pdxthehunted

Great topic. As others have already mentioned—single player game, do your thing. I play on PS4, which seems to make save scumming harder/require more intention. I’ve done it, and interestingly it never occurred to me that it was cheating. I discovered the mechanic by playing too late into the night and wandering around until a blizzard hit. I realized my mistake and just turned off the game and console and went to bed. The next day, I figured I’d at least see my survivor through to the bitter end. To my surprise, I loaded up outside of Trapper’s—weather was fine. I realized what had happened. I kept playing that sandbox, and one night my wife was distracting me a bit and I got attacked by a wolf. I immediately quit out of the game, figuring I would just give my full attention to her. Immediately, she said “Oh, is that cheating?” She is not a gamer, and she didn’t mean to accuse me of anything—it was an innocent question But it spoiled that sandbox for me, for sure. I had plenty of reasons that it wasn’t cheating—she was distracting me, the wolf had come out of nowhere, the settings had been off. But the seed was planted and I realized that sandbox was dead. For me, save scumming does drastically change the game. The major mechanic of TLD is its unforgiving, carelessness-punishing nature. With that mechanic removed, or sidestepped, you’re not really playing The Long Dark

I read through this post the other day, so when I made (another) dumb mistake I made a mental note to share it here. I'll call the mistake "Torch Conservation." Basically, torches are an infinite, super-cheap resource. Matches and firestrikers: not so much. And yet, last night while I was gathering coal from the ML/MT transition cave, I needed a match to light a torch to gather coal. I ran through from ML to MT and picked up everything; then, on my way back I thought to myself "I can navigate through this cave without light--no need to waste this 60% torch" and extinguished the torch. I was pleased with myself until I exited the cave back at Trapper's. I remembered that I had a metric ton of bear meat to cook as well as a frozen wolf carcass that I needed to harvest. It was overcast and snowing, so no magnifying glass fire. Hopefully I'll learn that not all resources need to be conserved equally--some resources (like torches) are expendable. A good rule of thumb, I think, is just to never extinguish a torch unless I'm about to cash it anyways by passing time/sleeping.

Thanks for the reminder. This time, I'm very sure that he died. I've had a few bear hits this sandbox that didn't result in a bleedout, so I made sure not to enter a loading screen until my counter had gone from 3 to 4. Assuming there was no glitch or bug, I'm wondering if he died somewhere closer to the Crumbling Highway. I'm 99% sure he was nowhere on the ice--I could see a wolf I'd killed on the ice practically across the map, but no bear 🤷‍♂️. A little update on my sandbox: I made it back to Trapper's after recovering in the Ravine. My cooking is Level 5 now, so I had plenty of bear meat there to get the Well Fed buff while I crafted the Bearskin Coat. The plan was to head back to CH straightaway to craft the wolf coat, but I got an easy bear kill outside Trapper's. He bled out on a sloping hill, so quartering him was more trouble than I wanted it to be--ended up losing some condition to the weather, even with a Warming Up buff. But I'm in the process of getting all of that harvest back to Trapper's, and then I need to harvest the wolf that got interested in the quartering site. I stripped the Milton/ML cave of coal and have quite a bit of scrap metal stored right outside of the FM transition tunnel, so I think I'm going to take advantage of my Well Fed + Satchel +10kg capacity and head to Spence's tonight. Once settled in there, I'll reup on arrow heads and craft another knife or two (bearskin coat wrecked my knife). I might bring arrow/bow crafting mats and just take advantage of the outdoor workbench. Not sure if Broken Railroad has anything worth visiting for at this point in my game (day 65-ish). I still would love to find a wool toque and another pair of underwear, but I've looted most of CH and ML without finding any. I've also already hit most of the high value spots in PV during my first week, and most of downtown Milton early on as well.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts and advice. My moose hide finished last night, but I ran into some other problems (all of my own making/poor planning). I miscalculated my hides—I guess it takes four wolf hides, not two, to craft the wolf cloak. Not sure what I was thinking, but I realized that only after I had made the moose satchel. Wolves were all too plentiful at the Garage, so I got another two hides curing, but not before cabin fever risk set in. (After crafting the satchel, I was pretty much stuck inside for at least a full day due to blizzards.) I had also been planning on a bear coat becoming available—I had one bear hide already curing, and had killed a second bear at the end of my last playthrough before signing off. However, when I logged back in last night, I could not, for the life of me, find the carcass. (It was the bear that patrols around Misanthrope’s.) I shot him on the ice, and figured I’d wait out the night on the island for him to bleed out, since I was out of fuel for the fishing hut. Over the next couple of days, I wasted most of the afternoons searching for him. Checked Misanthrope’s and Jackrabbit Island, as well as the burned-down cabins near the Abandoned Highway entrance. I gave up when the blizzards hit and went to craft my satchel, and that’s when I got trapped inside for too long. (I also got my sleep schedule messed up, so that I ended up having to just pass time in the mornings before it got light enough to do anything.) When the CF risk procced, it was still a blizzard and still before sunrise. It was too cold with my mediocre gear to spend any serious time in a car, so I just killed time and got organized until it was light out. My plan was to try and make it to the coal mine to stock up on fuel, so that I could spend time outdoors without dying. I made it to the Abandoned Mine (with the elevator shaft), but I had already stripped it too recently. Warmed up in there before attempting to find the coal mine proper. Well—like I said in my OP—I am not terribly familiar with CH, and I never found the actual mine. I got turned around and ended up at a cabin somewhere, which had enough reclaimed wood for me to build a fire behind it to boil water for the blizzard’s duration. I drank some reishi tea and ventured onward. Probably through pure luck, I finally realized where I was, which was near the unloading area by the ravine. It hadn’t been the plan, but I decided to just retreat to the ravine to stock up on some food, sleep off the CF in a cave, and maybe hunt a few deer (my archery skill had improved quite a bit during my time at CH). Of course, another blizzard hit, and I was walking into the wind across the entire trestle. Somehow, the terror of freezing to death in the blizzard (condition down to about 60% and dropping) overrode my fear of falling and I booked it to the first indoor cave on the CH side of the Ravine. It must really be my gear that’s so bad, because despite almost freezing to death on the way there, the cave was warm enough that I had double-arrow temp increase with no fire. Slept through the night in my bedroll, and in the morning set about hunting rabbits and gathering birch so that I could start to restore my lost condition. So that’s where I left things. I bagged two deer and am pretty much recovered. Tonight, I’m going to try and wander back to Trapper’s in ML where I have two bear hides that ought to be cured by now, which will go into a nice, new coat. From there, I’m unsure—CH ate up my arrow supply much faster than I anticipated. The Quonset wolf population seemed endless, and I lost several arrows to wolves who ran away to die that I never found, as well as the bear that I lost track of. So, I have four arrows and no arrowheads. My options: Go to Spence’s from Trapper’s to forge. Pros: It’s close. Cons: Will need to stop and get scrap metal at the dam. Will need to clear out the Milton cave for coal. Also, FM terrifies me. I never feel safe from wolves, and since it’s so cold, I’m liable to rush and make mistakes. Conserve the arrows that I have as best I can as I make my way back to CH. Stop off at the Garage to craft a wolf coat, and then head to the Ryken to make arrowheads. DP had been the plan before I got lost in the blizzard because it’s the map I’m most familiar with. I have plenty of scrap metal already stored at the garage, so I just can’t forget to find coal before I go forging. Pros: If I can make it back to Quonset, the wolf coat + bear coat combo should allow me a bit more time outside before having to retreat. Cons: A little nervous about getting through the Crumbling Highway. I think fear and timidity will end up killing me this run. I’m learning that it can be preferable to take some controlled cold damage (even during the morning or heavy winds) than to be forced outside to gather resources during a blizzard. Conversely, sometimes you have to move through a blizzard, rather than slowly dying in a car or snow shelter. A final question: Can wolves smell you when you’re cooking? At Quonset, I tried to cook outside to avoid CF, and even with no guts or meat on my person, it seemed like they could smell the cooking meat on my campfire. Sorry about the book-length post, and thanks everyone for your tips. That's good to know that there's a place I can warm up in the transition zone. Yeah. I like the location okay, but I don't have time to deal with that many wolves. I had enough close calls during my couple of weeks there--although it has forced me to get a little better with the bow, it's only a matter of time until I miss a charging wolf and end my run.

Hello, everyone. I'm new to the forum but intermediate TLD (~200 hours). However, I recently started playing Interloper after a one year break from the game, and I am hoping to get some advice. Here's my situation: I'm at about day 50 in the current sandbox. Spent the first 30 days tooling around Mystery Lake and Milton. After crafting deer + rabbit clothes, I decided to go to CH to look for some missing clothes--I need a wool toque, another pair of underwear, and non-sports socks. Well, I didn't find any of those things in CH (yet), but I did bag my first Interloper moose. The problem is that I don't have a bear or even wolf coat, and I think I'm experiencing the weather decay now. I can only go outside with 1-2 arrow temp for a few hours per day. I haven't gotten any cabin fever warnings, but I'm pretty nervous about it. (I'm holed up at the garage.) Right now other than rabbit + deer clothes, I have combat pants, mackinaw and ski jacket, thin wool and thin sweatshirt, earmuffs, wool socks and sports stocks. I have about 6 arrows and two bows, both at less than 50%. Haven’t found any maple yet in CH but I haven’t looked that hard. I have two wolf, one moose, and a bear hide curing. I have meat for days so that's all good. I'm trying to plan out how to do some crafting once my hides are cured. I don't really have great map knowledge of CH. I remember losing a Voyager save once last year, though, to a bear while (or shortly after) I was crafting at an outdoor workbench at the fishing village. Here are some options that I'm mulling over: Build snow shelter outside Quonset and try to spend all the time that I can there to avoid cabin fever so that I can craft in the garage. Start hoarding coal so that I can build a fire next to the workbench in the fishing village. Crouch while crafting and (obviously) not carry meat/guts. (One thing Interloper has taught me is what a serious offense carrying a scent is. I suspect that when I lost that Voyager sandbox last year I was probably carrying meat. Now, I'm almost pathologically afraid to carry meat anywhere.) Alternatively, hoard coal so that I can sleep in a fishing hut at night while crafting in the garage during the day. I know that I can use a fire to cook from a snow shelter--has anyone tried building a snow shelter near the outdoor workbench? Can you craft at a workbench from inside a snow shelter? I know that wouldn't protect me from animal attacks, but it might give me a little margin for error with the weather. Finally, I'm unsure of what order of ops to craft in. My moose hide will be ready first. In previous sandboxes, the satchel was a no-brainer. Here, I'm not so sure. Will a wolf cloak be warm enough for me to bag one more bear and craft a bear coat, or should I make a wolf coat + moose coat and then aim for a bear bedroll? I know that ultimately, all of this is up to me and there probably isn't one right answer. I'm just trying to plan out my evening session now while I get a little other work done and am interested in what other players would do. Thanks!

Hello, fellow survivors. I'm 33 and live in Oregon state. I watched a friend play TLD back in 2017 (I think?) on PS4. He described it as an episodic game that wasn't finished--it looked interesting, but I wasn't gaming much then, so I forgot about it. Last summer, my brother got me into Subnautica. It was my favorite gaming experience in many, many years, but over too quickly and without a ton of replay possibilities (plus it was almost prohibitively buggy on classic PS4). I saw The Long Dark mentioned a lot on reddit, for folks who were experiencing Subnautica withdrawals, and decided to try it. Wow--the game captured me completely. I had a month or so with few only a little work/school, and I sank a hundred hours into it. When school and work started back up, I tried to make time for TLD in between. I got a good Voyager sandbox going, and made it to 132 days, mostly in Desolation Point. Eventually, my run ended trying to explore Hushed River Valley (on my first day there.) It was a crushing enough loss that I managed to put the game away for awhile. This year, I have a similar break for the month of September, and due to quarantine I have been pretty broke, so I haven't been buying new games. I fired up the Long Dark, but found Voyager to be a little easy. I decided to try Interloper. Dang. It took me a couple of (IRL) false starts (probably 20 sandboxes lost to the first 2-3days, most of them on the first day) before I was able to get a decent run (20 days) going. I lost that run, but started again and am now at about day 35. I haven't played any story content yet but will likely do it soon, nor have I played the challenges, but might try a few out when I need a break from the stress of my Interloper game. Anyway, I *love* this game and just wanted to be a part of the community, because I want to talk about and discuss it. I'm super grateful to Hinterland for making what is probably (for me) the most immersive game I've ever enjoyed. Okay! Looking forward to talking more about this amazing game!