UpUpAway95

I hear you. I'd hate to see them remove the option to sleep away sprains and pain though since it is quite possible to be caught in a position where you just don't have any painkillers or bandages or cloth. I think that painkillers and bandages should lessen the effects with the notation of "sprain treated" rather than the current "sprain healed" and then it should take an additional 4 hours of sleep to heal the injury. If you were unable to treat it first with painkillers or bandages, you would have to "suffer" the full-strength effects until you reached a place ot sleep and it should require 6 hours of sleep to cure an untreated sprain (as opposed to 4 hours to cure a treated one). Additionally, the pain should never outlast the injury itself.

Great news.

I'm not hating the pain thing. I just don't think its working right. I just got another sprained ankle. This time I thought I would let Will just limp home without treating it at all. When I entered Gray Mother's house, I got a notice that the pain had healed (I guess the time just expired on it without any treatment. I still have the sprained ankle though, which says it still requires 4 hours of recovery time and a bandage, apparently. I'm now just going to bed with it... we'll see what happens. ETA: Sure enough, it healed with just 4 hours of sleep. No bandage.

Haven't played yet on stalker post this update. I'm thinking that they run away a lot sooner in Pilgrim though. I used to be able to sneak up on a wolf feeding on a deer in order to shoot it to get its pelt, but now they seem to be running away before Will even gets in sight of them. It could be that I'm not yet trying to sneak up on them though since I only just found the revolver and still need to find a rifle or bow and arrows before I'll be able to kill them.

I usually have two or three locations where I put stuff. In Mountain Town, I'll have a stash at Paradise Meadows and another at Gray Mother's. I don't like leaving stuff in the other buildings in town since it's mostly food and clothing and I ultimately find myself looking for both later on again. Moving it means I don't have to think about going through each house a second time. I also like to clear the plane crash site completely so I don't have to go back (and I used to do it in one trip... a very slow trip and I usually got a sprain or two). I think I probably should have just ignored the sprain mechanic and did it the same way this time. On Pilgrim, Will doesn't have to worry about getting attacked, so I could be mean and just turn off his whining and let him limp home fully loaded.

I'm trying to be very good about not getting overencumbered, but it makes for a lot of extra trips to and from Gray Mother's house while looting Milton. I just found the revolver at the place crash. It took me 4 days worth of trips to get to and from the plane crash with loot without being overencumbered... and I still got several sprains.

I had not found a revolver at that point in time. The only weapon I had access to was, in fact, stones and I did not have one equipped. I wasn't tired at all, having gotten the sprain while literally getting out of bed after a full night's sleep. I was about 5 kg overencumbered because I had cooked 7 kg of venison up just before turning in to bed and had not gone out to the porch yet to dump it in the snow to slow its decay. (It was a wolf who had killed the deer in front of Gray Mother's house and, because I'm on Pilgrim mode, it ran off as I approached so I could harvest the deer without having to kill it.) After getting the sprain while getting out of the bed, I literally just crawled back into bed and slept 6 more hours without bandaging or taking pain killers. After that time, the sprain was noted as having healed, but the pain remained and would not go away until I finally decided to take two pain killers. Then, and only then, it went away immediately. ETA: Thinking about this, I'm willing to bet that even though I asked for 6 more hours of sleep, the game woke me immediately upon the sprained wrist being healed (2 hours). Now, the question is does the pain remain for a total of 4 hours regardless of the nature of the sprain. If so, it would have had 2 hours remaining... but that still can't explain though why it went away immediately when I did take the painkillers. I'm also wondering if I'm getting lag on the sprain notification such that, rather than getting this sprain while getting up from bed, it started when I was getting into the bed and just couldn't start quick enough before I went to sleep for the night. The same sort of thing could explain by getting a sprain the game day before while entering Gray Mother's house. That sprain maybe should have happened as I was climbing the hill to her house, but only showed up after the door loading screen had completed.

I am definitely of the opinion that the pain mechanic got "stuck" on my sprain (a bug? - trigger, unknown). I just sprained my ankle and immediately bandaged it and took 2 pain killers. I noted that the duration remaining on the pain after taking the pain killers was shown as 3 hrs 40 mins and the visual effect did disappear after that time. So, the clock should have run out on the pain from that sprained wrist within 4 hours (since a wrist reportedly heals quicker than an ankle). The fact that it healed immediately after I did take the pain killers (after having slept 6 hours) tells me that it should have expired on its own... unless taking the painkillers is mandatory to getting rid of pain. However, the fact that my earlier sprain healed completely without any pain killers and 4 hours of sleep shows that taking pain killers is not mandatory. It's not consistent... something is bugged.

How long did you sleep? I slept 6 hours. The sprain healed, but the pain did not. Conversely, a different sprain earlier healed completely (both sprain and pain) with 4 hours of sleep. Why the difference? Something is not working right.

On leaving the Hibernia Plant on Interloper difficulty, I walked right into a bear. It scared me so bad, my movement on the stick caused Will to back right into a pile of debris in the yard such that he got stuck and couldn't move. Fortunately, the bear couldn't path there and ran off whimpering. I still had to reload the save and redo everything I had done since sleeping in the plant, but at least my save wasn't deleted due to death.

So, you would say that my sleeping for 6 hours should have healed a sprained wrist completely. However, it did not... the sprain was noted has having been healed, but the pain did not go away even after 6 hours of sleep. I literally had to take the two pain killers to get rid of the pain and its associated visual effect.

Sprain mechanic - I don't believe this is working as intended. I recently obtained a sprain just after waking up in Gray Mother's house as I turned to walk away from the bed. I was overencumbered (probably by about 5 kg) since I had cooked up 7 kg of venison that a wolf had killed in front of the house just before going up to bed and did not go out to drop it on the porch first. After I got the sprain, I immediate went back to sleep for 6 hours. The game indicated that the sprain had healed, but the pain indicator would not go away until after I took 2 painkillers. This is odd since I don't think I should experience pain from a healed sprain. I don't think the sprain itself should have occured despite being overencumbered since I was on level ground and well rested from having slept through the night. In addition, I received a sprain the previous game day as I opened the door on Gray Mother's house to enter after looting a nearby house. I was about 2 kg overencumbered but had successfully walked up the hile to Gray Mother's house without receiving a sprain. Again, this was level ground. If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with when I turn my character (Xbox controller)... regardless of what sort of terrain he is on.

I'm not certain that this is working as intended even yet. I just got a sprained wrist turning away from the bed after sleeping at Gray Mother's house on Pilgrim difficulty. I only was 5kg overencumbered at the time. I went back to bed immediately for 6 hours and the sprain indicated it had healed, but the pain remained until I took two painkillers. I also got a sprain a game day earlier entering Gray Mother's house... not on the hill but actually as I was just opening the door itself. I was again slightly overencumbered (probably about 2 kg) and saw the yellow sprain caution; but these sprains are occurring on completely flat ground and with no red slope warning.

My first time across it... Yep, learned the hard way to never attempt that bridge in anything even remotely close to a blizzard. If I hadn't fallen, I probably would have died from the cold before I got completely across to shelter anyways.

I never thought to check whether crafting hooks contributed to leveling fishing the same way crafting arrowheads levels archery. I didn't craft very many until I had to start using them to get the sewing achievement... and by then I already had Level 5 fishing.. I did read every Angler I found, but it's always possible I missed finding one.

There are two different difficulty settings for Wintermute. I don't know if you can change the difficulty midstream or if you're already on the easiest one, but perhaps it is an alternative worth exploring before giving up entirely on the story.

Fish are quite a bit heavier at Coastal Highway, so fishing there means you'll have to catch fewer fish overall.

Sorry, you're right... The journal shows the title as "Fish Caught (KG)"; so it would have been 508 kg of fish that I had caught when the level changed from 4 to 5.

It's certainly possible that critical hits count for more than hits that would just cause the animal to bleed out after running for a ways. I was playing on Pilgrim, so I didn't have to worry about being attacked by anything and, with the rifle, I could aim while crouched. Basically, my technique was to watch how the deer in area path'd, then work my way to a position where one would eventually come towards me and where I could stay behind some cover, I would then carefully aim as they got close and I was basically able to ensure a head shot every time... or else I simply wouldn't pull the trigger. If the rifle started to sway, I would just lower it and raise again so it would be steady when I fired. I also did some practicing on other save files. I had a lot more total misses with the bow (ETA: than the rifle - hitting only about 70 to 75%) since I couldn't draw the bow while crouched. However, essentially all the hits were critical since what I hunted with the bow were rabbits -- and they always die if you hit them at all. I did forge about 60 arrowheads and made arrows (which goes towards the skill) and reduces the number of hits you need. I also shot a few wolves, but only as they were feeding on deer kills. Mending was the issue since I wanted to get the achievement before Day 500. I had been so good about not mending until the condition was at the point where it would just get to 100% that I was way behind on what I would need to get the achievement "on time." That's when I took the advice here and began mending every time the condition dropped below 100%. Since I had scrapped all the clothes I wasn't wearing, cloth was not ever an issue... even when I resorted to mending my bedroll almost every night (which takes 2x cloth). Had I not changed strategy, I'd probably still not have reached Mending Level 5 by Day 1000 of the run.

I'm now done with this achievement and this particular save file. He jumped from TWM on Day 500 of his achievement acquiring ordeal. May he RIP. Here's the data as I recorded it. It may help others trying to get this achievement to have an idea how many times they have to repeat some of these actions. It took a total of 322 mends, with having researched all the Sewing Primers I found. It took exactly 200 mends to go from Level 4 to Level 5. It took exactly 50 rifle hits to get to Level 5 (after researching at least 2 Frontier Shooting Guides and 2 Advanced Guns, Guns, Guns). I did find more of the shooting guides, but was not allowed to research them after researching the Advanced Guns. My journal showed 61 bow hits, but I believe it reached level 5 around the 50-hit mark. I researched every "Stay on Target" I found. I caught a total of 508 fish. A few were caught after I leveled up, so I believe the total needed there (after researching all the Angler magazines) is 500. Since the other skills reached Level 5 long before I became concerned about getting this achievement before Day 500, I have no idea how many repeats it took to get to level 5. I can't remember for certain now (and the file is deleted), but I'm fairly sure I did not have the Book Learning feat active for this file. With my achievement hunting days over, I'm moving on to more exciting playthroughs.

Pretty much every achievement out there can be obtained through normal play as long as the player is willing to devote hundreds of hours of their life into playing the game. It is grindy because, if the player is playing the game to maximum efficiency, then it will take them all that much longer before they need to mend clothing the number of times that the game requires to earn the achievement. Similarly, if one is just killing animals when they absolutely need the meat, then it will take them all that much longer to shoot the requisite 50 animals to earn the achievement. Ditto on catching 500 fish (the number needed to get that to Level 5). My pilgrim's ability to survive much longer than 500 days is not in doubt. He'll survive, but I would rather kill him off on Day 500 and have more time to play on challenges and in Wintermute, etc. Additionally, I don't want to invest 473 days in a file trying to get a 500-day achievement, only to die and have to start such a long and time consuming achievement over again... that's why I opted to do it on an easy difficulty. For those who think that game achievements need to be inordinately difficult to be achievements, may I remind you that Minecraft hands out an achievement for opening your inventory... along with numerous others than can be obtained within the first few minutes of starting the tutorial and has considerable achievements that can be done on Peaceful difficulty.

As I've indicated, I have other save files for that. This achievement (Skilled Survivor) is ultimately about cooking about 500 things, catching about 500 fish, killing X number of animals with the rifle and then killing so many more with the bow, and then doing about 300 to 350 mends on your clothing. It's a ridiculously grindy achievement that has very little to do with surviving in harsh conditions. You can rag on me all you like for finding a way to do this achievement without having to start it over numerous times in numerous different, harder file saves because of repeated permadeaths; but perhaps your time would be better spent petitioning the devs to get rid of these grindy achievements and replace them with more ones like the 24-hour Interloper survival one... i.e. ones that are specific to a certain difficulty level and/or challenge mode. The same holds true for the 500-day one. The devs could easily change it so that it applies to a specific difficulty level. Right now, it applies to all survival difficulties, which includes custom and includes all settings available to every person playing on custom.

I found the easiest way to maintain a clip of two mends per day is to sleep each night in the bedroll even if there is a bed available. That guarantees that the bedroll will drop to 99% from 100% each and every day guaranteeing one repair each day. If I'm not doing much outside (on Pilgrim), the clothing may not drop each day, but usually at least 2 items will drop to 99% every second day. So, there's no need to risk ruining clothes by mountain goating or to needlessly stand outside during blizzards to get this done by Day 500. I returned to ML and scavenged every bit of cloth from the dam and lakeside cabins in the process. I now should also be set with enough cloth to make the 150 mends needed. I also found 20 more bullets, so I should be good to Rifleman Level 5 as well as long as I stay careful and accurate.

Like a stubborn old fool (which I am), I keep trying to find a path around the edge from the Broken Railroad entrance and wide up getting squeezed out onto the ice to get around a particular boulder a short distance before getting to the homestead. I've only successfully made it once without falling in... and on that run I found a campfire with a corse and a rifle somewhere in that vicinity. Needless to say, I haven't found that encampment again either. I think there must be a higher path and a way around that boulder that I'm just not seeing.

Forlorn Muskeg is my real nemesis zone... I've managed to fall through the ice in virtually every attempt I've tried to get to Spence's Homestead. On easier difficulties, I've managed to survive to get to land, build a snow shelter and warm up. Of course, no such luck on Loper.