Serenity

"early" being the operative word. You generally aren't going to do tales early and by the time you have tools, weapons and decent clothing, the low loot isn't an issue anymore. The main challenge is the cold, the high damage from wolves and your own complacency. The cold + wolves are a real risk when you walk around outside during an aurora. More so than on Stalker. Putting some basic items into the caches and bunkers can definitely be balanced. It's not going to change the overall balance at a point where you can be swimming in meat. I really like the new food items, but corn only has 300 calories for example. Otherwise I do like the idea of having a bunker with a couple dozen sticks and maybe some coal and cat tails 🤣 And getting some flares from a cache for example doesn't make your game any easier either. It was just released According to the author the bunkers and caches are even in the game already. They just took away the radio and the first note. The mods adds the radio.

It's integrated into Survival mode. Go to Forsaken Airfield in Stalker or below and look around the control tower

I understand that it takes work to balance the loot across difficulties. I figure they maybe don't want to do that for a small number of players. But the argument in of itself doesn't make sense. Loot availability is only a challenge at the beginning. By the time you can do the Tales and are comfortable walking around at night outside during an aurora you're settled. The challenge then comes from the temperature and wild life. Loot isn't a problem. It's always nice to find some things like matches or a whetstone, but once you have the basics like hacksaw, hammer and bedroll you are not running around desperately to find more loot in order to survive. Loot availability was only ever a challenge in very early EA when you only had a literal handful of maps. We also get memento caches and prepper bunkers in Interloper now. Which work fine. They give you some goddies, but they don't really make the overall experience easier.

They can cover more than one map. There is a new menu for that between the journal and rock cache list

I think the difficulty of Interloper is overstated. It's hard at the start. But once you're settled in it's pretty smooth. There is still lots of stuff to find. That ship has sailed by adding more and more regions over the years. You can play practically forever and are not going to run out of main items for a thousand days. Things are just spread around and not all in a few places. And that's fine. I don't think it needs an adjustment. It's not the environment that will kill you. It's not running out of resources. It's overconfidence and your own complacency. You get used to things going well and start taking risks. Then you let your condition go down and run into a wolf or a bear that you'd have avoided early on. There are also less wolves than in Stalker, which is probably the main reason I prefer it. They are a lot more dangerous, but not having a pack of wolves at every corning makes it a lot more relaxing. Adding a piece of a rarer item like a pack of herbal tea or a stim isn't going to make things easier or let you survive longer. But it will be appreciated. Also, for it's worth, I was somewhat skeptical about the transponder thing when it was announced. I thought it was mostly fluff. But it's an interesting mechanic and pretty well done. And the rest of the update with the acorns, prepper bunkers and beach combing is good too. I like the small UI icon updates. So this could have been a great update.

You can even select the new maps when starting a game. Forsaken Airfield is pretty harsh, so it can pay off to be prepared. But on Pilgrim it will be fine. I definitely recommend doing the journey though. It's quite a trip.

Unlike some people I'm not super mad at this. I don't think the DLC is pointless without the Tales. I don't need a reason to visit maps. I'll visit Forsaken Airfield and the still unreleased maps regardless. And I don't mind missing out on some high end items. But it would have been nice and there is just no credible reason to not include it. We already get memento caches (now with properly rebalanced loot), finally the prepper caches (YAY!), so I don't see why transponder caches can't be balanced as well. I just find Stalker to be a bit boring in the long run. There is so much loot everywhere and I'm not a huge fan of the wolf frequency. I can enjoy it short term though.

They've added so many new maps over the years that a bit more loot isn't really an issue anymore. You can already live forever. It shouldn't overload you like the summit does on Stalker and below for example, but some extra food doesn't make a difference. Especially at the stage you're doing the transponders. Interloper is only a struggle early on. But by the time you're comfortable to go out for caches you're already settled in. An extra ear wrap would be nice because they get easily eaten.

And I don't really agree. Why not make it an option when starting the game, so you can still play "classic" Interloper? That way people who want the more solitary experience can still have it. And then put mostly basic stuff into the caches. It doesn't need to by anything fancy, except for the final reward maybe. Any new region adds more loot. Going out at night in Interloper is a lot more difficult in Stalker, where between the overall temperature and the excellent clothing you can be entirely warm for much of the time. And wrestling wolves at lower condition is extremely dangerous, whereas on Stalker you can do it twice back to back.

Shame we don't get Signal Void in Interloper. I do think it could be made to fit. Especially if it were available as an option and can be turned off. It doesn't need to include the new clothing and food items. I'd be happy with an extra ear wrap and some basic candy bars. Great to finally have prepper bunkers though 😍

Yes. Should be soon. Keep in mind that they are based in Vancouver. That's Pacific Time and thus a huge time difference to Europe for example.

Only birch bark I've seen some legends about respawning cat tails, but if it wasn't just missed previously that's a bug

Cold Fusion doesn't seem like much, but the difference is huge. Early on many interiors are just a degree to cold to be warm. CF pushes you over that. There is also a large difference between the temperature arrow levels (e.g. 2 vs 1 arrow down). CF can buy you much more outside time before freezing. Earlier on you may even be barely warm in one of the warmer regions like ML. For the second one I take Snow Walker. Efficient Machine isn't that important. There is plenty of food and consumption is pretty low as it is if you aren't eating all the time.

I've gotten 100% without having been anywhere. It certainly doesn't track the actual surface area though. That would be way too complicated. I always thought it's visited locations, even if that doesn't add up either.

Looks like the 2.08 update. Just more bugfixes

Do we get the clothing items on Interloper too? Also it would be cool if the prepper bunkers were there in Interloper. Just remove all the loot.

The many bugs and overall jankiness are super annoying, but they aren't exactly part of the DLC. You get them with the free patch too.

For a big fan of the game yes, but it doesn't contain that much right now. A lot of its content is still unreleased. So if you're expecting too much you'll be disappointed. One thing to keep in mind is that they will increase the price over time as more is added

It's here: https://github.com/stmSantana/ItemPiles (hasn't been updated unfortunately 😢) It actually requires Placing Anywhere as a dependency. You can make the pile items and stack them on top of each other. And looking at the pictures, this reminds me of another pile I use: cat tails. A pile of 5 cat tails is exactly one meal that can be eaten in a single action. The whole thing clutters up the crafting menu a bit, but I'd really love the stick piles in vanilla. Makes life so much easier.

"Better Stacking" and "Item Piles" are two different things. Seems like you want the first approach. The downside is that it averages durability. That's why I can see this working as a mod, but not really in vanilla. It's a matter of preference, but personally I really only need it for sticks and maybe coal

There is also the Item Pile mod that adds new bundled items. You can craft a stick bundle out of 10 sticks for example. And throw that into a fire as is.

He will probably be gone by that time. They stick around for a bit, but move elsewhere eventually Generally moose are pure luck. In some games you see a lot of them and in others they are very rare.

I think the bunkers should still be there in Interloper. Just empty I completely disagree that bunkers are the only incentive to explore though. You don't need bunkers either. It's just some extra loot. Or something you do because it's there. There are areas of some maps I don't go to much, but I explore many areas to collect all saplings.

Btw, with the prepper bunkers could you please make it so we get these on Interloper too? I don't mean the full loot. Just the locations, but make them empty instead of removing the whole thing. I'd still look for them. I also hope we get some of the clothing items on Interloper. Already disappointed that it doesn't include the improved storm lantern, although that wouldn't have changed the overall balance at all. Only having the basic lantern doesn't make the game more difficult.

What would that accomplish? They are certainly aware of the issue, but making a formal statement doesn't change anything.