DarkTreader

Looks like Quonset and the two groups of burned out cottages. Became very familiar with that area during last year's 3DON.

In any game, you're going to have a personal skill curve and a game difficulty skill curve that are going to diverge at some point, which is why there are challenges (both built into the game, as well as community-created). A green player wouldn't last a night in a Deadman challenge, and rightly so - that challenge isn't designed for them. The 'easy' start to the game is the story mode, where you're slowly introduced to new tools, features, and survival skills necessary. Even something like Voyageur survival mode takes a lot of skill to survive in. So... I'm not certain what the ask here is. Make the game easier than it is to start, then substantially harder over time? That's what a long-term survival play does. Resources become more and more limited, even once food and water are covered, so it becomes a time and risk management issue.

As others have said, it really does depend on your play style. I'm assuming survival mode, since this is far less of an issue in story mode. There are a lot of questions you need to ask when building out your kit: - What is my goal? Am I trying to put together a 'generalist' kit, or something more specialized? - How much weight do I want to spend with the kit? Addendums here: Am I Well-Fed? Do I have a Moose Satchel? Keeping in mind that I'm **__FAR__** less experienced than some of the people around here, I have a kit that tends to do well for me so far: Tools: - Hatchet (for fast wood cutting and harvesting frozen corpses carcasses) - Knife (for stabby stabby purposes) - 1 Fishing Tackle or Sewing Kit (default to Fishing if your Mending is high enough) - 1 Can (for water, cooking, etc.) First Aid Kit: - 2 Antibiotic (emergency purposes) - 3 OMB (to be turned into an OMB bandage if needed) - 1 Bandage Firestarting Kit: - 5 Tinder (unless Fire Making is high enough to ignore this) - 5 Sticks - 1 Magnifying Lens - 12 Matches (Wood, if possible, even though they weigh slightly more) - 1 Torch (ONLY for lighting fires) Food/Water: - 2L Water - 10-15 Cattails (emergency rations) - 1 Energy Bar Weapons: - 4 Stones ** as needed - 1 Survival Bow ** as needed - 5 Arrows This sets the kit weight at ~8.71kg(9.96 w/bow & arrows) at the minimum, and ~9.79kg(11.04 w/bow & arrows) at the upper end.

Oh shiiiiii---~~~~~! My Steam just pinged for the download!

Note: Spoilers ahead. The waterfall you're looking for is inside of a cave, not at the river. Go to the campsite in that corner next to the river (IIRC, it's called the Misty Falls Campsite?), and enter the cave there. Go all the way through it, and you'll find a low crawl passage - on the other side, you should hear the waterfall. Behind that area is the 'hidden cave', with some fine goodies.

If it is the same issue I encountered when going through, try this: 1 - Save your game inside the church. 2 - Completely close down TLD (not just to the menu) 3 - Restart the game, and re-load your save. 4 - Attempt to speak with Father Thomas again. It seems like there is an issue with the way the objectives are updating after completing the supplies portion, so even though FT is in the position for the next stage of the quest, his variables are set to an earlier state. Reloading in a save when you're at this point seems to force the variables to reset to their correct values and allow you to progress.

Yeah, there's an issue with wolves getting stuck if you kill them during a different animation than their standard. I tend to do a lot of close-range face shooting while wolves are charging me, and if I happen to get a body shot (i.e. not immediately killing them) and get into a struggle, after a couple of stabs with the knife they'll die and be frozen in the struggle anim. Looks goofy as hell

There is a cutoff point for it, yeah. As a hoarder, I've encountered it quite often. I want to say it may be roughly 25% over whatever your current max weight is, since that's when I notice the biggest hit to normal walking speed, but it may take a bit of additional testing. With well-fed + satchel, that sits at 50kg (40 + 10), but it is possible it's a bit above or below.

*twitch* Want... to... organize... so badly... (But yes, that is a giant mountain of meat, nicely done!)

Day 4: Have apparently collected enough clothing that staying inside is not an issue. Hooray, another lazy day! This being my first 4DON, I wanted to experience how bad this blizzard is supposed to be. Turns out, it slowly ramps up the longer you stay outside until it reaches its maximum. How bad does it get, you ask? Pretty damned cold. This was when I attempted to polar bear around outside (i.e. wearing no clothes). I've never seen my temp gauge go from ~90% to 0 in a matter of seconds before... that was.... fun? This is not recommended for a long life. So I'm now back inside my nice, warm Quonset hut, cooking Wolf and waiting it out. Edit: For those of us who can't necessarily do metric to imperial conversions in your head... that's -81 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 'frostbite on exposed skin in seconds' kind of cold. Yeesh. Do not want. Fire good.

I had this earlier today as well. Best I can tell, it's some kind of mismatch on the timer, where the countdown says 2 hours, but your 'played time' isn't quite there. Stay in game and just hang out a bit - you're probably only missing like 10-15 minutes, so that should be more than enough. When the Day 3 text no longer appears on your HUD, double-check the journal - it should say 'Day Completed' when it finally registers.

Day 3 was a nice and relaxing day, compared to the last two. I began the day by breaking down the huge pile of spare clothing I had acquired from my early Day 1 scavenging of CH, plus some assorted pieces from elsewhere. 66 pieces of cloth and 12 pieces of cured leather later... two lockers are now mostly empty! Time to take a nap. On waking, the only things to repair were my mukluks, both sweaters, and my earmuff things. With those finished, I spent the remainder of the day turning the rest of my arrowheads into arrows, to bulk out my supply. I know that at this point they're completely unnecessary, but... it gives me something to do That took up yet another day, so... time for more sleep. Another new day... time to mix it up some! I used the firestarter I picked up in the coal mine to spark up a fire - only the third fire I've needed to make this entire run! It's going to be a hunting day, so I might as well start off with some protein... so a couple of wolf steaks go on the grill. While they cook, I step outside and see where the closest Meals are patrolling... and surprise surprise, one is cresting the snowdrift on the far side of the road. I wander around in the open a bit until he notices me, then force him to slowly walk toward his doom, lining him up as close to the Quonset back door as I can. Arrow drawn, and the stupid thing stops moving. Oh well. The dumb ones will probably taste better. Another wolf hide is added to the floor of the garage, and I make it just in time to pull my steaks from the fire before they burn. I scarf one down, set the other on the desk for later, then collect the remaining 3kg of meat from my latest delivery. I settle back into Quonset and stir up the fire, setting two pots of water on to boil. I idle away the time, hopping in and out to look at the aurora, but stay relatively close to the safety of Quonset.

Nope, this is a thing Anything that can be reheated just needs to be placed within a certain radius of a heat source - works for teas, coffee, and soups/peaches (once they're opened). They even set up a different sequence for the canned goods - if you're standing near enough to a fire, drop a soup. It'll automatically open the can for you, then drop it to begin the warming process.

I'm noticing something a bit strange on my end. Camping out in Quonset, everything is going well. Have been hunting the variety of Meals that are walking around nearby... and they seem to be behaving differently than the usual aurora wolves. I point my rifle at them, and they often won't charge. I point my bow at them, and same thing. The only thing that I could think of was that it was something to do with where I was standing (right outside the back door to Quonset) - there is a rarely flickering security light there... so I moved off to stand in the open patch closer to to one of the abandoned houses, and saw the same thing happen. I mean, it's useful, since they seem to not want to bother me too much (and I think the moose hide cloak is scaring a number of them away!), but... it's definitely strange behavior. Do these aurora wolves have a tweaked AI? I'm not used to dealing with them even in standard games, since I tend to make use of auroras to craft or read, not hunt extra-aggressive Meals.

I remember scoring a hacksaw pretty early, I think in one of the houses in Thomson's Crossing... but I don't think I found a hatchet until a few game days in - think it may've come from either the prepper's cache or from the barn/shed between the farmstead and Three Strikes. You may find one around the big barn, as well. I remember finding one in Survival that was sitting in a crate with a piece of firewood.

There are a number of those invisible walls through that area - I tried climbing up and around right near the cave and couldn't walk up an open path because of those. Frustrating, definitely. But with your described path, that's a really long way to go to get back there. Why not go down the Burned Ridge path, then turn toward Three Strikes and walk around the crash, path will put you in sight of the hunting blind pretty quickly. Or, if you're good with climbing it, head down the Burned Ridge path until you see the fallen tree on your right - there's a rock climb that you can take that will hook you almost entirely around the crash site (similar path as previously mentioned, but faster because you're not having to fully descend before looping around).

Yes, the days sync up with real life days, switching over at 11pm PST each day. Today is Day 2, when the wolves come out to play. Tomorrow is the aurora, and the final day is the blizzard from hell. General consensus is that there may not be a Revolver this year, even though there is ammo for it. The Rifle looks to spawn at one of the JOLs in CH. And the maps for 4DON are restricted, so no Desolation Point - only CH, PV, ML, and MT (and their connecting locations).

I think I remember them saying that indoor locations will be locked at -20C, so... I'd guess that if your base temp is higher than +20, you may not even need to make a fire. We'll find out in 2 days!

Day 2 (so far): Emerged from the eastern trailer in CH to overcast weather - not the body-wrapping fog, but just bleh enough to limit visibility a bit. Decided to approach Quonset from the rear, to minimize the time that I'm in easy view of Portable Meals. Listening as I walk, I hear some howls that I think are coming from the houses across the road from the station, but audio distance is a bit finicky. As I prepare to slide down the hill, I hear some scraping to my right and the alerted bark-bark-growl. As I look over, I see 1... 2... 4 sets of red eyes appear from around the rock, and unfortunately they're close enough that the first immediately charges. My flare is just a touch high and sticks to his butt, but it does the trick and breaks up the pack so I can make it down the hill. I reach level ground (thanks, sprained wrist!), and move up to the burned-out shell of a house to listen again. Unfortunately, all I can hear is the yipping and running of the burning pup, so I have to risk the dash with minimal info. This will turn out to be a bad idea, as a wolf and his pal have been patrolling the lot behind Quonset. Stupidly, I forgot to reload, but I have my bow handy - useful now that I won't have to chase the thing across the island to get my arrow back. I'm able to drop the first as it charges, but L0 archery is sooooo slowwwwww, and the second dives on me. Stab stab, and he runs off, and I'm left with just some bruising and lacerations - not even worth worrying about... thanks, moose-hide cloak! I finally get inside and dump the haul of gear I've carried back from Mystery Lake and Mountain Town, then duck back outside to grab my arrow and carve up 6 kg of meat, 4 guts, and 2 hides that had dropped near my doorstep - there's another wolf body around here somewhere that I'll have to track down, but that may be a surprise for future me to find! I drop everything in the garage to cure, and lay out the meat inside as well. Normally I'd use the freezing temps outside to store meat for long-term use, but with 4DON, I'm not planning for long-term, just survival. Taking stock of my provisions, I realize that I'm down to just 2 arrows and 6 flare shells... but I have more stashed in Thomson's Crossing in PV. Have to risk it! I dump everything that I won't need for the trip to maximize my weight allowance, keeping only my clothes, a couple of candy bars, 2 liters of water, a knife, 2 flares, 4 bandages, my lantern, my bow and 2 arrows, my flare gun, and all of the shells I have. It feels nice to be light again. Slipping outside, the coast is clear, so I mirror much of my path from the previous trek - hopefully these monsters won't respawn that quickly. I make it up to the trailer, and hear howling from the ridge above me, so I can't take the north-east route. So I cross west to the central cabins, and continue around the switchback that takes me up to the coal mine. No wolves! The coal mine is... the coal mine. Though I do pick up a few pieces of coal that I'd either missed the first time through, or had respawned in the interim. Noice. Pleasant Valley is... surprisingly pleasant, and clear. Being in a hurry, and carrying next to nothing, I take the fast route down from the mine road... and thank the clear skies, because I can see a couple of grey blobs pathing around in the clearing below me. I aim behind a tree that's most of the way down the slope and post there, watching them wander around... just far enough away to allow me to skirt past them and link up with the road. Another wolf is patrolling this side of the bridge, and is being far less cooperative. He charges, I put an arrow in his back, but he gets at me anyway. Stab stab, and he's now running off. I hike onto a nearby rock to watch him sprint around, because I can't afford to lose the arrow - he thankfully gets caught on the scattered wood piles and drops right in my path to the community center. Arrow retrieved, and moving along! Inside the center, I scoop up the spare arrows and bow, rifle ammo, and a stack of maple and birch saplings that have been curing for a while. Some spare clothing, as well as scrap clothing that will be used for cloth later pads out the pack, though I decide to leave the skill books behind - time is food and fuel, and I can't waste either of them. The hike back to the mine is a bit slow, but uneventful. Pretty, though. Inside the mine, I scoop up the pile of coal I've accumulated, which puts me heavily overweight. Drink, and drop a scrap shirt, and I'm just below 50. Perfect. Well-fed + Satchel is a wonderful combo. Back in CH, my trip is almost identical, though the weather decided to get worse. Slide down the hill, stop at the central cabins, stop at the trailer, but this time I walk down the log-marked path. Shouldn't be much left here, as I've only been gone for a few hours by this point, right? In the fog and snow, I overshoot Quonset just a bit, and as I re-orient, I hear more growling. Won't be able to track if I bungle the shot, so flare gun it is. Luckily, it hits him square in the face, and he goes down. (Side note: The flare didn't stick, it bounced off, but the wolf still died. Impact damage?) Turned out to be a good choice with the flare, because there was a second wolf on the other side of the car that I hadn't seen or heard, but he took off running, giving me a free shot to Quonset. Where I am now, safe and sound... after running back out to carve meat off of the latest delivery. Supplies gathered: Burnables - 54 coal, 244 sticks, 12 fir chunks, 7 cedar chunks, 17 books, 14 reclaimed wood. Additional reclaimed wood will be gathered from breaking down everything in the surrounding houses and outside over the next day. Food - 36 candy bars, 70 cat tails, 9 kg of venison, 13 kg of wolf, 9 liters of water. Weapons - 2 bows, 5 arrows, 4 arrowheads, 10 birch saplings, 2 maple saplings, 2 flare guns, 16 flare shells, Rifle + 97 rounds, 71 Revolver rounds (sans Revolver >_< ) Clothes - Need to do some repairs, which should bump some of this up a bit higher. And for Day 4, I have a set of Ski Gloves and Insulated Boots to swap into and maximize the heat... and who knows, with all of the wolves nearby, I may even make a wolf cloak.

So I was unable to end Day 1 where I hoped to - tucked safe and sound inside Quonset. Instead, after carving through ML and picking the choice bits to carry (which is patently against my hoarder mentality!), I decided that I would risk a quick run to MT to score another JOL or two, maybe find a revolver somewhere... but no. Moose hide cloak was a nice find, though the clothing options in the other were wasted - really wanted that revolver, and have scads of ammo for the thing. Finally make it back up to the Dam in ML, and I have ~15 minutes remaining. I have a stockpile still in PV that could come in handy, but isn't critical... and I have a full load that I'm currently carrying. Do I risk making the trek to PV and getting caught there? Or do I make the hike through the ravine to try and drop this load off? Bird in the hand, and all that, and I hit the Ravine. It has been far too long since I've come through here, and I completely miss the log bridge. Wind up almost getting stuck trying to mountain goat along the boxcars, when the Day 2 notice appears. Crap. This just got a whole lot more complicated. And, right on cue, the weather turns to crap. Luckily, I've put together a decent kit by this point, but I'm hauling ~50 kilos of gear, and this wind is acting like I'm trying to walk across Pleasant Valley. I finally stumbled onto the log bridge and waddled my overweight butt across, stopping during the windbreaks to warm up a bit. In wind, 2 down. Without, 1 up. Good enough for a respite. I make it back to CH, and this blizzard is still going. My brain says "Hey, it's a blizzard... there shouldn't be any wolves!" Made it barely past the bridge when I hear wolf howls coming from the south. So much for that bright idea. There's no cover, as the wind is blowing in from the sea, so I make a quick stop at the train loading trailer to idle warm, and start to consider my route. Not entirely sure what 'increased wolf spawns' means - is it more wolves spawning in the same region (i.e. wolf packs), or is it wolves spawning in random places they wouldn't otherwise. I'm hoping it's just more wolves in place, but I'm assuming that there will be wolves everywhere... so I load up my flare gun and head out. I figure that I can zig-zag my way across the area, moving from shelter to shelter to warm, and may not even see a wolf until I get to Quonset. Ha. I goat down the slope, aiming for the closest trailer to warm up and drink some of the spare water I'd stashed there, and as I turn the corner I can barely make out a pair of red eyes right in front of the door. Bark bark, angry growling, and the puppy gets a flare in the face. Yip yip, and it runs off while I step inside, making sure to reload the flare gun as I do. Some water, and a couple of minutes in my warm-up clothes, and I'm good to go! My next stop is the fishing hut just past the Tooth. Make it there, slowly, with no incident. Warm up again, and now I have another choice to make: do I skirt the coast, risking the wolves on the ice in the blizzard, or do I take the central snowpath, and hope I don't pick up too many along the way? Snow wins, and I head back out, turning north to hike to the central cabins - again, without incident. After warming up, I duck back into the storm, and right as I pass the Lookout rock, the weather clears up! Good for visibility... and bad for visibility. As I'm turning to take the southern branch of the trail, I hear the familiar barking of the local meal delivery service. I was able to break LOS briefly by dropping off a rock, but he picked me back up on the other side, so I angled toward the eastern trailer. Could have just stepped inside, but he is close enough that he can be the first addition to my supplies at Quonset. I wait at the front door of the trailer with my bow at the ready - he charges. Level 0 Archery, don't fail me now! Point blank shot, in the eye. Success! So now, I'm in the eastern trailer above Quonset, trying to decide the best way to get there with the 3kgs of meat, a hide, and 2 guts that I'm currently holding. Hey, at least I'm close by, and not at the bottom of the Ravine!

My experience so far: Took the day off of work (actually not related to 4DON, but a wonderful dove-tail), and picked up my run from last night. Have so far looted & stashed everything from CH into Quonset, have looted all of PV and have it staged at the entrance to the mine heading back to CH. Am currently looting the heck out of everything that isn't nailed down in ML, staging at the dam. I know, Quonset isn't the safest location to bunker up. BUT! It is a great location to get access to TLD's #1 food delivery service, Grey Meals On 4 Legs Wheels! I figure, the ~40 odd candy bars I've collected, the ~80 cat tails, and the piles of burnables I have stashed should be enough to keep me in good shape through the blizzard... but I like padding. A few dozen kilos of wolf steak to go with the dozen kilos of venison I've collected so far should pad me out nicely. Oh, and @Raphael van Lierop. I both love and hate you. - I've run into 3-4 containers/cabinets that have 2x Can Openers. TROLOLOLO - Because of you, I scared the hell out of myself last night. Had a power outage overnight. As things were coming back on, I heard a familiar buzzing and flickering noise... in my barely conscious state, I was trying to figure out if the batteries in my flashlight would last long enough to scare off any wolves. Then I heard cars going by. I LIVE IN A CITY >_<

There will be animals. Soon.

This actually brings up a decent point - where are the remaining livestock? With this being a very rural area, cut off from the rest of the world and forced to be self-sufficient, I would've expected people to have chickens, pigs, etc..., which would be supported by the hay operation being run out of the PV Farmstead - you don't need hay if you don't have livestock. Then again, most all of the bales have been left in the fields, which makes me think that either the demand was very low, or that anyone who should've been working the farm has already left...

My first year participating as well, but I've read a lot to make sure I understood what was going on. All days are going to be night (hence the name, 4 Days of Night), no matter how much you sleep. There are 2 timers, yes. The big timer that's purple (should have ~11 hours or so remaining) is the time remaining on the day events - day 1 is the mad rush loot grab, where your major hurdles are food and weather. The second timer that pops up in the 'quest' HUD pop-up is the time remaining to qualify for the day's badge. Correct, there is no point in fishing as it has been deactivated, though stones could still be useful starting on day 2 when wolves are activated. Cloth will still be useful, as you'll still need to repair clothing that you damage, make bandages, etc. And yes, the mindset is slightly different than standard survival - it seems like most people try to rush and GET ALL THE THINGS, then hunker down somewhere and try to survive on the single save. Others who are more adventurous (or insane? Unsure which...) will either start a new run each day to get the 2 RL hours, or will nomad it from zone to zone and attempt to survive on the fly.

Silly Steam said 'Update queued'. NO STEAM, I WANT TO PLAY TLD DURING THE ETERNAL NIGHT TIME! DON'T KEEP ME FROM MAH CANDY BARS! *force download*