darkscaryforest

After I read this, I can't stop thinking about it. The warning stomp replaced with a scowl and a deep TOOT😆 The chugging of the engine during a charge. If you kill Thomas, you can harvest its wheels with a hacksaw to build a scooter

Thanks! My second and last set of broken ribs just healed.. 😂

I'll toss my torch in the ring as another software developer long dark player. I rarely use mods, rather preferring whatever vanilla experience the developer cooked up, but I definitely feel like mod support is important. I created my little sister-in-law as a character in another survival game she loves. I could only do it due to the game exposing a flexible scripting engine as well as the assets for the regular characters. Now for The Long Dark, I personally look forward to any tools that would help me understand the mechanics of how the game works. I understand wanting to preserve the "mystery" or "fuzziness" of how things work, but IMO that only fun for so long.

Make sure you look at the other side of the road too. It's pretty easy to forget, but you see, you're the hunter and the wolf are the prey- not the other way around. The scent from meat can be as much of an asset as it is a liability. You can use it as a means to manipulate wild life to go where YOU want it to.

I request a story plz

I like to trace the bodies of wolves I killed. That way, other wolves that stumble upon the crime scene will see the markings and be encouraged to move out to better neighborhoods. The marking is more permanent since the corpse despawns within a few days. ... Also, ever go on a forge run to spence and run into terrible weather on the way back? It sucks getting lost and finding a wolf. Well, you can mark a predator free path going there!

Now THAT is improvising, quick thinking on your feet. You have way more than enough meat to recover and now a moose skin for a satchel. I probably would have panicked and tried to head back. FWIW, the rope climb is very difficult without a stim (I suppose you could make a snow shelter?)

Let's say I'm a level 5 archer and approach a moose on interloper. Say I fail to one shot Mr. moose, and he stomps me. Anyone know what the odds are that I'll not die from that?

Dude that's awesome that you're self sufficient on day 48 without a forge, really great resource management. You've convinced me I need to up my snare game. Thanks for the posts!

Welcome to the long dark Hibs06. Many would say this darkness in buildings at night is a feature. If you want to try working around the dark without using supplies, there are some things you can do. First, just an acknowledgement that there's no getting around it, some game actions require light like repairing and some don't like sharpening your tools. This is completely based on what the game engine interprets at your location regardless of how well you can see. Second, an easily navigable, even in pitch black, path to the bed for the night is something you should consider for a base. This may or may not involve using windows (which usually give faint light) as markers. You'll find this is much easier to do in tiny structures like trapper's cabin versus the Pleasant Valley Farm Homestead where you have to go upstairs and into a separate room (WORSE yet, hibernia processing plant. Can I get an F for anyone whose ever fallen through the floor?). Third, a creative workaround/exploit/game mechanism/whatever technique you can use to slightly aid feeling around in the dark is to take advantage of the "place item feature." I don't know what the button sequence would be on the PS4, but you can take an item (bedroll is best for this) and act like you're going to place it on the ground. It will show its highlighted representation in front of you. If the item is colored red, it means it is currently being held in an unplaceable area whereas green is valid (ergo an unoccupied spot). You can walk around with this and sort of see where the walls and other obstacles are.

Could you talk more about this? The only reason I do TWM first is because the seemingly guaranteed stim on the summit gets me past the third rope to the mine (though it breaks my heart to use it). Do you usually go to the gold mine through the scary wolves and waterfall near cave way up to miner's folly?

I'm pretty far from being an expert in Interloper, but I've learned enough through experimentation and from others to offer something. Keep in mind, this is just what I found works best for me and that there's plenty of other formulas for success. There's far more qualified folks here to comment. But..for me, having a successful Interloper run is really mastering 3 separate stages that play very differently. Stage 1 is bootstrapping: finding the essentials you need to survive long term. Stage 2 is power leveling: crafting the gear you need to survive long term. This includes animal skin clothing, forging arrow heads and improvised tools, and leveling up really important skills like cooking and archery. Stage 3 is just survival (or replace with whatever long term objective you have): build up extra supplies while minimizing risky situations I'm just going to talk about general advice in stage 1 in this post since I have a lot to say about it. If you want my take on the other stages, just mention it. -Stage 1 bootstrapping- A lot of folks have already talked about this. The first thing to do is to find matches. Ideally you want to do this within the first day. You'll find that there is usually a guaranteed match spawn in the maps you can spawn in that you can hit straight away. You need this mostly for water and some warmth. Your first fire will be agonizing, as you'll likely have to start it without a torch (my last run I went through 4 FREAKING MATCHES). See if you can get a book first to help your first fire (NOTE: do not recommend burning fishing skill book) and of course end it by pulling out a torch with at least 30%. If you can find a cooking pot, use it to boil 5-6 liters of water which should last you a while in your looting (might not be on your first fire). You can refill this with toilet water found as necessary. So, the game is moving between popular loot sites to grab essential tools that either expand your ability to survive or allow you to craft other tools to do that. This includes: bed roll, hammer, hacksaw, and mag lens. As you go from place to place to gather these, you will find enough store packaged food to sustain you if you move swiftly (even if you sit out blizzards). You can also find plenty of cattails to supplement your diet as a backup. A lot of people like to harvest deer corpses or rabbits to get things curing. Personally I avoid this and just stay completely focused on going from location to location to minimize condition loss. The only exception is if I see birch or maple saplings since that can be done really fast (REQUIRES hacksaw). I'll cut those and try to leave it curing somewhere easy to reach for later (writing it down in notes). Going from place to place, you'll probably lose condition esp if you're not doing well fed. That's expected. Try to keep it under control by losing no more than 27%, because that's the most you can regain by sleeping in a bed without tea. In most situations, you want to sleep in 10 hour sessions keeping in mind you get most of that back in the last 3 hours of that. It's ok to sleep like 1-2 hour to rapidly regain warmth or some fatigue as long as you know you'll be tired enough to rest for that 10 hours wherever you end up. You can run in circles around your bed to take off a bit of fatigue to get that 10 hours. You really want to minimize time where you do nothing for hours on end like waiting for weather to pass or waiting to get tired so that you can regain condition. Unless it's an emergency like preventing an item from ruining or crafting makeshift clothes to avoid frostbite, save all your crafting, repairing, skill reading, water boiling, tea/coffee making, cooking, thinking for when you're inevitably trapped indoors waiting on blizzards to pass. Feel free to travel in the blizzard if you're confident you can get to your next location, but make sure you're certain you'll make it without frostbite. If your condition is good, the weather is good, and you've got at least 5-6 hours left in the fatigue tank: keep moving, pushing yourself can pay off. You'll find that not every loot spot is worth going to (for example, the lake cabins in mystery lake usually just have books and papers for tinder and are kinda out of the way). You want to map out a route in your head that minimizes back tracking. For example, spawning in FM- might be worth it to hit trappers before the camp office, unless you plan to go to milton soon. Don't get too over encumbered. The benefit of sparse loot in interloper is that you travel light and fast. If there's no downside, use the heaviest stuff first (example: need to eat? use can of peaches before you use can of pork and beans. Have fire and you are warm enough? Use fir firewood before coal). Don't be afraid to use your supplies at this stage. Light that torch, use that sewing kit, use the bandage, drink herbal tea to recover over 27%, coffee to go up the rope. The supplies you use now gets you the high priority stuff that allow you to succeed. You can be more choosey on what situations you use supplies later when you have plenty of food and top tier clothing, when you can just say shucks guess I'll wait another day to do objective X. IMO it pays off to be an overachiever at this stage by also finding: fire strikers, sewing kits, coffee and tea, 2 pairs of long john underwear, at least 1 wool torque, wool socks (SIDE RANT: sports socks are just a cloth PIT and aren't worth it), earwraps, stims, and even consider going for the technical backpack / crampons via a route involving something like signal hill and farmstead -> plane crash in PV -> timberwolf summit -> ash canyon gold mine. You don't have to do this now (or even ever) to be successful, but it highlights an important point I live by in Interloper: Do the riskiest crap FIRST. If you die sooner than later trying to loot high priority places, starting over won't be that painful. Also, most routes have that store bought food for you the FIRST time you go through them. You'll need to hunt or bring your own when you circle back. All that being said, you do have to find things in a certain order to be able to succeed (like finding a bed roll before summiting). Another important point is that clothing and food start at low(er) percentages and decay as time goes on, so that summit trip at day 100 won't give you all the cool stuff you could get at like day 6. My first long term interloper save got the bare minimum in stage 1 having only covered ML and CH. He's got everything he needs to survive past day 500, but could be doing it 4-5 degrees warmer had he been an overachiever. When you've gathered some or all of what was mentioned above, you're ready to move to stage 2. Well I could ramble on more or add more naunce to what I covered but this is already too long. Good luck!

I've seen it posted time and time again that the start of an Interloper game is the hardest. Allow me to offer you a counter perspective: New run? It's all fun. As you dart from shelter to shelter in search of loot. It might be rare, but rest assured, it's there. To Quonset, to the summit, to the gold mine. So much risk, yet so little on the line. 5 hours or 6? A screw up is easy to fix. Simply start once more. Your route is better than before! You know where all the goodies are and how to get them. The cold, is it cold? The plane wreck dressed you bold. Matches are plenty, and no coal spawn is empty, and there's many reasons to use them. Do not fear the forge. There's cattails to gorge. There's herbal tea and coffee to sustain you. Though the wolves may glare, you have a flare! The wind cannot doom you. Time to craft some gear? Carcasses are near. The rabbit groves are brimming. The saplings there for trimming. Cooking and archery five. The slog takes a dive, as the hard work and gambling seem behind you. You're all set. There's no reason to fret. Meat and fish stocks aplenty. The cured products are many. But, the game is just beginning. Don all the furs that please. No matter, you still freeze! You can't justify a match. Letting clothes tear before a patch. The weather is worse, but who knows how long you'll be playing? Each day lived is more weight. It'll bury you, it's fate. How tall is the time you lug around? For the wolf to pin to ground. They've always been there. You know the map and you know where. You have supplies, you've taken care. After all, you've traveled this path many times before. Did the bear give it a scare? It seemed a little unfair. That wolf wasn't near its lair. You brought the bow to the fight, but when he charged, he inched right. You were well fed, your condition high. You used the axe. Fatigue was near max. Yet it mattered naught, that wolf fought and fought. Maybe not a wolf, but a mis-clicked rope. Maybe it was just a foot high slope. Trapping you to your doom. You could not jump out of that tomb. Maybe you double clicked some raw meat. A surprise aurora lit wires that bought defeat. There's no room for error, in evading The Long Dark's terror. Mitigate, plan, rules that are strict. Sooner or later they will conflict. At least you learned an important lesson for next run? Don't go to coordinates forty, eighty-six on day two thousand and one? In truth, every run has its unique grave ready. Which has me wondering, when things are nice and steady. It might not be worth the risk to go to that new place, and have a predator tear off this old man's face. Wouldn't it be better to just start anew? In fact, that's just what I'll do.

I realized that the time I was able to get back on the rope on this ledge I didn't move once I got on it. However, this time prior to the video start I moved forward to get to the backpack.

In ash canyon, the 2nd of the 3 ropes leading to the area above the gold mine. I found that after resting on a ledge, the game wouldn't let me grab back onto the rope from the ledge unless I practically walked off. Since I rested in the cave nearby, I simply quit and reloaded the game and then avoided the ledge. I've been on that ledge in a couple other games have definitely been able to grab the rope without tossing my character off. The Long Dark 2021.03.06 - 18.42.29.01_Trim.mp4

What?! You can repair toolkits? You should put this in the did you know thread

Yes, though you can trap rabbits for guts, which is infinite. To make snares to trap rabbits, you only need reclaimed wood and a gut. You get the wood back when harvesting a ruined trap

Why do you think you are dying in the mauling? Can you post a video of your attempt? You are pointing the spear at the bear just before it charges correct?

I was concerned about freezing to death at the back of the cave in interloper, especially due to blizzards but to quote @jeffpeng I suppose a good rule of thumb for testing the weather is seeing what your feels like (adding whatever bed roll bonus) is at 5am in your cave of choice for a few days, as I'm sure the temperature varies day to day. If it is say 2-3 degrees or more, you're probably safe to sleep whenever

I'm willing to bet you learned so much in getting that save to 30 days that if you were to start over you'd do much better. Especially if you mull over questions like "what proved fruitless in my last run? or what can I make more efficient about my routines?" I bet it would be difficult, but not as much as you first found it. Rinse and repeat that, and suddenly it's not difficult. The real question is, is it worth it to you to grind out that experience?

In all seriousness, I think after a certain point in raising up the difficulty you're are at risk of making the game less interesting; especially, if it involves taking things out of the game. Making something harder is so arbitrary. I really like Interloper for what it is because while you are forced play certain ways, you still have options in how to survive and make things work in tough situations after you have cobbled together enough tools. Plus, you can live sustainably in interloper making it still feel sandboxy and less: well, I can only play this for X number of days at best (deadman).

I've noticed that after dying in the game to a wolf, they have the AUDACITY to do nothing but prowl around and repeatedly howl after killing my character. It would be respectful if hinterland could add sounds indicating the wolf is enjoying my corpse as a meal, indicating that at least one of us will be satiated. Otherwise, hunting me down just for the sport of it is honestly kind of a dick move.

I would like an advanced interloper difficulty where wolves verbally insult and taunt me. Something that will really make me question what I'm doing in my free time. Bonus if you could somehow personalize the experience. For example: Wolf spots me in ML: "Wow! This is the third close encounter within 24 in game hours. I'm suuuuuuuuuuure this will be the save to achieve 'Will to Live'!' or like after a game ending wolf struggle "Say goodbye to the xx hours you spent on this save. Guess you should've spent that exercising or bonding with your family instead! Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

So I caved and looked at a documented loot table for HRV: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11n0wfRQadaWay4feLbunF9dxIbS2hZ3O_I57x5JfF6s/edit#gid=1146953510 It seems all scenarios have the bedroll in different parts of the cave. The one where I scoured everywhere might have been RTL1 because I found a hacksaw near an abandoned campfire (however this was not near cloudtop falls, but offset falls). That would indicate the bedroll to be at the place of the video which I definitely checked, but maybe I overlooked something. Anyways, last night I had another run where I found a bedroll and hacksaw which I now see matches RTL2. PS Sorry I can't edit the topic of this post. I realized that just the title is a spoiler.

I've seen many posts talking about a guaranteed bedroll spawn in HRV on interloper. After many deaths of trying to find it, I decided to google for hints. Apparently it's in an ice cave. So I scoured both caves on 1 save and found nothing. So I found this video: I went to that location and there was nothing but some wood. Has the map changed or did I miss something?