WolfTrap

I've been really enjoying the story mode, but I must say that the What One Man Can Do mission in Episode Two is the worst. The design is all wrong. It's frustrating, not fun. The lead up to the final encounter is framed as a stealth mission, but success relies totally on sprinting. So you're telling the player one thing ("don't be seen, don't get close"), but what you need to do is different ( ). You have multiple try-fails, but your fails include an unskippable and unpleasant sequence that you have to watch over and over again. I must have had to watch that 20-30 times. The spear mechanic is unreliable because it has a few second set time and a really short time window for when it stays set. Overall, a very unpleasant gaming experience, which is in stark contrast with the rest of the game which is all well done. That's my 2 cents and vent of my frustrations.

My latest run has continued rather well. I'm trying to knock out as many achievements as possible, which I've completed several on this run. I'm trying also to survey every region with the end goal of getting Faithful Cartographer completed. After a short trip to the dam to build up my food supplies, I travelled quickly back across PV and found my way to the Mountaineer's Hut in TWM. For there, I started slowly exploring TWM. It was slow going with all the climbs, but I was able to survey all the locations and I spent extra time shuttling stuff from the summit and various cargo containers down my Mountaineer's Hut base. All told, I spent over 30 days in TWM. The weather was very manageable compared to PV and after looting the summit, I was fully outfitted in high end clothing (+33 C). And after looting masses of MREs and collecting scores of cattails, I was set on food for awhile. So really my only concern was predators which I also didn't have many problems with; I shot a few wolves and got into one struggle, but that I was able to heal quickly. I had a close call with a bear between Echo Canyon and the Mountaineer's Hut, but was able to sneak past it. From TWM, I headed to Ash Canyon. This region was very well done and I enjoyed it a lot. I was able to survey all locations in around 15 days. Fortunately, the upper trails are very linear so it was easy to find the key locations. The lower survey areas are also pretty easy to find. I definitely missed a lot of the nooks and crannies in this region; I will have to come back another time to explore some more. I had several close calls on this map. I got jumped by a wolf near Long Falls, but I wounded it enough to kill it and took my meds, then rested up in the cave past the falls. Another close call came past the gold mine. I passed the mine the first time and climbed down some ropes past the mine, but when I saw the falls on the other side I realized that I'd missed it so I had to backtrack. I used my coffee and stim to get back up the ropes and searched the area, finding a rope that I passed by the first time. With the rope secured, I was able to attach it to the climb rock and descend down into the mines. Sweet loot obtained! The problem came when I went back out. I again climbed down the two ropes past the mines drop down. But then I freeze as I see a moose blocking the way, I quickly climb back up the second rope to get out of danger from the moose. But now I'm stuck between a moose and a long climb. I had to decide to deal with the moose or face the climb. My fatigue is very low and I'm out of coffee and stims, so I decide to deal with the moose. I haven't used a rifle yet; I left my main rifle in the Angler's Hut, but I found one in the mine, but I have limited ammo. So I pull out my rifle and take my time lining up five shots on the moose from my location where it can't get me. I startle it several times, but I'm unclear whether I hit it or not. Out of rifle ammo now, I need to decide whether to try to finish it with my pistol or sneak by it. Not knowing whether I hit it, I decide to just sneak by it. After some tense moments, I am able to successfully climb down the rope and sneak by the moose. Later it dawned on me to check the in game stats, my stats show I hit the mouse with 4 rifle shots and missed with 1. I'm disappointed that I couldn't drop the beast, but glad that I could sneak by it. My third close call came at Miner's Folly where I almost stumbled into a bear. Luckily I saw it just in time and was able to quickly hide and sneak away. But it was an extremely close call. I was now nearing Day 75 and left Ash Canyon, leaving a bunch of gear and food at Homesteader's Respite for a potential future trip there. I passed back through TWM and PV, picking up the last two survey locations in PV. So, I now have 3 regions fully surveyed! I'm moving on to Coastal Highway.

I see bears stop and stick their nose in the snow like they're rooting around in there for food, so I guess their eating habits are abstracted by that animation and the bones and deer corpses near/in the bear caves.

Thanks for the info on the pepper caches. I did notice between my two playthroughs in PV that I found them in different places. I will keep a look out for them when I'm in ML. I haven't found a forge yet. I looted the Dam explored Winding River to get Well Fed back up and then headed to TWM. I'm currently exploring TWM slowly and enjoying some good loot from the cargo containers while dodging wolves and bears. I have +25C clothes, so the temperature isn't a problem anymore. Good call on playing story episodes 2 and 3; I think I will do that before going back to through PV.

I'm a new player; I started playing a couple weeks ago. I'm glad I found this great game. I played Episode One and then decided to try Survival mode. I'm on my fourth survival run and seem to have a good foundation of how to survive now. I play on Voyager with random start location so I can learn the maps. 1st game: Spawned in Timberwolf Mountain, got caught in a blizzard, got lost, couldn't find shelter, and died of exposure on Day 1. 2nd game: Spawned in Bleak Inlet. I managed to make my way to the Canary complex and looted the trailers but couldn't get into the complex on the docks as a Timberwolf pack was camping the area. I used a flare to cross the bridge while they were stalking me. I hopped in a car and waited until they left, but was slowly freezing to death. I died of exposure trying to get to the buildings to the right across the bridge. Another Day 1 death. 3rd game: Started in Pleasant Valley in the farmhouse. It was loaded with loot so this felt like easy mode compared to the previous runs. I was in PV for 30 days, had some close calls, and learned a bunch. I explored most of the main valley and found most of the main central locations plus some key loot locations in the hills (Signal Hill and around Skeeters Ridge) including a prepper cache. Got mauled by a wolf when I went out at night during an aurora and almost died in blizzard, but I was starting to feel pretty confident that I could survive for a long time. I was getting tired of the poor weather so I did some travelling to explore CH and ML on my way to Milton which I am familiar with from Story mode. I felt I was cruising and could go 100+ days when disaster struck. While surveying the bridge in MT, a bear popped right in front of me out of nowhere then promptly mauled me. Then instead of leaving me to my misery, it walked away just a few steps aggroed me again when I got up and mauled me a second time. I bled out seconds after the second consecutive mauling. Death on Day 44 by bear mauling (2x). Current game: Started in Pleasant Valley again. I'm leaving Pleasant Valley on Day 28. PV subjected me to the usual bad weather. 19 blizzards in 28 days and that was with the last 2 out of 3 days clear. So at one point, there were 18 blizzards in 25 days. Still, I'm proud that I managed to explore the entire map. I've surveyed 22 locations. 3 to go but they are all known locations: a wolf chased me away from Derelict Cabins before I could survey it plus two region connections that I found in my previous game. I earned the Pacifist achievement on this run and have been trying to keep the Well Fed buff going so I have depleted most of the lootable food in the region. So I'm headed for a short supply run to ML or CH to stock up on food and get my Well Fed buff back up. Then I'm headed to Timber Wolf Mountain to explore there, picking up the last 3 PV location surveys on the way.