Second time Stalker

[Ysidro]

After the not very succesful first attempt the second try is going a bit better. Again I got a rifle early on, but this time I also managed to find an axe and knife. After being extremely careful a while (and sticking mostly near the Homestead) I decided to look for bunkers. I moved towards the camp to look for the south-east one first, and moved to clear the Lake Cabins around Mystery Lake, storing everything I found in the one with the lockers. From there I also looked for the bunker, and was lucky enough to find a prepper's cache.

After clearing The Lone Lake Cabin I saw a wolf run down a deer close to me on the ice, so I moved in for the kill. There were 2 more wolves, but since they were close enough to hear the shot they ran away. While harvesting both corpses I noticed something: I checked where the wolves where before harvesting and after, and they hadn't moved in between. Does the wildlife stop moving while you are harvesting a corpse? (Even when harvesting 8k meat from the deer which took over an hour the wolves hardly moved at all!)

My next idea was to check for the bunker SE of Alan's Cave (just in case there's more than one). It wasn't there, and a snowstorm started, so I decided to push on to the dam rather than walking back to the lake with 0 visibility and the certainty that there were 2 or 3 wolves there still. I heard a wolf on the way to the dam, but didn't see it and wasn't attacked. I reached the dam, killed poor Fluffy, and after resting a bit and searching the whole place I harvested the deer outside, cooked the meat of both the deer and Fluffy, and then decided to try and move the rest of the stuff there as well.

Right next to the bridge there was a deer with 0 meat left, so I guess that that was the reason the wolf didn't come for me in the blizzard. I avoided the wolves by moving from hill to hill and waiting in between, and reached the the Camp again.

As there were always 2-3 wolves visible on the lake I decided to take the southern passage to the Lake Cabin with my goodies, and move them to the Camp first before moving them to the dam. Looking around when leaving the Camp there was no wolf nearby, and so I started walking (in the last few minutes before sunrise) towards the Cabin. When passing through the southern passage I suddenly heard a yelp, and a wolf dropped off a cliff right in front of me. It turned and started running away, at which point I decided that they can apparently also get hurt and that it would be a good time to head for the cabin rather than wait for it to recover. Just before it reached the cabins though it stopped and turned around. It didn't move towards me, it just sat there. So I took a shot, and since my aiming sucks I wounded it rather than killing it. It ran away, with me after it. On the hills near the middle set of cabins I found it, I harvested him, and went back to the cabin. Of course I couldn't carry that much more, so I took all the meat that was left, leaving lots of tools and stuff. I went back through the south passage again, and fortunately didn't encounter more wolves. By the time I reached the camp though (couldn't run fast as I was badly encumbered) it was starting to get late. I dumped everything, cooked the meat, and rested until the morning.

The next day I went to get the rest of the food (lots in that prepper's cache!) and the tools. As the wolves were further up on the lake I moved over the ice instead. Approaching the first set of low rocks I could see a dear standing there. As I knew there was a wolf further up on the lake regularly too I decided to chase it in front of me, towards the Camp. If a wolf would take it down I could simply kill both again. The deer ran towards the rocks, hit it, and got stuck... I could walk up to it, stand next to it, and see it sitting there 'running' further in the same direction. I tried getting it to run a different way, but it wouldn't. So in the end I just put my rifle against it's head and took it out. Harvested the corpse, moved to the camp (had to wait for a wolf to move away that was sitting on the ice), and stored it. By then I had already 25kg of meat stored. I then decided to quickly go get the rest before cooking the new meat. I stepped outside, and saw a wolf nearby. It aggroed, and I went back in and decided to rest an hour to give it time to **** off.

One hour later I went outside. I looked around, and it was not in sight anymore. So I turned around the corner to go back to the South Passage, stepped forward, and heard a growl. The wolf was standing just around the corner there, behind a treetrunk. It started me a bit, so my quick shot (trying to get it off before being jumped) actually managed to miss it (told you my aiming sucked! Was happy enough to get 2 boxes of ammo at the dam!). The wolf ran towards the lake, with me following in case I had hit it. I didn't see blood though, so when reaching the lake I could hear it growl again. It was standing in between reeds, which made it even harder to aim, and started running just when I took another shot. But this time I did hit. Not a kill shot yet again though, so it went and ran all the way across the lake, and again up the hills behind the centre cabins. Harvested it, took everything that was left in the cabin (heavily encumbered. and walked back to the Camp. Now I have 29kg of meat as well as lots of other food and tools and stuff at the Camp.

I still want to move to the dam, but there's at least 2 or 3 wolves in between me and the dam. And walking around with 29kg of meat through an area where there's lots of trees and/or corners may not be the safest option. I'm actually considering now to instead move the meat of Fluffy and the deer to the Camp, and using the fishing cabins as well as all this meat (and further meat from all those wolves that keep showing up there) to try for the 25 days achievement.

[Ysidro]

Didn't have time to play yesterday, but still alive at the moment. Kept finding wolves running down deer, so although it cost quite a few bullets I have plenty of meat as well as a wolfskin coat and deerskin boots (already had gotten the mittens earlier) to get through the first few days or even weeks. I started the 25 day challenge at 20 days and 12h into the run. I had just slept, woke up, went out of the cabin I was in and found a nice bright day. I looked at the lake, and there wasn't a single wolf in sight. Every day there were 2-4 wolves at least on the ice, but this time suddenly none. Which made me even more paranoid, looking around continuously, checking the fishing huts, and chasing a deer towards the hill in the middle to see if anything would come out. Gathered the last of the cattails (had skipped the centre due to all the wolves previously), and went back to store them. When leaving the cabin after that at least there was one wolf again. Strange, but I feel more at ease seeing a wolf on the ice than not seeing any wolves at all

[bethany]

Thanks for sharing, keep going! And I agree: It's always nice to be able to visualize a threat, rather than wonder where it is/where it'll come from next...

[Ysidro]

After seeing it mentioned on the forums I decided to try the method of starving yourself and only eating when your condition gets low to preserve food. However, as I have so much meat stocked up thanks to all the wolves killing deer I'm now reconsidering that (don't want the food to spoil either). I'm also wondering whether it wouldn't be more realistic to let starving harm your long term condition in these circumstances. After all, you're depleting first your fat reserves and if you continue also your muscles, which means you'll become weaker and weaker and will lose the fat that you had to protect you from the cold. Starving yourself for a short period of time won't do much harm, but to continuously do it can't be good.

Also, the deer and wolf spawns might be a bit too plentiful for realism. There's simply not enough food around to have that many animals survive for extended periods of time. It's useful for survival though. As I still have enough bullets and hate easy food going to waste I again killed 2 wolves that I saw downing deer near my shelter. Both deer were well fed, and so were the wolves. One wolf gave about 5.5kg meat while the deer gave 9.5, with the other one it was 3.9 and 9.6. Combine that with the starving trick and I now actually have more meat than I had when starting the Living off the land run. Currently over halfway, so I should be able to easily make it if I don't mess up badly and get myself killed (wouldn't surprise me if I do that, I get bored quickly when sitting inside starving myself and instead go out 'exploring'. Climbed the big hill between the Camp and the dam yesterday to see whether there was anything up there. Was starving, condition was dropping, it was starting to snow, I hurt my ankle, and started hearing wolf howls. Considered slowly walking downhill again and resting at the Camp, but had to use painkillers to make it safer in the end as visibility dropped to a few meters and the wind picked up too.

Does everyone use the starving method, or do people eat regularly when exploring at least?

[Scyzara]

Does everyone use the starving method, or do people eat regularly when exploring at least?

I'm neither sleeping for more than 8-14h per day (8-10h is average, 14h the maximum in case of blizzards/food poisonings), nor starving EVER on purpose. It only takes a hell of RL time (I'm currently on a day 550 Stalker game that has already lasted about 180RL hours yet), not to use the starvation/hibernation exploit. But it does in no way prevent you from surviving for hundreds of days.

I can only encourage other players not to use this damn exploit.

The Devs said that they dislike it because it's against the spirit of the game (not to mention that it is completely unrealistic* and makes the leaderboards pointless) and I very much hope they will fix the issue soon.

Preferably while removing everyone who used this exploit from the leaderboards as well (or at least resetting everything).^^

*once your fat and muscle reserves are gone, further starvation inavoidably kills you. Starving for more than maybe 1000 hours (that's about 40 days in a row, which is already a whole lot given the survival circumstances in TLD!) in total should simply be lethal.

Accidental starvation, even if it happens regularly (e.g. to new players) doesn't last all day long and is most likely not going to occur every single day either. (Plus, whoever is inexperienced enough to starve for 1000 hours accidentally would probably never ever be able to survive for more than 50 days, anyway.^^)

[Majales]

I'm not using it either. I sleep usually whole night, because a bear in your garden doesn't encourage you to do stargazing from your porch, but I'm trying to do something every day. Exploring and learning. And there is still a lot to learn.

[Ysidro]

Good point, hadn't seen that they discouraged it, so I'll indeed also stop doing it. Have dozens of 1kg meat pieces lying around still which were just going to waste otherwise anyway.

If you haven't gotten any food it's something you'll have to do, but until that time I can feast on all those wolf and deer steaks

I've also spent a few days purely gathering wood and melting/boiling water, but that gets boring too, and once you have 20+ litres of water and enough wood for days there's not much point to continue doing it. If the wolves would stay away from deers a bit more I'd also be less busy harvesting corpses and cooking meat, but at least that has a bit more purpose. If I find the time and don't get sidetracked exploring (can't resist trying to climb hills ) I should probably start moving pelts, hides and guts to the dam. Only thing that stops me from travelling there regularly is that I know there's several wolves near the bridge, and every time I plan to move in that direction a deer gets taken down by a wolf on my doorstep again.

[Ysidro]

Shouldn't have bothered rationing in the first place. I had so much meat that a lot of it is now under 50% condition.

I decided to start moving resources (guts and hides and such) to the dam, and promptly ran into a wolf running down a dear near it. Used another bullet, harvested both corpses, and dumped everything at the dam. Cooked the meat of course. Then I moved back out. Thanks to a deer at the river I didn't need to be careful when going back, I just chased it in front of me to clear the way. The next day I decided on exploring the few spots I had skipped before, and went via the homestead (to collect anything left behind) to the lookout (found yet another box of ammo there, really lucky on ammo this time!), and past the logging camp to the dam again. Managed to get lost a little west of the lookout thanks to thick fog followed by a short snowstorm during which I even was attacked by a wolf. Survived though, and this time there were no wolves in between the lookout and the loading area, but of course there was one near the bridge. So I moved through the river around the wolf, and stored the stuff I had picked up at the dam too.

On the way back I didn't want to risk going across the bridge, so instead I walked around the bridge again. That's when I saw the wolf, feeding on a deer corpse. For a moment I considered taking it out, but then I thought of all the meat going to waste and decided I'd be nice for a change. To the wolf that is, it was already too late for the deer anyway.

Headed back up the hill in between the bridge and the Camp Office as that's usually clear of wolves and is the shortest route back. Getting close to the camp office a thick mist arrived once again, causing me to make a misstep and hurting my ankle. As I was getting close anyway I decided to not use painkillers but instead walk there and rest. Had to move around a bit more than planned as there was (of course) a wolf near it, but I reached the Camp Office, ate some 30% meat, drank water, and went to rest for 4h as I had seen that to be enough another time. This time it wasn't. I woke up, still in need of medical aid, and checked. It showed 10h expected time, and didn't pay too much attention to what it said I had. I set it to rest for 6 more hours, and when I woke up in the middle of the night at 15% condition. The ankle had probably healed, but I had picked up food poisoning from the meat! I used the natural painkiller, drank water, and then went back to sleep (as there wasn't much else I could do). Fortunately I survived. I woke back up at 29%. That day I rested to recover (eating only meat with over 50% condition), and then started sorting the meat I had. The lowest ones (around 30%) I took with me as I headed to the Fishing Cabin which also held some meat still. There I found out that some of the meat stored had actually dropped to under 20%, and I decided to no longer risk it as I had too much meat left still anyway and getting food poisoning outside would be pretty much a death sentence. So I collected all meat under 30% condition, and went outside onto the lake. There were 3 wolves there, and I started feeding them. I think I gave one of them food poisoning (maybe even with Wolf meat!) as it suddenly yelped and ran away when I approached. Oh, and it got stuck a moment in the ice

I think I need to be more careful with how much meat I actually need and how many wolves/deer I need for that. On the bright side, I can keep my boots and coat repaired for many months with the stuff I now have, as well as being able to make tons of snares. Just have to find a way to get everything to PV once I finish the challenge and finish off the rest of the meat.

In the train at the derailment there was actually a 95% rifle, so for now my luck continues. That's likely to change though by the time I reach PV, as I've not yet fought a bear and plan on trying that this run

When 'feeding' the wolves at the lake I noticed that the moment you drop a piece of meat the wolf loses all interest in you, slows down, and slowly walks to the meat and eats it. I'm wondering whether bears will react the same, and whether you actually might be able to safely take them out that way. Wait for it to aggro you, press 4 to drop food, back away a little way, and carefully take aim. If it works you can get clean headshots each time (as they will move in a straight line instead of zigzagging), and that would mean 1 shot 1 kill, and no food wasted either if you kill it before it can reach the food you dropped. If it fails on bears I'd be so close that I'm not likely to survive, so we'll see how that goes

[Ysidro]

Haven't posted an update in a little while, so here goes:

I've moved every single item I had in ML to CH. It took quite a bit of time, and I got caught in blizzards more than once in the Ravine (as well as travelling at night while exhausted and freezing), but I made it. Then from the train unloading area (had tons of items lying on the floor of the cabin due to lack of storage space) I moved everything to the fishing cabin SE from there. I was planning to move it closer to the mines, but found that to be the perfect location to hang out a while. With 2 lockers and a metal container I had plenty of storage the first while, and wolves do not come up to the cabin which meant I can even sit outside cooking meat in the middle of the night without having to watch my back. I wanted to hunt bears to go for the furs achievement, but I couldn't find any in CH, not in the hills near the entrance nor at the islands. That's when I thought it might be wise to hunt in PV for them, as I had seen several bears there in my previous game.

I started moving stuff to the lockers in the mine, and later even moved to a house at the rural crossroads, looking for a bear. Didn't see any near there this time, but did encounter a wolf that just killed a deer. It turned on me so I had to shoot it, only wounded it of course so had to still fight it and killed it that way (but did get wounded), and therefor had to use yet more of my bandages. It gave me quite a bit of meat though, which I moved back to the crossroads. This means I have lots of meat there as well as in the mines.

I went back to the fishing cabin in CH to move the rest of my stuff when I saw a deer run in the distance near the trailer, closely followed by a wolf. As I didn't have that much 'natural' food at the cabin anymore (still don't have the achievement, starting to think that non-natural painkillers reset the timer) I decided to kill the wolf. I went there, took the shot, and (no surprise there) I wounded it but didn't manage to kill it instantly. It ran off, and I went after it. I lost sight of it when it went over a hill, but did find the fishing cabin in the hills near the fishing camp, which I had managed to avoid somehow until this time. Then in the distance I suddenly saw a bear. I was at 66% condition, so fighting it one on one didn't seem like a great idea. But with the cabin right next to me I decided to take a shot. I crouched, aimed, and fired one shot. The bear started running in my direction, so I assumed I had hit it. I remembered in time to stop crouching, and managed to make it to the cabin. I explored it (didn't take much time, almost nothing in there), rested an hour, and decided to step outside to see whether it was gone. The moment I got outside I heard a growl, and only quick turning and reentering kept me alive. Knowing that I could survive going out for a quick look I slept another hour, and went back outside. This time there was no growl, and when turning towards the bear I saw it lying dead on the ground.

So there it is, my first bear kill, and it only cost me one bullet! It took a while to harvest all the meat (36.4kg) as well as the skin and guts, and cooking all the meat took 2 more days. (Note: At one point I went outside at 2h darkness remaining as there was enough light to continue cooking, and I could already use my magnifying glass to start the fire again at that time!) But now my good old fishing cabin has so much meat stored that I can hold up for weeks again probably, all I need to do is melt a bit more snow to have enough drinking water for all that time. Now the hunt for the second bear starts, and then moving tons of food to the mines to spend days in total darkness crafting (maybe that should be changed, as that's not very realistic either? )

[Ysidro]

Over a month since the last update, but still on the same run. I'm an actual hoarder ingame I'm afraid, and after moving everything from ML to CH and exploring everything there I afterwards moved everything I had from those 2 areas through the mines to PV. I left some spare resources (one rifle, one lantern, fuel for lanterns, water, cat tail stalks, painkillers, etc) in the mines in case I'd need it on the way back (this was before there was a route between ML and PV, which I haven't even found yet btw), some more cat tails, water and wood at the house at rural crossroads (being the house the closests to the mines), spend quite a while there waiting for the fresh skins to turn into cured ones before noticing that that doesn't happen when they're in cupboards and such, waited more so I could finally repain my coat and gloves, and then moved to the red barn. After spending quite some time there, sleeping in a bedroll all the time, I finally figured out that I could simply sleep in the car there in the barn instead!

I do have a bearskin bedroll, but I left that in the mines in case I need to spend the night there. I guess I could have taken it along, but I'll probably make a second one at some point as I don't tend to sleep outside very often anyway and therefor don't need bear skins for repairs. I explored the upper half from there, and noticed a bear in the field behind the barn. The first time I had no space and enough food, so I decided to ignore him and explore first. Once I had finished exploring I started moving most of the resources to the PV farmstead. I hadn't seen the bear a while, so I assumed it was one that had a large area it patrolled (I had seen a bear near Burned Ridge cave before, might have been the same). I had moved everything to the farmstead, except for some resources that I wanted to keep at the barn (in case I ended up needing to shelter there, or in case I move back past it anyway), and only needed one more run to move the last of the food and a skin I had picked up from a wolf killing a deer. Saw it on the way back to the barn from the farmstead, distracted it and then hid in the car that's outside that's sitting outside the gate to the barn until the wolf left again (That also supplied me with 9kg of meat, but unfortunately only 1 deer skin).

As I had planned on killing the bear for meat before I had gathered tons of firewood and water to be ready for a few days of cooking meat. 20+ firewood and 14 bottles of water were sitting there, but I decided to leave them be and move the last bit to the farmstead. Night passes, I step outside to check the weather before leaving for the farmstead. I walk around a bit, and see the bear in the field behind the barn moving closer and closer. I sit down, take aim, and fire. The bear starts running towards me, so I go inside and sort some more stuff out. From previous experience (4 bear kills total so far) I know that bears tend to sit outside a while and usually die in about 2 hours when shot, so I sleep for one hour and then go back out to check. The bear is no longer near the barn, instead it's closeby in the field in between the barn and the farmstead. I follow it a while, deciding to give it 1 more hour. That turned into 1.5h, and I was already walking back when I suddenly noticed the bear had stopped moving. I slowly moved back towards it, and indeed, it had died after all. So after harvesting meat for hours and moving back encumbered through a snowstorm the first run I finally got everything to the barn (except the guts, forgot those). Having all the firewood and water turned out as a good idea after all, and after cooking everything I moved all the meat to the farmstead (which filled up the fridge and freezer nicely!), harvested the guts too, and then moved my base of operation to the farmstead.

Exploring from there started with me moving towards the fishing shack and picnic spot (chased a rabbit over the pond to distract a wolf there), and had to use a flare to get back as I found myself in between 3 wolves, 2 of which aggroed me. Ended up near contemplation bridge, but got back safely from there. The next day I had planned on going to Signal Hill. I stepped outside the front door, through the second door, and then noticed the bear sitting outside right of the door. Ran back inside, and decided to explore the other side that day instead. I was planning to check the bunker locations north of the Three Strikes Farmstead (already had found a bunker at the Burned Ridge Cave, but you never know), but I found that near the barn there were 3 wolves in the field, so decided to check the southern bunker location near the waterfall first.

I searched around quite a while there for a bunker, but didn't see anything. However, while I was there the wind picked up, it started snowing, and soon I found myself in a blizzard with 0 visibility. Moving towards the Three Strikes Farmstead (hoping I could take shelter there) I stumbled upon a cave, and I hid there until I had warmed up a bit again. The blizzard still raged on though, I didn't have a bedroll on me, and I was getting tired. So I had to move.

It calmed down by the time I reached the farmstead, and unfortunately there was no real shelter there. There was a firebarrel and a bedroll there though, so I started a fire with the wood lying around and slept a few hours. There was a dead deer there, and I decided to take at least the hides (4), but should have done that with the fire still burning. Instead I got quite cold, was still a bit tired, and it was getting dark. I followed the road over the bridge, and there's a small wooden structure there. Another dead deer was lying there, with 4 more hides. I decided to come back for them the next day though. Fortunately the wolves that were there in the morning apparently had taken shelter, so I was able to get back safely.

The next day I went and picked up the hides, returned, and prepared to go to signal hill. The bear that had been outside was still in the field, but not close to the farmstead anymore. So it was safe enough to go. The cave at the base of the hill gave the next obstacle though, in front of it was yet another bear.

The bear started moving, and I was able to slip by and up the hill. The tower shack had quite a lot of goodies (among which another rifle!), so I would either have to make 2 runs back down, or stay a while to finish up some rations first. I decided on the second, using that opportunity to explore hunter's blind and the hilltop cave and such. However, every time I went outside there was a storm raging, so I stuck near the tower. Then one morning when I went outside the weather had cleared up. But... The bear was pacing back and forth outside the fence!

I lit a fire in the firebarrel (didn't know those kept burning even with high winds, useful to know!), and it moved a bit further away. I will probably have to move everything back to the farmstead, and then return later for the cave, and possibly for the bear. But that's something I have to decide on another day.

[Ysidro]

I had a bit more food left, and the next day it cleared up a bit, so I decided to head to the cave before returning. There were 3 routes towards it from there (at least ones that didn't involve walking for ages), and I checked the right one first as it was the safest. However, just when I checked I saw a wolf run down a rabbit and disappear out of sight, which meant I couldn't see whether it was safe to take that route. The middle route was right out of the question as the bear was sitting there. I had seen a black shade move on the left side, but after waiting a while I did not see any movement anymore, so I figured that I'd probably either had imagined it, or that the wolf (or whatever it had been) had probably moved away again when I wasn't watching. So... The left side it would be.

I moved along the edge of the rocks to my back to make sure I at least didn't get too close in case the bear turned left, and then moved forward. I climbed a tiny hill, and right on the other side was the wolf. While I started moving backwards I heard the wolf bark, which meant it had seen me and had aggroed me, but immediately after the bark I heard the bear roar. Half in panic I moved back around the rocks, up the hill towards the shelter, continuously watching for danger. But nothing came. Apparently the roar of the bear scared away the wolf, and the bear wasn't close enough to aggro me!

I was almost out of food by then, went to check the blind (with a very disappointing result), skinned a dead deer (4 hides), and then went back to the hill, and the next day (with no food left there) carrying all but the water back to the farmstead. Of course the other bear was sitting down the hill in between me and the farmstead, and visibility dropped to 0 again, but I walked around the bear and then chased a rabbit in front of me to distract anything else up ahead. I reached the farmstead without too much effort.

The next day I had two plans: Firstly, explore the area NW of the Three Strikes Farmstead, and then after that to make sure I had plenty of firewood and water (just like I did at the barn). I made it just past the bridge in the SW when a blizzard started yet again. And, after the last time, I knew there was no shelter anywhere there, so the only option was to either backtrack, move further north to the bunker I had found, or to move south towards the Three Strike Farmstead and move back from there. Of course, smart as I am, went for the last option. I missed the farmstead, but found the bridge. While I had moved through wolf territory last time (they tend to be in hiding anyway during blizzards) I decided on the right side this time. Which meant that in notime I was totally lost, and by the time I had finally found back the way and reached 'home' I was down to about 60% health.

The next day I decided to first gather more wood and cook some water to have enough in stock for the weeks ahead. I spend a day going out, gathering wood, storing it, warming up if needed, and going out for more. If a blizzard started I'd cook water, and I ended up with about 35 firewood as well as a full cupboard of water. That done, it was time to prepare exploring the 'end of the road' and the bunker locations near that. I stepped out the front door (I always close the second door when I'm entering through that door), and through the window I saw the bear... I entered the house again, and decided to stock up on some food the next day.

[Ysidro]

I stepped out of the front door onto the porch, opened the door, aimed, fired, and closed the door again. Unfortunately it wasn't a clean shot, so the bear didn't die instantly But after it circled the house a few times noisily it dropped down right next to the dog house, making it easily to harvest everything. After spending 2 days cooking all the meat I decided to refill my water and firewood again, when I suddenly remembered I had several traps behind the house. I had caught two rabbits, and the meat of one of them was already down to 11%. So I quickly cooked them first, and then gathered some wood and refilled my water supply.

By the time I had finished the deer hides had cured, so I finally was able to make my deerskin pants. Now even getting caught in a snowstorm gives me plenty of time to walk back.

I explored the last bit of the map, and found another (low condition) rifle sitting in the car at the Long Curve. A wolf aggroed and started charging me, and rather than having it damage my clothes I 'wasted' a bullet to take it down. I harvested all, a snowstorm started, and I took shelter in the car. Then got bored waiting, and walked back to the farmstead. By the time I reached it the cold level wasn't even halfway yet!

The next day I made more arrows, which means I currently have 8 of them. I've not yet tried hunting with the bow, and I'm wondering whether I can safely train with it or if I risk losing the arrows that way. Unless feathers reappear I'm likely to run out of those at some point, although I still have to go through ML and CH to pick up the ones there (they were added after I had already cleared those areas).

Still have to find where the connection between PV and ML is, all the snowstorms make it a bit harder to keep on exploring.