Dr. S.

For people who don’t carry the improvised hatchet on interloper, what do you carry for use in a wolf struggle?

Wait, where'd he go?

Do you know that you can safely get onto (and off of) the roof of the barn by Trappers?

I had the same issue so I remapped the actions in the options, binding aim/place to 'z' and interact/shoot to 'c'. I think 'c' is clothing by default so I remapped that too. It took some getting used to, but it works much better for me.

To have fun? I play interloper and I don't do any of those "cheesy" things that you mentioned. If you don't like the hibernation strategy, don't do it. Those who like it can do it if they want. I guess I do a little mountain goating, as I understand the term, but I don't do some of the more extreme things people talk about, like getting to the top of TWM without using ropes, or bypassing the underbrush to get to the mysterious fire on day 1.

Oh, I understand the strategy and the math, what I don't understand is why such extreme conservation of an infinitely-renewable and easily-obtainable (once you have a bow or other ranged weapon) resource is considered exploitative or game-breaking. If a player doesn't like hunting and would prefer to minimize the time spent obtaining meat, that's fine. That's a valid lifestyle choice, even after the apocalypse. But beyond that I honestly don't really see the point of the hibernation strategy, (since I don't think it actually makes the game easier, speaking just for myself) except as a sort of optimization problem.

Yeah, I get that. My point is that I don't understand why surviving on 750 calories is considered an exploit. Consider a different "exploit": drinking only before sleeping and going thirsty all day. Why isn't that also considered an exploit that needs to be fixed? That's rhetorical of course; I know the answer. Water is generally plentiful. So is food.

This raises something I've wondered about. Does the coal you can find outside of caves/mines respawn? Or is that like the extra-large limbs that are one-time placements?

I guess I don't understand this discussion, or the need to curb the hibernation "exploit". I just finished a 105-day interloper run (where I died by getting stuck in the terrain, 😪), and I kept well-fed continuously from when I crafted a bow and arrows (day 15 - 20 or so), and I had tons of food lying around when I died. (Well, not literally tons, maybe 100 to 200 kg of decaying meat spread out over the maps.) So in my games I don't see the need (beyond the first couple weeks) to try to exploit the starvation system or even conserve food. Lack of food is the absolute last thing I'm worried about in my interloper games once I have a bow and arrows. To me, trying to conserve my food in that way actually makes things harder: I'd much rather have my survivor eat their fill whenever they want. What am I missing?

No, at least they're not supposed to. I've found old arrows lying around many days after I shot them. It's probably there somewhere; tracking down misses can be pretty difficult sometimes. Did you know that arrows can roll downhill, for example? But it's probably stuck in the ground or a tree somewhere ...

At least sometimes the game silently recovers those arrows for you when you harvest a carcass. I've verified this by checking the number of arrows I have in my inventory before and after I harvest. It seems like a strange feature to me (there should be some notice that you've recovered the arrow). I would guess that when it doesn't happen it's a bug. I haven't tracked it carefully enough to quantify the percentage of time the arrow gets recovered without any message.

I had played for many hours and had a 300+ day survivor before I realized you could cook at fireplaces. Sure made staying at the mountaineer’s hut a different experience.

I haven't been to BI on interloper, but I spent some time there with just a bow recently on Voyager in preparation for visiting on interloper (once my current interloper run gets to archery 5). In my experience it's pretty easy to keep the T-wolves suppressed with a bow if you have archery 5. I can think of a few reasons to go there: 1) The cannery workers' residence is actually a very nice place to hang out. It has an indoor fireplace, is wolf-free (in my experience), close to beach combing, has a very accessible fishing spot, and has a very easy-to-kill bear. It's also close to the six-burner stove at the ruined lighthouse. 2) You can repair tools using the milling machine during auroras. So if you run out of whetstones, you can still repair your improvised knife or hatchet indefinitely. 3) There is a convenient moose spawn location near the washed-out trailers.

Reporting bugs and things that are broken are obviously important, but I think constructive suggestions about improving things are just as important, especially if they are, as you say, making a player's experiences miserable. (Even if they work as intended.) Submitting a ticket helps the devs track user requests. (I hope so, anyway! 😂) I have a long list of things I think need to be improved in the interface (many mentioned here in various threads, some not) that I plan to submit at some point, and maybe as a thread here. For example, when crafting, the interface should never default to a tool that is not in the player's inventory. (It should show those tools, because that teaches the player about what is possible, but an unavailable tool should never be the default.) It drives me crazy when I play on interloper and the crafting interface defaults to a tool (like the hunting knife) that I can't possibly have.

And of course even better than complaining about it here is putting in a support ticket.

I think people in this situation usually pull torches from the fire until the remaining time is under 10 minutes. Obv. this is a workaround and not a substitute for the ability to extinguish fires.

I think that’s still too punitive. Here’s what I would suggest. Once the survivor has CF the player can still sleep and pass time indoors, but The survivor does not regain condition while sleeping inside. Over time, sleeping inside becomes less effective at restoring fatigue, requiring more and more sleep to fill the fatigue bar, until eventually it doesn’t restore fatigue at all.

That's the whole point. There are zero game-play consequences for the survivor from disallowing pass time indoors while subject to cabin fever; the only consequences are to the human player. That's what makes it purely punitive. Passing time is strictly a convenience mechanism for the player; it has no effect on the survivor. Why doesn't the game disallow speeding up time while cooking indoors while the survivor has cabin fever? That makes just as much sense as disallowing passing time.

I guess I don’t understand. The “specific instances” you mentioned were multiple kills and going inside before harvesting leading to no or reduced feathers. I certainly don’t experience “no feathers come from normal play” in interloper. Like I said, I‘ve found 60+ feathers in my current interloper run.

This. I have a run where I'm going for skilled survivor, and of course mending is the slowest to advance by far. In fact, since the recent update I decided to add Faithful Cartographer to the goal, and despite already being skill level 4 in mending when I made that decision, it's clear I'll finish FC long before I reach skill 5 in mending. It's ridiculous.

Yes, I dunno. On my current interloper run (started in April) I've crafted about 18 arrows, so I've found plenty of feathers. Certainly not all from pre-existing carcasses. Like I said, I haven't noticed anything about the specific instances you mentioned. I'll keep an eye out.

That is interesting. I also haven't noticed anything funny about feathers, but I haven't investigated under the specific circumstances described. I'll keep an eye out. But also, random numbers are weird, people have faulty memories, and confirmation bias is real. Since we can't see into the black box, it's hard to know what's happening. Having a specific repeatable case like "go inside" -> "always no feathers" is a good thing. For example, in my current interloper run, I've fished for about 20 hours (in several sessions over the course of three days) and have caught literally zero fish, and have broken zero fishing tackles. Based on my understanding of the fishing mechanism, that shouldn't happen. So is there some circumstance under which fishing is bugged? Or was I just unlucky? It's hard to know.

Yes, I run into this too, especially if I've done a lot of crafting/harvesting/cooking. Mostly I don't let it bother me; It's part of the game. But ... 1) Sharpening tools and cleaning guns can be done in the dark. So I usually only do those activities after dark. Harvesting curtains or breaking down crates without tools are also good after-dark activities. 2) Fishing can be a good dusk-to-after-dark activity, especially at ML or at the Bleak Inlet worker's quarters, where it's easy to get back home after dark. 3) Get more comfortable being outside at night. It's often surprisingly well-lit, and not that cold. I watched a couple of @jeffpeng videos and I was very impressed by how much he was able to get done outside at night. This is of course easier to do at locations without predators like the ravine or Marsh Ridge, but at the camp office or trappers or the dam you can go out at night and collect wood quite safely.

I think you have to deploy it. Also, there’s no rope climb in the cave to FM.