UpUpAway95

6 hours ago, Glflegolas said:

The bedroll doesn't spawn there on Interloper. You're welcome to edit my blog post for yourself, if there's an error in anything I wrote.

You do generally get some coffee at the summit if you get lucky and get the hacksaw spawn there.  You can goat down to the Mountaineer's Hut without using any ropes, so being tired is not an unsurmountable issue at that point.  You will always get the distress pistol and are, therefore, armed early game... so that's the payoff that makes it worth the effort even in Loper especially if you spawn high on the mountain anyways.  If the run fails, it's only a few minutes lost and one can always start a new run.

The only thing I would say a player shouldn't do in this game is fall into the trap of playing it using "universal" rulesets that contain words like "never do that or "always do this."  There is a saying that pops up at the start that says something like the key to survival is being able to adapt.  IMO, staying alert and analyzing your situation and then adapting what you planned to do to the circumstances you actually find yourself in... IS the best way to play this game.

2 hours ago, Stinky socks said:

How is climbing the summit while not prepared playing it safe lol?😁

That's the point - it's not safe, it's the ultimate gamble.  Playing it safe is going down to the Mountaineer's Hut and heading from there into PV. getting kitted out there and coming back prepared... But where's the fun in always doing that?  I find it more fun to take the risk... gamble the entire run on finding a hacksaw at the summit... if I make it to the summit.  When it pays off, I'm off to a really good start.  When it doesn't, it's always easy to start a new run... and chances are I don't get the same spawn again right away... so I can play it safe with that run.  All I have invested in the summit push is really only a few minutes of game play.  It's not like I've been playing that character for a month.

I'm absolutely OK with HL not adding in such warnings to handhold the players in the game.  The consequences of eating raw meat is merely a case of food poisoning, which is a curable condition... take some antibiotics and get the required amount of sleep (and you'll be able to sleep regardless of your tiredness.  For roleplaying purposes, you're lost in the wild... tired, disoriented, and hungry... so, you're going to make dumb mistakes.  It's part of the game.

44 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

Yeah, a push for the summit is always an adrenaline packed adventure, especially when spawning right into TMW day 1 and all.  Just curious on how high up you gotta be to say "I'm going for it!" 
I just started a new Stalker run in TMW and spawned just before the log bridge on the way to Deer Clearing during the late night/early morning and debated doing just that.  As the weather was looking uncooperative, I choose to battle my way back to the Mountaineer's Hut instead.  I did finally make it up there, but not for some time after.  If I recall, there was a sleeping bag in summit cave next to the sitting corpse.  If memory serves, this bag spawns here all the time.  cant say if that's true on Interloper as I typically dont play that difficulty.

From that spawn, I always head to 3-way cave anyways.  Whether I go up or down from there depends on what I find there.  If I find clothing/cloth, I know then that I can make a snow shelter to sleep for energy to get up the last rope.  The hacksaw is the gamble... no hacksaw at the plane and the run is generally over.

On 2/14/2021 at 4:46 PM, Glflegolas said:

Sounds like something that's possible, but probably not recommended. Given the amount of walking that's also required (especially if you go via Deer Clearing), it's a pretty heavy use of coffee.

I think the bedroll in the summit cave is a guaranteed spawn on any difficulty other than Interloper.

I love the summit push on Day 1 if I spawn high on the mountain.  It's an all or nothing roll that can leave the player well set up for the rest of the run or end the run by day 2... and then just start again.  With a little luck (i.e. finding some cloth), you can build a snow shelter on the way up to sleep once and you can mountain goat down without using any ropes if you don't find a bedroll on the summit.  It's very doable on any setting where baseline resources are not low and still possible to do on loper.  Heading down to the mountaineer's hut and out of PV is the easier route... but where's the fun in always playing it safe?

I believe there was a time that the Old Man's Beard dressings required a bandage to craft and they would treat both the infection and the bleeding at the same time.  Then , I believe, they made a change that prevented items from treating more than one ailment at a time, so the Old Man's Beard dressings now only treat infection and you require a separate bandage to stop the bleeding.  To compensate, they took out the requirement for a bandage to be used to make the dressing... but, I believe, they did not adjust the weight of the dressing.  Since antiseptic weighs 0.7 kg for 5 doses (0.14 kg/dose), perhaps they felt that the wound dressing would be too OP if they made it lighter than 0.10 kg per dose... don't know.  I do feel it should be lighter or at least equivalent to the lichens that now go into it. 

The weights of everything in the game are listed in the Wiki, so it's possible for you to make your own lists for whatever concerns you personally.

15 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

I was thinking the same thing but have you noticed there are many bare-looking bushes which could be rosehips they have eaten?

What about the static carcasses in the game?  They could be the one who caught and ate those?

The shrubs in game do look different than the rosehip bushes after we harvest the berries from them.  I was thinking something more definitely a rosehip... perhaps with only a single, unharvested berry still hanging on it and broken branches and a flattened look to it.  I've seen such patches of bushes while riding in the mountains.

I generally put the deer carcasses off to wolves, except the ones in caves without wolves in them.  Those I would say are carcasses that bears have drug into a cave to finish off.  I don't think black bears often (if ever) take down live, healthy adult deer IRL.  Grizzlies are quite a bit larger and may take down an occasional deer or moose, but I still think it doesn't make up a large percentage of their diet.  I tend to think of bears more as opportunists... snacking on whatever they can find (so they won't say no to a handy carcass or a weakened animal), but they primarily eat berries, fish and grubs and such. 

On 4/11/2021 at 11:02 PM, Cranky said:

A few weeks ago I saw my first sleeping bear in broken railroad while camping at the lodge. First and only in nearly 1000 in game days of play (over numerous voyager and stalker runs)

I've had a couple of bears head back to their caves and nap after I shot them (i.e. while I was following them waiting for them to bleed out).  The first time it happened, I convinced myself he had died in his sleep... nope... big mistake!  Now I wait and, more often than not, they'll get up again after a couple of hours in-game time and continue wandering around while losing blood.  After seeing this pattern, I don't think the bears sleep for very long at a stretch, making the odds of seeing them asleep low.

Has to be a bear climbing up a tree:

6 hours ago, Lycrist said:

10/10 for binos from me. Scope not so much (cuz I only play loper lol).

@UpUpAway95the flashlight is pretty useful to move raw meat around becaus you can easily scare of the wolfs

I don't see a reason for character customization because no one would ever the character anyways. For me it would be enough to change the model of Astrids fingers because those spiderfingers give me the shivers, so I don't like playing her

Well... since I don't know when an aurora is going to happen, I don't generally wait for an aurora to move meat around.  Also, because of the weight of the flashlight, I don't generally have one in my inventory If an aurora does happen.

While I like the idea of being able to build workbenches, I don't think it will happen because HL likes to compel us to travel around the world to access various specific things and having the ability to build a workbench where we want it would negate that totally.  They obviously have planned each zone so that "something" is mission from each and there is always an incentive to move around the game world.  I don't see them underminng that strategy by making it possible for the player to "construct" their own base where they have absolutely everything close at hand.

I think the same strategy also applies to storage.  They added an ability to make rock caches, but then limited how closely together they could be places and made them outdoors only.  So, again, I don't see it happening.

Binoculars... sure, but the game's draw distance and spawn distances would have to be adapted to make this useful anyways.

Flashlight - Currently, I find it rather useless and tend to scrap or just leave any that I find... so, sure, a charging mechanic might help but I probably would still not bother carrying one around due to its weight and limited usefulness.

My preference is that feats would either be eliminated totally or allowed to be progressed in Custom mode.  If they don't do that that I'm really not interested in them adding more since I only play now in custom mode.

Since bears are omnivores, I think it would be cool if they added evidence of the bears having eaten rosehips... i.e. adding in destroyed/ruined rosehip bushes into the game.  Much like tree scrapings indicate areas where moose may spawn, ruined rosehip bushes could indicate where bears might spawn.

11 minutes ago, Syraith said:

@UpUpAway95maybe “The Long Dark” is more of a state than literal darkness. As in dark or dismal times 😏

I think it's both... The short days and long nights in the winter are known to be contributory to  SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) - "Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons — SAD begins and ends at about the same times every year. If you're like most people with SAD, your symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. Less often, SAD causes depression in the spring or early summer."

"

• Your biological clock (circadian rhythm). The reduced level of sunlight in fall and winter may cause winter-onset SAD. This decrease in sunlight may disrupt your body's internal clock and lead to feelings of depression.
• Serotonin levels. A drop in serotonin, a brain chemical (neurotransmitter) that affects mood, might play a role in SAD. Reduced sunlight can cause a drop in serotonin that may trigger depression.
• Melatonin levels. The change in season can disrupt the balance of the body's level of melatonin, which plays a role in sleep patterns and mood.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20364651

They'd have to change the name of the game for the summer months... since, in the far northern latitudes, the sun stays up in the sky for a significantly longer day and reaches a point for a few days where it doesn't set at all.  In addition, the BC Coast is actually quite fertile with very abundant plant and wildlife during the summer months.

The reality is that the game is intentionally set in the dark winter months of the year.  Seasonal changes would, essentially, undermine its entire premise.

I've seen it... doesn't bother me in the least.   It might indeed be intentional to make them harder to spot. 

My mom used to tell me that bread always landed butter-side down and I was say she was right more than the expected 50% of the time... So... maybe they're using a similar principle - Matches always place label-side down.

On 4/11/2021 at 6:31 AM, Razum said:

Sry, I got to say this. I'm studying informatics which contains a big portion of math and also statistics. So, if you didn't were to study in a similar field, I'd say, I know more about randomness and distribution than you do.

And also I want to disprove you. Randomness depends on the point of view. If you were to not give restrictions to item spawns (like the revolver in the fridge) technically, the item spawns are more random. But also, the playthroughs would be less random, more predictable, because you would, no matter where you go, find everything on average you need. If you were to set fix item spawns, like the distress pistol always to spawn at certain locations would also make the gameplay less random, for obvious reasons.
By restricting item spawns in different ways (or coupling their likelihoods) you won't find all things for sure depending on your luck. So you got to search further and be intelligent about it (search for distress pistol at specific points but you're not sure to find it) and it's more of deciding to take a risk.
Such system would allow to place high rarity items in less extreme spots without unbalancing the game. If you would find a village and get like no loot out of one house, you could guess that you won't find much in the other houses (again risk estimate), so you won't find the rifle in one of the other houses. That means, that you won't find the rifle at the well known spots anymore so often and if you want to have it, you got to search houses, where you wouldn't find anything else. That would be a much more random gameplay feel, than any other item distribution (fixed spots or totally random).

That depends on how many repeat cards you have in the deck and how many total cards there are in the deck.  There are hundreds of loot sites in TLD and some items only spawn once (e.g. crampons) and others only spawn a few times on higher difficulties.  Currently, the singular items only spawn in a single location and the items that spawn only a few times spawn in a small number of set locations that are dependent on each other (i.e. the 4 loot tables commonly referenced in Interloper and the "source" of the complaints about how predictable those runs are).  Of course, contributing to that predictability is how the Interloper players tend to play... bee-lining towards those locations that are connected into those 4 loot tables repeatedly.  If the locations were made more truly random, they would not be "connected" to one another in such a predictable pattern.

The pattern is less evident to the players on the lower difficulties, but they are still there and they can eventually be memorized to some extent.  For example, by playing Broken Railroad only runs for some time, I have identified that there are only 3 possible locations in the entire zone where a certain corpse will spawn... and that corpse will always have a knife on it (voyageur difficulty).  Similarly, there are 3 possible locations where a campfire will spawn... and that's where you will find the hatchet.  The corpse with the bow lying next to a deer also has a set 3 locations where it can spawn.  The locations also have a relationship to each other such that if Corpse 1 is found in location 1, Corpse 2 will be found in it's location 1, etc.  There are additional instances of these tools that may spawn in other containers or they may absent entirely - possibly spawning in associated containers in other zones... but these corpses and their relationship to the zone and each other remains intact and guarantees one instance of each item spawning within the zone on the easy difficulty.

  If those locations were added together and those same 3 items were placed in the zone and if they could all be found on occasion lumped together on one corpse or not, even if the player knows all nine loot locations, they may have to search all nine spots before coming with the items rather than being able to predict that they will find each item in only  1 of 3 spots.  Taking away the restriction that 1 of each of these items has to spawn within BR zone, would mean that they could search all 9 locations in BR and come up with bupkis.

Now, tell me again... which system is "random" and which is not.

Definition of random, FYI = "made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision."  By definition, therefore, incompatible with the idea that more randomness would be more realistic.  IRL, people organize their stuff... making conscious decisions about where to put it.  Your scenario of dropped ammo means that the person made a conscious decision to not pick it up again'; therefore, it represents less randomness, not more.  It also involves a conscious decision of the dev to tell that little bit of story with the ammo as a prop.  Randomness, by definition, contradicts conscious story-telling in games.

9 hours ago, Razum said:

I got one point to add (nobody's gonna read it, because this thread is already so long, but anyways): You know, you can find ammunition laying on the ground as someone let fall a pack of it or something. Or you can find food distributed all over different shelves. This is pretty unrealistic, because nobody would scatter around their stuff around the house, like one tomato soup in one shelve, a cracker in one other. If you don't have so much, you would put it in one shelve so you have it in one place or something.

My point is, just by changing the random distribution of things appearing, it would feel much more realistic, without changing much balance wise. Like, you could find a bunch of single ammunition on the ground, because someone before let it fall down and didn't want to collect it again or about all of the food of a house in just one place.
One could think this further by making these distributions affect other houses. Like in one village could be empty very much without much to find, like if the old inhabitants would take it with them and in other villages they would just have died or ran away, so theres much to find.

Adding just some numbers to affect each other would tell stories, make it more realistic and less predictable.

Really?  Do you actually understand what randomness is?  Randomness would be telling the system to take the total loot and place it absolutely anywhere and in any number in the game world without telling the game what or how much to put where.  What you're describing is the opposite of randomness.  Total randomness might put ammo and a gun in a fridge or put socks there and you might find that raw salmon in the dresser instead.  It would not be more realistic since people do not store stuff randomly inside their homes.  They organize their stuff.  Randomness also would not affect the amount of loot in the world as a total, but you might get 6 bedrolls in one location and nothing in any of the other zones since there would be no formula telling the programs to spread things out over the entire world.  Total randomness would not even tell the program that it has to place a minimum number of any particular item in the world... so, you could get a map that, despite enabling guns, might have absolutely no guns in it.

1 hour ago, Old Hermit said:

I suppose that the caves to be randomly blocked by shrubbery (great idea!) is meant to be the non-explorable, shelter caves, isn't?
Blocking the transitional caves and mines could leave to many disasters in game design, so i think @UpUpAway95 refers to the small ones, noh?

Anyways, i have no problem in having some of them blocked permanently by rocks (the island has too many earthquakes) or fallen trees, or whatever.

 

About the loot being more randomized, i'm all in favor of it. I never seen a loot table, and there is no reason to me look for any.
As someone said above, part of the essence of TLD survival mode is being crashed in an unfamiliar place. If the player is already familiarized to the terrain, it's just like to visit a place to where you traveled many times. So, there's no much "despair feeling" left, which is, for me, the soul of TLD.
Maybe some unpredictability on items spawn could bring that feeling, even if a little bit.

 

Let's keep in mind that these changes could be implemented as optional on custom, and not necessarily on standard modes.

(using google translator)

Yes, in general, I was referring to caves that don't transition from zone to zone... although I would not be adverse to transition caves being blocked by shrubbery since that can be cleared with a hatchet and hatchets do spawn on all difficulties except when Baseline Resources = Low (e.g. Interloper).  On those difficulties, there are generally enough of them that spawn to be very likely to find one in almost every zone even if loot were randomized totally.  For Loper-like runs where no hatchet spawns and they find the transition cave out of their spawn zone blocked... well, it's just going to likely be a short run.  If they survive for a long time all within their start zone, then they can pat themselves on the back for that achievement.  It would equate to a bad shuffle in solitaire that results in an hand that can't be won... which I've already said I'm not adverse to happening even in TLD.  Dying due to not being able to find an "essential" item is for me just part of the luck of the draw.  I don't need Hinterland to guarantee anything, really; but, as I also said, I suspect that there are many Lopers out there who would vehemently dislike total randomness affecting their games.

I goat down most of the time now.  It's much quicker and easier than taking the ropes.

45 minutes ago, The Orange Birb said:

This would be an amazing idea! It would help even more to make each run unique, as the randomness is increased. Also, it would help make the game a tiny bit more difficult (As spawns are not guaranteed on most things), which would be really nice.

+1

For your cave idea, if Hinterland could do that, that would make caves a LOT more interesting to explore, as it will be random for each run. Yes, it would make it more difficult (As map knowledge would not help if the caves were random each time) but that's the point of the game, to be a hard experience and the survivor (Will or Astrid) has little/no clue how to navigate around the region (As they crashlanded). I would really like that to be added as well.

  Reveal hidden contents

To add onto what I said about Will/Astrid having no clue how to navigate around the area, in Story Mode Grey Mother calls Will/Astrid "Outsiders," which shows that they have no clue how to navigate Great Bear (As they have never been to Great Bear, if I remember correctly). Will might have a tiny bit more knowledge about that area (As he flies planes) but for sure Astrid would have no clue how to navigate around there. @peteloud's idea about the randomized caves would REALLY reinforce that idea by making the cave system random, so each run is unique AND it would actually make you confused about how to navigate around for once. And plus, it would help make those online maps more useless!  

Will would have a quite a bit of ability to navigate Great Bear.  Aviation charts for VFR flight rules (which would apply to Will's plane) are quite detailed so that the pilot can navigate using landmarks visible from the air.  Structures like the dam and cannery, and towns like Milton, rivers, lakes and peaks would all definitely be on his charts and his charts would definitely be in the plane.  Astrid would also have access to those charts from the plane, although she might have a more limited ability to read them.  It is also evident from the story that Will at least spent some time vacationing on Great Bear with his father.  As a result, he could have a tremendous amount of knowledge about the island.  It also seems likely from the story that Astrid has spent some time on Great Bear given her knowledge of conditions there and her message that she was heading to Perseverence Mills.

1 hour ago, peteloud said:

I have never seen a loot table.  I don't use mods, maps, loot tables, or spoiler websites.  I play the games as HTL designed it to be played.

I've seen them.  I don't use them.  My statement was a merely a way of saying that they "randomize" things it seems by using only 4 possible combinations of locations for "essential" loot on Interloper.  I honestly don't know if they add more possible combinations as the Baseline Resources setting changes.  I would think it possible.  AFAIK, the 4 loot tables for Loper do also "work" on lower difficulties.  If there are more, then there should be times when they don't work, but I'm not about to test it out.  There will, however, always be people who would do something like that regardless of whatever "system" HTL used.  Total randomization, however, can't be cracked by anyone.  As I said, though, I believe a lot of people would dislike it.  I, however, would be perfectly game if they implemented it regardless of there being a non-zero chance of having a game spawn without one or more "essential" items.  The challenge would then be to see how long one could survive without access to those essentials, wouldn't it?  For example, how long I could survive on Loper without accessing the forge at all?... or without a match.  It might be as short as a day or a few days... but death is part of the aura of this game, isn't it?  As I said, for those that would find something like that too hard to accept, custom start options could be expanded and made more specific... select a start without just the bedroll or with just one match, etc.  There would be more ways to craft interesting and difficult starts apart from the current bolting to a spot with guaranteed matches and a 1/4-chance of a bedroll, etc.  People playing on lower difficulties would also have options to start without, say, a bedroll... as opposed to dropping it in the snow or harvesting it at the start to get rid of it.

I think the lighting is bugged... again.  I was in Angler's Den this morning... entered just at dusk and started making water.  It became dark while I was cooking and when I turned my back to the stove, I could not see anything at all in the entire cabin.  It was absolutely pitch black.  I took a torch out of the fire and searched the cabin with it and then went back to the stove and put on more water... letting the torch burn out.  When I turned my back to the stove, the cabin seemed fully lit, like it was daylight even though daylight was still many hours away.  Like you, I determined that there was no aurora.  In fact the wind was howling and snow was falling.  I went to sleep for 2 hours while the water cooked and woke up to a cabin that was again pitch black... and I could barely see the lit stove in the corner of the room (and there was almost no light emanating onto the nearby walls).  These interior lighting extremes all within a single night (with no aurora) are just not right.

18 minutes ago, peteloud said:

I am sure that the HTL guys would be able to come up with a system of randomisation that avoids obvious problems like that. 

You don't get it... I don't see it as a problem.  Luck has a place in gaming... and if that means that, on higher difficulties, so-called "essential" items might not spawn into a map at all... then so be it.  Play until you discover you're stumped and start a new run... just like in solitaire... not every shuffle of the cards is a "beatable" game. 

I'm sure there are a lot of people who would hate it, so yeah, I'm sure HTL can do things in a less random fashion and still accomplish more variety if they want to.  Fact is, there are always going to be people who figure out ways to decode any non-random system they come up with or who play until they have everything memorized cold... and then whine because they are no longer surprised by anything in the game. 

Even with only 4 loot tables on Loper, I still can refuse to memorize where stuff is and I can still play to look in all the containers and corpses I can explore to find rather than just bolting to the same locations every run.  I don't think those tables are even being expanded to include AC are they?  There are currently  enough random locations that I can be surprised to find something each an every run... and each new zone adds more.

As far as I can see, there is certainly no problem with the game keeping its setpieces set.  As I said, caves can more easily be found blocked by something than moved.  Some buildings in the game are already found randomly burned.  Other major ones could be changed on the inside to be found totally gutted (no beds or containers inside) without even altering how they appear on the outside at all.

57 minutes ago, Syraith said:

Personally, I rarely use caves unless in areas with little to no man made structures. Buildings have better cover, better loot, are mostly more plentiful, and easier to memorize locations.

I don’t see random caves being a major game changer on their own. Just my opinion though from my experience. It would be much more devastating to (for example) be in the midst of a blizzard in PV and heading toward the barn or farmstead to see it had been moved than a cave I’m looking for. Structures are my safety net, not caves. 
 

You CAN with what they have already, just would be annoyingly time consuming. You would just have to have cutout sections of mountain/rock/ground as a game object and caves as other objects. Cut out areas where caves could spawn (the opening would have to match the spawn objects) and then just generate the cave or wall depending on how it’s coded. Again, very time consuming as almost each one would have to be custom textured to make sure it isn’t an obvious spawn area, but very doable. Just not practical unless like you say, it’s done from the beginning.

I really hate the idea of terrain being moved around in a game.  It's not logical for the setpiece to be sacrificed for the sake of trying to surprise people who play the game so much they memorize everything.  It would be better if, like some of the houses can be randomly burned down now, some of the caves could be randomly blocked by shrubbery grown over the entrance (or fallen trees)... such that the cave could be accessed perhaps, but only with a hatchet.  That would foil some Lopers at least until they got to a forge.  They could also get more aggressive with the burned houses such that, on Loper, the player could find all of them burned rather than counting on one of the group still standing.  They could even make some of the more notable structures subject to being randomly burned out... imagine finding only a burned out shell of the Camp Office.  With total randomized loot, it would also be completely possible for a primary loot location (say, like Gray Mother's house) to have absolutely nothing in it.  it would just be the luck of the RNG whether or not any particular zone even contained a box of matches.  Conceivably, entire maps might spawn without any heavy hammer, etc.  If Loper's want chaos, I'm happy to give it them.  Heck, all they'd really have to do is take the warmth bonus out of the caves randomly (the complaints AC got when it was first introduced about that proves it).

25 minutes ago, Syraith said:

I agree more randomness could add to the challenge and obviously those that have playing for years could probably draw perfect topographical maps of each region from memory, but if we say some random cave spawning, then you’d kinda have to say the same about buildings and other structures.

Its kind of a catch 22, there are many reasons to keep it the same (immersion, for some explainable reason you know the land, the first time through “should” be the story mode to get familiar in a designed manner, and do on) but same could be said to change it, as you state.

From a programming perspective, it would be a challenge. But has obvious reward/value from it even if it’s a custom option you can enable.

I don't think caves should be randomized at all.  The maps in this game are set pieces of art... not system generated ones.  Moving caves about is just going to generate more bugs... caves plopped down by the system is illogical places or worse... places that block access to areas, etc.  If they want to go with system-generated settings... that's something for another new game (i.e. going the NMS route).

A more immersive start, would plop down some plane wreckage at the location where the player spawns... including an emergency supply case inside that wreckage that would include supplies based on the player's selected starting gear allocation.  Realistically, in Canada, pilots must be prepared to survive for a reasonable length of expected time for a rescue based on whatever area of Canada their flight plan takes them.  It's the law... so it's unthinkable that MacKenzie would not have at least some means of starting a fire, some food, and a bedroll... but this is a game after all.  A pilot would also always have some form of map (i.e. aviation chart) for all the areas he/she is flying over.