1000 Days in the Dam: An exercise in inventory control


Drifter Man

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On 3/11/2016 at 1:26 AM, Wasteland Watcher said:


The #1 reason I don't use the Dam as a home is that it doesn't have a bed. If it did, it'd be the perfect location.

Exactly my thinking. The Hinterland team has done a good job in making no location perfect (I haven't seen all maps yet, though).

Sleeping in bedroll is manageable, as you can see, but the problem is that you can't rest at will. When there's nothing to do, I often let my character stand with the stats screen up and go about doing something else at home.

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Day 350 (320th day in the Dam)

At 138 snares placed, 83 rabbits caught and 14 snares broken, the success rate stays at 60% and the breakage rate at 10%. I also started placing 4 snares in one of the zones regularly. With 4 snares, there almost always are 2 rabbits caught the next day, but there never are more than 2 rabbits.

Rabbits all come between 1.00 and 1.50 kg. Their weight seems to be evenly distributed - if you get one, it has an equal probability of falling anywhere between 1.00 and 1.50 kg. Deer are between 8.0 and 10.0 kg. I have no such record for wolves, but I guess they fall between 3 and 5 kg.

  • Cloth equivalent (incl. bedroll and clothing): 173.26 pcs / 446 days
  • Bow (incl. maple saplings): 9.78 pcs / 1215 days
  • Arrow shaft (incl. birch saplings): 40.93 pcs / 464 days
  • Knife (incl. whetstone): 6.17 pcs / 688 days
  • Match: 68 pcs / 125 days
  • Rifle ammunition: 7 pcs
  • Arrowheads: 3 pcs
  • Flare: 3 pcs
  • Hatchet: 5.53 pcs
  • Lantern fuel: 6.23 liters

Only about 6-7 days out of 10 are filled with activity and I am left with lots of spare time on my hands. I've been thinking about long-term future and what I could do with this time to prepare for it. Around Day 700 I will go out to get more material - I will probably cover the more distant areas of Desolation Point and Crumbling Highway first, then go back to Coastal Townsite. Then, maybe around Day 1200, I will start looting Pleasant Valley, unless something kills me first. I intend to leave out Timberwolf Mountain as too dangerous - my goal is to survive, not to get killed in some place that has no shelter... Eventually I will be forced out of the Dam and to find a different survival tactic. Once I am out of arrows, I will need to rely on 1) rabbits or 2) fishing for sustenance (stealing from wolves as the last measure). Unfortunately, the rabbit math does not work - access to at least four, but preferably five rabbit zones would be required to keep me alive. So I'm turning my attention to fishing: there's a fishing hut in the far end of Mystery Lake (viewed from Camp Office), away from wolf patrol zones and conveniently close to the Lonely Lake Cabin. I checked the place out and it looks possible; I also used the opportunity to haul 30 kg of coal to that fishing hut. In the Lonely Lake Cabin I found a forgotten piece of cloth and a box of matches left on the shelf. Nice.

The research by @Scyzara here shows that you can make a living by fishing alone (653 Cal per hour in 2-hour sessions in Stalker). I could make enough fishing lines if I get my hands on a hacksaw and take all the metal stuff around apart. However, breaking the ice could be a problem. Hatchets won't last forever.

Speaking of taking things apart: I broke up all crates and cardboard boxes in the Dam (bare-handed) to see if there is anything inside or behind them, hidden from plain sight. I got nothing but a ton of reclaimed wood, but I found a box of wood matches I've forgotten there was, on a shelf next to the exit door to the Winding River. And I've finally learned to walk from one end of the Dam to another without the help of light. So it served a purpose, after all.

Bad weather made me spent one night in the prepper's cache above Mystery Lake, so one day in the Dam is missing. The cache itself is not very useful as a base - the access is difficult and one has to pass right through a wolf patrol zone in order to get anywhere - on the way in, on the way out.

And I took a picture of my blizzard shelter in the Ravine.

cave.jpg

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Thanks for the tips! I didn't know that prybar and hammer can be used this way, although the hammer will do a better job where it is. I will go to the forge if necessary. Eventually I will do anything, short of dying, in order to stay alive. But right now I'm on Day 361 and happy :)

As for the knife, I expect I will only have few left by the time I turn to fishing (if ever), so I will want to save them.

Maybe I'll test living in the Lonely Lake Cabin for a few weeks just to see if it is a good idea - and whether it is worthwhile to keep hauling coal from the Winding River there.

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found this post on the steam community :)

GMasters iconGames.png 5 oct., 2015 @ 9:38am 
Did some quick time trials on all the current build options:

Starting with a hole 100% frozen
1st place was the hatchet at ~22 minutes
2nd place was the hunting knife at ~40 minutes
3rd place was the heavy hammer at ~44 minutes
4th place was the prybar at ~45 minutes

All thing considered you are looking at about 45 minutes unless you use the hatchet and cut the time in half

 

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On 3/16/2016 at 9:42 AM, JoaoSatan said:

found this post on the steam community :)

GMasters iconGames.png 5 oct., 2015 @ 9:38am 
Did some quick time trials on all the current build options:

Starting with a hole 100% frozen
1st place was the hatchet at ~22 minutes
2nd place was the hunting knife at ~40 minutes
3rd place was the heavy hammer at ~44 minutes
4th place was the prybar at ~45 minutes

All thing considered you are looking at about 45 minutes unless you use the hatchet and cut the time in half

 

Thanks, that's interesting. While I am more concerned with item degradation than time, it's good to know how the hatchet compares to other tools in this respect.

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Day 380 (350th day in the Dam)

Rabbit score update (2 snares per zone, always checked on the next day): 170/99/21 (snares placed/rabbits caught/snares ruined). That's 58% chance per snare of a rabbit caught and 12% chance of a broken snare.

Separately I am testing 4 snares in one zone. On two occasions I got four fresh rabbits - all snares were full. I'm also getting considerably fewer broken snares there and it all looks preferable to the 2-snare method. But for now, I am continuing the test.

Even after one year there is room for improvement in resource utilization. As I mentioned earlier, I always harvest each deer completely to ensure shortest possible respawn time. I looked at the time and calories required for this activity when using knife and bare hands on a fresh deer carcass (9 kg of meat assumed):

Knife

  • Meat: 72 minutes / 300 Cal
  • Hide: 30 minutes / 125 Cal
  • Guts: 20 minutes / 83 Cal

Hand

  • Meat: 270 minutes / 1125 Cal
  • Hide: 40 minutes / 167 Cal
  • Guts: 80 minutes / 333 Cal

As you can see, any work on the carcass costs 250 Cal per hour, or twice the 125 Cal cost of standing still and doing nothing. If I start using hands instead of knife and subtract this baseline 125 Cal per hour rate, it will cost me the following amount of time and energy per 1 deer:

  • Meat: 198 minutes / 413 Cal
  • Hide: 10 minutes / 21 Cal
  • Guts: 60 minutes / 125 Cal

Using hands to harvest meat is not a good idea, spending over 3 hours is too much and the rest of the carcass would freeze in the process. If anything, this shows how tools are important for survival in TLD. However, the cost of using hands to get guts and especially hide is acceptable. For 70 minutes of time (of which I have plenty) and 146 Cal per deer I will save me about 25% of knife in 100 days. That's a lot!

  • Cloth equivalent (incl. bedroll and clothing): 161.57 pcs / 416 days
  • Bow (incl. maple saplings): 9.61 pcs / 1191 days
  • Arrow shaft (incl. birch saplings): 39.00 pcs / 442 days
  • Knife (incl. whetstone): 5.96 pcs / 967 days
  • Match: 63 pcs / 90 days
  • Rifle ammunition: 7 pcs
  • Arrowheads: 3 pcs
  • Flare: 3 pcs
  • Hatchet: 5.51 pcs
  • Lantern fuel: 6.10 liters

I will soon have to go to the Coastal Highway to bring some matches I saved for later. I don't need them often now, but I don't want to end up completely match-less. Unmatched. I don't think wolves would be impressed if I pulled a magnifying glass at them when they approach.

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3 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

I will soon have to go to the Coastal Highway to bring some matches I saved for later. I don't need them often now, but I don't want to end up completely match-less. Unmatched. I don't think wolves would be impressed if I pulled a magnifying glass at them when they approach.

:D

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Thanks again for sharing your info.  I, too, skin and gut animals by hand and reserve the knife for meat.  I discovered that fresh meat is harvested faster with the knife, but hatchet is better when frozen.  So when harvesting multiple rabbits, I cut all the meat first, then weather permitting, skin/gut by hand.

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On 3/22/2016 at 0:39 PM, Vhalkyrie said:

Thanks again for sharing your info.  I, too, skin and gut animals by hand and reserve the knife for meat.  I discovered that fresh meat is harvested faster with the knife, but hatchet is better when frozen.  So when harvesting multiple rabbits, I cut all the meat first, then weather permitting, skin/gut by hand.

Same here, exactly :) I usually reach the carcass before it freezes, but if it does, 1 kg meat takes 20 minutes with knife instead of 8, and 10 minutes with hatchet instead of 15. Paradoxically, if you only have hatchet but no knife, it is better to let the carcass freeze above 50% first.

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Day 406 (376th day in the Dam)

I engineered exactly the situation today I’ve been trying to avoid all the time.

For some time I was thinking I should get more flares, just to feel safer. I only had three at the Dam but kept eleven more in Coastal Highway. You may remember that I’ve set up a network of supply points there and keep track of where’s what. So I decided today I would bring three flares from the cache in the cabin near the Bear Creek Campground.

The beginning of the trip was good. I fought with strong headwinds but reached the cabin safely, took the flares and left 14 more liters of water there for future use. The winds calmed down, so I decided to use the time and clear out the “Trailer #2” cache on the road about halfway from Train Unloading down to the Log Sort. This trailer is in a wolf patrol zone and I did not want to use it anymore as a supply point. I took all there was – 3 liters of water, 3 liters of kerosene, some firewood, tinder and coal – with the intention to drop it in the trailer at Train Unloading.

The shortest route up is along the road, which is patrolled by two wolves, the reason I don’t like it. As I was climbing to the road's bottleneck at the bridge, I slowed down to sneak and heard footsteps. I should have backed out and waited, or lighted the torch and went on, but instead I sneaked to the side, hoping the wolf would pass.

The problem with sneaking in narrow passages is that you have no room for maneuvering and if the wolf does spot you, it attacks immediately and there is no time to react. The wolf did not notice me, but there was a second one that did and jumped at me instantly. I’m not very good at button mashing, so I was down to 71% before the wolf ran away and, sure enough, the first one was already coming at me. I managed to light a flare at the last moment (I thought I lost the torch in the fight and did not have time to choose anyway), and the wolf stopped a few meters away. Then, flare in one hand, I fixed my wounds with a lichen bandage and retreated back to the Ravine. The wolf followed me all the way to the exit.

It was a small price for the lesson learned. No more sneaking in narrow passages with many blind spots.

Anyway, it’s payback time. I need some wolf pelts to repair my coat.

  • Cloth equivalent (incl. bedroll and clothing): 149.27 pcs / 384 days
  • Bow (incl. maple saplings): 9.44 pcs / 1167 days
  • Arrow shaft (incl. birch saplings): 37.00 pcs / 419 days
  • Knife (incl. whetstone): 5.81 pcs / 941 days
  • Match: 61 pcs / 65 days
  • Rifle ammunition: 7 pcs
  • Arrowheads: 3 pcs
  • Flare: 5 pcs
  • Hatchet: 5.51 pcs
  • Lantern fuel: 8.92 liters

Question: when you have lichen bandages, is the antiseptic in bottles anyhow useful? I keep carrying a bottle around. Is it just dead weight now?

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I would keep bottles of antiseptics stashed at my various "caches" to use instead of the lichen bandages if I'm injured/bitten close to one of those (in other words, if I'm attacked on my way to the cache, I would postpone first aid until I'm at the cache). But with the prevalence of lichen in the game and the ability to make bandages from cloth pieces (a feature I only just discovered while in Desolation Point!), I wouldn't be lugging the antiseptic bottles around. I think you need both the bandage and the antiseptic to treat wounds, while you need only the old man's beard wound dressing for the same purpose, so it would cut down on the practical weight.

I've taken to leaving those bottles at my main bases in each map, and carrying at least one or two of the lichen bandages as part of my first aid kit - reishi mushrooms (to make tea) or at least two antibiotics, four painkillers (it takes 24 rosehips to make one cup of tea!) or two cups of rosehip tea, and the bandages. All the rest are stocked at my "bases." Kind of like the ambulance vs. the hospital . . .

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Thanks! I haven't died in TLD yet and generally stay out of harm's way, so I have little experience with treatment of afflictions. May I ask a few more questions?

  • Lichen bandage is equivalent to normal bandage + antiseptic, I can confirm that. How long does it take for an infection to develop? If it is not a matter of one or two hours, I could set up caches like you do.
  • If an infection does develop, can it be treated and how?
  • How do you make bandages out of cloth?

By the way, 3 reishi mushrooms (0.15 kg) are heavier than 1 reishi tea (0.10 kg). I generally prefer to turn all mushrooms, lichens and rosehips into the final product to save space.

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Thanks for the info about the tea! In Pilgrim mode I'm role playing just a bit. Yes, it would be more cost effective to make up the teas right away and get rid of the excess weight. But I role play that it's easier to store the ingredients than it is to store the teas. I do carry one or two of each tea and two of the lichen bandages on my forays out of my shelter/base. 

I've always used the first aid kit immediately after an attack so infection has not taken hold. For that reason I can't answer your first question. Antibiotics and reishi tea are the cures for infection. And you have the harvest option under actions in the cloth menu.

Glad to help! I think I've learned more from reading this thread than I can teach you!

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Great - I can make unlimited bandages now, if I need them :)

You are right about those teas. It makes no sense that you can store cups of tea indefinitely, and even carry them around in your backpack. I'll stop this practice once I run out of the stuff I have already made. Which will be in about 2156 days...

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