UTC-10

Looked up curing salt (i.e. pink salt) and it would be composed of a very large % of sodium chloride and a much smaller % of sodium nitrite (which can be poisonous in high enough concentrations). Chloride dries the meat, which stops most bacteria and fungus, and Nitrite inhibits growth of some bacteria like the botulinus bacilli. In any case, what will matter would be HOW the devs decide to IMPLEMENT any food preservation mechanic. Dried or smoked meat/fish would be possible. Salting likewise. Even production of something like pemmican. About the only thing ruled out, so far, would be freezing given that already exists in the game in a way, albeit not the way most people would have expected give real life considerations.

Near the elevator, when in the cave, there will be a fire barrel. Deeper inside there is another. Since you will be "inside" you would have to light a fire in the fire barrel. Other than making water or teas, etc. if you need to, there is not that much need for a fire unless you're going to use torches or want to keep a fire going. I recall that by the fire barrel by the elevator there should be some wood and there should be some crates and some coal that you can break down or pick up in accessible parts of the mine. In one sandbox, I spent about 19 days in the mine and nearly ran out of food (I planned for 18 days) before the aurora showed up and let me out. I was in Pilgrim so not subject to cabin fever so be careful. In my forays into the mine, I tended to find an Advanced Guns Guns Guns book and often read most of it or all of it before getting out. Note that during the daytime you can read in the mine without a light source (at least the times I was in there) so you don't or may not have to have a fire or use your lantern to read. You'd think not because it is dark but I found I could. The usual advice is get in and quickly get out. The occurrence of the aurora can be pretty erratic at times. Good luck.

Magnifying lens if circumstances allow and matches if not. Since my main sandboxes tend to be long running, and I made Fire Starting Level 5 a long time ago, that's what I do. If I am in a new sandbox, like when I started one in Winter's Embrace, I would do the same thing except when using a match I would light a torch for the usual reasons. I have used a fire striker a few times but have never done it more than a few times and never used one up. Since my sandboxes tend to be always in Pilgrim, obviously I have more flexibility in why and how I start a fire.

The rifle is quite adequate given the circumstances (it is a game) that it was intended for. The actual characteristics of the ammunition do not matter as consideration of bullet weights, types, powder charges, and loadings would be likely far beyond the scope of what the devs wanted in the game. For simplicity, a bullet is a bullet, fmj/sp/hp is all the same, and so a round of 303 ammunition is just a round of ammunition. Given the animal model used for hunting in the game, one might postulate that a 22LR could be as effective as the 303, or even the 50 BMG if the devs chose to implement it. Maybe once Story mode concludes and the devs can expand on what happens in Survival mode, assuming development continues.

Does the game do the same thing when using the rifle? Given the description, it should have the same problem thing you described. It does sound like something is cycling (on/off) with respect to the RMB input. If you have access to another mouse you might install it and try again. That will confirm whether it is something inherent in the mouse itself (which then should probably be replaced) or somewhere else in your computer (like something in the mouse port or usb port is messing up, a probably more difficult repair). Suspect it may be more the mouse than the computer.

I do not know if the "shortcut" to the Deer clearing level had been fixed (it comes down in the other arm out of that "cave" shown but some time ago people would occasionally get cut off from the summit because they would take the rope to climb up to Deer clearing and deploy it at the shortcut (which when it was broken meant you could climb down but could not come back and get to the rope to climb up). Then they goated their way down from the Summit. So this demonstrates that yes you can if you're mumble enough to cut yourself off from the upper levels.

The proposition for a "disaster" event was predicated on it occurring where the player was and not at some random location. Part of the discussion would be what path would be preferable to those who might want a significant event to occur that could materially affect their survival process. Random disasters wherever and whenever they happen or one focused on where the player is when it occurs or something in-between?

Not that I want the devs to actually implement such an event, I would expect that there would be other parameters associated with the possibility of "disaster" to soften or harden the disaster. Why I made this a discussion rather than a suggestion. As part of a customized game, the player would choose to subject his character to the problem. The possibility of a disaster could even form the basis for a new challenge or maybe even a new event.

Once a player becomes familiar with the game mechanics and has their routine in what they do, the act of surviving becomes much easier. One has tools, weapons, clothing, and other supplies. For some this leads to wanting more of the desperate early days of scrambling for survival so that leads to suggesting more dangers to enliven the day-to-day survival process. How about disasters? Nothing like that (the aurora) which presumably put the character into the current survival situation but "darn the jerry can of lamp oil spilled and the spill caught fire and the base is burning down, GET OUT RIGHT NOW with only what can be hastily grabbed or was in character inventory (with a matter of seconds to get out or suffer serious injury)". After the fire then looking at a location that is now no longer accessible (Class 1 disaster) or, if accessible (Class 2 disaster), maybe all internal contents of use to the character are now gone - all the gear the player had stored, the beds, cabinets, lockers, etc. - functionally an empty shell of a place, nothing useful remains at all, good for shelter from the weather but not much else. A Class 3 disaster condition would allow for this to occur repeatedly over time as opposed to a one-of-a-kind event. Under Class 1 or Class 2 disaster conditions, the character has a short grace period to grab stuff then flee out the door. If the grace period of "indeterminate" length is exceeded the character will start to get burn injuries with increasingly severe condition loss as well as damage to equipped clothing items and, perhaps, eventually start to lose random items out of their carried inventory. Once they exit the location, they cannot re-enter. Also under Class 1 and 2, the player's worst lowest condition would be limited to no lower than 10% though the ability to die due to the fire should be incorporated as an option. If already under 10% when the event occurs the character dies. This could have severe impact to game play. For instance, a disaster in a base set up at one end of the Cinder Hills mine would mean that the mine is no longer accessible from that end or alternately that the mine is completely inaccessible. Similarly, a disaster in the Riken or the Old Spence forge site would render the forge unavailable for forgings. Given the current game structure, the disaster would tend to be more all or nothing though that could eventually change. As to what constitutes a base, well, I don't know. That would be a problem to be worked out in the implementation. This would be a custom setting as I know that *I* would not want to be subject to this occurrence in any vanilla game mode. It should be a positive act on the part of the player to enable such an occurrence. Alternately, the devs might incorporate this as "at the start of the run" kind of setting, though I think they would put it under Custom Mode. That would be easier.

I would suspect that the devs decided, probably quite a while ago, that having an active affliction was sufficient to block certain activities because that made having an active affliction something to avoid. They also included in that certain actions like freezing, starving, thirst, and exhaustion. The devs have not chosen to revisit the matter and make any "distinction" among the previously settled category of "afflictions" and their effects on things like research. They have no incentive to do so at this time. One can agree or disagree with what they have done or not done.

Probably the devs decided that Molly in Crossroads Elergy had to plausibly be able to get beyond the teeth and claws of the wolf she would kill in that little barn. In my Pilgrim games, I have never found anything useful up in that space nor does it seem to have any utility value like having a better bed (i.e. not sleeping on a cold straw covered floor) or even a container for storage.

Keep in mind that the game has evolved over the years in development and issues like memory requirements and processing power (CPU and GPU) would seriously influence just how much could be done. Certainly top of the line computers could do more, but what about those who did not have such computers to use? I remember back in 2019 when I was having problems with the save game function not working and not being obvious about it and occasional crashes because the game ran out of memory to put stuff (I had 12 GB of RAM and 2 GB of VRAM). 32-bit address space was kind of limiting back then. 64-bit address space was a lot better and a lot of memory-related problems seemed to disappear. Since a character was not going to immediately interact with trees, critters, and terrain that was hundred of feet away, certainly short-cuts to reduce memory demands were likely used. Someone had to decide what to do about the situation and we have what we have. If TLD was being developed NOW it would seem likely that we might see a very different game world structure even if the game overall was of very similar design. That's the way I see it.

To be honest, I do not see any reasonably compelling reason why such a device would be needed in the game as currently structured. It remains a discretionary decision for the devs and I do not see any issue in how bears operate that would require or suggest the need for such a device. Admittedly I would be a poor judge of need since I don't play in Voyager and higher difficulty modes.

Why would the devs choose to introduce such a device into survival mode gameplay? Since game-play tends to be predicated on the character being aware and careful, so thereby avoiding bear attack, the provision of a special purpose device for one specific purpose may seem to be a significantly lower priority than many other possible things. There would also be the necessity to work out how such a device would be used, how effective it would be under various circumstances, and the consequences that may result from it not working. Not to say that they would never introduce such a device into the game, but the incentives for them to develop such a device for the game seem to weigh against it for now.

The only legacy save game wipe I recall was when Hinterland decided to redo the manner in which the save games were handled. Any future occurrence would likely entail a much more substantial structural change in the game that renders the previous save games substantially or completely invalid than any kind of updates or new game mechanics. I can't say that something like that couldn't happen, but I don't worry about it at all though I would be upset if it was for anything less than some HUGE structure change.

I don't believe that they will send you an email about whether the issue was fixed. At least, I have never seen that. You'll find out if there eventually is a hotfix or maintenance update for the game but not before.

Quartering was the mechanic that Hinterland produced to answer the suggestion "I want to move the carcass" in a way that was consistent (as best I can tell) with the existing game mechanics for carrying things. Presumably, the bags consisting of meat and bones rather than just meat was likely the devs forestalling any "the bag only contains meat why do I have to harvest it?" complaints. They also probably thought it was realistic since quartering was not going to be harvesting. The hide and guts being then available for picking up, after quartering, was likely their concession to not making things too complex. There would be a point at which the costs of quartering could be made too high for it to be a viable game mechanic. The number of bags will be variable as the limiting factor would be that, at worst, a single bag must be something a character, without buffs, can actually be expected to pick up and move with.

The older drawn maps were put into the game before the geography got rearranged and their orientation per what we see on the screen not completely fixed. Even for the "world" map, and for many regions, the convention of the top of the map being North does not apply. Even the movement of the sun across the sky is sometimes right sometimes wrong. The newer maps, such as Ash Canyon, should be more consistent with where North is, but there is no guarantee of that. Because I have been in the game for a long time, where North is and how the sun tracks across the sky from dawn to dusk can be an anomaly but it does not really affect how I play. I do occasionally take screenshots of how the sun seems to be setting in the East on occasion but that's me. Probably one reason why no compass implementation. Players would expect consistency with North on a compass being, at least, roughly the same as that of the maps.

The scope of Story mode would limit the degree of changes in weather/season since Story mode deals with a specific period of time. Until the story that the devs wanted to tell concludes, the weather and conditions would not be expected to change. Now, once story mode is no longer a factor and time can progress then we might start to see new things including seasons, new seasonal mechanics, and seasonal changes in the landscape as a result, assuming that the game world development continues. So there would be nothing wrong with seasons though I imagine the phrase "mission creep" might apply.

I have been marking cars and trucks that do not have a car battery or if I took the car battery for the lead plates. I would like the map to show more detail of where the various marks of a group of markings are laid out. Probably too much to expect to get. Perhaps the discrete marks could be a bit more discriminating about what constitutes a close group of marks. I have been marking bridges in Ash Canyon and the first wood arch bridge to the Gold mine located along the path to Miner's Folly does not show the two marks I put there at either end of the bridge (I use first aid and hunting ground) but a listing.

I have found that if the moose is "wounded" emitting relatively constant sounds [as if in distress], as opposed to when it is just threatening, that a second good hit seems to be much more effective at taking it down. Of course, YMMV. Good luck.

I would guess that spray paint would play a role in episode 4 or at least that was the idea. Its use to mark and "label" locations just point to a quest of "search for resources and mark them for later recovery". That does not mean such a quest is going to be in episode 4, but perhaps just an idea. I have used spray paint as [charcoal] map-related navigation aids. In Ash Canyon, I mark the ends of the various bridges, locations like Angler's Den, and even climbing points and some points of interest. The fact that eventually these marks will fade is a bit of a disappointment but I don't make the rules. I did find that they can highlight when the [charcoal] map was wrong with respect to where something like a bridge was actually located. It did help me figure out a Vista point. For now, while they last, these marks will not get swept up (I would expect) in case a Lost and Found event occurs like all my cattail head, tinder plug, charcoal, and stone trails got swept up. Otherwise, the spray paint markings really don't seem to serve much of any useful purpose as markings per se in survival mode.

It has been an issue for players for a long time - the transfer of lantern fuel back and forth between containers. I would think it probably goes back to what was likely a reasonable dev assumption that, as opposed to water, the players would not have a lot of lantern fuel (it was kerosene back then and irreplaceable except by finding drops) so there was no need to provide for a means to consolidate it and even when it changed to "lamp oil" and could be harvested by cooking fish, the devs never revisited the matter. It would be nice if they did but, given all the demands on their time and the game is not "broken" by its lack, they probably viewed it as a very low priority at this time.

Doh, "I did NOT WANT to put out incorrect information". 😓

The harvesting process can be stopped by hitting ESC or the Cancel button anytime before the process reached completion. It leaves the item untouched. Perhaps one of the times when having to get to task completion to get the result of the task was beneficial in case of mistakes. I tried it out to make sure since I did put out incorrect information and, after repeated "harvestings" that I aborted before completion the ragged scarf I was using, as test subject, was intact. It might be nice if the the item being harvested was visible while the process arrow goes around. After all, the character would be able to see what was being harvested.