UTC-10

Unexpectedly, I made a lost and found box spawn in Blackrock Prison. Surprised as heck to suddenly see it outside the enclosure that is the Steam Tunnels. I eventually figured out that I had thrown two stones over the walls of the Prison, basically throwing them out of bounds, and the game put them back in the game inside a box with two stones. At least that is my guess. I think I will leave that box alone. 😁 Too bad it couldn't have had 🥞

I think that the problem with ruined food in a container was more that the devs did not consider that while the act of consolidating all that ruined food in a Lost and Found box did not in itself cause the ruined food to disappear, any action by the player/character that resulted in saving the game subsequently caused the game to update things so - ruined food in a container, away it goes, per the usual rule - a possible oversight that they didn't realize at the time and it was too late to do anything about by the time they realized it. I remember entering a save game, stepping outside of the Camp Office and checking the Regional Lost and Found box on the porch. I was astounded to see that it was full of ruined meat (cooked and uncooked) among other things. I immediately ran back inside which caused the game to save (I had this idea that maybe the 'mistake' had been stealth fixed) and came out again to find all the ruined meat (and other ruined food) had disappeared. I was mortified that I did not think of the alternative outcome.

If I have nothing else to do at the moment, I will go out and collect sticks. I have had containers, drawers, cabinets, car trunks, lockers, and more filled with sticks as well as a pile or two near stoves, fire barrels, campfires, and fire places. I once had so many sticks heaped on the floor of the Camp Office that it took me (I timed it) almost a minute to exit from the building. Once I made a bunch of piles (100 sticks each) of the sticks instead of one big heap, getting out of the Camp Office went back to normal. 😅

I would like the capacity to cut fish in half, assumed to be cooked fish. The smaller white fish and river trout would not be a problem but the large bass and salmon can easily have more than 1k or 2k calories. Now why would I want to cut a fish in half? I figured out why I seemed to be eating cooked fish and ending up with a remaining piece that was smaller than expected (or nothing at all). I want to stop having to practically starve myself to get the maximum calorie benefit or sacrificing calories because I was not that hungry. I finally figured out just what was happening. If the large cooked fish could be cut in half, the wastage of fish would go down. 😁 tl;dr If your cooked fish disappears to a greater extent than expected when consumed, this would be one reason. [Example] Conditions: Level 5 cooking (+25% calories over base) Calories Weight (kg) Cal/kg Coho salmon 1,370 2.41 568.5 Hunger 850 Coho salmon 245 0.54 453.7 There should have been 520 calories remaining in a piece weighing 0.92 kg. Base Rate equals 453.7 cal/kg (assume level 1 cooking). Level 5 rate equals 568.5 cal/kg (+25% over base rate). There will be math... What happened was that the 850 calories consumed was converted to kg of salmon using base rate of 453.7 cal/kg or 1.87 kg of fish. 2.41 kg minus 1.87 kg equals 0.54 kg. Game now shows the remaining 0.54 kg of salmon using the base rate of 453.7 to arrive at a calorie content of 245 calories. If it showed that 0.54 kg piece at Level 5 rate of 568.5 cal/kg then the piece would have had 307 calories. If the game used calories to measure how much salmon was consumed there should have been a 0.92 kg piece with 520 calorie content. There I did it. I can relax now.

I suspect that there would be a fair possibility of Donner surviving the events of Episode 4 to become a dilemma in Episode 5. I think that the last confrontation in the power plant established that Donner had been very badly injured although to what extent was unknown other than the fact that other members of Mathis' gang thought he might die while Mathis was confronting Will and Jace. This would seem to set up a situation where Astrid, as a medical doctor, might be called upon to operate on Donner and have to decide whether to 1) do it or not, and 2) if doing it whether to try to save his life or end it. As probably the only medical doctor on hand, it probably would not be too hard for her to deliberately make a wrong cut during the operation and have Donner die on the operating table. Probably the main confrontation with Mathis and his gang would have been adjudicated by then, so the issue would be whether to expend the effort to try to save Donner.

We haven't seen another Lost and Found event since back about Episode 3 when it was implemented. The negative consequences to all to trying to spare a few the possibility of losing gear were pretty overwhelming. At least IMO. Lost and Found could be tweaked with respect to ruined food but other effects while not so troublesome (like laboriously laid out trail and safe passage makers being swept up and away or materials left at forges and work benches, etc. being moved far away) were likely not welcome either.

I was recently going through a cave near Thomson's Crossing in one of my long-running sandboxes and what did I find next to a corpse? A box of revolver ammunition. I had previously, a life-time ago, had been through the area, checked the corpse, and had not returned for a very long time. I know that the last visit must have been quite a while ago before revolvers and their ammunition were introduced. Can always use more ammo. 🙂

I always assumed, since there was no other location in Pleasant Valley that would be suitable (Wintermute needs and developer's discretion), that what is now Keeper's Pass South was where Astrid had been found or at least on the path. Probably further from Mirthless Fork than has been displayed as possible in the game as I expect the wrecked tractor-trailer rig filling the tunnel was put there because Hinterland wanted to limit how much further they would have had to otherwise design the path towards Milton at this time. I do not consider that tunnel, for the most part, to be the same tunnel, just the other end, that the bus had its accident near Milton itself. Although I would concede that it would be a pretty long distance for Molly to just wander, I would assume that beyond this blocked tunnel at Mirthless Fork, there were open space and more tunnels of varying length, since it was rather mountainous terrain, until she got to the tunnel where Astrid had collapsed nearby. So seemingly inconsistent land features would not be out of the question from what episode 3 had displayed. I do wonder if that path from Mirthless Fork/Keeper's Pass South would eventually be opened up to Milton and beyond to Perseverance Mills region? The broken bus can still largely block the tunnel outside of Milton, since it was a fixture in Wintermute, and the path might require either a rope climb, a hand climb, or a traverse through a cave to get to Milton to continue beyond the town. Of course that would make access to Milton a whole lot easier and might make for two transition zones - Keeper's Pass South to Milton and Milton to Perseverance Mills region. I guess we'll see how that works out.

A pair of rabbit skin mittens weighs 1 kg . Animal-hide clothing was not essential to Wintermute so not expanding on that aspect would be understandable. Still with Wintermute heading towards the fifth and final installment maybe some expansion might be worked on (though probably it would end up as DLC). New clothing items that could be crafted from animal hides would be nice. A deerskin jacket and a deerskin shirt to use up some of the accumulating store of cured deer hides would be nice. Modern manufactured clothing would be specifically designed to use the advantages of modern fabrics so would perform better for a given weight. If animal-hide clothing was superior to the manufactured stuff then the natural incentive would be to get the animal-hide stuff asap and disdain the modern stuff once that were crafted. I typically use rabbit skin hat, mittens, and deerskin pants and boots, and (now) wolfskin coat because I can mend them from materials I obtain in the wild but that's just me. In my current game, I got gods how many expedition parkas but still go around in my usual ensemble because I get more rabbit, deer, and wolf hides regularly but cloth can (to my mind) be a bit more scarce. So to each their own. Nobody is wrong in this context. They just make different decisions depending on the circumstances as they see it.

No objection at all to the suggestion. I have wanted permanent jerry cans for a long time. Being able to transfer lamp oil from jerry can to lantern fuel bottle and back again would be nice. As a note, the "jerry can" in the game is more akin to the 1 gallon (US) can used to fuel lawn mowers and for getting gas to a car so it can be driven to a gas station. The more typical "jerry can" I would think of would be of the 5 gallon (20 liter) variety. Although the bigger can would be a pain to move around especially when full, I would not object to finding permanent cans like that. The capacity to transfer fuel would be nice too.

The devs would "need" to do something about fiery brands if they were to bring them back. They were like empty spray cans and ruined survival bows in that they could not be disposed of. At least the spray cans and bows could be taken outside and dropped somewhere... maybe a park ranger might come along and cite you for littering. Joy! Signs of returning civilization at last! 😉

So long as the fiery brand mechanics were modified. The use of them for brandishing against predators was not unreasonable though... They could not be lit (if blown out or extinguished) from a match or fire, could not be burned in a fire, harvested or otherwise disposed of other than by littering (if dropped outside they tended to not re-spawn like harvested carcasses). They did not go into inventory so could not be carried through a transition. As an object their presence, especially dropped inside, could interfere with something from being put down or placed and since they could not be disposed of they would accumulate. They were a substitute for pulling a torch from a fire but other than for the specific use as a fiery deterrent to predators, their negative sides made them rather less than utilitarian and more detrimental/problematic. Making brands just like torches would have negated the reason for them and added to the programming of the game. The permanency of brands would likely be found to be cluttering up the game world so they probably had to go, but that would be a dev decision.

Recently I found that while you end up at the Add Fuel, Take Torch, Cook, Water menu when you want to light a torch from a stove, fire barrel or furnace, until it gets fixed, if you have an unlit torch equipped, clicking on Add Fuel will initiate the motion of lighting the torch from the fire. I didn't know that before because I didn't bother to try that with an equipped unlit torch as I didn't think it would work. I decided to try and see what would happen. Also, if you click on take torch, you will take a torch and what you were equipped (the unlit torch) will go into inventory.

Nothing as serious as what you recounted. Though the last one caused me to delete the save game, because a glitch cost me my bedroll, and bring back a backup save which cost me several calendar days of game progress but I still had everything and could continue. Tricky those Star Trek Transporters when they glitch. 😉 Sounds like a really bad glitch. You were in the Quonset. When the game was getting the game world set up, it mistakenly thought those coordinates was in some other location which had sparking wires, then it put you in the truck behind the Quonset. You staggered out of the truck looking and feeling like you've tangled with a bolt of lightning. Alternately, since the way things get spawned in the game is they drop from the sky to where they should be, two things happened. 1) It dropped you through a thunderstorm and you were being hit by lightning. 2) The storm threw off the game's aim so you ended up in the truck not the Quonset. 😲 That was back luck though. 🥞

Proto-Gauss Rifle A clunky roughly rifle-shaped device bulging with capacitors, a controlling computer, and a battery pack. Weighing about as much as the rifle. Uses short pieces of steel rod which can be loaded into a plastic magazine. A mostly silent weapon, emitting soft clicks as each capacitor dumps its charge into the electromagnets that accelerate the steel projectile down the barrel. With the aurora supplying power, the device is capable of fairly rapid fire by rapidly pulling the trigger. It is very capable of punching holes in a sheet of paper. With all that fire-power and mediocre "accuracy" at 25 feet, this is just the thing to give a rabbit a fighting chance of surviving the attention of a hungry survivor. 😁 (As depicted on Forgotten Weapons or InRange, a while ago, I forget which )

Mini electric (aurora powered) forge. 😲 Don't care for the improvised knife or hatchet. Want a lighter pot even if it is less durable? Then the aurora-powered mini forge may be the thing for you! Ruined your hatchet by being maybe too enthusiastic in its use and not paying attention? Cast a new hatchet head. All it takes is ten scrap metal (twice what would be needed for an improvised hatchet), a few hours to melt and then cast, and *voila* a hatchet head that with some work to sharpen the edge (5 sharpening actions with a whet stone) can be fixed to a fir wood handle (separate crafting action) and a replacement hatchet has been born. Ruined the hunting knife? Cast a new blade. All it takes is five scrap metal a couple hours to melt, then some time with a whet stone to give the "blade" an edge, and a new hunting knife rises from the ashes. Steel pot too heavy? Want to cut that down? How about an aluminum pot that weighs half as much? Dump ten cans into the maw of the forge, let the aurora do its magic for an hour, and cast an aluminum pot. Unfortunately it take 1% damage from each use, 10% damage from being boiled dry or burning food, and cannot be repaired but it can be melted down along with five more cans to cast a new one. So what does a little condition loss matter if you save 0.5 kg of precious weight. In all cases be sure to remove the cast item from the forge before the aurora ends or the melting and casting action will have to be done again. Trying to lift or move the 30 kg mini electric forge may be strenuous and could cause back problems for which the Great Bear cottage industry will not be liable. You were warned. More sophisticated devices can be created using our latest device plans with our state of the art electronic 3D printer. Order your own 3D printer and start increasing your chances of survival NOW. Contact our director, Raphel Van Lierop, Vancouver, BC, for purchasing details. Prompt delivery expected but not guaranteed. Supplies ordered separately and stable electrical power source not included. Operation during the current aurora crisis voids warranty unless protected by a full faraday isolation enclosure. 😁 🥞

Flashlight Rework the flashlight that as long as the aurora effects were active the normal mode of the flashlight has no time (e.g., capacity) limitation. If the aurora goes all night, the flashlight, once turned on, will go all night. Each time the flashlight is turned on (during the aurora), it has a condition loss of 1%. For the alternate "high power" mode, now "capacity" counts but represents the flashlight overheating until it cuts out (when 'capacity' is exhausted) and the 'recharge' represents the flashlight cooling off. This is more stressful to the flashlight so each time "high power" is triggered it costs 5% of condition. This would give a reason to repair the flashlight and keep it in good repair, if one is so inclined. Hand-held electric arc fire starter A battery (now aurora) powered device that uses an electric arc to start a fire/start a torch. The device can be used, only during an aurora, repeatedly at a condition cost of 2% per use. It can be used as kind of momentary lighting device because the short-term arc can provide a spark of light similar to the electronic igniter of the storm lantern. It can be repaired with a tool kit and a scrap metal. An alternate repurposing of the device could be a crafting one-way modification that turns it into a more brilliant device that by the over-the-top electric arc it can fend off/chase off (at least for a while) aurora wolves maybe a bit more reliably than the Flashlight. Each use whether successful or not reduces the modified device's condition by 5% and it is not repairable. It can still light fires though at the modification's condition cost. Device indicator lights An electrical device, such as microwave, hot plate, coffee maker, etc., has a (random) chance to exhibit glowing or flashing indicators though the device would not be operable. More problematic due to the extensive number of such device in the game world, but it would certainly be 'entertaining' to be thinking, "come on, I got this tin of coffee and a liter of water and I really could use a couple cups of java" while staring at a coffee maker that shows many signs of being functional (but is not). 🙂 What would be wild, if highly unlikely to be implemented, would be the extremely rare device that actually does work.

I began playing The Long Dark back in Early Access. Haven't really gotten around to trying Story Mode (now known as Wintermute). I have played the easy mode, Pilgrim, for a long time and am certainly no match for those who choose Interloper or Stalker or Voyager (where I initially started). I noticed recently I passed a kind of milestone. Good luck everyone. Have fun.

As information, I do not play interloper but I know that Blackrock's Foreman's Clearcut Trailer on Pilgrim does not have a bed at all, just an old bedroll.

The obvious reason was that the devs had to pick and choose what they spend their time and efforts on. You may have noticed that there were only a certain number of different frozen corpses that we run across. A corpse in a vehicle would necessitate all the effort to create the corpses [unless one generic corpse was fine] then there would likely be some tweaks to game mechanics i.e. you can't pull the corpse from the car, more importantly you can't get into the car from that side/door, you can't exit the car past that corpse, etc. Other than that, sounds like a very reasonable idea which the devs could put into the game.

Probably with updated v. 2.00, the door to the first floor of the Infirmary no longer teases characters by appearing to be locked. It has become inert now. Probably for the best but I got a kick from clicking on the door when I passed it and silently (to myself) pleading, "Come on, open up". 😁

Wintermute occurs in a very limited span of time of nominally a few weeks. I believe that, quite early in development, the devs had aspirations of implementing seasons into the game world but, like a lot of things, had to scale back their thinking to what served the needs of the game they were developing.

There is now a bug, with the 2.00 update, in lighting torches from stoves and fire barrels (and rim grills). You can't. What you get is the Add Fuel, Take Torch, etc., menu. So you can add fuel to the fire and take a torch but cannot light the torch from the it. I think that was unintended by the devs. Lighting a torch from a campfire works as usual. I bugged this to support.

As far as I know running does not impact hypothermia risk except maybe at the margins (a tiny increase in warmth that would be easily missed). You won't get warm from running but you can get exhausted. There is no sweating in the game from running or any strenuous activity. The animal model used in the game consists of zones of the animal which have a chance for a critical hit or a bleeding wound. The head and neck of an animal would tend to have the best chance for a critical hit which kills the animal on the spot or, if that does not happen, the shortest bleed out time. Getting good with the particular weapon (revolver, rifle or bow) tends to up the chance of a critical hit. A hit scores a critical or a bleed, so the usual advice would be one good hit (death or bleed) is all that is needed. In the latter case of a bleed then one has to locate the carcass which might be some distance from where it was shot. Multiple hits give a chance for a killing shot but do not really impact bleeds unless it was a more severe bleed (depending on where the shots landed). No cumulative effect from bleeds. So if the animal is hit and runs away (didn't die on the spot), the key thing is that it leaves a blood trail which means it is bleeding. There are "trivial" hits that look like a good hit but do not bleed the animal so no blood trail. Moose are the only animal that does not bleed out. In this case, listen to the moose that was shot and if it is now making a kind of moaning noise (usually it is silent) then that seems to say another good hit (like another head shot) will tend to drop it. But that is just what I surmise. It is possible to "heal" a bleeding animal which seems to be related to the way the game handles certain situations but you didn't ask that.

I just discovered that 1) the fire barrel at the Pleasant Valley Farmstead has been changed to a Rim Grill. No real problem with that though having my point of view shifted upwards away from the fire I am trying to start when I want to light a fire or add fuel was a bit distracting. I'll get used to that. It could be a kind of a problem for low fire starting skill characters who try to light a stick using the magnifying lens (I found that the remaining fire duration on the stick could be an issue if one has to reestablish contact with the fire to feed it more fuel. BUT, more significantly, 2) I can no longer light a torch at either the Rim Grill or the Farmstead stove as I get presented with the Add Fuel, Take Torch, etc. choices. I can TAKE a torch from the Rim Grill or the Farmstead Stove but I cannot light one. I do not know yet about the Farmstead fireplace as I wanted to light a torch to light the fireplace not add more fuel to the stove so I could pull a torch to light the fireplace. 😅