TonyInPleasantValley

PV is pretty rich with food. The bear is an easy kill, there are a lot of wolves and deer near the farmhouse. Wood is a bit of a pain, but is manageable. For ammo, once you get a bit of brass, it is pretty simple to hike to a reload bench and get 100's of rounds. The reason I quit using PV as a base was the weather. I hate getting caught in a storm at the worst place/time possible and PV is a master at "gotcha!". I got so frustrated with it, I made trails with fire starter material so I could always find my way, once I got onto the ice. This saved my bacon too many times to count. I was wondering what was up with the bears there recently. I used to see a lot more bears in a lot of areas around PV which made it vastly more dangerous. Basically anywhere I went, there was a possible bear collision. Over near the wrecked plan on the way to TWM, or along the trail on the way to the cave to the dam, or anywhere near the farmhouse...so many bear spawns. Kinda like it the way it is now so hope they don't fix it,. TBH...

The chicory-infused coffee sold at New Orleans staple Café du Monde — often served with steamed milk and made to enjoy alongside fried beignets — boosted the reputation of chicory coffee across America. Today, most locally-owned New Orleans coffee shops mix their beverages with about 70 percent coffee and 30 percent chicory root. I believe the Luzianne was/is made with chicory as well.

I have not experienced this and I play quite a lot...odd.

@Toki1666 Yeah, I am finally getting to the point that I don't want to spend most of my days on TWM, so with the travois I have started to setup other places. First on the list, for no real reason, was ML. Kinda centrally located so I put a lot of items there. I need to organize my loot and then spread it across the map where it is needed, like you suggest. That is likely my next goal. I think I will then setup up "sub bases" at some of the other key areas that I like playing in, likely BI, CH, and maybe MT or ZoC. I want to get a spreadsheet of all my items wherever they are located so I know what is where, so likely to head to TWM to start that and stop along the way to document items I have already stashed. Also building more cairns and stocking them on well worn paths, that way I don't have to be as loaded with gear and have essential items both at safe houses and along the path. Also considering putting a lantern at each cave entrance/exit along with using the ton of paint I have to jazz up the map, mark trails and caves better. Feeling like I am approaching end of game, which I really don't want to happen. Hoping the updates will keep the game going for me.

I am guessing there will never be a "perfect" spot, but am hopeful that the newer areas will have another place I can choose for a long term base. I found some gunpower material, but not a lot. Perhaps I missed a few caches? Think I ended up with a can of stump remover and 3 bags of dusting sulfur? Think I also found 2 cans of gunpowder. So I guess that is a decent amount... By MP are you referring to Mountain Pass? I thought that was a potential mod for TLD? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYEAY2EGwGE

I am starting to think that the one experience I had was a one off. I just killed a bear at the Trapper's Cabin, hauled it to ML, no issues. If this is correct, this makes this device one of the best in the game! BTW, I ran into a TOUGH bear at TC! I shot him at close range, should have been a one shot kill, but no. I went to sleep and checked and he was still alive. So waited for him day 2, put an arrow in him, and waited for day 3. He showed up, I went into cabin to get something, came out to a pea soup blanket of fog. So on day 4, he wanders over and I end him with a second arrow. One tough bear, indeed!

Interesting that several people have said it does and others said it does not. All I know is I killed a bear, slapped all the parts into a travois, and started hauling it from the kill near the hunter's blind in BR to the maintenance yard. There was a wolf quite a distance away and he made a bee line to me. Coincidence? Maybe? But I have that one data point and have read on reddit and other places that others have experienced the same. I am on ML now so I will do some fishing runs with the travois and see what happens and report back. Seems to me this would be an unusual benefit the devs tosses into the game and would be less realistic, but I am down for being proven incorrect!! Two travois make life so much better when hauling over long distances, especially where you have an impasse. You can haul more, faster, using fewer resources and with less jeopardy than hauling without them.

Wear on the travois is reportedly due to how often you turn or reverse. Each time you hear it "creak" it loses 1%. Meat or fish in the travois attract wolves and other critters like in your backpack, so beware. There is a bug where if you drop it on a steep slope, it and the contents can disappear. This may be similar to the dead animal, cannot harvest bug, that I encountered 3 times yesterday. Could not use the hit it with a stone recovery method either, so wasted 3 wolves and associated bullets. That pales in comparison to losing 75 kilos of stuff!! I would like them to allow you to use lighting while pulling the travois, as well as allowing more head turn. FM is no fun as it is, but with limited head turn it is a nightmare! I traversed it yesterday and got attacked by three separate pack of wolves. Luckily no bear surprise! All in all, this is a good overall add to the game. Will help with fishing, bears and moose, coal, and other heavy objects like car batteries. Using two travois, I found the limitations of going through certain areas minimized and overcome by the bonuses of time, food, and water saved. Saving time also limits the number of animal attack and weather related events along the way.

So my recent travois experience was interesting. I have a 2 travois system I am using for long hauls. Basically bringing all the loot from the ZoC back to where I play more. I am currently at ML in the camp office. The travois was great for getting around 115 kilos of stuff from the far end of the map to the middle. Using the two travois system, I loaded one up, dragged it until I couldn't, dropped it, walk to the other side of whatever was the issue (slope, tree, train, climb, whatever) drop the second one, dump ALL my stuff into it, go grab sections of the other travois until near full, walk back to the new travois, dump, rinse and repeat. Finally, pick up the original travois and make sure I had a gun and ammo, and pick up travois #2 and truck on. Odd where I could and could not go at times...one time looked plenty wide but it just told me nope. Another time, I crossed a fallen tree with it which I doubted it would allow, however the slope on the other side of the tree was too much so had to drop and do the dance. Overall, from ZoC to ML it took about 1 dozen transfers to get past all obstructions. Significantly less time than it would have taken to make the 3-4 trips it would have taken, all the food and water I would have expended, matches, fire material, etc. A very pleasant quality of life add. Give us a block and tackle to use on cliffs and this thing is perfection... Mine wore down quite a bit so far, think one is 50% and the other is 70%. So one end of map to the far other side basically uses one up if you don't mend it. Seems a bit fast for wear especially since mostly pulling over powdery snow. That said, I have pelts coming out of my ears so nice to have a use for them. I also have quite a few maples cured in different locations. I did use the travois after killing a bear that surprised me on the pond in BR; I honestly don't think I have ever run into that bear before, but then again I don't spend much time in that location...he just walked out of the woods and I sprinted to the hunter's blind and got a good shot off. He bled out and I pulled a complete bear to the maintenance yard. Did get attacked by a wolf on the way, but easily put him on the run. Easily would have taken 3 trips, so again a big gain and I too am happy for this new tool!

...does not exist. However, doesn't hurt to look at what I think is ideal and see how places rate. The ideal location MUST HAVE the following items: Easy access to food: deer, rabbit, bear, moose, fish, plants, birds Easy access to fuel: sticks, timber, pallets, crates Easy ingress and egress into the abode The abode, with a bed, a work bench, a cooking station, storage This is why I use TWM - has all of these things. Now for a PERFECT place, let's add some things that are HIGHLY DESIRED: A vehicle to sleep in to avoid cabin fever A 6 burner stove - top thing on my list of nice to haves by a long shot!! Saves fuel, saves time, cook a lot of food or make a lot of potable water A furnace for smelting things An ammunition workbench A milling machine This is why I use Bleak Inlet as my home away from home...has the mill, ammo workbench. Ingress and egress is bad in BI, there is no convenient 6 burner, and there are Timberwolves. Love the Farmhouse in PV, but weather sucks, no fish, fuel is a bit of a pain, egress and ingress are pretty simple, none of the specialty machines. Coastal Highway is nice, has the advantage of beachcombing (as does BI), but is a little tucked away for my liking. I also find I get surprised by the bears and wolves a little more than other areas. Blackrock is another close contender, but Timberwolves make it a hard place to live as well as the regular wolves and bears... So there is no ideal place for me, but using my MUST HAVE list, TWM is still on top of the list. Wish it had a 6 burner stove, and secondly an ammo workbench. If it did, I would rarely leave except for Tales! Speaking of which, I need to get my rear out of Broken Railroad and get heading home to TWM! Cheers all!

Last time I got close, upper 400 hours, I fell off a dang cliff cuz my fingers were not on the right spot on the keyboard, so this was a LONG time coming for me! I am heading back "home" to TWM now, leaving the new area with a travois FILLED with loot. Left a lot of items behind, especially the clothes, but still got so much food, meds, tools, and materials that will come in handy. I built 3 travois because I had the materials from the run and will see how hard it is to trek across the majority of the map with over a hundred kilos of loot. Thinking I might make a second main base with this loot. Starting to rethink completely how I play the game. Current philosophy is to stay alive as long as I can in a well know, mostly safe area...thus TWM. Lots of food, firewood, and well known predator patterns make it ideal for how I played in the past. Thinking second base to be in Broken Railway to allow easy access to the new areas as well as MT, ML, and BI being close. Or maybe back to ML which I have often used as a base of operations? It has 3 buildings I really like staying at so that is a definite possibility. Anyone else have multiple main bases setup? Did anyone bring any of the new clothing items with them, or even use them in ZoC? I left all but the hockey jersey there and never used any of them.

I've always used TWM as my base. Well, started with farmhouse in PV, but later decided to go to TWM and just love playing there. I don't think any of the advantages or disadvantages mean much, and that is because I always find myself needing to go somewhere else vice staying in one region. BI is likely my #2 spot, for many of the reasons you state. I find it easy to kill bear and moose there, but I am not a fan of the Timberwolves. Someone here once tipped me off to not kill them, but kill some of them and then the rest run. A great tip and made BI a place that I now visit more and more often. I like CH a lot too. As you say, the game keeps changing and that makes us all change as well. So I could see myself moving my main base somewhere else, but more likely I will just create multiple main bases. I also try to ensure all the other major places are stocked with essentials. This eliminates the need to carry everything with me when travelling. Having food and water already all along all my major paths, along with fire essentials and first aid items, means I can travel anywhere I need to without a lot of issues. Recently I started thinking about using Transfer Pass as a main. It makes sense to some degree...access to three rich regions and relatively safe...with enough food and very low on predators. No fish is the one thing that concerns me, but who knows what will open up with the next new area? Can always hike to ML for fish, and there again I always find myself hiking from region to region at some point. I will say the ONE PLACE I will NEVER make a main is Bleak...dunno why, but I just don't like even traversing that area. Could be I have ended quite a few runs there thanks to bear surprises?

So this was a nice prize to "win" however it seems kind of useless to me. We need more slots for specialty items like this and the crampons. I mean how does wearing crampons affect me using a rifle holster or belt? I get the devs don't want us too OP and able to carry unrealistic weight, and the present weigh limits are MORE than reasonable, but if you are gonna give me an award for finishing a task, then at least make it something I will use?? Also the travois makes all of them less impactful, IMHO. Maybe add slots for feet and body so I can wear the crampons and use two of the weight allowance items? I have the technical backpack, travois, the moose satchel, the rifle holster, and now the belt that all give me some sort of weight allowance. Of the latter three, I can only use 1 or 2 of them at a time and I have the crampons competing with those three for 2 slots. I get the game is about choices, and having them is better than not, but I for one would like to have my crampons no matter what and I think that is reasonable given the other parameters the devs are balancing (esp. at lower difficulty levels). And, instead of giving me another weight balancing item I cannot really use, how about something neat I can use? I am thinking a scope for the rifle would be fantastic. Or perhaps gloves that are both extremely warm AND tough. Or snow shoes that let me walk and run faster. Or a hoist that allows me to get weight up and down a cliff face. Maybe some dynamite which could open up new game aspects that currently don't exist? I really like the way this game has evolved over time, and I used to never play Survival but the devs have made that very enjoyable and I rarely think about Wintermute anymore because of the Tails and the way the game has changed. I like the new challenges, some of which I did not like at first (like the poisoned wolves or glitter fog) but slowly have adapted my game play to these new challenges and it (I have to admit) does make the game more fun with added challenges. Happy Holidays all!

So I stumbled onto the end game. Think I am now going to try to map out that cave system, once I get my thoughts together. Want to make a travois and move a lot of the loot I have back to home base. This was fun!

Yeah, I have totally resisted getting hints from guides this tale (and the other) because I wanted the new game items to keep me busy until the end of the year. I have been slow rolling it a bit, exploring a little more instead of focusing solely on the tale. Been mapping out the Zone, looking for polaroid pix spots, searching for wildlife that is NOT a poisoned wolf, etc. I think this is also why I am forgetting where things are...context switching does that to me.

Dunno why, but I am struggling to figure out what to do next. Finally found

Too many to count, lol! Most of the time I hear them before I see them, which can literally cause you to jump out of your skin...especially with some of the music in TLD. First time I played game, it dropped me near Skeeter's Ridge. Was able to get into the cellar and spend the night. Lucky, or so I thought. Next day, pop up out of the cellar start walking in the direction of the TWM climb (I had no idea then as I knew nothing about the map) and up comes the bear and chases me back into the cellar. Eventually worked my way past him and into PV. Many close calls and a few maulings in PV, one particular one was a huge surprise as I walked around a ridge and face to face with a bear. Walked around a corner at night on TWM as I made my way to the last climb up to the wreck...as I turned the corner to the rope area and aurora bear came out of nowhere. About messed my pants! SOMEHOW he did not see me and I was able to hide. Over time I have learned where the bears journey so I am not as often surprised, except for new sections of the map like the other night in ZoC. See my post from the other day, but basically I saw an aurora bear, he got scared, started running like a madman, and when he went way left, I head down and right...into the paws of a big 'ol bear that mauled the heck out of me.

I have not, however I have seen scrapings...lots of them so I think it is feasible.

Oh, so I slept in his cave. Wonderful! Also saw no bones and lit a fire just in case...guess that was a good thing to do! Anyone ever been awoken to a bear mauling you in TLD?

Yah, surprised the heck out of me and I paid dearly for it as I got mauled really good. Suspect the second one spawned due to the aurora. Anyhow, closing in on 500 days with this run so hoping to minimize bear encounters. I did circle back and find the mine entrance, so am there currently. Have a lot of food and other items, so going to stick there for a while and try to learn more about the mine. Need to find another key...

So after a few days I have explored a fair amount more of the Zone. Really like what Hinterland has done here! It is challenging and I think there is still a lot for me to learn about the area. The rest of what I have to say probably has spoilers, so wrapping it:

Not a complaint, OK with the addition, but they make things harder for a number of reasons: They tend to hunt in packs of 2 or 3 They are aggressive and attack at a further distance than normal wolves They drop no meat! They do drop rather easily, but if you run into them you are going to burn through ammo and did I mention you get little in reward as there is no meat? There appear to be a lot of them in the Zone...not sure how many yet as I don't think I have covered much ground there yet and it is a big map, both inside and outside! Not sure on respawn rates either, but would not be surprised if it was quicker than the regular wolves...TBD I am also not looking forward to the cougar, either. Bears are my biggest fear in the game and have caused me the most distress. Moose are so rare and easy to avoid I don't mind them. Regular wolves are my favorite snack and are what I live off of...so again these poisoned ones are not my favorite!

I never throw stones. I can't hit the broad side of a barn with them and just don't get how people are so good at rabbit hunting with them.

Oh Pleasant Valley, what a place, what a name! So I had a very similar experience as the OP in that birch area. Seems almost every time I walk through it, a blizzard hits and usually a bear is encountered. It taught me a lesson as I darn near froze to death, died of thirst/hunger. Made me a better player I think because I vowed to figure out better ways to play. I use fire starter material like cat tails now as trail markers. Any place I have a safe house, I run markers from there out to roads or frozen creeks so if a blizzard hits, all I need to do is find one of those markers and follow it to a house. This has saved me many times. Also put them in confusing areas to guide me so I don't walk right past the path I need to hit to get to a rope, cave, etc. Also use sticks and wood from time to time as I can also pick them up for a quick fire once inside or out of the wind. So far, after about a year of doing this, I have not seen them disappear due to game mechanics/cleanups so I think this is worthwhile. Also started using paint a little more as at one time I thought it was pretty useless, but like how it marks up the map.

LOL I like that...and it is a LOT better than other things I have been called! 😝