattails. I use my torch from the forge to start a cozy fire, where I get warmed up again. The weather is turning - I find the best way to get into Broken Railroad is to wait for a blizzard so the wolves go hide. It works! I arrive cold, hungry and tired. The bed isn't warm enough to save me without a fire, but I find a down vest and am able to eat some cattails and have a good sleep at a Spartan +1 C warmth. I search the rest of the maintenance building, finding a heavy hammer, two prybars, a baseball hat and a scarf and three driving gloves in addition to the usual stuff, plus 24 precious matches, bringing my total to 35. I head for the hunting lodge hungry, and not really warm. Perhaps I am being too conservative of matches, but it is totally plausible that 35 matches are all I have for the rest of the game. I make it there half-frozen to death. There are bunnies and a wolf outside. I didn't carry the rope I found at the Maintenance shed with me, something I might regret. MATCHES ! Another Sewing Primer and a parka. Also a rope. Forlorn Muskeg and Broken railroad are not so rich in bunnies, so I decide to go kill some bun-buns so I can wear their skin. I also got a pot and a can. Finding more cooking tools or a can opener to make more is a high priority.

In addition to my theory that Hobbs would die shortly after you pulled out the knife anyway, I can totally see why Hobbs tried to goad Will into killing him - he's got a bad knife wound and there are no doctors and the world just ended - he's screwed.

I honestly thought he was going to die when you pulled the knife out - although you still would have done the right thing by attempting to help, he would have died of blood loss from the knife being removed from the wound.

This is excellent - keep it up! Before long you'll be saying "Interloper is boring, what if I restrict myself to Timberwolf Mountain?"

Yes there is a 100% combat pants and ear wraps spawn in HRV that can be reached even if you don't have a hatchet to get to the signal fire. One of the signal fires is accessible without a hatchet, which will get you a Mackinaw jacket and a few other goodies. Arguably, HRV with the no-hatchet signal fire is the best spawn in Interloper right now. HRV is confusing as heck at first, but once you know where you're going it is possible to get around it pretty fast - and nowhere you absolutely NEED to go is that far from the relative safety of the wolf-free parts of the ice caves. You can't survive in there long term without a bow and some warm clothes, but you absolutely get in and out alive with nothing but a bedroll even in Interloper.

IMO blizzard raiding is the only way to deal with Milton. The dangerous journeys are all short enough that unless you have to go upwind you won't take cold damage (except maybe going from the town to the Barker farm)

Amazing! I just spent an hour reading this thread, it makes me want to try and beat my paltry 13 day Deadman record.

It wouldn't be complicated to do it just for the summit - just check if the player is within a certain height range and not on the rope.

You're forgetting a very important difficulty setting: The abundance of edible plants. Teas give you 110 calories and give a massive increase in the distance you can travel without getting cold damage. They are extremely potent tools - for instance, you need a Feels Like of about -10 to make it from the barn to the farmhouse in PV without damage - but with a supply of hot tea to enjoy along the way you can do it in just about any temperature that you want because of the instant +20% heat gain you get per tea. I don't think the Feels Like temperature changes how fast teas cool off - so a large supply of hot tea makes you basically temperature independent - you just need to drink more teas if its colder - you can travel freely until your teas cool off. Cattails do not decay and do not attract animals, and have a better calorie/weight ratio than any other food that spawns in Interloper other than crackers and beef jerky. Cattails are arguably better than beef jerky because they don't make you thirsty. They represent 90% of your calorie supply until you can hunt. Personally I think the lack of a rifle in interloper is not a fun gameplay decision - as long as rifles and bullets are rare, you get a very limited number of shots and have to haul around a 4 kg gun - compare that to under 2 kg for a bow and six arrows. You will never get your shooting up that high unless you read a bunch of books, which is a questionable decision considering the low ammo supply.

The dual recovery system presents a challenge because to optimally recover you need to sleep in 10 hour blocks, which means you need to spend a significant part of the day at below 50% fatigue - at which point your carrying capacity starts to drop, which in turn increases the risk of animal attack due to overburden.

Congrats! What an adventure. It makes me want to go back to trying Deadman. I'd feel good about a 20 day run, and a 49 day run is just incredible!

Why not corner the deer somewhere and shoot it on the run? Atheenon did that on a Deadman run in the Ravine and it worked fine.

IMO it is a late game strategy! Never totally drink a tea unless you need its medicinal effects - you can still get 85% of the calories, water and warming drinking it partially.

The other thing that parasites do is that they give you the same debuff to your fatigue that not eating for too long gives you. This lets you sleep more, which reduces your calorie burn. To phrase Stone's answer another way, parasites cap your condition at -2% per day. So, in deadman, if you have 70% condition, you can leave parasites untreated for 5 days and still recover without condition loss.