How not to sleep in Hopeless Rescue


Goodzilla

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Hi everyone

First of all, sorry for my weak English, it is not my mother language.

I am playing this game long enough to complete almost everything, to cut down the time until December I try to beat my own records in my favourite challenge: The hopeless rescue. (with only regular short cuts). Since I found only older threats (before last updates) I allowed me to open a new thread.

So I am asking for help, to save more time. My actual record is 35 hours and 5 minutes ( found 5 coffee boxes before arriving in Timberwolf)

My target is not to sleep one single hour, so I guess I need more coffee to find. I appreciate any tips from the community.  Below my main question (more will follow :-) )

 The farmhouse is my first target in PV, there I can cook 6 coffees simultaneously (with water from the dam and farm house). On my way to Timberwolf, right now I always use the way with the two climbing ropes, and I guess this takes me too much power, so I am trying to find a better way.  On Whiteberrys map there is a foot path, but I never find this one. Dos this still exist? I think I can see it but not possible to go there up (only down).

I attached a map:

green one is the way I use right now

the red one is the one I guess is the best, put I can’t find it! Is this way up on the foot path still possible with latest version?

Blue one: I also tried this one but I lost to much time and it is difficult not to lose the way

 

Coffee: I guess to come up to the plane without sleep I need to find 5 or 6 coffee boxes for 25-30 coffees.

Where I found coffees:  ML Trappers cabin, ML Camp office, ML container in front of dam, ML dam, PV farmhouse

tld PL farmhouse to TW.jpg

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About the red-marked route of yours, I'd say you have the point... I certainly remember I used to get on the Ridge in that place... but this was ages ago. Just like the map shows, it used to take you right to the ridge cave. They apparently modified the terrain in that area, maybe sometime when Wintermute did came out?

Nowadays, it's still possible to follow the road past the bridge a bit until you see a huge rock to your right and the terrain noticeably levels... there's a short path that'll take you to the cave, but it's easy to lose your tracks in there, and it's a wolf-gauntlet.

I hate that place with passion... at the Ridge cave there are usually a wolf or two, and they will come down to get your ass amongst the rocks as you're making your way uphill... if I have to go through Skeeter's, I take the ropes... so I will have more range as I approach.

As for the challenge... I'm no expert, last time it took me around 5 and a half days to complete, got quite lazy on the return leg though. Procuring Joe from random loot is a gamble, and looting everything takes a load of precious time... I guess I never bothered much and saved what I had been finding for the final push to the Summit...

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I have spent about 20days at the Ridge Cave.  I looked for the foot-path several times.  I do not believe it exists anymore (I did not play the game when this did exist).  I usually jumped from your green route to the red route at the last cabin at Skeeter's.  Other than that, I think you have the quickest route I know of.

There is sometimes a wolf at Skeeters, but rarely along the red-route.

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@ dead frozen dude and NardoLoopa

Thank you very much for your comments information and hints! As I thought the foot path no longer exists.

My first try yesterday I found 5 coffees (not enough to succeed without sleep), weather was good, but I had too many encounters with bear and wolves. Finally a moose attacked me in Timberwolf and I had to restart the quest.

Second try started really well! I found two coffee boxes in Trappers cabin and another two in camp office. Unfortunately after the camp office I was very unlucky with the weather and the cold. I moved to the farmhouse almost freeze and out of any energy. There I found another two coffee boxes! My first time finding 6 boxes before the crashed airplane. So I cooked 29 coffees in the farmhouse (had to boil extra 1,5 liter water). Under horrible weather conditions I moved somewhere along the blue route to the rope to the valley to Timberwolf Mountain and had there my first climb in this challenge. With only a few stops, for making a fire to heat some already boiled coffee to keep warm I reached the Airplane with still 7 boiled coffees in my backpack! Going down directly the rock wall is the very best short cut in this challenge. I was sure that this run will break my old record even with this bad weather conditions I had, but then I found to many wolves in the broken Railroad and one attacked me, even I used to scare him with my signal gun. This was my only weakness in this game.... my heart was already very down, now with this last attack I almost died!

I almost never used the emergency injection before and I had no idea how far you can run or go before you HAVE to sleep. Unfortunately I drunk all my left coffee (I should not have done this) and my energy bar was still very full but after the injection it was immediately empty. Not knowing if I will reach the lighthouse in this condition I just tried and finally made my personal new record on this challenge. 29h 24 min. This was the first time I accomplished it without any sleep!

Sry no screen shot only pic.jpg

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Another question:

If I use the emergency stim when my fatigue bar is low, I can use it to climb a rope, and if I still have a lot of coffee, can I easily increase my fatigue bar?

So there is no need to sleep after using the stim?

If so, that would be a good way to save more time and coffee in hopeless rescue.

Edited by Goodzilla
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Yeah, talk about hauling ass...

7 hours ago, Goodzilla said:

If I use the emergency stim when my fatigue bar is low, I can use it to climb a rope, and if I still have a lot of coffee, can I easily increase my fatigue bar?

What I saw, when the crank wears off, it just sets your stamina to zero, no other debuffs incurred. Tecnically, if you parch and starve yourself consistently, then you can subside on coffee entirely to keep yourself going... until both your food/drink gauges will have filled up. I also think, even after that, taking a sip to fill that last empty wee bit of either gauge should keep the "Fatigue reduced" buff perpetually...

TLD wikia probably has some data and actual numbers pertaining coffee/stamina, to crunch upon if one wished, if it's not too outdated by now.

 

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Thank you, thank you!

Yesterday I tried a new challenge to try the emergency stim tactic. Again I found 6 boxes of coffee  but this time  I only found one single stim (as the games knows what I was planning) So I cooked all 30 coffees in the farmhouse and decided to use the stim for the double robe climb (green route). So I arrived there with my fatigue bar almost empty and I could climb both robes easily. On the top I drunk 4 cups of coffee and was very fine to walk to the next rope below the valley to Timberwolf. With still 25 cooked coffees I was pretty sure to beat my record even I was in a blizzard since entrance to Timerbwolf. However drinking only coffee seems to lower the heart bar, since it was already very low even I had not one single fight with wolves or bears. So on my way back in PV one the way to CH suddenly a wolf attacked me without warning noises, so I could not fire the flare gun to scar the wolf away, and this single attack was enough to kill my player.

I am pretty sure the emergency stim is the second key to a record, and I will try it again.

btw now a screenshot of last record attached. For some reason it did not save the screen shots on my desktop, but now I found them all.

Record.jpg

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On 10/24/2018 at 12:35 PM, Goodzilla said:

However drinking only coffee seems to lower the heart bar

Now that is odd. Can you confirm this? You weren't freezing at the time were you?

BTW I found that the stim comes very handy for that last tall climb right before the Summit... it's possible even to reach the plane wreck sprinting before it wears off.

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11 hours ago, dead frozen dude said:

Now that is odd. Can you confirm this? You weren't freezing at the time were you?

BTW I found that the stim comes very handy for that last tall climb right before the Summit... it's possible even to reach the plane wreck sprinting before it wears off.

 

Right now I cannot confirm it. I just did not take enough care about the heart bar.  I shall keep an eye on this for my next tries.

I tried a few times last two evenings with more and less luck. I am still ambivalent about the stims, because your heart bar will be around 20% after using it.

I had the chance to beat my record two times (last time with only 3 coffee boxes and 2 stims), but at the end both times a wolf attached me without warning, once in PV and once in Broken Road, and with my heart bar so low I had no chance to survive. One time I had 10 ammo for the flare gun, but the wolf attacked me before I had a chance to fire it.

 

 

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On 25.10.2018 at 8:37 PM, dead frozen dude said:

Now that is odd. Can you confirm this? You weren't freezing at the time were you?

BTW I found that the stim comes very handy for that last tall climb right before the Summit... it's possible even to reach the plane wreck sprinting before it wears off.

 

I failed the last 10 times to beat my record, however I took a good look on my heart bar. So I can tell now definitely that this is not true, not sleeping and only drinking coffee does not influence the heart bar.

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First of all, congratz on steadily improving your personal best. Maybe I can help you optimalize your route to make it better.

Dont bother looking for the red path - you wont find it. But you can connect on it - by going up the blue one, then at the top you can climb over a small cliff and connect onto the red one without having to walk all the way around the blue one. It is possible with a bit of parcour - you will end up somewhere by the entrance to the burned ridge cave.

I can maybe help you optimalize your climb up the TMW. I know how to do it in some 3 ingame hours, all the way up and down. The trick is in using some cheesy spots where you can both climb carefully down a mountain in a spot that was not meant to provide a "path" down, or up.

Red line indicates the walking path. Purple interrupted shows where the map can be climbed down by crouching and carefully dropping down at almost no fatique loss. Orange interrupted shows a secret passage by a fallen tree where you can scale the mountain up without having to walk around it entirely. 
You will need to pop an emergency needle to climb the last rope. Also, you want to drink up a bit of coffee before the other rope climbs - the fatique reduced buff will help you preserve some energy. 

I may try this self challenge as well some day. Sounds like fun. Last time I did this it was before the Winding river was even implemented, the only way to do it was to go through the Coal mine.

TWM map optimalized path to top and down.png

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111.thumb.png.33926f8cfc2a5c43fa9a0ac02a3dc85b.png

Hi Mroz4k

Thank you for your message, the tip and the time you took to answer me.

I shall practise your way (blue circles) in TWM Survival mode, and I appreciate any hints to get better here! On top between second last rope and last climb, I found one even quicker shortcut, see the blue line.

Finally I made it under 24h yesterday, even with bad weather condition during the night.

 

20181111003456_1.jpg

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Hi @Stone

Thank you! When I started this challenge I never could imagine to finish it without 1 hour of sleep.

After this worked, I tried to get under 1 day, but I thought it will be almost impossible. The Video from B Haru inspired me to try it, but this video is from Mai 2016 so I was not sure it will be still possible because many things changed since that time, for example the lantern gave some warmth bonus.

here is his video where he made it within 18h:

 

Edited by Goodzilla
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Hello again, @Goodzilla. Congrats on that impressive time of less than 21 hours! Happy that my map helped - the "mountain goating" tactic can save a lot of time. 

I will study your new path at the blue line thoroughly - I am impressed, you found it while I never did and I make it my mission to get to know the regions throroughly, just in case I ever get lost in them. So good work!

Just curious - how do you achieve the process of "not sleeping"? How do you build fires? Do you cook meals like cans to eat and warm up? Do you keep your needs like hunger and thirst full, or empty so you can "pop" more coffee at any time? Do you sprint a lot, or do you never sprint to preserve your fatique. What weight are you trying to keep in your inventory?

I am curious because your tips could come in very useful in the normal game one day... I confess that I find it difficult to keep fatique up, especially with all the rope climbing there. 

Here are some things I might reccomend, I am sure you know most of them already: 


Use accelerants to build fires. You can use both accelerant, or 0,30l of lantern fuel. There is almost always a gasoline can in the basement of Farmhouse - if you grab that, you should always be able to create fires with accelerant, regardless of your situation.
Use the canned food that can be heated up to regain your heat quicker, and keep the bonus going. 
Try to use the clothes that have best weight-to-cold protection. You can see the list here: https://thelongdark.gamepedia.com/Clothing (you should be interested in the "C° / Kg" section. The higher the value in that column, the better that item is at keeping you warm while weighting less.
So, ideally, your clothing setup should be: 

Windbreaker,
2x Thin wool sweater (or fisherman´s if you can find it),
2x any underwear (Thermal underwear or wool longjons, whatever you may find),
1x snow pant or combat pants,
2x wool scarf or cotton toque (Dont bother with balaclava - it is only good if its the only 1 item you have on your head, if its the "top" layer)
1x Wool mittens (if you cant find them, Fleece mittens is the next best thing)
2x climbing socks (before you find them, 1x of sports socks is good enough)
Running shoes (dont bother with different ones - these ones are weak, but best mobility, light and best temp to weight ratio)

If you can find them, Wool ear wraps are good item to put on.

Most of these items are very common, not very warm but very light. That also means you will likely find them in better condition - since you wont waste time repairing clothes, you may wanna change for a bit "worse" thing if it has better durability. Ah, and be careful not to put on anything "frozen" - clothes found outside tend to be frozen :)

Not sure if you know, but when you start drinking or eating, and the "circle shows up", you can hit "escape" and stop drinking it. If you drink at least a little bit, you will still gain the bonus of Fatique reduced. I use this trick to spread out the use of coffee for climbing in normal games. I am not sure if the "bonus" lasts shorter then normally, I think it does, but I need to test this some day. Still, once you find coffee, you should drink a cold cup every once in a while to keep the "fatique reduced" buff going while walking. To preserve your fatique.

Also, I would always take all the decently preserved cans of tomato soup, peaches and pork & beans - to use for quick "heating" up. Btw, you can "cook" the coffee on two slots of the campfire and at the same time, you can also "heat up" a can of food, all you need to do is drop it on the ground and put it close to the campfire. This should help you speed up heating up a bit :)

If you need more coffee and you have the hacksaw already while you are at Mountaineer´s hut, it may be worth a while to make a detour to The Wing. One of the boxes there have container with tea and coffee inside. I am afraid I dont know which one specifically.

Hope these other tips were useful. Good luck in trying to improve your record even further! :) 


Just some ideas I had that I thought were worth sharing.
 

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1 hour ago, Mroz4k said:

@Goodzilla

Just curious - how do you achieve the process of "not sleeping"? How do you build fires? Do you cook meals like cans to eat and warm up? Do you keep your needs like hunger and thirst full, or empty so you can "pop" more coffee at any time? Do you sprint a lot, or do you never sprint to preserve your fatique. What weight are you trying to keep in your inventory?


 

  Reveal hidden contents


Use accelerants to build fires. You can use both accelerant, or 0,30l of lantern fuel. There is almost always a gasoline can in the basement of Farmhouse - if you grab that, you should always be able to create fires with accelerant, regardless of your situation.
Use the canned food that can be heated up to regain your heat quicker, and keep the bonus going. 
Try to use the clothes that have best weight-to-cold protection. You can see the list here: https://thelongdark.gamepedia.com/Clothing (you should be interested in the "C° / Kg" section. The higher the value in that column, the better that item is at keeping you warm while weighting less.
So, ideally, your clothing setup should be: 

Windbreaker,
2x Thin wool sweater (or fisherman´s if you can find it),
2x any underwear (Thermal underwear or wool longjons, whatever you may find),
1x snow pant or combat pants,
2x wool scarf or cotton toque (Dont bother with balaclava - it is only good if its the only 1 item you have on your head, if its the "top" layer)
1x Wool mittens (if you cant find them, Fleece mittens is the next best thing)
2x climbing socks (before you find them, 1x of sports socks is good enough)
Running shoes (dont bother with different ones - these ones are weak, but best mobility, light and best temp to weight ratio)

If you can find them, Wool ear wraps are good item to put on.

Most of these items are very common, not very warm but very light. That also means you will likely find them in better condition - since you wont waste time repairing clothes, you may wanna change for a bit "worse" thing if it has better durability. Ah, and be careful not to put on anything "frozen" - clothes found outside tend to be frozen :)

Not sure if you know, but when you start drinking or eating, and the "circle shows up", you can hit "escape" and stop drinking it. If you drink at least a little bit, you will still gain the bonus of Fatique reduced. I use this trick to spread out the use of coffee for climbing in normal games. I am not sure if the "bonus" lasts shorter then normally, I think it does, but I need to test this some day. Still, once you find coffee, you should drink a cold cup every once in a while to keep the "fatique reduced" buff going while walking. To preserve your fatique.

Also, I would always take all the decently preserved cans of tomato soup, peaches and pork & beans - to use for quick "heating" up. Btw, you can "cook" the coffee on two slots of the campfire and at the same time, you can also "heat up" a can of food, all you need to do is drop it on the ground and put it close to the campfire. This should help you speed up heating up a bit :)

If you need more coffee and you have the hacksaw already while you are at Mountaineer´s hut, it may be worth a while to make a detour to The Wing. One of the boxes there have container with tea and coffee inside. I am afraid I dont know which one specifically.

Hope these other tips were useful. Good luck in trying to improve your record even further! :) 


Just some ideas I had that I thought were worth sharing.
 

Hi @Mroz4k  and thank you!

I once wanted to write a guide on what matters to realize good time here, but I came across little interest and therefore waived.

 

I never run, except: Wolf attack or in the end when I still have enough power.

The keys are coffee and emergency stim. I've done it with 3 coffee cups and a stim to TWM tip, but with more of them of course it is easier.

 

I am not looting except the water in the toilets and some cloths (only very few).

Depending on the weather condition my first fire is in the farmhouse, but of course I also had to make fire before to warm up a little, freezing dos not hurt the heart bar too much

In the whole challenge I only eat may be two times, so my hunger is always very low, which allowed me to drink coffee at any time.

First coffee must be found at the starting place, second in the camp office. One stim can be found in the dam, sometimes also coffee, but looting the dam takes just too much time. In the farmhouse there are some times 2 coffee boxes.

As long as I have accelerators I use them. So my first longer stop is in the farmhouse, after checking the basement I go up in the kitchen and make a fire. As I collected all empty cans, I can cook here 6 coffee on same time (with the water from Carter Dam toilets). During the time coffee need to boil I start looting the whole farmhouse, with 15 coffees to cook you can check the whole house.

Since I never run until here my fatigue bar is still ok. If I found two stims I take the short way through double climb, with only one I take the longer way. Once I matched it without one single coffee to the bottom of the rope to TWM!

So for last climb we still have one stim, so I have three other climbs. With only 15 coffee this is very hard and on the limit, but possible, with another coffee box or stim much easier (Sometimes there is coffee in the hidden catch next to that rope behind the trunk)

If I am freezing I make a fire next to the rope before the climb and warm up some coffees but as I said if your heart bar is ok and you did not have any attack, freezing is not the problem.

Next fire is in the plane, it is the first thing I do there. Then I check the boxes with the clothes, the water, the coffee and the medicine. After here you are dressed well and have up to 3 stims and a lot of coffee.  Most of the time I make two fires so I can cook 4 coffees on one time. Depends on how many stims you found 8 to 10 coffees should be enough.

Until I am up here my weight is very low, may be 10 kg or less, so I am faster and fatigue bar is moving slower.

Most weight is water from toilets or coffee. After Farmhouse I always carry 4 empty cans. Food only two energy bar.

Hope this will help someone. If you have more questions, I shall be happy to share my experiences.


 
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I see. So a lot of it depends on the start. Well, I gave it a try of my own. First attempt ended very, very poorly... I didnt die but couldnt climb up the rope to TWM and didnt have enough coffee to make it.

My second try is currently ongoing as I am writing this post. It is going pretty well. I only found one set of coffee at the Farmhouse, and none at the Trappers or Carter dam, but I took a stop at Signal house and I got a can of coffee in there. Plus some really, really nice clothing loot, and a rifle which I found is neccesary to keep the wolves at bay.

I did suffer one unfortunate turn of events so far. I started ascend to TWM at night, and sometime around the hut, a thick fog fell. So, I got desoriented, and ended up walking to the Engine through the Echo ravine, which is quite the detour. Almost got eaten by a bear, too. Damned fog...

Anyways, I just made it past the first rope climb in TWM and I ran out of coffee. Which is fortunate - now I have two stims to use for the next two rope climbs - after that, I will be at the top. I also have the hacksaw, so I will be able to loot up on some extra coffee up there.

I noticed that a gas canister spawns at Trappers, or in Carter at the beggining - if you do write up your guide, be sure to mention that - lantern fuel as accelerant is invaluable.

Also, seems you imply that it is impossible to climb up the TWM with less then three cans (15 cups) of coffee - well, I just made it past the first climb with only 2 cans, and with two stims, I should be able to make it to the top.

I am not making a lot of good time - I doubt I will be able to make it under 24 hours. I have I have around 7 hours left till the 24 hour mark. My way is probably not the fastest, but it works a bit, despite the lenghty detour.

Going to post once I finish. Hopefully I dont die... that would be embarrasing. I took quite a bit of cold damage just now, trying to power through the first rope.
 

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Well, I didnt die, but I have made a number of very, very poor choices and as a result, am very close to dying on that try. Was below 24 hours, too. Turns out that looting the plane takes a lot longer then I anticipated - despite the fact that I tried looting only selected cargo containers to help my progress.

I didnt take enough painkillers with me, and all of sudden suffered 5 sprains in a row. For that reason, I wasnt able to rope down from the TMW. I tried to mountain goat down and suceeded - but fell a few times and lost most of my durability on clothes, and plenty of condition. 

Also sprained everything. For that reason, I was unable to scare off a wolf which took a bite out of me, despite defending with a knife... and I ended up at 10% condition and with blood loss. I fixed it up with one of the two stims I found at the plane, but right now I am at the cave to the left of the TWM rope, on poor condition and with three sprained limbs. Scaling down also took considerably more time, so right now, I am below 24 hours already. 

I will give it another try some other time. Seems like everything just turned against me. I was constantly battling headwind, temperature drains, etc.

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20 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

I didnt take enough painkillers with me,

I will give it another try some other time. Seems like everything just turned against me. I was constantly battling headwind, temperature drains, etc.

Yes painkillers are alos very important especially when going down strait in the dark.

I could tell you many stories about bad weather conditions in this challenge! Blow some screenshots from my last try. I checked my weight and I was between 14 to 15 kg20181115201108_1.thumb.jpg.da7f56e3899d549c572f2fd300c043c2.jpg

20181115200359_1.jpg

20181115220557_2.jpg

20181115220607_1.jpg

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