UTC-10

There is no capacity to drag anything in the survival mode game. Being able to drag a carcass, a limb, a sled, etc. has been asked for since forever. It may be mentioned that in Story mode, episode 3, Astrid had the capacity to "carry" a survivor (without regard for the weight of the survivor) as a "mechanic" for dragging stuff, but that was (imo) a quest enabler in place of a game mechanic. Since The Long Dark originally was to be in story mode, a very limited period of time during winter, there would be no time for Will or Astrid to construct such a sled. If episode 5 had a quest that required such a item, certainly something would be improvised for the purposes of the quest not for survival mode play. Other than that, there really would be nothing wrong with sleds for carcasses, gear, wood, or (maybe) logs (though those would bring up different considerations), but implementation would always be the problem. The sled would be the easy part. How it would interact with the player and the environment would be the difficult part.

The carcass of the bear would be in the last place you look. If you haven't found the carcass then you haven't gotten to the last place. 😁 It can be maddening. I shot a bear (the Long Curve bear) on the western fields at the Farmstead. It took me the better part of two days to finally locate the carcass laying between the Farmstead Barn and road. 😲 I had been missing it, until the end, because I was following all the "logical" paths the bleeding bear might have taken back to its cave and that "logic" took me hither and yon as I looked for the black spot of the carcass.

Depends on how one goes about getting the minimum 150 C forging temperature. With ten sticks (+10 C at +1 C per stick) and seven coal (+140 C at +20 C per piece) one gets to 150 C. That is the most efficient use of coal given a minimum use of wood. One could use eight pieces of coal and one stick (to get the fire going, the 20 minute waiting period before adding coal went away a long time ago) and get to 161 C in the furnace. As noted by others wood has a maximum temperature of +80 C and coal has no upper limit so four coal added to a max temp wood fire would be enough to get to 160 C. Workable if one has lots of wood and not much coal. If at precisely 150 C one should never take a torch from the fire as that drops the temperature to 149 C, no more forging, and to get it back to 150 C or over would take coal since wood has a maximum temperature of +80 C. There is a 12 hour limit on current fire duration (no more fuel can be added until the fire duration has gone down enough that whatever is being added would not cause the duration to rise above 12 hours). Once the fire is at or above the required temperature, the temperature can be maintained with only wood, given the way fires work in the game. Good luck.

Intestinal parasites was the devs way of discouraging the consumption of predator meat since deer run away while wolves and bears threaten the character. Eventually there was cooking skill which at level 5 confers an immunity to intestinal parasite (risk) for any cooked predator meat. The immunity does not apply for raw predator meat and, because of the way the game runs, there is no "spitting out" of inadvertent bites of raw predator meat. That was one reason for the only "do you want to eat that raw meat" warning in the game (through the radial menu) given how easy it was to hit LMB instead of RMB. The warning does not happen/apply when delving in inventory. If one does not have Cooking Level 5 there is no cooked predator meat of any condition that can be consumed without acquiring a risk of intestinal parasites. Given the % test that is made, even a 1% risk can become the affliction. Players have had it happen multiple times in a row. It is up to the player to decide what is an acceptable risk. Getting to Cooking Level 5 tends to be something many strive to achieve because it basically eliminates the food poisoning and intestinal parasite risk for cooked meat. Good luck.

A decent work-around though I have been (usually) making entries in the daily diary from early on. Since I don't expect the General Notes space to be expanded anytime soon, I will keep that in mind when General Notes runs out of space. Now that I know that it is limited I'll be better prepared. Scrolling the daily diary can be chunky. I have had times when I would not be able to scroll, times when getting it to scroll will JUMP well past where it was supposed to go to, etc. Well, the game was not specifically about players who want to write a novel of their experiences or keep extremely copious notes in survival mode. 😅

I ran into a limitation of the General Notes tab of the Journal. It just ran out of space. I had to go back and edit notes I had made about things like sleeping, attaining various skill levels, and what my cache of ammunition components (and other materials) in Bleak Inlet contained. I am not sure of how much space I made but I am sure it will run out in short order. For the diary style of the Journal, I would like there to be either the option to have it displayed in reverse order to what it does now (so the current day shows up first) or have a button to get me to the end of my entries so I can fill up even more space in the save game file without having to scroll. I make a lot of entries and this latter thing would be a convenience. The size limitation of the General Notes is more "serious". Expanding the space available would be very nice though I suppose some kind of indicator saying how close I was to the end of the available space would be helpful.

I had thought that snow shelters provided no protection against wolves and bear though I can see why timberwolves might have a problem since they do attacks en passant rather than come up to shake/bite your hand. Wolf and bear-proof snow shelters would invite using them to ambush bears since if the bear can't get at the character the canny character can then shoot at the bear in perfect safety. Attractive but I don't think the devs would let that happen.

Interesting... I mean the recovery (heal) time for four broken ribs afflictions looks to be 66 hours each where before it would be expect to be 120 hours each. If you were wearing the ballistic vest that might account for that otherwise, if not, the recovery time for the affliction has been reduced by almost half.

I play on PC and found that initially the saves would take little time. As the I progresses through the game, the save times seem to take noticeably longer. The longer the game is played the more that has to be saved. That probably won't get shorter the longer one plays, the more areas explored, and more stuff acquired.

Off hand I recall one rope climb set inside a cave and that was in Ash Canyon. I might venture to guess that might have gotten the devs to incorporate putting a burning torch or lit lantern away since the ledge above was too high to throw a torch onto and, lacking a lantern, the rope climb forced players to use an irreplaceable match or burn another irreplaceable flare to relight a torch. It was probably thought that it was not that big a deal even if not quite "realistic". Being able to drop things off cliffs (or pretty much anywhere) would be an enormously useful mechanic as it would mean the character could now "throw" any item not just that he could throw it off a higher place to a lower place. I suspect that expansion of "what can be thrown" - because anyone can "drop" an item on the ground - to be able to toss it over a cliff or off a bridge, etc. - was probably thought too problematic to deal with. But I would not mind being able to do so.

No. Survival mode which was an adaptation of the very popular survival sandbox is frozen in time. I had wondered about it long ago and realized that it reflects a period of time when Wintermute would be occurring. In winter, nothing regrows. Certainly if there was a mechanic I, playing Pilgrim for 900 to 2000 days (various sandboxes) would have seen something. The only time cattails might reappear would be if, during a landscape update, the devs do something wrong and cause things like that to respawn. Else, what you saw was what you got.

Survival mode was an adaptation of the survival sandbox which was intended to test survival mechanics. It was not intended to be an actual gameable mode, hence no intrinsic mode objectives, but it proved too popular to not incorporate as an alternate play mode. Maybe once Wintermute is concluded or goes its separate way then survival mode may mutate to have a separate life of its own. It would certainly be a real possibility though it might be a good long while to come.

Not sure when it happened, probably with episode 4 update, I guess, but now when you have a torch, presumably a flare as well, or a lantern, when you climb (up or down) a rope, "you put the lit torch or lantern away (so it does get dark if in a dark area)" do the climb then presto "you bring it back out, still lit". Surprised the heck out of me when I confirmed that actually happens at least with rope climbs. I should check if it applies to non-rope climbs or maybe somebody has already checked that. I had my trials throwing torches up to the next level, like the climb to the next level in the cave link between Forlorn Muskeg and Bleak Inlet. I found in that case that I had to go around to the side to throw it up to the next level and not stand at the base of the free climbing face.

You should be able to go in through the side door but not the double doors. Someone did a fly through the double doors and said the first floor interior beyond the double doors was not in his opinion ready for prime time. That might eventually change but, currently, the side door can be opened and leads to stairs and the upper floor of the infirmary.

The game has its inconsistencies. Since the car battery has no use (up to now) other than as a source of lead plates, it poses no danger of electrocution. But it is good to ask - let someone else risk death and find out so you don't have to. 😅 The flashlight has a "storage capacity" that can be depleted and has to be recharged by the aurora but does not retain ANY charge at all once the aurora ends. It might have been more "consistent" to make the flashlight more of a power receptor fed by the aurora and could remain lit as long as the aurora continued. Then when the aurora ends, the flashlight winks out. To deal with the "anti-aurora wolf" feature make that "overheat" the flashlight necessitating repairs. If so inclined, one could make a backup copy of a save game, update as needed, and then take that "explorer" save game into potentially dangerous locations to scout out what was what. Basically a scum save so if the character dies it can be restored. Not everyone would go along with that but it would be an option.

Antibiotics like pain killers are things that have not a whole lot of utility until circumstances demand them. As far as canning food goes, it ALL depends on the manner of implementation which the devs would have to decide on. I can see the devs allowing the other perks that were presumed i.e. longer storage time, no scent, etc. in exchange for self-canned food being an exception to the No food poisoning benefit of level 5 cooking. You don't know how well the can's contents got cooked (% chance) and they could even impose a "super" food poisoning affliction for that. But that latter is kind of silly. 🙂

I will have to check and see if any action that results, when one is done with it, like looking into inventory, with the bow is being reequipped and the lowest condition arrow then being automatically loaded. I always kept holstering the bow (I am in Pilgrim) and then wielding it to ensure the lowest condition arrow was to be used. Maybe that was no longer needed (or was never needed or not needed for a long time) as long as I did something that would normally mean putting the bow away or to one side then having the reequip it.

The devs have been experimenting with combining items (that would otherwise stack) with very slightly different condition, like 77% and 78% but not 79%. It happened to matches and to rabbit hides and guts too. I do not know the parameters the devs put into this "combining" of the same items with slightly differing conditions. I know that the game does show my lantern in inventory having 0.99 liters of lamp oil, but when I go to refuel it, it shows 1.00 liters. Same with lantern fuel bottles on occasion. I wonder if the same thing is happening. Different parts of the game view the % and kg slightly differently.

When did this get installed at Homesteader's Respite, Ash Canyon? I had stepped outside to admire the aurora and could hear an electrical sound (the crackling) that never was there in the four previous sandboxes. I walked all over by the cabin and couldn't see anything. Then I closed in on where the sound emanated from and looked up. There it was?!? I assume this was by intention though a close inspection of the inside of Homesteader's Respite did not show any lights other than the two outside lights on either side of the door and they had always been there and were never functional. So the cabin has one "aurora-powered light" outside. Not sure why that was done. At least I finally found the ONLY working electric light in all of Ash Canyon. I did not find the flashlight that spawned once at the Gold Mine but it might turn up somewhere. Not even an outdoor light.

I suspect that, in many cases, the game does not display the numbers after the decimal place. It exists but does not show. Likely 100% arrows are 100.00% arrows so stack. But what you cannot see with your three 74% arrows are the decimal place that makes them just different enough so they don't stack. At least that's my guess. You may recall that people had problems getting 100% for clothing in all slots badge. The game, for clothes, rounds the number so 77% + 22.5% = 100% not 99.5% because you cannot see it, but when looking for are all clothing at 100% it sees the 99.5% and says you haven't made it yet. And you can't make a mend to fill in that last bit because the item is already at "100"%. I know of no way to select any particular arrow without dropping the lower condition ones. The game seems to default to the lowest condition arrow. Works for me. But I see your point.

What Mountaineer's Hut also needs is a rifle rack. What can be more rustic than a rifle rack on the wall? The rack can have a small drawer for ammo though that might make it impossible to break up the rack (which is a shelf) because now it contains a container. I think most players wouldn't mind being able to lean the rifle against a wall or something either.

Maybe the devs thought it would be just the thing for Armored Plus Class in Winter Brutality Great Bear Island 2021? The stage of "Moose Stomping Character" then the stage of "Bear Mauling Character" then the stage of "Wolf Attacking Character". At least the stages do not require using the SMLE while standing in a ditch of freezing water and trying to score hits on the approaching animals. 😄

So Blackrock prison will be (I am still downloading the update) impacted by Will, Jace, and Mathis and company, I guess can't be helped 😓. That running steam generator in the steam tunnels would have been a bit much as well as a functional (what looked like a kind of hydro) power plant. I'd hope that Jace left the power breakers in usable condition 😐. I won't be going there soon as I am now in Ash Canyon - just kind of got there - and have to get to the upper level (Miner's Folly and the Gold Mine) and explore the region thoroughly. Nice to know Blackrock can be accessed from two regions that are actually rather close together, relatively. Have fun everyone.

Blackrock should be accessible with existing sandboxes. I watched the update video. I like it.

I would think that whatever is going to be introduced will be more like the crampons. It has its uses and its scope of usefulness is limited. I think I would prefer the shielded aurora-powered hand lantern, especially if it can retain a charge for some hours (ideally for an indefinite period until used but that's asking a lot) after the aurora fades out. Even if the charge would provide light for 15 to 30 game minutes, I would find that an acceptable amount of time if I didn't have to use my lantern for a quick look. I'd have no problem with a Zippo lighter.