gotmilkanot

4 hours ago, AdamvR said:

I wouldn't say I have the warmest of clothes, as recently also try to optimize a bit towards protection - given that wolves are coming in packs of 4-5-6...
also lost some of my warmer stuff to the previous owner of the bedroll: he seemed sooo dead, but managed to resurrect and eat half my gear as I attempted to light a fire by it to start the little slice-n-dice party...
Anyhow, with 25/9/51 it takes less than a minute to completely deplete my temperature bar from full - so I do find looking for at least a rock to block the wind and cuddle up in that +12 degrees can "come handy" at times... The below pic was not even taken in the coldest moment I've seen recently...
It is only Stalker though...

(I do understand that it could seems a bigger luxury on loper, without rifles and even more wear to gear)

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.

2 hours ago, Killerboom204 said:

Where are these 20 thousand matches at? I'm down to my last 22 and i haven't found a single fire striker after looting the entirety of mystery lake, mountain town and forlorn muskeg, plus 50-70% of pleasant valley. 

Nah, the real number is about 300+ matches in a single Interloper save file. I found 31 boxes in total in my current playthrough which is 372 matches. And there might still be a box or two that I've missed somewhere, to be honest.

But that number is still ridiculously a lot as long as mag lens exist. If your mag lens fire game is strong, a single box of 12 matches can easily outlast a full in-game year.

I'm using Cold Fusion and Blizzard Walker in my Interloper playthrough.

I like Cold Fusion because it's like a free weightless Wool Toque but I'm not very impressed with Blizzard Walker so far. Should've probably picked Snow Walker but I guess it doesn't really matter at this point of my playthrough.

I enjoy long playthroughs too, in fact, I only play two save files - a 700-day Voyager save where I pretty much learnt about the whole game from scratch, and then an Interloper save that just turned Day 500 not too long ago.

I've seen some streamers with thousands of days on their Interloper saves but really, if you got the game mechanics right and can keep motivating yourself to find new things to do, you could pretty much survive "forever" on Interloper.

Fishing is already way too OP as a food source on anything below Interloper and maybe even on Interloper itself, especially when you get to L4 onwards. Being able to do other stuff while getting tons of food at literally zero risk might make it too broken IMO.

Though I'd like to have a 30-minute option for reading skill books.

Matches are not that scarce on Interloper - you can find more than 300 of them in a single Interloper playthrough if you explore the whole world.

But honestly, only the first box of matches kinda matters in a run, which can be found easily if you just visit the main buildings/locations of each region. So it clearly helps if you already have some prior knowledge about the region that you're in (from playing easier difficulties or repeated attempts).

No worries, Whiteberry's maps may not be 100% accurate but I think they're pretty reliable for those that want to use them.

Anyway, I went to check the spot that OP mentioned since my Interloper survivor just happens to be in Ash Canyon.

From the looks of it, it's a pretty steep drop (as in TWM-level) but it does seem goatable with some caution. Didn't try it though, since I didn't really want to risk my run on it.

48 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

To point to one issue when the Whiteberry toarta style maps are and have been misleading I can point to Coastal highway map. The route from Rabbit grove to the Ravine entrance shows a path that doesnt really with with the elevation. If one wants to traverse it, they have to start walking from directly behind the rabbits grove hut and hug a bit the left side of a mountain. If one strays too close towards the river, they wont be able to walk back up high enough to reach the railtrack above, and have to back track. But the maps show that its fairly easy to climb from the river to that path. Ive tried it many times and never figured out a point of entry to be able to scale it that high. Always had to go from the hut.

You can indeed go back to the rail tracks from the river - the slope is just to your left when you reach the dead end of the river. It looks abit steep but definitely traversable as I've always been using that route when I leave CH for the Ravine.

The number of discoverable locations differ across various official difficulties - for example, Interloper has fewer locations than Voyager because it has more burnt down houses. Here are the numbers I've got from my Voyager and Interloper runs (after AC update):

Now, from what I know, even these numbers can differ across different saves of the same difficulty so YMMV. But generally, you should be able to hit 100% World Explored after you meet a certain threshold number.

They could do something similar like the semi-randomised spawns of Polaroids. Have a guaranteed number of boxes (2-3) per major region, but make the spawns randomised. So for example in PV, you could find one in the Farmhouse in this run but in another run, that "same" box might be in a random corpse/container out in the snow.

As of now, there are easily over 300 matches (25 boxes) in an Interloper save file, and almost all of them have guaranteed spawn locations which do not change at all across different runs. Even without relying on Interloper loot tables - which I highly recommend not to look at them if you truly want to challenge yourself by playing Interloper in the first place - it's not that hard to find the first box of matches IMO. Just hit up the main buildings/structures in each region and you'll be guaranteed to find at least one.

If they changed the guaranteed match spawns in Interloper to random, then starting a run with a firestarter in your backpack might make some sense. But in the current state of Interloper, I don't think you should start with a flare in your backpack, will make the first few days way too easy. Heck, I'm thankful enough that we even start with a recycled can in our inventory.

@Holden

How is a manual save system going to help in your scenario? You want to wrestle with a bear but not receive the injuries/death afterwards. The game AUTOMATICALLY saves for you after a bear mauling so the only way to escape this "unfortunate" event is by save scumming.

Seems like you just want something like god mode where you simply can't die. Sadly, there's no such thing in this game where death is permanent, and actions have consequences.

However, if you're just fooling around trying to "science" something, there's still save scumming which is not hard to do at all. Simply press Alt+F4 when you're in the midst of mauling BEFORE the game automatically saves after an injury. And when you go back into your save file, you'll be back at the previous save point.

You do lose some progress this way but if fooling around in a permadeath game is your pleasure then Alt+F4 might be your new best friend.

After getting used to the new shivering effect myself, I'd say draw and release straight-away seems to be the new meta for Interlopers when using the bow while freezing. The dot reticle that appears when holding a bow seems to be there to help you with that.

As for the surprise wolf behind a snow drift, you'll have to be more careful when approaching known wolf spawns and make sure there's no meat in your inventory.

9 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

As you say... there is no stopping those who want to save scum.  There is also no stopping people from backing up their saves.  Manual saves, however, are not just used to save scum.  They are used to save progress when, for example, you're called away from your game suddenly by an IRL event.  I can't tell you have many times I've lost significant progress because I got called away from my game and, being unable to save, came back to it to find that my power had been disrupted or someone had decided they wanted to use the TV (I'm on a console BTW) and/or my device simply times off due to whatever called me away taking too long.

Then I guess a simple "Quit to save" feature should suffice? Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I doubt they'd add this feature to Survival mode as Raph himself is strongly against save scumming in his game (you can do a quick search on his tweets about this). Having said that, nobody can stop you from save scumming even if they want to because it's impossible for games with local saves.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend save scumming unless it's really something stupid that's not under your control like getting stuck in the terrain. Save scumming negates risks, and having zero risks in a permadeath game is just not fun IMO. But it's a single-player game after all so to each his own.

I find Miner's Folly quite a viable place in AC to just pass by days safely once you've killed the bear - which is the only wildlife treat in that level. But then, there's not much happening there so staying there would probably bore me to death, in the same way how the Hunting Lodge in BR would.

Having said that, I'd prefer to rotate between regions every 10 days or so to keep late-game interesting. And if I have to choose a place to stay in AC for my "vacation" trip, I'd rather choose Homesteader's Respite or Angler's Den. But on first visit to AC, I think Angler's Den might be the best base considering how centrally located it is.

I also think they deserve their own pelts which could be made into a cowl like the one Jeremiah is wearing in Ep 2:

Back when Mystery Lake was the only region in the game, running out of cloth was indeed one of the issues for long-term survival. So worrying about it actually makes sense back then.

But now, I'd say there are way too much loot/resources in the game even on Interloper - more than enough to last before you quit playing that save file out of boredom. Beachcombing is also a thing, so stuff like cloth, leather and scrap metal are technically no longer finite. If you're running out of those, it simply means you aren't looking hard enough.

I played FPS games before TLD, and in those games, L-SHIFT as sprint and R as reload is very common - almost as if they are the standard keys for any FPS games.

So that's probably why TLD, a first-person player game, follows the standard key bindings from FPS games.

You can sort of predict when a blizzard is going to happen when you're travelling. They almost always start with the "normal" heavy snow and strong winds - that's when you should start looking for a shelter OR know where's the nearest shelter to hunker down in case of a blizzard. And when it starts to turn foggy while still snowing heavily, that's when you won't have much time before it turns into a full-blown blizzard.

IMO, map knowledge (know where nearest shelters are wrt your current position) and the ability to read early signs of blizzard is key to surviving a blizzard. If you can do both, you'll pretty much never be lost during a blizzard because you'll either be already in a shelter before the blizzard starts, or you're already capable of travelling to the nearest shelter even with a blizzard going on.

Fishing Camp in CH is a very viable base on Interloper. The bear walks past the camp everyday so that's easy food to your doorstep. Outdoor workbench helps to lower cabin fever risk, and freezing is not a problem as long as you have a coal fire nearby. Fishing hut is just a stone's throw away so that's also a plus.

There are pallets and sticks everywhere so firewood is not a problem. PV mine is also not too far away to top-up your coal supply.

It's also a short walk to Jackrabbit Island where you can go for beachcombing from time to time. It's not really needed unless you plan to live for thousands of days, but it can be just another thing to do during late-game when you start to get bored.

In short, one of my favourite bases in the game, together with the Dam and Camp Office in ML.

8 hours ago, melcantspell said:

Yes, that's what I did - made a fire in the shed and cooked some water to pass time quicker without actually saving the game (yes, this IS cheating. I only did it this time because the game cheated on me as well with resetting the bear when I had gone inside ... so I guess I considered this a fair exception).

AND after 2 hours the journal told me that the bear had died. I am happy that my game will not end here (I haven't seen much of Ash Canyon yet ;)), but I am also happy that this has been so intense. That's exactly what I like about TLD.

Nah, it's not cheating - I consider it as letting the suffering end quicker It's sad to see animals running around aimlessly when they're bleeding out so passing time helps to end it quick. Also helps you too since you'll have an easier time tracking/retrieving arrows/harvesting.

Anyway, congrats on the bear hunt! I'm sure you'll discover things that are even more intense during your stay in AC

2 minutes ago, LoneWolf5841 said:

I always play stingily so I absolutely hate leaving anything behind, I have that "it may come in useful while I'm exploring" mentality so I'm always carrying simple or quality tools, a hatchets, knive, heavy hammer, hacksaw, etc whilst going exploring it on a loot run. It's especially bad with food I occasionally may leave tool behind during a loot run but I've never liked leaving food even though 2 to 3 day's of food would be good I generally have well over a weeks worth of food, well above 20kg of food alone so obviously I struggle with carrying capacity so the backpack is a blessing in disguise now only if I could move faster to get there hmm. 😂

Yeah, it is a nice addition to the game regardless. Those who like to carry more can now do so even more - I've seen some famous streamers carrying so much crap they don't need that they're still encumbered even with 45kg capacity (no hating though, they're still great streamers). Makes me wonder if Hinterland aims to continue adding even more items/features with carrying bonus in the future