gotmilkanot

The real issue here is pulled torches being too OP. They are way too cheap that it makes no sense to craft 100% torches unless you restrict yourself from pulling torches. Personally, I would like them to bring back brands instead but that may be an unpopular opinion. Plus, I could simply just not use torches at all - I actually am enjoying my torchless runs more tbh - so I suppose I'm not too bothered if pulled torches still remain the same.

Just met my first ninja turbo poisoned wolf on my main NOGOA run today: ninja-turbo.mp4 I've seen many turbo wolves before (and know how to activate them) but this one was quite ridiculous. Just charged at me from so far away without me aiming my bow.

What @xanna said. I tried a Deadman run with medium BRA when Signal Void just came out, because they didn't make it available for Interloper or low BRA custom at that time. There were noticeably more reishis, rosehips and cattails than in a low BRA run, even though plant spawns were set to lowest.

Agreed, the healing foods are ridiculously OP. On my last main run, I found like 30 potatoes after looting the world. Enough to make 15 dockworker's pies which equate to a whopping 525 health points, just from that one single recipe. That's like allowing Will/Astrid to die 6 times and still respawn Alright, good luck for your new run, stay frosty (not literally).

You could try regular NOGOA with healing foods. I personally don't use them, but they do make NOGOA more accessible - seems like a good middle ground between stim-only NOGOA and Interloper. I'm not sure if you've tried insulated flasks on NOGOA but those make travelling so much less tedious, which may make the mode more appealing to players who dislike too much tedium. Of course, I plan to go torchless or at least no pulled torches in future runs to compensate for the drop in difficulty.

Regular NOGOA with just stims for regen, some shorter runs I do no-stim. I have at least 500-600 hours in NOGOA and OuterNOGOA so regular NOGOA is like the "new" Interloper to me, I haven't been playing anything easier than that for like a year.

Yeah, I like to switch it up between that and not killing anything bigger than a wolf + snares only for rabbits, forged arrows only for ptarmigans. The latter rule seems to be better for the far territory zones, because I started to have inevitable food shortage in TP where I literally couldn't eat anything that spawns there.

Went there blind on my main NOGOA run. The region was alright in terms of weather - definitely not as harsh as FA so that's a plus. Had a bit of food issues but that was mainly because I had a self-imposed rule where I wasn't allowed to kill any non-hostile wildlife. My main issue with the new zone seems to be the toxic wolves. Got into 4 struggles within 15 or so days spent there and didn't survive the 4th one. But I did manage to complete the 2nd tale before I died so I wasn't too salty about losing the run.

Even the boots are "useless" because you can just walk barefooted on poison pools and wear back your shoes once you're out of the unsafe zone.

A shortcut to the cannery workshop exists (credits to ArchimedesLP): It is fairly easy to execute if you're not encumbered.

Well, I'm not expecting realistic bear behaviour from a game with green glowing bears and wolves. I suppose the bear's current turning radius could be tighter, somewhat similar to the moose's. But I think that it's good to still have the ability to dodge a charging bear, even if it's extremely hard to pull off.

You could always do the bear dance if you feel that shooting the bear from a safe spot and waiting for it to bleed out is too easy. aurora_bear_dance.mp4

TBH, healing food dishes aren't that big of a deal on Interloper because the base health regen rate on that mode is already very generous. Nothing is going to change even without those food because you can just gain back like a whopping 30 health after 10hrs of sleep. That's how forgiving Interloper already is. The biggest impact that the healing food dishes have will mostly be on no regen modes like NOGOA/Deadman. Personally, as a NOGOA/NOGOA+ player, I think the new food dishes kinda "broke" NOGOA. But they are there to help those having a hard time transitioning into no regen gameplay, and experienced NOGOA players could simply ignore the dishes entirely anyway. Heck, some of us even do classic/purist OuterNOGOA runs because the amount of loot is just too much once you're allowed to go into buildings.

Maybe try Outerloper? You'll be glad to find a summit soda.

Interesting, that's something to take note, thanks. 100 protection seems tempting, but I'm attempting Signal Void on NOGOA so I would like to have a decent amount of sprint for emergencies lol. I noticed we can still one-shot aurora wolves at low levels of Archery (L1-2) so as long as I've got the bow and arrow, I'm good. I'm also quite familiar with wolf spawn points so chances of me getting ambushed by one is almost zero, making the vest kind of pointless.

100 to 0 in an aurora wolf struggle even with 40 protection? I find that hard to believe, actually. I've never been one-shotted by an aurora wolf even with much less protection (20-ish), though I've lost like 80-90 health in one struggle before. Your energy level and choice of weapon at the time of the struggle actually matters a lot in the outcome. Maybe you were close to exhausted and not using the hammer? In any case, one could just do a 50-ish protection build with rabbit hat, moose cloak, rabbit gloves, deer pants, combat boots and crampons as outer slots, if they really want to play safe. Maybe do a moose+wolf combo for coats for the wolf scare chance. No need for the overkill 100 protection build, IMO.

Haven't tried max protection yet, but I've tried a very high protection build on my pacifist (can't kill anything) + no crafted clothing NOGOA run: I didn't try getting into a wolf struggle (because that's insane on a no regen run) but I did get a couple of nips from timberwolves in Blackrock. Received zero damage, actually. IMO, the ballistic vest is only viable for full time wear on an old-world clothes only, no regen run. Because then you can actually afford its heavy weight and high sprint penalty, and the very high protection pays off when you have limited health points. Once you have crafted clothing, it makes zero sense for the vest to be part of your kit because it's just too damn heavy and you can barely sprint, which very likely would cause you more harm than good. If playing on vanilla Interloper, 40-ish protection is more than sufficient to tank wolf struggles, even aurora ones. You absolutely don't need a very high protection build to complete Signal Void if you know how to deal with aurora wolves.

Coldest I've seen is -115C in BI (screenshot not mine): https://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/discussions/0/142261027576423918/?ctp=4#c3131667656055111612

The cattail exploit was just too OP and needed to be fixed. The acorn exploit, on the other hand, doesn't feel too broken IMO. It doesn't provide unlimited calories and finding/prepping acorns actually takes a decent amount of resources. I would say the ~300 free calories is fair game in this case.

The game currently has no way to differentiate the ground acorn made from unconsumed or partially consumed cook acorn, so I would call that a loophole. It's similar to how the last 10% of reishi/rosehip tea provides the medicinal value or another full hour of warmth buff. BTW, 4 prepared acorns -> 1 prepared large portion actually takes about 10 mins in-game time. The 1 min seems to be a typo.

For acorns, it's more efficient to craft the large portion due to the following reasons: It uses less water to cook than 4 small portions. Both unconsumed and partially consumed cooked acorn (large portion) gives you the same type of ground acorn, which is then used to make the acorn coffee. So you can eat like 90% of the large portion and grind the remaining 10% to get the coffee, which will still be at full calories (100 at Cooking 1). This means you can get ~300 "free" calories AND the coffee from every large portion of cooked acorn.

Not buffed, that's simply due to higher cooking level.

750 calories (or 5 cattails) is the bare minimum for a full 10-hour sleep on Interloper but you can definitely eat more than that if things permit. For example, when you wake up to a blizzard or it's too early and cold to travel, you can eat a bit more and then get a couple of hours into a skill book. The main thing here as a newcomer to Interloper is to know how to ration your food during early game, at least before you can craft the bow and arrow. Well Fed from Day 1 is certainly possible but there's no point trying to keep eating during the day if you can't even gather enough food to maintain the buff.

I believe you were in a blizzard when you took that picture, correct? Well, I wouldn't really sleep out in the snow without a fire because that's just suicidal on Interloper. Even more so if there's a raging blizzard. The least I'd do is get to the nearest two-layer cave so that I can be warm at the back without having to start a fire. Most of the time, I trust that my kit is warm enough to sleep at the back of a cave without a fire, even during blizzards. I've done many full 10-hour sleeps in HRV this way and never get frozen to death, at least not yet. But some blizzards tend to be extremely cold, especially when you're in one of the colder regions like BI. The ambient temp can drop to as low as -28/29C even with the bonus warmth from the inner layer of the cave. A bearskin bedroll would definitely keep me warm in this case but so would a coal fire too. Besides, where else would you finally use a match on Interloper if not now? Anyway, I actually think the bearskin bedroll is fine, minus the fast decay rate and bugs like the one you mentioned. It definitely has some uses but they are very limited for someone who mostly sleep indoors at night (like me). And also I very frequently move between regions so carrying two cloths for repair is definitely better than a cured bear hide + a cloth.

Never used a bearskin bedroll before except for that one time for the Wrapped in Furs achievement, and probably would never craft one in the future too. I wear a 22/23C warmth kit and use the normal bedroll in my late game Interloper run, which is warm enough to sleep at the back of caves without a fire. Only on very rare occasions you get -28/29C ambient temp during a late night/early morning blizzard in colder regions like BI, which is probably the only time when the bearskin bedroll would be of use. Other than that, the thing is just too heavy and tedious to maintain. And on lower difficulties (Stalker included), you can hit 30C warmth easily with expedition parkas, cowichan sweaters, wool long johns, etc. so you'd never ever need the bearskin bedroll at all. It's either just a want or something you craft for fun.