Living Off the Land run


Hotzn

Recommended Posts

It's weekend, which means play-time, and there's a new update to explore (v226), so what better way to pass the time than aiming for another one of those achievements. This time, it's meant to be Living Off the Land. The difficulty is stalker, as usual, and I will be starting in ML.

Day 1: I spawn at "about 2 hours of darkness left" in... darkness. It's -29°C with a chilly wind blowing, and I realize I am right at the entrance to Ravine. I think about cutting across to Alan's Cave, but the trip might be too long under these conditions. Also, I don't want to make things worse by running into a wolf in the darkness. So I enter the dam...

With my flare lit, I run through the upper rooms in frantic search for a weapon, but find none. Fluffy makes his presence known, I throw the flare at him and give pursuit into the lower level. What follows is a lot of growling, flare-throwing, yelping and running around until I finally pick up a hatchet on one of the walkways. With flare in one hand and hatchet in the other, I shout my warcry, "Ryan, Bethany, lead my Hand! Hinterland! Hinterland!", and come over Fluffy like a thunderstorm. Exiting the fight, I am down to 36%. Damn, either I am getting old or Fluffy had some training! I flee through the corridor, dropping the flare onto the floor to cover my back. Lighting another flare I just found, I withdraw to the entrance room, drop the flare in the doorway, place my bedroll on the floor and - yes - go to sleep for one hour. A gentle dream of Fluffy yelping once... and there he is, free for the taking...

Further looting of the dam yields 2 sewing kits, the rifle, some ammo, the lantern and a fire striker. I spend the rest of the day foraging for some hardwood outside, starting a fire in the barrel, cooking Fluffy and producing water. Looks like I made it through another day...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 2: At dawn, a blizzard is going on, so I spend some time patching up my clothes and sleeping hour-wise. With 8 hours of daylight left and acceptable weather, I set out, but find a ravaged deer carcass right in front of the dam's "porch". When I have taken leather and guts from it, a blizzard chases me back inside. I rest for an hour and return outside with 4 hours of daylight remaining. Harvest 1.9 kg of venison off the carcass, cook that and go to sleep in the dam...

Day 3: At dawn, it's a lovely -2°C, so I set out for Alan's Cave. Woof, woof! Aha - a wolf has been hiding under the bridge and is now coming for me. I drop 1 kg of venison (what a waste!) to get away unscathed. Entering the little valley at Alan's Cave, I see a wolf taking down a deer right in the gap leading to Southern Access. No problem, since I usually go over the ridge here anyway, climbing back down behind the fishing hut opposite Lone Cabin. Which is what I do, and close to said fishing hut I see... something very interesting! Avoiding this find for the moment, I collect a knife from the fishing hut and make my way right over to Camp Office. A quick search yields a magnifying glass among minor goodies.

Now what? 10 daylight hours remain. I step outside in hope of inspiration, and there it comes in form of a barking wolf. Time to drop a beef jerky decoy and test the rifle... unfortunately, the wolf approaches the decoy in an awkward manner and is not facing me while eating. My shot is not lethal, and the wolf runs off. Following the blood trail, I find it over the little hill on the other side of the rails. Harvest everything and return to Camp Office frozen down to 66%. The rest of the day is spent foraging for wood, cooking wolf meat and producing water.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 4: Bad weather is confining me to stay inside and sleep hour-wise. With some 6 daylight hours left, I finally step outside. Going down Lake Trail, I stumble upon a corpse with another rifle. I leave it there for the moment. At Dave's Quiet Clearing: a piece of fir firewood, yay! On the way back, a wolf barks up, it has spotted my from a ridge above. I undertake to shoot it, but it zig-zags, the shot misses and a melée ensues. When the wolf runs off, I am down to 49%. Patching myself up, I give pursuit, but the wolf has fled up a steep slope which I cannot climb. Frustrated, I continue towards Western Access, and lo - a blood trail comes down here and leads onto the lake. Hmmm... fog has fallen, and the trail heads right into the area where normally 3 wolves are patrolling. Better wait a bit for the fog to clear...

While I wait, the blood trail disappears. Interesting. Apparently, it disappears after some time even it it's neither windy nor snowing. I shift along the edge of the lake to Lake Cabins and do some looting. Re-emerging, I see the wolf carcass lying on the ice before the cabins with the corpse. I approach it from the cabins, but one of the three wolves is intrigued and comes over. I have to hide in one of the cabins, and then a blizzard starts and forces me to stay overnight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 5: Bad weather conditions in the morning keep my in the cabin. Only once can I slip out to harvest the wolf's pelt, then I start freezing and have to return to the cabin. With 5 hours of daylight left, temperatures suddenly rise to -7°C and I can harvest the wolf. However, the wind is blowing from the shore, and as soon as I have the meat, wolves start barking and running over. I drop pieces of their fallen comrade for them and only manage to bring back 1.4 kg of meat back to Camp Office. At least I got the pelt, so I now have three and just need one more for the wolfskin jacket... 8-)

Some daylight is left for clothing repairs (harvest the second bedroll for that), then it's off to bed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 6: With 12 daylight hours left, it's -23°C. Back to bed for another hour. It's still cold afterwards, but I need food and so look around a bit. Just wolves, no deer to be seen. I decide to take down the wolf patrolling around Camp Office. Do it with a decoy to get better aim, and this time the animal drops on the spot. Still makes some dying noises though, I feel uncomfortable drawing nearer. Good move by the devs making killing wildlife more ambiguous. Would be even better if they sometimes still moved a little, I guess I would feel so bad about killing them.

Anyway, harvest pelt and guts, then have to slip inside for a break (frozen down to 88%). Rest for an hour to warm up and then get the meat. Start crafting the wolfskin jacket, and the day's work is done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 8: Went to bed starved down to 60% and woke up at 100%. I have never really tried the hibernation game, but might experiment a bit with it just to know how it goes. Seems to make things too easy, as you can stretch out survival for endless time on very little food...

Anyway, another day of crafting and my wolfskin jacket is done. I am henceforth not to be trifled with.

Time to explore hibernation... resting is indicated to consume some 60 cal per hour. I am starving now, and one hour of rest brings my condition down by 1%. 10 hours of rest bring me down 11% (from 89 to 78%). So 1% of condition equals roughly 1 hour of rest and 60 cal in the hibernation game, which means 100% condition can carry me roughly 4 full days till I have to eat again. OK, let's try this out...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 14: So... my theories seem to be correct so far. I also established that 1 hibernation day (24 hours) requires roughly 1.4 litres of water. Unfortunately, I did not keep track of the recovery process - I think the wolf meat (1 kg = 700 cal) brought me back to something above 70% (from 4%). Have to monitor that more closely next time.

Well, day 14 sees some wood foraging and water producing activity. Then it's back to hibernation...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 20: I have now learned that after eating again, every 1 hour of rest restores 6.5% of health. I also saw that starvation raises fatigue. This makes sense, but does not deter from hibernation, since fatigue goes back down immediately after eat-sleeping. Further math: If one hour of rest consumes 60 cal and restores 6.5% of health, then 1 kg of deer venison or bear meat (both 800 cal when cooked) are capable of restoring 87% condition. And that would equal roughly 87 hours of sleep or 3.6 days (excluding water from the equation). Correct?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So yeah... interesting. It seems obvious that if long-term survival is supposed to be a competitive challenge, then hibernating is a huge exploit. If - according to my rough estimations - 1 kg of deer venison grants 3.6 days of survival, a whole deer (let's assume a minimum of 8 kg) would grant some 29 days. It would actually be a bit less, since I am leaving cooking and water production out of the equation. Nevertheless, it's quite a number of days, let's just estimate 25. That would be the equivalent of one flare/torch used to scare a wolf away from its prey, a bullet or some antiseptic + bandage. The bullet or antiseptic + bandage might even get additional meat from the wolf. Having 40 bullets would mean approx. 1,000 days of hibernation. Did I make any mistakes? Feel free to correct me or add more precise calculations. :geek:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Replace "10kg deer" with "30kg bear" (as they respawn every 5 days) and 40 bullets with 100 bullets (all maps together should yield 100+ rifle rounds) for your calculation. Then you know what is going to happen to the TLD leaderboards within the next days (or weeks).

I've never used this stupid starvation/hibernation exploit (not even to try it), and I'll refuse to use it at any point in the future.

I very much hope the Devs either straightly remove everyone who hibernated from the leaderboards or at least make hibernation impossible and reset the boards afterwards. They're completely pointless, if things remain as they are.

No matter how good you play as a non-exploiter, everyone who exploits will survive ten times longer than you, at least. Even if they screw up completely their ressource management or get killed by a wolf when 50% of their bullets are still left. Sorry for my harsh tone, but this issue really violates my sense of justice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember having suggested ways to remedy hibernation in a thread somewhere some time ago. Can't find it anymore. Maybe it was on Steam. Anyway, I will open a new thread on the topic in the Alpha Playtest Feedback subforum. Let's collect some ideas over there...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There were a few posts where the Living off the Land achievement didn't pop right after 25 days. And well neither did it for you. And I think at least some of the people admitet to have done the hiberntion style.

I got that achievement right away at 25 days but I didn't use this hibernation.

So maybe at least with this achievement hibernation is punished? Maybe unintentionally?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope, that is just a coincidence, I guess. I got my achievement after almost 50 days without hibernation - the devs said that the delay might somehow be caused by steam . Some people also only got certain achievements after changing zones, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

i am on day 27 without hibernation and the achievment did not pop up. might be, that i didn't change the map ... after reading the posts in this thread, there's at least hope for me ... anyway ... this achievement is really fun. already learned a lot with it ... including not to fear the wolves ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.