1000 Days in the Dam: An exercise in inventory control

[Ruruwawa]

50 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

There might be a difference in the frequency of fish caught depending on the difficulty. @testman and @Scyzara evaluated fishing in January - it must have been v.301 or something. Pilgrims caught more salmons than Stalkers did. During the test they also found that you get more calories in 2-hour sessions than 1-hour ones (650 Cal per hour vs 400), although 2-hour sessions lead to more broken lines. It is hard for me to understand, though, why anyone would implement such a complicated system.

Interesting, and thanks for the link.  This sounds much more complicated than I expected.  Complexity is expensive to maintain, it would be a surprising choice for a an indie software company.

And it's not like fishing is some amazing bonanza even at the very best of times, I guess that's why I assumed it was simple and tuned for very low return --  to prevent folks abusing the simplicity.

UPDATE: that link was a good read.  In those tests Stalkers caught more calories than Pilgrims, due to a higher instance of large fish.  The 2-hour session thing was very interesting.  If a typical rate is 3 fish per 2 hrs, possibly I'm losing a fish per 2 hours by "rounding down".

[Scyzara]

1 hour ago, Ruruwawa said:

The 2-hour session thing was very interesting.  If a typical rate is 3 fish per 2 hrs, possibly I'm losing a fish per 2 hours by "rounding down".

Yeah, this was pretty much my conclusion as well. It would also explain why fishing lines break less often during 1h sessions - if there are less events (catch fish/catch nothing/line breaks) alltogether, then line breaking events are scarcer, too of course. 

[Drifter Man]

2 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

if there are less events (catch fish/catch nothing/line breaks) alltogether, then line breaking events are scarcer, too of course.

Makes sense... it all looks like an unintentional side effect of the underlying mechanism rather than a design feature.

[thinair]

9 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

I start the day at dawn and regularly feel -5°C even with my 18-20°C bonus, and up to -10°C in strong wind. -5°C is OK, but at -10°C I usually just get some work done and have to go to a cave to rest and warm up in an hour or two. So you sacrifice some daytime outside for being able to wear lighter clothes. Maybe this could work for me, too. By reducing my bonus by 4°C I could save a ton of deer hides.

Yeah i guess its the way to put it, i sacrifice few hours of daylight, for better weather, so i can wear lighter clothes, plus usually winds are not as strong, so it does not wear-and-tear clothing as much, therefore in long run i save cloths, guts, skins, and sewing-kits/fishing-tackles. In addition, character gets tired less because of lighter load, and then 3-4 kg is quite a bit of space, so can acquire more things. I feel like 9-12 hours of daylight is a lot of time to get various things done. At start of my new runs i usually start the day when its 5-7 hours of daylight left due to poor clothing, because its the warmest part of the day. As my gear gets better, my days become longer. As i mentioned, i personally feel that +15 and +10 is way enough in majority of cases.

Just a beauty of the game, gives players options to play the way they want/feel

[Ruruwawa]

On 6/14/2016 at 11:50 AM, Drifter Man said:

It would be great if you could post updates on this.

My final update on fishing.  Having read the Fischen thread, I'm pretty sure I'm just retracing the steps already taken by others.  Besides, it's boring

I did three tests in CH / Pilgrim:  1 hr casts, 2 hr casts and 3 hr casts.  (The 1 hour test is the same CH1 data I reported early.)  For the 2 hr & 3 hr tests I fished in a single hut for 89 hours and never fished out, so still no idea what that's about.

Some broad conclusions:

• Lots of variability in how long the line lasts.  One line broke during the first cast in both the 2 and 3 hr cases.  When lines don't break early, 20 hrs seems to be about the median duration.
• Longer casts yield both bigger fish and more fish/hr, and thus more kcal / hour. 
• I've never experienced wear more than 1% to hammer or prybar to clear a fully frozen hole.  But I often experienced 1% wear for clearing a 20%-30% frozen hole.  I wasn't able to determine whether the wear rate is actually prorated and just masked because of rounding, but it didn't seem that way. 

The 3 hr casts yielded a pretty decent kcal/hr.  I'm looking forward to trying this in TWM where the average fish size is bigger than in CH.

My CH data (gray rows indicate lines that broke on the first cast):

Cast length	Hours fished till line break	Total # caught	# Trout	Ave Trout kcal	# Salmon	Ave Salmon kcal	Ave Fish kcal	kcal/hour	Kcal/line
1 hour	21	14	12	272	2	1248	411	274	5764
2 hour	2	2	2	235	0		235	235	471
2 hour	6	5	4	338	1	1407	592	493	2959
2 hour	30	28	23	381	5	1325	550	514	15411
3 hour	3	3	3	417	0		417	417	1252
3 hour	27	26	19	354	7	1406	637	614	16585
3 hour	21	27	20	413	7	1170	609	784	16462

 

My CH test catch, less several salmon I ate while testing.  

[hauteecolerider]

Beautiful! Now for some pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, and balsamic vinegar!

(I had the most awesome Salmon at this really cool restaurant near Pike's Place in Seattle that was made with a pine nut - Parma crust and served with a balsamic reduction . . .)

[Drifter Man]

1 hour ago, Ruruwawa said:

My final update on fishing.

Thanks for the effort. The trend in kcal per hour looks consistent. The 3-hour results already look good enough for making a living on fishing alone, but I'd say fishing could work better as a supplement to snaring rabbits if there aren't enough around. 

TWM fishing is in a small lake, CH is at seashore - maybe this plays a role in the gradual depletion of fish?

[Ruruwawa]

2 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Beautiful! Now for some pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, and balsamic vinegar!

(I had the most awesome Salmon at this really cool restaurant near Pike's Place in Seattle that was made with a pine nut - Parma crust and served with a balsamic reduction . . .)

Sounds amazing!  (and now I'm hungry..... )

[Ruruwawa]

1 hour ago, Drifter Man said:

The trend in kcal per hour looks consistent. The 3-hour results already look good enough for making a living on fishing alone, but I'd say fishing could work better as a supplement to snaring rabbits if there aren't enough around. 

Yep I think of it just that way.  Something to fall back on when other food sources aren't cooperating.

1 hour ago, Drifter Man said:

TWM fishing is in a small lake, CH is at seashore - maybe this plays a role in the gradual depletion of fish?

My best guess too.  I've over-hunted a deer spawn and had them completely disappear for a while before respawning.  Maybe something similar with the TWM lake.

[Drifter Man]

Day 764

There is about 20 kilograms of material - in addition to my normal load, which includes the 4kg rifle - that I want to transport to Misanthrope's Island. I've already found out that Crumbling Highway is a dangerous territory to cross. So I brought everything to the exit from the mine and went out to kill the wolves there. On Day 762 I killed two and thought that was it, but on the next day I had to shoot two more. I carried some of the loot across the map and left it in the trunk of the car at Commuter's Lament. Car trunks can hold up to 40 kg, making them the perfect outdoor storage place if you happen to have one parked nearby.

It all works well, but I spent all the ammunition I've found. It's no real loss, it would be used for killing wolves anyway. Even if I'm not bringing back any new ammo, I have a lot of wolf pelts now. Still, I look forward to returning to safer places and putting the rifle down again.

[Jolan]

19 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

My final update on fishing.  Having read the Fischen thread, I'm pretty sure I'm just retracing the steps already taken by others.  Besides, it's boring

I did three tests in CH / Pilgrim:  1 hr casts, 2 hr casts and 3 hr casts.  (The 1 hour test is the same CH1 data I reported early.)  For the 2 hr & 3 hr tests I fished in a single hut for 89 hours and never fished out, so still no idea what that's about.

Some broad conclusions:

• Lots of variability in how long the line lasts.  One line during the first cast in both the 2 and 3 hr cases.  When lines don't break early, 20 hrs seems to be about the median duration.
• Longer casts yield both bigger fish and more fish/hr, and thus more kcal / hour. 
• I've never experienced more than 1% to hammer or prybar to clear a fully frozen hole.  But I often experienced 1% wear for clearing a 20%-30% frozen hole.  I wasn't able to determine whether the wear rate is actually prorated and just masked because of rounding, but it didn't seem that way. 

The 3 hr casts yielded a pretty decent kcal/hr.  I'm looking forward to trying this in TWM where the average fish size is bigger than in CH.

My CH data (gray rows indicate lines that broke on the first cast):

Cast length	Hours fished till line break	Total # caught	# Trout	Ave Trout kcal	# Salmon	Ave Salmon kcal	Ave Fish kcal	kcal/hour	Kcal/line
1 hour	21	14	12	272	2	1248	411	274	5764
2 hour	2	2	2	235	0		235	235	471
2 hour	6	5	4	338	1	1407	592	493	2959
2 hour	30	28	23	381	5	1325	550	514	15411
3 hour	3	3	3	417	0		417	417	1252
3 hour	27	26	19	354	7	1406	637	614	16585
3 hour	21	27	20	413	7	1170	609	784	16462

 

My CH test catch, less several salmon I ate while testing.  

awesome! thanks for the info. 

[Stytch Fingal]

On 6/15/2016 at 5:42 PM, Drifter Man said:

Day 764

There is about 20 kilograms of material - in addition to my normal load, which includes the 4kg rifle - that I want to transport to Misanthrope's Island. I've already found out that Crumbling Highway is a dangerous territory to cross. So I brought everything to the exit from the mine and went out to kill the wolves there. On Day 762 I killed two and thought that was it, but on the next day I had to shoot two more. I carried some of the loot across the map and left it in the trunk of the car at Commuter's Lament. Car trunks can hold up to 40 kg, making them the perfect outdoor storage place if you happen to have one parked nearby.

It all works well, but I spent all the ammunition I've found. It's no real loss, it would be used for killing wolves anyway. Even if I'm not bringing back any new ammo, I have a lot of wolf pelts now. Still, I look forward to returning to safer places and putting the rifle down again.

I want to add my thanks and appreciation to those already expressed to you for this thread and its content. It has been and continues to be a fascinating and informative read. 

[Drifter Man]

22 hours ago, Stytch Fingal said:

I want to add my thanks and appreciation to those already expressed to you for this thread and its content. It has been and continues to be a fascinating and informative read. 

Thanks! It means a lot to me that people keep coming back to read and discuss. It's a great motivator for me to keep writing!

[Drifter Man]

Day 767 (674th day in the Dam)

Finally, I came home with some of the stuff and returned to my normal routine. In a few days, I will return to Misanthrope's Island where I've left most of the things I collected during my latest adventure. I spent 25 consecutive days out of the Dam, the longest time since the start of the sandbox.

I had two interesting wolf encounters on my way back. The fist one surprised me on Crumbling Highway - even though the four carcasses were still lying around, a fifth wolf appeared. My rifle was already at Misanthrope's and I had to deal with the wolf using "non-lethal" means. The second encounter happened on Misanthrope's Island. Unusually, I was encumbered at 38 kg (something I don't normally allow to happen) and was worried that the wolf could take advantage of my reduced mobility, so I lighted a flare and then dropped a decoy. Then I started thinking that the wolf was still too far away and I may have dropped the decoy prematurely, so I picked it up again and walked off. Nevertheless, the wolf did not pursue and seemed to have lost contact with me, as if the decoy has broken it even though it rested back in my backpack. After a while, the wolf became aware of me again and this time it ran away. Maybe that dropping a decoy, then picking it up again could turn out to be exploitable.

The rabbit meat I left at the doorstep back home has spoiled to about 65-70%. The venison was found at 78%. I started eating the rabbit meat and I'm not afraid of food poisoning. From DP I've brought back 14 antibiotic pills at 16% condition - due to the bug that causes all pills in your backpack to assume the same condition, some low-condition pills I found "infected" the good ones I brought with me to DP. Rather than throwing them away, I can use them now. An unrealistic decision perhaps, but as I said, TLD is a game with a set rules. Meat spoilage, food poisoning and the degradation of pills are examples of such rules. Use the rules properly, live long and prosper

I went to try my new improvised tools on some snared rabbits. Below is a summary of the performance (time in minutes) of all tools I know that can be used to harvest meat.

• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• Tool used       Fresh meat     Frozen meat    Hide      Gut
•                 1 kg           1 kg
• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• knife           8              20             30        10
• hatchet         15             10             45        20
• hacksaw         15             10             60        30
• imp. knife      12             30             40        15
• imp. hatchet    20             15             60        30
• no tool         30             -              40        40
• ---------------------------------------------------------------

Hacksaw costs 1 scrap metal to repair by 25%. Improvised knife costs 2 scrap metal and 1 cloth (3 scrap metal are needed for crafting but 1 is recycled after harvesting the tool). Improvised hatched costs 3 scrap metal and 1 cloth (5 scrap to craft, 2 recycled). If the improvised tools lose 1% condition per hour of use like the basic tools, and assuming that they break at ca 10% condition, then the improvised knife buys 225 kg of meat per 1 piece of scrap, compared to 150 for the hacksaw and 120 for the improvised hatchet, provided that the knife is used on fresh meat. This would make the improvised knife quite attractive (used in combination with the hacksaw, because only about half of the rabbits can be harvested fresh). Still I have to keep in mind that trips to the forge are dangerous and cost a lot of resources.

[Berniyh]

Great stuff here, thanks for the investigations.

[JAFO]

On 18/06/2016 at 0:45 AM, Berniyh said:

Great stuff here, thanks for the investigations.

Seconded.. nice pic of the dam, too!

[Drifter Man]

Thanks! An update is due soon and I plan to hunker down for a while and check out the changes it will bring. Maybe I will even push for 1000 in one go, as a proof of my dedication - and insanity 

[Drifter Man]

Day 778 (685th day in the Dam)

Because of the update to v.346 I'm taking this opportunity to post the current results of my decay rate tests. The tests will continue and hopefully I will notice any changes introduced in the update - although this update does not seem to focus on item decay.

Notes:

1. Where the result is marked with an asterisk, it means that the item has degraded by less than 10% over the test period and the result is very inaccurate.
2. If the rate is "slow" outdoors, it means it is visibly slower than indoors, and too slow to put a number on it as yet.

 

• Meat decay (%/day)   outdoor, open   outdoor, container
• -------------------------------------------------------
• venison, cooked      0.8             0.8
• rabbit, cooked       1.0             1.0
• wolf, cooked         0.8             0.8
• wolf, raw            2.4             2.8
• venison, raw         1.6             1.6
• rabbit, raw          2.6             2.7
• -------------------------------------------------------

 

• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• Food decay           backpack  indoor    indoor    outdoor  
•                                container open      container
•                      %/day     %/day     %/day     %/day
• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• beef jerky                     0.074     0.074*
• candy bar                      0.184     0.163*    slow*
• cattail stalks                 0.000*         
• condensed milk                 0.775               0.193
• dog food                                           0.167*
• energy bar                     0.675     0.653     0.337
• granola bar                    0.253               slow*
• herbal tea                     0.053     0.044*    0.045*   
• military-grade MRE             0.042*              slow*
• soda                           0.126     0.143*    0.675
• peanut butter                                      0.417*
• pinnacle peaches               0.253    
• pork & beans                   0.100               0.583*   
• salty crackers                 0.000*    0.000*
• tin of coffee        0.066     0.074     0.074*    0.090*
• tin of sardines                0.052*    0.061*    0.245
• tomato soup                    0.147     
• ---------------------------------------------------------------

 

• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• Decay of clothes     constant  indoor
•                      wearing   container
•                      %/day     %/day
• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• basic boots                    0.085
• wool scarf           0.467     0.080
• deerskin boots       0.310
• deerskin pants       0.107
• heavy wool sweater   0.131
• jeans                          0.035*
• rabbitskin mitts     0.417     0.080
• toque                0.507     0.100
• wolfskin coat        0.155
• wool longjohns       0.071
• wool socks           0.440     0.080
• ---------------------------------------------------------------

 

• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• Other items          backpack  indoor    indoor    outdoor
•                                container open      container
•                      %/day     %/day     %/day     %/day
• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• accelerant           0.148*    0.148     0.162     0.149
• distress pistol flare          0.047*
• antibiotics          0.060     0.074     0.074*    0.075*
• painkillers          0.060     0.074     0.074*    0.075*
• water purif. tablets 0.132*    0.153     0.162     0.158*
• --------------------------------------------------------

 

• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• Bedroll decay        used      indoor
•                      +backpack container
•                      %/day     %/day
• ---------------------------------------------------------------
• bedroll              1.424     0.148
• ---------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

[Drifter Man]

Day 780 (687th day in the Dam)

The new skills system granted me a level-5 firestarting skill right away. In the other skills, I'm starting out from a blank slate. Within 3 days, after harvesting one deer completely and 17 rabbits for meat and partially guts, and cooking most of it, I am about halfway through to level 2 in carcass harvesting and at 5/6 to level 2 in cooking. By my estimate, each 1 hour of harvesting or cooking adds about 5-7% to the respective skill bar, although the detailed mechanic seems to be more complex than this.

Firestarting level 5 gives me new possibilities. It brings about 33% reduction in fuel consumption, at least in sticks. Before the v.338 update, I needed 3.3 hours of fire and 25.2 sticks per day. V.338 brought a 10% reduction in calorie consumption, resulting in only 3.0 hours of fire and 23.4 sticks required per day. Now, in v.346 at firestarting level 5, I only need 15.8 sticks for the same 3.0 hours per day.

This gives me an opportunity to live off two rabbit zones only instead of three. If I stop my somewhat wasteful method (in terms of rabbit lives) of taking only 1 kg meat pieces from each rabbit, and start taking everything above 1.2 kg, I can reduce my need to 4.97 rabbits per day, which is manageable on just two rabbit zones. However, I will need 3.8 hours of fire and 19.9 sticks per day. The sticks will be easy, but the extra hour of fire can be a problem. We will see.

Right now I'm off to look for some good books to read. I can learn most skills by doing, but I have too little ammunition to waste it on rifle shooting practice.

[Berniyh]

On 29/04/2016 at 11:03 PM, Pillock said:

Yeah that was me. It would be a criminal waste if 1000 Days in the Dam was cut short in the same way.

I had coffee and I had a stim. Didn't take the bedroll because it was only meant to be a short exploration trip and I wanted to be lightweight so I could carry potential goodies home.  But it's the one piece of kit that you should absolutely not leave behind. The coffee and the stim were not enough for me. There is only one way out, and if you are tired you cannot make it. It is not worth the risk.

Ok, so I read all of this stuff about the bedroll being a requirement and took it with me (currently doing the nomad challenge to get into the gameplay updates).

Fun thing: To me the opposite of what happened to you happened: I forgot my bedroll at the bottom …

Now I thought about going down again and get it, but I'm sure I'll find one in Coastal Highway. Maybe I need to repair it, but that's not a problem. That challenge will not run that long.

 

At least it was worth it, there was a flare gun with some shells down there. I'm now drowning in flares, torches and flare shells …

[romerabr]

Can you please post your stats page, from journal? I'm a little curious about the number os rabbits, dears and wolves killed, meat and pelts harvested, etc...

Thanks for a great work, really enjoyed so far!

[Drifter Man]

On 6/25/2016 at 10:40 PM, Berniyh said:

Fun thing: To me the opposite of what happened to you happened: I forgot my bedroll at the bottom …

I think this is the better of the two options

[Drifter Man]

4 hours ago, romerabr said:

Can you please post your stats page, from journal? I'm a little curious about the number os rabbits, dears and wolves killed, meat and pelts harvested, etc...

Thanks for a great work, really enjoyed so far!

Here you are  Actually, the number of wolves killed is not that impressive, I prefer to leave them alone. But rabbits have a reason to fear me.

[Drifter Man]

Day 784 (688th day in the Dam)

I came back yesterday from a knowledge-gathering trip, which yielded two new books in addition to one I found in the Dam. The 2019 edition of Wilderness Kitchen brought my cooking skill up to Level 2, at which point I got a 10% calorie bonus on all cooked items. Now, I'm afraid that together with the 33% reduction in firewood needs, this bonus makes the game ridiculously easy for me - but I expect things to get more balanced in the future to make it challenging again.

Cleaning the rifle five times brought me halfway towards Level 2 in rifle firearm skills. Cooking five rabbits increased my progress bar by 10% in cooking towards Level 3 - although it's still seems to be a long way, I think I will reach it pretty soon. I also found a book with a funny name - "Frozen Angler". I'm going to read it, too, hoping I don't turn into its namesake.

The shelter I built in rabbit zone #1 (in the Ravine, closest to the Dam) deteriorated by 10% after the initial 6-hour use in a blizzard and then by further 35% in about 4 days, while I was gone. If I repair it regularly, maybe I can keep it there permanently as a blizzard shelter without spending any additional cloth. Interestingly, the surroundings of this rabbit zone were remodeled - some of the surrounding rocks were removed. I see no particular reason for this, the place looked better before. Maybe that something is going on - perhaps the map is going to be extended here, or something else added? Hopefully not a grizzly cave or a cougar's lair...

[Drifter Man]

Day 787 (691st day in the Dam)

Days pass more slowly now, I have to take care of my other life, too  Anyway, I made an important discovery. Unless you need a heap of spare arrowheads, the forge is useless. In fact, you are hurting yourself if you craft improvised tools.

I knew that the hatchet is a convenience rather than a necessity. Enough firewood can be obtained by collecting sticks, which gets even easier at firestarting level 5. I thought that at least the improvised knife should give me an advantage in harvesting meat from carcasses, but it doesn't. It loses 1% per each 30 minutes of work on a carcass, twice as fast as the hacksaw. Meaning that I get only 112.5 kg of meat per scrap metal using the improvised knife compared to 150 kg using the hacksaw. The improvised tools are waste of metal, cloth and fuel, plus the arduous journey to Desolation Point and back. Get the hacksaw, collect sticks, you'll be much better off.