UTC-10

What if New Fishing was modified as follows: Fishing tackle (can be baited and/or equipped with a lure) put down into the ice hole. The tackle is tied to a handle (presumably a stick or reclaimed wood) which is put down across the ice hole. Then snow is piled onto and lightly packed over the hole. When the character returns, he digs through the snow which has served to insulate the exposed water in the ice hole somewhat, breaks the thin ice (assumed equivalent to 10-20% ice, maybe more, maybe less) and pulls up the fishing tackle to see if he caught anything. Whether or not he caught anything, he can reset the set up to try again and return some time later. If left long enough the ice hole will completely freeze. For the purposes of this modification, tackle breakage is a set % regardless of ice fishing skill since the ice hole was unattended. The game tests for breakage 6 hours after deployment though I expect it to be at dusk and/or dawn.

From poking around on the web for ice fishing, I found guideline* that implied to me that the typical temperatures on Great Bear might be too cold for unattended fishing. At least while you're staring at the ice fishing hole you're moving the fishing line around a bit which helps keep it clear while unattended fishing (tip ups) does not have that. One way to maybe help with unattended fishing with tip ups may be to be able to put some lamp oil into the hole to help slow or keep the ice from forming for awhile. At least if that was added to the mechanic as an option, it would require the character to decide whether the fish to be caught (devs would have to work out how long a given quantity of lamp oil poured into the ice hole would last for how long and how many fish caught) would be worth the price in lamp oil used. * What I found as a guideline was 1 inch of ice in 24 hours for a 15 inch-degree (F) day. For instance it is 25 F which is 32 F - 25 F = 7 which equates to 7/15 inch of ice in 24 hours. Since a typical ambient air temp on Great Bear can be -20 C that would equate to -4 F or 36/15 (2.4 inches) inches of ice in 24 hours. Just a guideline but, for me, it gave some sense of scale. Of course this could be wrong or not so correct. 😐

Those should be can-based recipes as best I can figure. I would guess that the concept was that if someone does not have a pot or skillet that there should be can-sized versions of the "standard" recipes for them to use. Since the can, at best, is 0.5 liter (half the maximum capacity of a skillet and a quarter the maximum capacity of a pot) the intent might have been left to behind in favor of getting "full-sized" recipes of Frontier Cooking out. I think the can-based recipes should be more bare-bones than the pot and skillet-based recipes.

I stand corrected. Always interested in correct information. I will have to try it out.

My best guess would be that the devs treated the output from Frontier Cooking in largely the same way as "cooked" meat and fish. Once cooked it could not be heated up. An oversight, given the intro of Frontier Cooking, on the possibilities to be sure. Stews (or a simpler variety to be called a soup) should be reheatable. Pies maybe not. If you think in terms of possibilities and extensions. A basic fish or meat stew or soup for calories, hydration, and warmth (if eaten hot). Then later the devs could add ingredients like groats, potatoes, carrots, etc., for a higher level of stew or soup with maybe side benefits beyond warmth. But even if the other ingredients were not available there would still be the basic stew or soup that a character could always make from basic ingredients like meat and water (and a pot or skillet).

Unless some unusual weapons like shotguns showed up*, having an armory with half a dozen rifles and revolvers and a box of ammo and cleaning kit for each would be nice but limited by the carrying capacity and determination of the player character. A nice place to go back to if your rifle and/or revolver got lost but overpowering, maybe not. * A shoulder fired tear gas projector (doubling as a distress flare projector) with very rudimentary sights might be an idea. The tear gas shells would function similar to a projected noise maker with little in the way of damage inflicted and of use in fending off bear attacks like using the distress pistol. The projector would be half the weight of a rifle and (if the devs so will it) perhaps half again or double the nominal range of the distress pistol flare. It would be "fragile" and need more maintenance than a rifle or revolver and take more damage in a bear attack, if applicable. The projector is definitely more of an area weapon so of very limited value if used like it was a rifle. The prison would be the only known source of tear gas shells. Maybe the Blackrock prison trucks might have a few.

Thought about this some more. Change the way New Fishing (fishing holes) work. ANY suitable ice would allow for a fishing hole. The color of the indicator - red, yellow (new), and green - indicates the prospects for fishing. Red means poor fishing with higher chance of losing the fishing tackle (say equivalent to Level 1 ice fishing, 8% chance). Only get the first tier fish - whitefish, trout - from this hole, none of second tier - bass or salmon, none of the new "fish". Might even be a slower than normal rate for fish biting. Yellow (new) means moderately better fishing with better chance of not losing the fishing tackle (say equivalent to Level 3 ice fishing, 4%?). Can get first and second tier fish (maybe somewhat less chance), none of the new "fish". Green means ordinary fishing (fishing tackle loss at say equivalent to Level 5 ice fishing, 1% chance). All applicable fish types would be available. If the survivor has less ice fishing skill than noted for red/yellow/green the survivor's skill level would be the applicable one. Tipups, lures and bait can be used although I do not know what the use of lures and bait (other than for white fish getting consistently bigger ones) would be for (what effect they might otherwise have).

At a guess, the pointer in the game that points at the hours to pass time (normal default 1 hour) got lost and is pointing at the wrong point in memory. If you tried it I don't think your character would have been born if pass time went negative 2 billion hours. What a way to go. 😲

The transition cave between Forlorn Muskeg and Bleak Inlet could use some re-evaluation at some point. Unlikely given the DLC and bug fixes they have to work out. If the coal wasn't there at all, it would be nice to stop the frustration or if it spawned deeper in the cave that would work too. The Forlorn Muskeg end has the aforementioned problem with coal spawning beyond the point where they can be picked up. I attach a screen shot showing the re-spawned coal after I had gotten the four or five that I could get excepting two beyond reach. Now they are all beyond reach. The cattail head is the point of furthest advance - the cursor still showed Leaving Forlorn Muskeg - and no further as I would then transition. I could not get the cursor to shift to the coal despite multiple attempts. At the Bleak Inlet end, I notice that heading into the cave, the beginning of the transition possible (you have to click the mouse to travel) starts maybe 50 feet outside the cave proper and is a zone (of course facing towards the cave, sometimes to the side) which ends just beyond the first turn in the cave entrance. THEN there is where the game places you inside and if you turn and walk towards the exit of the cave back to Bleak Inlet, you walk a comparatively longish distance until you hit the transition to Bleak Inlet. Can still use the Bleak Inlet end of the cave for shelter if you aren't facing in or to the side so it is not all bad and facing outward allows for a campfire pretty close to the cave and the bedroll on the rocky floor. It just gets irksome to turn to one side and have the interface interfere with moving things or being able to pick things up that you dropped on the cave entrance floor. But that's just me. 😅

The restriction on using the magnifying lens indoors (so to speak) seems to depend on the degree of temperature change afforded by the "interior" compared to "outside" ambient temperature. Once the temperature differential rises about +2 or +4, definitely by +8 C or higher, using the magnifying lens inside to light a fire even in a place like the fire lookout locations, which have lots of windows, just does not happen. Non-interior caves (lacking transitions) have an outside zone where the ambient air temperature is the same as "out there" and one can light a fire using a magnifying lens, while further inside there can be an inner zone, marked by a temperature change of +8 C, where one can't. Kind of doubt that the devs would be willing to put in the time and effort to get the precision needed to know where doors and windows are in relation to the movement of the sun across the sky and the prevailing weather conditions. Yes I would like to be able to light that fire barrel in the messing area of Last Resort Cannery rather than have to light a campfire on the snow on the dock area outside and take a torch but for the devs it would be a choice of either/or and not if things aligned in a particular way and I don't think they would change things now.

When I found the Forlorn Muskeg prepper cache I took note (screenshot) of the name partially because I was slightly surprised by the name, then when I finally went back to the Pleasant Valley cache near the climb to Timberwolf I noted (screenshot) the name. Had to be sure. That got me to thinking about how someone might turn off Lost and Found because "obviously the prepper abandoned caches couldn't have anything to be lost as the update was putting them back into the game" or it was never armed and nobody caught the fact that one prepper abandoned cache that was being "renovated" had always been in the game and in a place where many players might use it. I have adjusted to (but not forgotten and not really forgiven) the gear and materials lost in that update. It was so unnecessary.

I did something I haven't done in a very long time. I broke through weak ice (I was hitting the wrong key not the run like heck key) and got soaked from the waist down and hypothermia. Being soaked up to my waist implies that the water under the ice (Forlorn Muskeg near the Muskeg Overlook corner) implies several feet of water under the ice. That should allow, of course from not weak ice portions, for New Fishing holes to be made. The fish that can be caught would be of the smaller size for say whitefish, no bass, no specials except as designated. On consideration and a quick review of how the indicator seems to work, the color the New Fishing graphic can take should be expanded slightly to RED meaning not deep enough, YELLOW meaning marginal so poor fishing and fish type and size, and GREEN meaning adequate so normal fishing results. Anywhere there is suitable ice, given how the mechanic currently is set up, there should or has to be at least some YELLOW or GREEN (in this expanded mode or GREEN in its current setup) else why the heck would anyone bother and be rather disappointed and why would Hinterland waste its time putting in suitable ice that cannot be used at all?

The game does not allow the player to use charcoal for mapping when it decides that visibility is limited because it would be futile to try. How about advising the player when similar situation arises with painting a mark so that the player can make a choice. In Bleak Inlet, I could see hundreds of meters, the sky was pretty clear and orange (it was the morning) and after I painted an arrow the game tells me it was limited visibility. I rage quit (yes a spurt of spray paint when we get a lot of cans was kind of fruitless but I was angry). I have also found that what is limited visibility depends on whether one is mapping with charcoal or marking with spray paint. In this case, it can be rather obviously less visibility yet I can map (testing visibility) but try to spray a mark after that and the game says limited visibility prevents the mark from showing up on the map.

That is not the case with ptarmigan meat. I gave it a try. Their hitboxes are quite large side by side but not quite so head to tail. I tend to not have a lot of ptarmigan meat, so it is not a big or urgent thing. Just something the devs might do if they ever get around to these small things.

It would certainly be in keeping with "decisions have consequences" concept that underpin much of the thinking of The Long Dark, but given that they expected novices (people with no firearm experience or training) to play the game which to be Wintermute (Survival was an afterthought) and they tended to refrain from "warnings about doing dumb things" (and there was no in-game help to provide advice) killing or inflicting a serious wound (which would heal in one day if the character didn't die outright) and with Wintermute the prior save game could be reloaded was probably a very low priority at the time and once the processes were coded not worth revisiting for perceived little gain to the game. The Survival mode devs have more problems to deal with than upending a long established process of normally unsafe gun handling by inflicting death (in a still perma-death game) or an injury that, if it was like most afflictions, would heal in one day of rest. I unload firearms before cleaning. Usually. ☠️

Consider 1) allow chopping a hole in the ice for New Fishing even when indicator is red and 2) require that a fishing lure would have to be used for such a hole in the ice. Too many locations have suitable ice except the game indicator remains red and there is no green anywhere. Fishing lures have no particular use (that I know of) that justifies the effort to make one at a higher cost in materials compared to ordinary fishing tackle. Other than flavor. Under these circumstances, using a bare fishing lure gets the lower class fish (no special ones) for the location such as white fish or trout and those would tend to be of the smaller size of those classes. Baiting a simple fishing lure then generated the normal range of lower class fish (can get the larger ones). Baiting one of the more "sophisticated" lures gets a normal chance of fish catch. The expanded capacity to fish gets balanced by a need for bait and a more costly (in terms of materials) to craft fishing lure. At least this would allow fishing in more locations where suitable ice was located but nowhere was any of it really suitable for New Fishing.

Not anything urgent but I just wish I could put down the ptarmigan meat rather closer to each other than the game currently allows. You can see rabbit meat and moose meat in the image and the ptarmigan meat. It gets to be irksome how far apart the ptarmigan meat has to be placed.

I put down caches primarily to supplement the storage that may or may not be available at a given location. The major alternate use is as task specific purposes. I created a stone cache in the Ravine to hold the coal I lugged over from Cinder Hill Mine as a prelude to lugging that to Forlorn Muskeg Old Spence forge. To complement that I put a stone cache near the Camp Office near the railroad tracks for the same interim purpose. I will likely put a stone cache at Old Spence Forge for the forging materials as I have come to fear (from experience) the possibility of Lost and Found grabbing anything left out in the open and moving it half-way across the region and then having to move it back. Depends on the situation.

I have seen a timberwolf near Blackrock prison on the icy marsh to the right of the prison approach road detect and go up to the ptarmigan nest near the power transmission pole site and go after the ptarmigans. Since I play Pilgrim it flees when I approach but I would not be surprised if it would go and kill/eat all the ptarmigans at that nesting site. Currently at Mystery Lake and haven't seen any wolves at the train derailment site, by the Camp Office, or along the tracks to Forlorn Muskeg. Not to say that there were no wolves at all as there were several on Mystery Lake and along the tracks between Carter nearly to the train loading area, but I am surprised at how comparatively few I have seen. Probably just not looking at the right time and place.

Thought I would add that I saw ptarmigan nesting on the snow nearish to the Camp Office. I have been waiting for the deer that usually would amble through that general area but maybe the ptarmigans replaced it. Also I haven't seen the wolf that would go through that area either so maybe it was removed to protect the nesting site.

For the most part, other than as an experiment, not using the recipes at all. A large part of that is just me. I am still rebuilding what I had on Great Bear before the December Save Game update and don't care for the recipes that largely have gate keeper ingredients. I am sure that there is value in the output but I find things like the stews to have too many of the same pro and con effects to be worth checking them out. There are no simple basic recipes for stews or soups that slot into the existing game play. I am just playing as previously. I tend to be maybe a bit to methodical and I always worry about running out of stuff (can't help it).

It would certainly help if areas that had suitable ice would also have spots/areas within those areas where one could sink a New Fishing hole. Pleasant Valley's river - Thomson's Crossing to the Long Curve - used to have five places/stretches where one could actually use New Fishing and now there are none - they only show red not any green. This does not even count Pensive Pond which has no green areas even right next to the existing ice fishing hut though, of course, the ice fishing hut is still usable. So far Blackrock didn't have any New Fishing spots. I had hoped for one or two spots given the constricted waterway (the river chasm) but nothing. Ash Canyon had some stretches on Angler's Den (I actually fished a bit) and I think on Bitter Marsh (though I didn't go and try New Fishing there). See how this goes.

I have been watching a youtube channel Life-Outside by presumably a Russian woodsman and have seen him thinly slice meat into a pan and put that on a stove top and have that for dinner (he had bread too and he had a pot of hot water to make what I take to be a tea or coffee drink). I also watched as he cleaned fish he caught, put them into a pot with water, tossed in some greens, probably onions and garlic (I am no cook) set that on the stove top (wood fired) and then sit down later for a dinner. That's what prompted me to think that we could have used a very basic recipe for any meat/fish and water into a pot to cook to a thin stew or thick soup. We have no way to make a hot meal from ingredients we gather naturally. I also saw him have three critical failures to light wood matches before he got a fire going. 😲

I think that the devs have tried to minimize the actual effects to what a character can do in the game as much as possible especially permanent effects. The player still has to have the capacity to play the game be it run, walk, climb, carry weight, etc. Being just a little bit more vulnerable to condition loss as that typically does not impact what a character can do might be the best "middle" ground they could come up with. Once they delve into things like "how severe was the frostbite" they stand to get themselves into a lot of controversy because the difference, due to frostbite, for example, between being able to use a rifle or bow and not being able to use a rifle or bow simply because of frostbite of the hands on a permanent basis would be a game-breaker for most people (imo). Implications of not being able to handle a rifle or bow might also then extend to not being able to climb a rope. I don't think they want to go there.

I think the devs might be a bit reluctant to expand on the the kinds of detrimental effects getting frostbite would have in the game as is. They would want to keep the vanilla game as playable as possible for the average player. Now if Custom Mode had some kind of "realism" setting so someone could choose to opt-in and play with "enhanced" debuffs/effects, permanent or otherwise, and other changes to game play, like water kept outside will freeze and have to be thawed to be drunk for instance, that would be something else though I don't think the devs would want to put out that much effort. But who knows?