UTC-10

Assuming the aurora and its effects were not specifically caused by events on Great Bear Island. The Forest Talkers environmentalists/terrorists had a plan to infect Breyerhauser and Carter Hydro employees with an infectious disease to force abandonment of the ongoing corporate projects. As often happens when dealing with bugs, things did not go according to plan and the disease proved to be more infectious than expected or intended. Astrid, through her work at the medical laboratory, which researched rare and orphan diseases, knew of various obscure diseases that were being evaluated and researched. She supplied what was supposed to be a limited infection disease for the Forest Talker's plan. As it happened the laboratory had an expensive drug that could fight the disease onhand but kept under lock and key because it was expensive and hard to obtain (maybe even not FDA or the Canadian equivalent approved). Alerted to the impending disaster and maybe wishing to erase the traces of the disease for investigators to find*, Astrid stole the drug and then went to see Will as the only person she knew who could 1) get her to Great Bear Island and 2) likely be willing to take her there no questions asked. After the crash, she was unable to reach her case and had to go seek help from the one group she knew would be willing to help her - the Forest Talkers. Then she ran into Mathis and after some issues was able to escape. Her adventure in Pleasant Valley brought home how serious things had gotten though she did not tell the Priest or Molly that the illness spreading around was something she or more precisely her comrades in the Forest Talkers had started. Her unknown adventures in Coastal Highway resulted in her being sent in a [Forest Talker] robotic boat to a harbor in Perseverance Mills. Where it was discovered that she did not have the vitally needed case. Will was aware of the importance of that case that Astrid had, after all she does not do trivial things in his experience. Suspecting it was something medical, he figured that he better make sure that the case got to Astrid. He'll find out later what it was all about. * She would provide a culture of a similar infectious agent that would be more likely to be common to serve as a decoy if health investigators came looking. The aurora and its effects slowed up any response to the epidemic and Mathis and company were just in the right place at the wrong time. 🚧 🛩️ 💉 😅

Found (or Confirmed) ptarmigan nesting site on Skeeter's Ridge on the hill opposite of the hunter's blind. When present they would be hard to miss if walking between the abandoned prepper cache and the Skeeter's Ridge basement (and plane crash site). Also Found (or Confirmed) ptarmigan nesting site near the Homesteader's Respite cabin between the cabin and the climbing point. If disturbed the ptarmigans will fly away and it would be possibly some days before they return. They may also unspawn for a while sort of like how the moose can be at a spot then not be at a spot then be at the spot, etc.

Occasionally find a bag called a potato bag (iirc) that can contain 2 kg. It might make a workable portable storage device that could contain all the ingredients - carrots, potatoes - at least that can go to ruin and an easier means of transporting said items. Of course, the "ruined items disappear if put into a container" would be suspended for specific frontier cooking ingredients and the bag could go into an accessory slot to simulate it being carried over the shoulder. Whether that would be a worthwhile use for the current limited number of accessory slots would be a trade-off for a player to consider. I don't know if the game allows for containers in a container. I suspect not so if used that does pose a dilemma. No weight capacity buff, just a container that can receive certain ruined items for later use in frontier cooking. Unruined items of any description can, of course, be carried in the bag too. Its capacity is only 2 kg so not a lot more can be carried.

They could do something like a more advanced book but that seems unlikely mostly because, until the advent of ammunition reloading, the use of ammunition was limited by the supply. Once it was no longer possible to advance rifle skill by cleaning a rifle there was no other recourse to skill advancement than actually using ammunition (and scoring hits). That more easily justified a more advanced shooting book than ice fishing, carcass harvesting, cooking and fire starting. Most everything else the character would engage in as part of the process of survival. Sewing, of course, was a big pain to advance (finally got to Level 5) but there was more opportunity to engage in it than there was with a rifle with a limited amount of (then irreplaceable) ammunition. But if the devs decide to do it, I have no objections. It is their game to tweak after all.

Could the default orientation of the skillet on a campfire cooking surface not put the handle towards the fire? Sure you can rotate the skillet manually, but if you happen to "pick it up" or move it around, it will spring back to the default orientation. When you get the time for such minor thing like this. Thanks.

I am now carrying a skillet around with me. I found that making one liter of water (the max) in a skillet took about the same amount of time as cooking one kg of venison with no juggling recycled cans in the process. That kind of seems more "efficient" and it meant I had more time to walk away to do something else. I'd still like to see basic thick soup or thin stew recipes that could take any fish or meat, some water, nominally some other ingredients (we'll just imagine we cut up and tossed in onions, and such) and give us a hot meal.

I would agree that improvised insulation should be in a shirt slot rather than accessory. By its graphic form it certainly looks more appropriate in place of a sweater (i.e., wrapped around the body) than hanging out there on my "ears". 😉

Pretty much what I was thinking when I was going over the list of recipes for Pot and Skillet and thought why carry either? I would be fine, as noted in my posting, with meat and water in a pot, simmered until tender, to make a very basic stew or soup. It might be enough to get me to carry a pot or skillet routinely.

So true. I need to find an eight cooking surface stove for the six pots and two skillets I now have. Have to economize on the dryer, washer, locker, two kitchen cabinets that are full of sticks, and the two heaps of sticks I have in the kitchen and living room at the Farmstead. Not counting the cabinet of 50 coal I have stashed as well. If Hinterland introduced a trailer of 2,000 liters of lamp oil next to the Farmstead my first thought would be GREAT and my second thought would be "what do I do when it runs out". 😁

It will help. Most of those look like the ones I more commonly run into. Keep going.

When matches were set to not have any condition loss, like fire accelerant, they're condition was not reset to 100%, like fire accelerant, so the matches could not be assembled into appropriate stacks, like fire accelerant. Been a complaint ever since. Things that were ruined (condition 0%) such as antibiotics, pain killers, water purification tablets, tins of coffee, and boxes of herbal tea used to be combinable with higher condition examples of the same item and *voila* they took on the higher condition. Then that got fixed. Ruined stays ruined and does not really combine easily even with ruined examples of the same item. Possibly as part of that "fix" certain other effects were introduced that escaped notice at that time. I combined my cardboard and wood matches into two big stacks. (Pilgrim) Gods I have a lot of matches not that it matters. I still think like the book/box of matches I have on me are the last matches on earth. Ingrained habit from long game-play.

Being in Pilgrim I can only say that in my experience the pies and stews I have cooked would decay like meat meaning inside they decay about 3% a day inside and outside they decay about 1% a day. The only exception was broth which seems to have a much longer decay curve that seems more like the 1,000 day decay curve and kept well in that case when left outside. Frontier Cooking output is not something I would make a huge pile of then keep for a long time though if you have level 5 cooking you can eat what would be ruined food at any time. I did not see any change in the calories or anything else with things like bannock when it got close to ruined condition.

I only play on my PC so have no experience with any other system. I think the most notable change for Episode 3 at the Pleasant Valley Farmstead was that the layout was changed so it was no longer necessary to go outside of the Farmstead to access the basement. I don't recall when that was with respect to 4DON.

Did some fishing using the Keeper's Pass South ice fishing hut. Found that fish (smallmouth bass and whitefish) seem to have a similar outcome to cooking meat. I found that regardless of the weight of the fish the amount of lamp oil each generated was set. 0.02 liter per whitefish and 0.04 liter per bass. Salmon from beachcombing was 0.09 liter and trout was 0.04 liter. With white fish I discovered that the cooked fish, if put on the snow or in inventory, would have 494 calories and weigh 1.29 kg. Small-mouth bass would have 1,340 calories and weigh 2.95 kg. Goldeye would have 427 calories and weigh 0.95 kg. These were consistent outcomes regardless of the raw weight of the fish. If you depend on the calories from the fish be sure to eat it straight off the cooking surface to get it.

I think that Lost and Found was initially implemented back when Great Bear's landscape was updated to accommodate Episode 3. At least that was the most noteworthy occurrence. The Camp Office, Trappers, Pleasant Valley Farmstead and what was the rural crossroads were all changed. At least I recall going through the first three locations and taking everything outside and dumping it in the snow at least 50 meters away because we were warned about that change. The rural crossroads was really transformed into Thomson's Crossing instead of being a place of snowy drifts, a burned out house, and a couple other houses across the river. I would be surprised about you not getting something when lost and found was run. The regional form of Lost and Found was pretty indiscriminate about what it collected together while the local (interior) form of lost and found could be slightly inconsistent. Supposedly with the April/March update when the prepper caches were put back into the game, the abandoned prepper cache was also replaced with a renovated version and, as far as anyone knows, Lost and Found should have run but didn't.

Since it appears that Lost and Found might come into play on a more widespread basis than it has for a while: I would like to request that the rule about ruined condition items disappearing when placed or go to ruined condition in a container be suspended when it come to the regional and local Lost and Found boxes. The player has no control over Lost and Found which can wreak a fair amount of damage to a player's arrangements by gathering in all of a player's stuff into a Lost and Found box. Since Lost and Found was intended to prevent the loss of a player's gear and presumably materials, ruined condition items should not disappear simply because the game put them into a Lost and Found container. This should also apply to items that decay to ruined condition while in the Lost and Found box. Disposal of ruined condition items should be left, as much as possible, to the discretion and actions of the player. This rule suspension only applies to Lost and Found boxes.

(Post 2.21 update) A check of the area around the Keeper's Pass South ice fishing hut seemed to indicate that a New Fishing hole could be punched through the ice (green graphic). I noticed that the existing New Fishing hole I had made some time ago and fished from when testing whether I would catch anything (I did) showed up visually but running the New Fishing hole graphic over that older, iced up fishing hole, would turn the graphic red. Makes sense as it was over something other than pristine suitable ice.

I tried making broth, some stews, and bannock. IMO, if kept inside the items would decay at a rate similar to meat and fish kept inside. Left outside, the decay rate looked comparable to that of meat and fish kept outside. I did notice that broth seemed to have a significantly slower decay curve if kept outside. At a guess that would seem to say broth's decay time was more at 1,000 days (the standard decay time) than meat and fish. I didn't really pay close attention beyond these cursory checks.

I meant that the New Fishing hole graphic would appear but it would always be red and at no place in that ice river area did it ever turn green. When I had first mapped the location the graphic would turn green so (I didn't test it) I should have then been able to punch a hole in the ice and fish. That disappeared with one of the recent updates.

The radial menu needed to be reworked to take into account new items that became available. How that gets carried out depends on the devs' thought processes. The slot for the bearskin bedroll was taken up by the introduction of "New Fishing hold" mechanic. With the 2.20? update if sleeping in a vehicle the game will show the warmest bonus available in your inventory. If not for the "disappearing water" bug I would have no problem with that since I put my bedroll into the glove compartment so I don't use it but then I am in Pilgrim so it is not so critical. Anyway the fix will probably one of those tasks that has "we'll get to it when we have the time" priority.

I got back to Pleasant Valley and went to check one of the spots I had found (basically the junction of the main river from Thomson's Crossing to Keeper's Pass South and the tributaries from the Lower falls and Misty Falls) and in that one (near the destroyed fisherman's hut) I found that nowhere in that area though the game would allow for the New Fishing hole graphic, it was always red, so no fishing possible. I suspect the other spots on the river will have the same outcome. I had also made a check on Pensive Pond and it also was showing all red even right up against the ice fishing hut. I will have to check Keeper's Pass South to see if the large area around the ice fishing hut would still be viable for fishing. I happen to have a New Fishing hole near the ice fishing hut and know that it used to work. I don't know now.

I did find out that the skillet can be used to make up to 1.0 liter of water at a time. It does have some utility when parallel making water and cooking a venison steak.

It was a game changing bug so they tried to hurry up a fix. I know in my Pilgrim game that water put into glove compartments would disappear when I passed through any transition that caused the locations containing those vehicles to unspawn. I am just glad that I only put basically expendable items like water and maybe birch bark tea into glove compartment. Now I am concerned because a couple recent times I actually forgot to pick up my improvised down bedroll before walking away. If the disappearing water event goes away then fine but losing stuff like that can be quite troubling. See if 2.21 fixes that. Still haven't dealt with the abandoned prepper cache loss of player items stored there. It was unexpected as the update was supposed to put the previously removed and now revamped prepper caches back into play and abandoned prepper cache had not be removed so should not have been included.

The mechanics of use probably prevent the implementation of any kind of spear. Once the player is not in a quest environment the implementation has to take into account a whole range of environments and uses that might occur. The easy part is the spear. The really hard part is how it works and interacts with the environment and the character. If they ever figure out the hard part to what they consider to a satisfactory degree then spears would become viable in game terms. It can still happen but don't underestimate the main and collateral effects the devs would have to consider.

If anyone routinely carried the pot with them then there would be no need to change other than maybe now taking the skillet as well. For anyone else, the lack of options (recipes that did not have the same gate keeper ingredient) might disincentivize doing so as a matter of routine. I know that it does for me. The trade-off (I am in Pilgrim so that skews the consideration) does not favor carrying the pot and/or the skillet at this time. See what happens.