UpUpAway95

My game was working fine after the Hesitant update and before this hotfix, but now my character cannot leave the Maintenance Shed in Broken Railroad (which is where he was saved before the hotfix hit).  When I open the door, the game goes to the loading screen and then to pure black except for the condition meters in the lower left corner.  Pressing any of the keys does nothing and I ultimately have to return to the Xbox Home page.  So, I kissed that file save goodbye and attempted to start a new character in Broken Railroad... and the game will not even spawn him regardless of difficulty.  It will spawn a new character in other random zones,; however, Broken Railroad is a total no go zone.  Can someone else please test out that zone and let me know if it's working for you?

ETA:  Figured it out - I guess "Ready to start" only applies if you're not trying to start in Broken Railroad.  It was only after download was 100% finished that the zone would load... probably  it is the last one that does.  My internet being so very slow means that a download of the size of this update takes several hours.  Having a "ready to start" message appear at 50% is really confusing when their are entire zones of the map that won't function at that stage of the download.

On 6/7/2020 at 1:52 PM, Dum_Gen said:

I almost sure that it doesn't counts as outdoors for the Cold Fusion feat.

It kinda resembles the warmer part of the caves - you can cure guts, read books/craft at night, food spoils like outside.

At the same time - doesn't count for the Cold Fusion feat and increases Cabin Fever risk.

IIRC, the bonus of the hut is that warmth from the fireplace extends to the outdoor side of the wall, so you can sleep there in the sleeping bag/snow shelter to decrease Cabin Fever risk.

If you're going to risk sleeping outside the mountaineer's hut itself, I think it's easier to just forego the snow shelter and sleep inside the fishing hut (which has a stove and does count as being outdoors)... bonus if it spawns with a door (although I'm not sure if that particular fishing hut ever does spawn with a door).  The floor area inside the fishing huts is just large enough to lay down a bedroll.  However, nothing cures inside a fishing hut.  I quite often use the one at Pensive Pond (PV) for lowering cabin fever risk since it always spawns with a door.  There's always fishing for food and quite often a moose that spawns in that area.

On 6/24/2020 at 6:53 AM, atomic said:

There are so much more stones in the game that you do not need to carry exactly 50 with you. For my exploration tour though HRV I took 50 stones with me to build a cache right after the entrance to the region. Meanwhile I have mapped a significant part of the map and have already build another 4 caches with stones found in HRV only. I think I would be able to build at least 2 more caches if not for the maximum of 5 per region...

I think that caches are a very good addition to the game. Think of it more from the role playing point of view.  I mean you still can just drop stuff on the floor of a cave for example. Once you've decided to establish a camp somewhere, you can just pick up some stones while collecting wood, exploring the region or hunting. After a few trips you will easily have the 50 stones for the cache.

Depends on where you want to put the cache.  You still have to carry 50 stones to that spot regardless of where you collect them and whether or not you do it all at once or make several trips from nearby places where stones are found.  It seems to me, it is simpler to just use any nearby building, existing container or frozen corpse lying about... which is what I've been doing all along and just making a note in my journal if it's something I particularly want to remember where I've stashed it.  As it is, I doubt I'll ever bother with them.  If you find them convenient for you, that's great for you.

Perhaps if they added a small version that only takes, say, 10 stones and only holds, say, 5 - 10 kg.

Thanks for the update, but the cans of paint are just going to stay wherever they spawn in survival.  My preference is to continue to use sticks, stones, cattail heads and tinder plugs (which can be found or made as I need them) rather than carting around cans of paint just in case I want to mark something.  The number of rocks required to build a cache is also too weighty for me to want to make use of it.

However, I suspect this was put in with some sort of plan for a story-based use in Wintermute.

I recently got back to playing TLD after a long break (since before the Fearless Navigator update).  I'm now having a issue with the game crashing when I harvest just killed deer.  It may be related to the amount of meat I'm trying to harvest or that the character is becoming overburdened during the harvesting since I'm not experiencing the issue when harvesting ravaged deer corpses.

17 hours ago, Karl Grylls said:

I see. I grazed PV in Sandbox before Episode 3 came out and i didn't want to do it again after that. So i finished exploring TWM and moved to CH. I haven't ben in BI etc yet. SO i guess i just have missed most of the locations.

But i'm wondering: In HRV you have to build snow shelters and dismantle them every time. How many pieces of cloth are needed to explore the whole map?

It's hard to say.  Firstly, you likely would not dismantle your shelter every night, but place one in a convenient and safe location and return to it for multiple nights, just as you would with a base inside a building.  You can also repair the shelter and, I believe, depending on how much it has degraded, the repair may only cost you sticks rather than additional cloth.

ETA:  I would expect also that you could treat the bedroll spawn just like any other bed in the game.  You should still be able to use it, just not move it away from the location where you found it.

I don't generally die indoors due to the darkness, but I still think this is a good suggestion.

2 hours ago, OldGrey said:

This, from the most recent Milton Mailbag:

“I have some ideas for how to improve Arrowheads and Arrows in general. Using a whetstone to maintain them sounds like a good idea.”

- Looks like they will probably update arrows at some point.

Personally, I’d quite like them to add a stone arrowhead too. Means those stones could be useful for something more than just pelting them at rabbits.

It sounds to me like Raph is thinking about making arrowheads degrade and then using whetstones to sharpen them.  I hope this is done with an increase in the number of whetstones that can be found in the game (or with the added use of another sort of strop (beaver tails were discussed on another thread).  Even on lower difficulties, I have tended to eventually run low on whetstones.  Maybe I'm missing a few while looting (they can be hard to spot), but I'd hate to have to use them up sharpening arrowhead and have no means to sharpen my hacket or knife.

12 minutes ago, tinyfenix said:

That’s the thing. I intentionally went into this playthrough completely blind after over a year of not playing. That way I wouldn’t have the locations memorized and it would prevent me from “cheating” or meta gaming. I was going for a realistic experience and just never could find a hammer. I’ve pretty much scoured the main areas and no such luck. 

I also know it’s a game and designed to be difficult but it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to have a forge... where someone lived... and no tools for miles to utilize it... did the person who lived there build a forge and then drive away, tossing their tools out the window randomly? It’s just kind of hilarious. Like there’s no hammers anywhere near any forges but you can only find one in a completely remote location miles from any building where a hammer would be used??

On the easier difficulties, it is not uncommon to find a hammer near at least one of the 3 forges in the game.  The harder difficulties are meant to be harder, so hammers do not spawn near the forge.  The head canon I use is that the forges were looted for forging tools long before Will/Astrid arrived on Great Bear.  People needed them to break apart furniture and we not using them for forging (but knew they would likely find one at a forge).

They don't want to make crafting arrows simple simply because it is the primary weapon for their hardest difficulty setting.  Loper relies on the need to forge the tools and the need to first find a hammer in another zone to make it difficult.  Making it easier would undermine that setting.  Since guns don't spawn in Loper (unless custom), the relative difficulty of crafting bullets is irrelevant to that setting.

I am totally against poisoned meat being introduced.

A tranquilizer dart gun and darts we might find, on the other hand, would be a nice alternative (in custom mode) to replace the rifle and pistol and make no kill (pacifist) runs possible.  Darts should be as common as rifle rounds and be able to render a bear unconscious with a single shot.  This would enable the player to exit the area unscathed.  Ideally, if such a setting is chosen by the player, cattails and other medicinal plants should respawn.  To make the run sustainable, new darts should be craftable at the mill in Bleak Inlet.

On 2/2/2020 at 3:54 PM, Gun Tech. said:

Currently, I'm refraining from playing my long-lived character with version 1.73, because I'm afraid the known issue posted in this sub-forum will permanently drop some vital items spread through my bases underground, inaccessible forever, and I wouldn't find out until I've played 20 days on my character and the great run is converted into a bad run. I'm eagerly awaiting an update with a fix and confirmation from players that it's fixed before I continue on my save.

I'm glad someone else has noticed an issue with things falling through floors now.  I thought I was losing it.  I summitted TWM and unloaded all the crates in the dark and dropped excess supplies in the back corner of the plane and went to sleep right there without starting a fire (lower difficulty and it was warm enough).  I then exited the file because IRL I was going to bed.  When I started the save up the next day, everything I had dropped in that corner was gone.  I double-checked and the crates were all empty, so the game did save when I slept but the items I dropped must have fallen through the floor of the plane.  I was so disgusted, I terminated that run and haven't yet started another.

Best solution, IMO... cook everything you can early in the game and get to level 5 cooking.  Then eat cooked meat regardless of its condition with impunity.  For all intents and purposes, it is preserved even though the tag says it is ruined (it would be "nice" if the game changed the label on all your meat when you hit level 5 from whatever condition to "preserved").  I view the getting to level 5 cooking as the equivalent of learning how to preserve your meat.

You can speed up the process by cooking any deer or moose as smaller steaks, as well as cooking up all of the coffee and teas (all varieties) you can find.  Even without resorting to smaller steaks, it is relatively easy to get to level 5 cooking skill.  That is, I personally have never needed to use the smaller-steak trick to get to level 5.  As a further bonus, with lots of Reshi teas stored, you can also eat ruined processed foods (unheated).  You have a slight chance of getting food poisoning, so eat them when you want to get a long night's sleep without being tired enough... just drink a tea after  and settle in for 10 hours of sleep.

I always make sure I have ample cloth on me.  A bedroll can always be ruined during an attack and you can find yourself without one any place at any time.  I've also forgotten to pick it up at the end of night.  Having material to build an emergency snow shelter can save your life in an emergency.  Knowing where bedrolls are either guaranteed to spawn or are most likey to spawn in something else that can also save your life.

6 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Well if they have a stove and there is no immediate wolf patrol around .... that's actually good enough 🙂 You still get the fire bonus, and the fire is 100% safe. They are just pretty rare, and the Derelict Cabins in PV, for example, even have a patrolling bear.

I did not mean to set two fires inside the split in half houses with the stove.  I probably should have started a new paragraph there to be clearer.

Yes, patrolling bear = a great source of meat for your extended outdoor camping spree.  Basically, I try to stockpile wood in those places whenever I am going by them.  Every few sticks adds up over time.

3 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

One instance was one of my first attempts Snowballing TWM, where I placed the Snowshelter right in front of the hollowed out tree below the ultimate climb to the Summit. Fire died due to winds. I died due to hypothermia.

Numbers two and three were snowballing Forlorn Muskeg in an alternative location (not Spence's, not Marsh Ridge) in the relative middle of the ice field. The fire held seemed safe for several days in a row, but both times (slightly different Snow Shelter positions) one night the fire suddenly just died and I with it.

So I guess ..... they are good places but not really totally "safe". Short intervals seem to be a wise choice, but that makes recovery very hard.

I personally had more luck with what I call "cavelets". Small cavities in larger rocks, walls or mountainsides. The one not too far from Poacher's Camp in FM, for example, got me through 30 days and never let me down. I also held out in one of these in HRV for more than a week after having a run in with a bear. If you actually look for them you will be amazed how many of them there are (but you certainly know that 😉)

Agreed, cavelets are great.  Other good locations include the hay sheds (after crouching to get under the "loft" section) and the houses that are split in half (which even have a stove, like in the Milton Basin or Deadfall area in Mystery Lake.).  It's often possible to set two fires that are sheltered from the wind at different angles and have one survive even if the winds shift to blow out the other one.  Of course, lighting multiple fires is in an of itself hard because of the amount of wood it requires.

3 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Times I died doing this: 3  

How.?  Did the fire blow out or were you attacked?  My fire has made it through entire nights frequently using this technique... although I do still sleep in shorter intervals to check on it regularly and will move if it just isn't working out.  I also tend to note prevailing winds in the various maps and pick trees that are oriented with their "backs" to those prevailing winds.  Some are also more sheltered by adjacent trees or rocks than others. Yes, the winds do shift, but they seem to more frequently come from particular directions... or maybe that's just on lower difficulties.

6 hours ago, Tactical Ex said:

 

I agree, none of that is untrue but there is a common theme with what you noted, it requires the player to go to a cave or existing structure. I've found some incredible alcoves and passages that I'd love to turn into a "base" but the danger is just too great imo because it is just too out in the open. An erect-able defense (wall, spikes, etc) would mitigate that danger and add a little bit more ownership to my experience. I mean, there is enough scrap wood lying around the Dam to build another Dam, I don't want my only options to be burn it or make a snare 😁

This is a valuable thing to consider. There are all kinds of wild custom configurations player can make. Some people might like having incredibly hostile wildlife and have to battle it out. That is not my cup of tea but to each their own. I think if such a feature that I am proposing were introduced, I'd definitely want a custom setting where it could be tuned/turned off. 

Yeah, I don't want the idea to come off as too "pie-in-the-sky".  There are some challenges to overcome for sure (imo, mostly about exploiting pathing behavior) but it's not impossible. Some times the really fun stuff is hard to nail down 🙂

Sorry, no sale.  It's not like getting to a cave is all that tough anywhere in this game.  Heck, they've even provided more of the ready-made beds in them with this last update.  If you're caught out in the open, then there's the emergency snow shelter available.  Find a hollowed out tree, put your fire in that and then plunk the snow shelter down in front of the open side, so your fire is actually very well sheltered from the wind in any direction and you're sheltered by the snow shelter.

I agree with Jeff... just turn off cabin feverr in the custom settings.  I really think I would not like turning the atmosphere of the Canadian North into a combat sim.  IRL, we're not "at war" with the wildlife up here.  If anything, a campfire at the mouth of any cave should be sufficient to deter wildlife from entering (as long as it isn't allowed to go out) and closing the door should be sufficient protection whenever their is a door to be closed.  Obviously, Hinterlands has been finding that, in general, fires have been too OP for a game, so they nerfed them by making the animals not fear them.  Somewhere in the settings regarding the animal's fear of fire should be a proper game balance.  Adjusting this would be my preference rather than allowing the player to erect an array of defenses.

On 1/22/2020 at 1:14 PM, Makex said:

First day and this is what i find after few hours of searching. The moose had 35 and some kg of meat in it, 54% condition. Location was HRW, near second signal fire.

Question is: How would you handle the situation?

Wow, I've never seen a pre-killed moose on any difficulty before.  Great find!

Knowing that such prop corpses don't tend to despawn unless disturbed, I probably would have resisted the temptation to open the UI to find out how much meat was on him.  I would just have noted the location and gone about collecting ample wood for a long and hot fire so that, ultimately, I could harvest more than 2 kg of meat and at least the hide.  If there was a nearby cave, I may have also stockpiled some wood in the cave so that I could cook more of the meat in relative comfort and without the risk of the wind blowing my fire out.

Normally, a ready-made moose-hide satchel is found at the signal fire... now I'm curious if your signal fire still has that item there or if finding the dead moose replaces that item.

It's completely dependent on how agressive I've got the predators set.  If aggressive, then anything that encumbers me is too much and I'll only carry over that limit if I absolutely must and then I'll only carry it for the shortest possible time.  My caches of most things are small and haphazard and my gameplay is more about covering more ground quickly and being mobile to avoid predators is critical.

 If the predators are passive, I'll load myself right up until I can no longer run at all and concern myself with getting the "world" organized a bit and wandering around to get good screenshots.  My survival is seldom in question and getting sprains is seldom more than a slight inconvenience.

The idea of your map changing by itself after you've drawn it is not at all in line with the lore of the game.  You're using charcoal, not some sort of GUI that could automatically detect when a carcass despawns or when you've finally collected those cattails you mapped earlier.  It's a picture along the line of what many 18th Century explorers drew into their diaries.  Why not take a screen shot of the map, print it, and cross structures off that print if its something you think would be useful for you.  For myself, I honestly don't think I'd ever bother.  I make a note in my journal of where I leave rare tools, but otherwise I have little caches of wood and water and food all over the map.  Sometimes it's a nice surprise to stumble into a house in a blizzard (freezing and hungry) and find that I've been there before and left some sticks and an extra can of food or water just because when I was there before I needed to shed some weight.  I don't want to bog down my game by marking every little move I make on a map.

On 1/18/2020 at 6:50 AM, manolitode said:

You're missing my point. With somewhat regular seasons you'll get approx 90 days a year without snow. That means no blizzards, no deep cold and no challenge for a seasoned survivor unless Hinterland change the game considerably. The downslide of temperature has already stopped so I don't understand what's to cure there. Apart from that, we all know auroras and blizzards occur outside the game.

The downslide to temperatures hasn't stopped.  It's dependent on difficulty, but the setting expressly states that the "world gets colder over time." 

Will guesses outright that, unless they get to Great Bear, whoever or whatever Astrid is trying to heal is going to get worse. 

My guess is that the "whoever" is Mother Earth and the sickness are the geomagnetic storms.  It's my guess based on the story as presented to us so far.  We'll see when the rest of the story is released what actually happens.  I really do not care whether or not you agree with my guess because ultimately it's Hinterlands who will write the end to their story and whether or not they write it in such a way that we can continue on with a survival playthrough after Wintermute ends or not.  My preference would be to be able to play on with Will and Astrid as actual characters... as well as the other NPCs, but if they do write a "fade into the long dark" ending, I'll have to just accept it.

5 hours ago, manolitode said:

Valid point, but I don't think we'll get to cure great bear for a number of reasons. This is season 1, if we cure it, will there be a completely different game in season 2? One without blizzards, auroras, frenzied wolves and -68 C temps? I Believe we get our dark ending, my experience is that bright endings to dark games ruin the game for quite a few players. But there's a balance of course, consider the ending of Last of us, spoiler, you save something but not the human race. 

Curing the geomagnetic problem changes the auroras, but does not eliminate them.  They currently happen all the time, but don't affect the wildlife in the way portrayed in the game.  Blizzards also happen during the Canadian winters.  I've been currently riding out a cold spell in Alberta in the range of -30 to -35C.  Also the temperature chances may take time to progress.  In other words, Astrid's "cure" might even just stop the downslide (i.e. the world no longer get colder over time).

1 hour ago, manolitode said:

In this and only this game, I'd love a TLD-like unforgiving ending. Like Astrid and Mac find each other and continue on their journey together to reach Perseverance mills. But when they're so close to reach it they get wiped out by a relentless blizzard, screen goes black except for "you faded into the long dark". 

I don't expect that because I expect this is a game where we might be able to continue on with the story-mode save within ongoing survival play.  Even if Astrid's case stabilizes the geomagnetic activity, we are still left with a seriously damaged and decayed infrastructure and what are normally harsh conditions during the Canadian winter.  A thaw towards the more normal spring/summer conditions for the area probably would take some time.

At Perseverence Mills, revealing the contents of Astrid's mysterious case and curing whatever "sickness" it was that Astrid set out to cure in the first place.  Then Will and Astrid deciding not to return to the mainland but to join the community on Great Bear Island... using whatever skills they've learned along the way to continue to survive and thrive in harmoney with Great Bear's ecosystem.  I think the case contains the solution to ending the geomagnetic issues on the island and preventing them from spreading to the Mainland.