Where do you live in the Hushed River Valley?

[Guest jeffpeng]

What is your favorite place to be in HRV? Where do you find yourself being set up best to hold out?

Personally I like the Valley Cave in the central valley in the eastern part of the map. While not an inside cave, it is warm enough with decent clothing most of the time. The area has only one wolf (that I know of) roaming, is a possible moose spawn point, has ample opportunity to hunt both deer and rabbits, and plentiful supply of firewood, cat stalk and natural medicine. Imho one of the best spots for cave dwelling in the entire game, and definitely sustainable if you bring enough supplies.

[Pillock]

11 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Personally I like the Valley Cave [...] if you bring enough supplies.

Funny for me to read this. I hate that place possibly more than anywhere else in the whole game.

But that's probably because I have spawned in there at the beginning of the new run several times, and it's a horrible, horrible place to start. As you say, maybe it's sustainable if you bring supplies and tools with you, but if you don't then it's a death trap. You can't get out without a bloody great rope climb, the wolf obstructs your movement to where a lot of resources are (but there is possible a rifle spawn down there, so that is mitigated somewhat, sometimes). There isn't enough food and there isn't enough fuel to stay down there for longer than a night or so if you don't have decent equipment already.

[Spakerman]

So far the most sustainable for me has been just inside any Ice cave. I have yet to really settle in anywhere longer than a few days. 

[Guest jeffpeng]

5 hours ago, Pillock said:

Funny for me to read this. I hate that place possibly more than anywhere else in the whole game.

But that's probably because I have spawned in there at the beginning of the new run several times, and it's a horrible, horrible place to start. As you say, maybe it's sustainable if you bring supplies and tools with you, but if you don't then it's a death trap. You can't get out without a bloody great rope climb, the wolf obstructs your movement to where a lot of resources are (but there is possible a rifle spawn down there, so that is mitigated somewhat, sometimes). There isn't enough food and there isn't enough fuel to stay down there for longer than a night or so if you don't have decent equipment already.

I agree that it's a harsh start to draw. Happened to me, too, once, and I actually managed to evade the wolf long enough to make it to the small plateau and actually found a bow. But without any tools you can't sustain living down there, that's true, so I finally gave in on night 5, dying basically from exhaustion. On the other hand I've taken a rather well equipped stalker down there, and it was like vacation.

[Guest]

About 15 days in HRV and trying to find a new area for a base. I'm going through my firestriker like crazy in order to navigate in and out. This is located where you can find a bedroll. I'm already out of lamp fuel. I have a few other caves where I am set up, but this section (where you find a bedroll, center of the map it seems) was where I ended up with the most of my inventory.

Starting to draw out the cave section on paper because I feel like I'll remember it easier versus referencing a map. Knowing I can be smarter with base location, and I'm planning on moving soon. I think I've only explored 50% of the map without referencing a community map.

[stratvox]

My two fave places are to bounce between the Lack Cave on Lake Monolith and the cave that's tucked up in the NE corner of the map... the one near the bear spawn just around the corner from an ice cave entrance. I like it that the bear is close, so when I shoot it it dies not too far away. Lake Cave (at least on this run) is where the moose spawns, so it's also a handy location where one doesn't end up needing to carry a boatload of meat too far to get it to the cooking fire.

As an aside, caves without loading screens are better; if you build your fire near the entrance you'll find that your wood goes a LOT further because of the temperature bonus if you sleep next to it. On a typical night you need only feed your fire up to seven hours to be able to sleep a full twelve and have a fire upon awakening. When I'm living in a cave, the very back is for curing and the front is for the fire and food... you get the bonus of slow outdoor food decay rate right next to the fire which makes nights pass easily.

[romerabr]

I live outside of it... Best place.... 

[Guest jeffpeng]

23 hours ago, Vonwoah said:

I think I've only explored 50% of the map without referencing a community map.

Well I kinda did it the hard way, and only took the map once I had most of it figured out. I had started three games in HRV, the first which ended in a rather gruesome death on day two, one in which I kinda found the Milton exit by accident on day two, but hadn't had time to map or reference anything, and another where it took me a whole two weeks ingame to actually find the Milton exit - which was the last spot I looked. Had had virtually explored the entire map before I found how to get out of there
 

10 hours ago, stratvox said:

As an aside, caves without loading screens are better; if you build your fire near the entrance you'll find that your wood goes a LOT further because of the temperature bonus if you sleep next to it. On a typical night you need only feed your fire up to seven hours to be able to sleep a full twelve and have a fire upon awakening. When I'm living in a cave, the very back is for curing and the front is for the fire and food... you get the bonus of slow outdoor food decay rate right next to the fire which makes nights pass easily.

I keep preaching this to people that tell me you can't live in "outside" caves. Actually it's very much a feasible concept, as there are certain mechanics to help you do it and it even has its advantages. One is the one you refer to, having a fire in the outside portion of a cave, just behind the line. If anyone is wondering now where that is: Usually around 1/3 into the cave, the temperature suddenly rises for a good amount. You can track this in you character screen.

This fact let's you run fires 24/7 (so-called permafires)  if you want to, assuming you have Fire Starting 5 and are located in an area that is rather rich in firewood - like the Valley. With such fires burning up to 18 hours straight without refueling, it's perfectly feasible to take even mildly longer trips before returning home, and find the fire still burning, saving on those precious matches. Once you dropped a bit of coal in such a fire, you can basically run around naked in your cave - which I often do to save that little bit of extra % on my clothing.

Another fact that helps is that such caves inexplicably get warmer later in the game (much speculation on the why behind this). So while the world outside get's colder, you can actually still get by surprisingly well. I haven't really figured out when in the game, and how much, but I actually plan on playing an outside-only stalker game in HRV (meaning no sleeping in ice caves :D) exclusively to find that out. Although if someone has the exact metric on that, please let me know

Edit: The only thing I'd really love HL to let us do is create our own little containers to store clutter like fishing tackles, energy bars or sticks. It's great to have your riches stacked up around you, but some things are just annoying to deal with on a pick-up-basis. I know that this is kinda hard with the way Unity implements these containers, but well, it still would be nice.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, stratvox said:

On a typical night you need only feed your fire up to seven hours to be able to sleep a full twelve and have a fire upon awakening.

@stratvox thanks for the strats.

Trying not to get off topic from HRV. I'm curious if I am missing something in the game here. Sleeping 10 hours depletes your water 100%. Over that doesn't help condition much right? Never quite understood the 12 hour mechanic, and then thought it gives you a +2 hour of recovery from an ailment.

[Guest jeffpeng]

14 hours ago, Vonwoah said:

Sleeping 10 hours depletes your water 100%. Over that doesn't help condition much right? Never quite understood the 12 hour mechanic, and then thought it gives you a +2 hour of recovery from an ailment.

How fast calories and water reserves deplete depends heavily on the difficulty. In loper you deplete a full thirst bar in 10 hours of sleep, in stalker in 12. I think it's the same for voyageur, while in pilgrim I know it's ridiculously long. The sleep/awake offset is similar to the offset with calories. I think to remember that you require only 2/3 of water when asleep opposed to being awake (or 50% more water opposed to being asleep), analogous to only requiring 60% of calories when asleep (or 2/3 more when awake). So in loper, assuming you manage to sleep 10 hours a day, a full day should require you to drink about 2.22_ liters per day, not factoring in thirst from consuming food, which will raise this well beyond 2.5 liters unless you are living off canned food.

Sleeping more than 10 hours straight on loper simply isn't advisable. If you are tired enough to do so, and require the condition recovery, splitting your sleep in two 6 hour segments with hydrating (and possibly eating) between segments is the better approach. But honestly I've rarely had the luxury in loper to afford "sleeping in".

[Guest]

On 7/31/2018 at 2:46 PM, jeffpeng said:

In loper you deplete a full thirst bar in 10 hours of sleep, in stalker in 12. I think it's the same for voyageur, while in pilgrim I know it's ridiculously long. The sleep/awake offset is similar to the offset with calories.

Tested Voyager and found with water meter: 8 hours passing time, 10 hours sleeping.

Update with HRV exploration and where I am staying now - Voyager run.

I really like the cave off of Monolith lake, but not my primary location. I like the reference to the center square rock, 2001 Space Odyssey reference I assume.

After exploring the Landslide area below and forgetting my tin can at my previous fire, I was in desperate need of water. I knew I needed to head back to the Monolith cave without backtracking for a can. There was plenty of water I cooked at Monolith cave. Around Day 117, the harshest blizzard I experienced in Voyager while climbing the two ropes up to Monolith. There were moose markings in the Monolith area I saw earlier. Sure enough there was a moose on the ice, in the path straight to the cave, in an extreme blizzard. I'm already freezing hypo.

Total noob with moose hunting, and this moose got me where I didn't think could reach me, and damaged me in the opposite direction I was looking when hunting. Probably one of the biggest jump scares I've had in this game. I didn't want to let it go and killed it after 4 flares and another trample (2 tramples now). I left my arrows at the main base. It even destroyed my 98% newly repaired bear bed roll which totally disheartened me.

My main base now is the cave right off of Hushed River. Great cave to walk the river and head North or South West regions of the map.

I've explored 100% of the map and collected all the Rose Hips I could possibly find. I'm going to give it a go and see if I can make it to day 500 on Voyager without leaving (Around day 120 now). I have enough arrows/bows, matches. If I can avoid the wild life and work the caves with travel, I think I can make it. The number of sprains I've experienced in this region while walking the terrain is nutty.