UTC-10

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?

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?

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". 😁