Czhilli

@BareSkin I’ve only just caught up on this. Awesome start. Didn’t think you would manage to get both good clothing and a snow shelter. Glad you found the deer carcass at the arch.

@BareSkin I’m pretty sure you are guaranteed three deer carcasses: Cave near Road Collapse, The Arch and in the dip between the Harris Homestead and Coastal Highway exit. Good luck!

You aren’t even guaranteed a rope to be able to descend the ravine and access the bed and get the flare gun to hunt deer. One snare won’t cut it. There’s barely any loot, I’m not sure there are even any matches. The food is initially not too bad with cat tails in the river and maybe nine rabbits, but the bunnies might not respawn fast enough. Pretty sure you get two deer on Voyager. It might be doable if you take firestriker, bedroll and cooking pot and the rope spawns so you can grab the flare gun to shoot deer. I’d certainly go to Mystery Lake via Pleasant Valley and Winding River. Leave the Ravine for a finale should you make it that far.

@BareSkin From the information gathered it does seem that your demise would be inevetable and probably swift on a can only run. You already have nearly 30 days invested and I can understand not wanting to go on a suicide mission. Do only what is enjoyable for you. Even with two items you have a mighty challenge ahead. Have fun and keep us entertained with the fairytale of Cinderella’s desperate fight for survival in the desolate frozen wastes.

I’m keen to see @BareSkin press ahead with the current rule set just to find out of it is possible.

One of many major problems. I’ll leave it to the science guy to decide which is the worst. I’m thinking this may be one of the deadliest challenges ever devised. On my scouting run I collected 25 coal from the mine and 6 from the cave at the arch. I don’t know the science on coal respawns but it could be a help. I know you didn’t want gambles, but seeing as you are considering the possibility of a snow shelter, I did a little test on a possible location. It’s a bit finicky, but you can put a snow shelter at the mouth of the cave at The Arch and it appears to be wind proof location even when the wind is blowing directly towards the mouth of the cave. Needs more testing to make sure. Of course fuel for all the time you are sleeping is probably impossible. With a snow shelter you could take the risk on warmer afternoons for some multi hour sleeps without a fire to regain condition. Weather doesn’t change as quickly on Voyager as it does on Interloper. If you survive long enough to craft hat, mitts and deerskin pants or boots then fireless sleep in a shelter will become more viable. If it comes to sleeping in a vehicle though. Yeah, it seems close to impossible. And even if you manage to sort out sleep the calories still seem sketchy. My recent experience on Stalker leads me to believe that trapping in rabbit groves runs dry if there are no active rabbits about. I’ve seen it stated that this isn’t the case. But I have had several groves run dry on me recently, each time after the last active bunny has been killed by me or the wolves and trapping hasn’t worked again until rabbits were seen again. Might need some science.

Indeed. The statement implies that he must be making water whenever he sleeps and hence can never sleep for more than one hour at a time. It’s that calculation that is unclear that me. Or maybe I’ve misunderstood.

The whole venture seems like a massive gamble to me. I’m struggling with some of the science you posted, especially this statement. Can you explain your thinking. I’m not sure I understand the plan.

When you are holding a lantern (lit or not) you can place it with right mouse button/ left controller trigger. I’m leaving Timberwolf Mountain now but I’ve left some lanterns to guide you back to the hut in the darkness.

Was it snowing as you descended? Your clothes and shoes will get heavier as they get wet and absorb water. Like you, I find it so tempting to try and get all the loot off the mountain. I don’t need 7 lanterns, but there is a feeling of triumph when I have them all lit up in the Mounatineers’ Hut.

I was intrigued about this dilemma so did a quick scouting run on Voyager to Old Island Connector. I didn’t find a pot or any canned food. It is too much of a gamble not to take something to boil water in. Surprised how many matches I found. There was just enough cloth and clothing to make a snow shelter, but that may not apply to your loot table and even then would be a toss up between being naked and sleeping in a snow shelter or barely clothed and sleeping in a car. Calories could be doable, but will depend on how the rabbit grove performs - it seems to me something may have changed with these since the Redux update and that I’m getting low yields than before. I think it might be possible for Cinderella to survive there if she takes just a can, but it will be really sketchy. Far too stressful a playstyle for me, but I’m fascinated to see how you get on. Good luck!

Interesting challenge. Thirty days in Desolation Point should be a nice gentle introduction. But I’m wondering what happens on day 30 when you have to move, naked but for one item, to Old Island Connector. Is it even possible? Winding River and Raven Falls Railway Line seem equally as daunting.

I think the leather brogues look rather dapper, but they aren't particularly practical. You are right that choice of footwear, as in everything else, comes down to your priorities. I put a higher value on reducing weight and having good mobility than you do. Of the found footwear I find the mukluks to be the best all rounder, and they look pretty snazzy too. But, I wear nothing but deerskin boots once I've made them because they can take more of a beating.

I tend to be in agreement with @BareSkin regarding this. I’d rather have no numbers at all displayed and have to use guesstimates. Having exact numbers allows you to be super precise and efficient in your decision making but I don’t feel it suits the feel of the game. When I fly a spacship in Elite Dangerous having lots of numbers to help guide my decisions feels thematically appropriate but playing as a survivor stumbling through the wilderness that precision of information feels wrong. You can still get some % condition information if you want it, but not directly. The journal still records the minimum and maximum % condition for each day. This includes information for the current day, so if you started they day at 100% and then loose a bunch of condition due to the cold you can look at the last day in the journal and it will show something like 80%-100%, indicating you have lost 20% condition. You only get the min and max so, you can’t track any in between states, but you can get useful information on how stuff effects your condition. Using this trick I’ve recently learned that, for Stalker at least, the well fed buff raises max condition to 105% (it’s the carry buff that makes the biggest difference) and that intestinal parasites drop your max condition by 2% per day. Oh, and are you really still clonking around in a pair of ski boots? It would be nice if they offered some protection from sprained ankles but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Take a good look at their stats (yeah I know ). They would be my choice of footwear for wrestling bears during blizzards but not much else.

I like this this thread. It’s both a fun quiz and educational. I spent last night in this cave. It has spectacular views and is close to a waterfall.

There is sometimes a bear living in the cave between Cascading Falls and the exit to Winding River whom I’ve encountered near Hill Top Cave. I thought that was the bear that visited Signal Hill. The other side of a Hill Top Cave, in the dip where birch saplings sometimes spawn, is another cave that could also be home for a Signal Hill visiting bear. There do seem to be lots of bears in Pleasant Valley and you probably are surrounded most of the time, but fortunately it’s so big they aren’t too dangerously close.

Yeah. Reading these logs there are often times where I wish she had taken another route or made a different decision because I know what there is to discover. But I am biting my tounge because I enjoy seeing the decisions @tulkawen makes without any prior knowledge. And I totally understand the desire to take a newly discovered rope and climb down into the ravine, because I did exactly the same. I’m looking forward to the next instalment of the adventure.

The only real advantage of the Jerry can is that it is more weight efficient. Fuel in a Jerry can weighs less than 1kg per litre, while fuel in the plastic bottles weighs more 1kg per litre. I’m not sure I entirely understand exactly how it is calculated but there appears to be both a container weight and contents weight applied. According to the wiki a full 4 litre Jerry can weighs 3.3kg. That seems about right from my experience. I believe a full 0.5 litre lantern fuel container weighs 0.5kg (I’ve none close to check right now) but they are much less efficient the less fuel you have in them. Carrying lots of partially filled lantern fuel bottles is the least weight efficient way of carrying fuel. I save fuel in Jerry cans for when I want to move it somewhere else. When transporting lots of fuel to another location I will take a Jerry can if available and if not try to take full lantern fuel containers. There are lots of little tricks for saving weight. Some stuff like old man’s beard lichen or newspaper rolls weigh less unprocessed, while others like reishi mushrooms and rosehips should be processed as soon as possible to save weight. The savings may not seem like much on their own, but they add up, and the extra piece of food, fuel or medicine that you decide to carry as a result might be what saves you when the wolf bites, the blizzard blows, night falls and you find yourself teetering on the edge of the long dark.

It’s a good idea to listen carefully to the world, I’ll often stop completely still so I can better hear what is going on around me. There are a lot of spooky sounds. Not everything is as threatening as it seems and some of the most dangerous sounds are amongst the quietest. Wolves pad gently across the snow, when you hear them howl you at least know where they are. Good to see you’ve made it to Coastal Highway. Quite a journey for a newbie to make in just 17 days.

Oh.. I agree that you need to challenge yourself. Personally, I found when I jumped from Voyager to Interloper that I wasn’t lasting because I really didn’t know how to deal with wolves safely. I’m playing a 170+ day Stalker run now and learning to treat the hungry beasts with the respect they deserve. This is their island now! I cannot fight them all, or offer up enough treats to satisfy the pack. I am not the stalker but the stalked. It’s not for everyone, but I’m really enjoying it. I’ll probably jump back to Interloper with my new found skills when this run ends but I’m glad I’ve given Stalker a proper go.

Personaly I would discourage @tulkawen from rushing into Interloper. Our intrepid newbie has already had a taster run to discover just how harsh it can be, but doesn’t yet have the map and game knowledge to have a serious go at it. She hasn’t yet climbed a rope, encountered a bear, had to deal with food poisoning or many of the other challenges that await. Trying to learn this stuff on Interloper would be incredibly difficult and frustrating. The only person I know who successfully dived head first into Interloper survival is @BareSkin and even he had gained decent game skills and some map knowledge from playing Wintemute and The Nomad challenge first. From what I’ve read of these newbie survivor logs I would say that Voyager is the perfect difficulty as it gives @tulkawen the opportunity to discover, make mistakes and learn simply by playing the game, without resorting to maps, tips, spoilers and wikis and without being punished too harshly while doing so. I got great pleasure from discovering the game by myself with minimal outside information and it gives me great pleasure to read the adventures of another newbie going through the same process.

That expedition parka is a great find so early on. Even on Voyager they are rare. I’m currently playing on Stalker and it took me 40 days to find a maple leaf wool toque and 120 days to find an expedition parka! Mind you, I did have a rough start as my shoes were destroyed by wolves on day 3 and I was wondering around in just sports socks (not advised) until I was able to make some deerskin boots. I love the exploring and I’m a bit jealous that you have so much still to do. There are still areas that I haven’t been to yet and I’m saving them as a treat. Currently I’m trying to completely map the regions I know and explore the bits of them that I missed on previous survival runs.

Glad to see you made it out of the muskeg in one piece. It’s not a place to hang around for too long early in a survival run. The difficult first week is behind you. I can see you are beginning to get established and can look after your basic needs. There’s still loads to learn, but this could be the start of a long run. So what’s next?

Yeah I was tearing up hats too, even the really good ones, but I regretted it later. My previous longest survival was only 7 days so I didn’t expect to last so long or have any idea what it would involve. During my 385 day run I survived 50 wolf struggles, 10 bear maulings and 4 moose stompings. All that wrestling with the wildlife is not good for your clothing or other equipment. Stuff can be destroyed if not in good condition and hats in particular take a real battering. Hats are the one piece of clothing we can’t currently craft. Once the last hat is gone then you are bare headed till you die. This won’t be an issue much longer as the next update promises to introduce a craftable hat you can make from pelts. Personally I’m in two minds about the new fur hat: I can see it makes sense that a survivor that can construct mittens, trousers, coats and boots would be able to make a simple hat. But I also enjoy the tension that having such limited and precious possessions brings to the game - loosing hats feels bad and makes you treasure even more those you have in storage or you can find out in the world. The quest for a good hat has been an important driver for long periods in several survivor runs and I think I will miss it.

There are plenty of resources on Voyager and you learn to live off the land. The only things I was really running short of were painkillers/rosehips and hats. Until we get the craftable hat the woolen toque will the most precious posession in the game for the long term survivor. Look after your hats!