Centralization of loot

Hey !

Currently still alive at 64 days in Stalker mode.

Gathered every loot in all maps, and centralized everything in one house, sorted. Seems to be very tiring and dangerous at first, but very efficient in the long term : you have evrything you need at hand, always.

Someone else also using this technique ?

Not so sure about the long- term efficiency. As soon as you touch someting, it starts degrading. So if you collect all matches and canned food in one place, these things will disappear earlier. Better leave them untouched until you need them.

As Hotzn said, the stuff starts decomposing as soon as you pick it up. You should have left half of the maps untouched. Now the time is ticking. This is the first mistake.

And No. Unless you plan to spend the next 3 years in the same house, it is better to only take what you need and leave everything else where it is, especially heavy stuff like canned food.

Your aim should be to conserve energy. And you conserve energy by doing as little as possible, not by doing everything you may ever have to do as early as possible.

You know what polar explorers did. They made several depots in regular distances, so that they could minimize the weight in between depots. And if you plan to visit different corners of the maps (which has become quite important with the hunting depopulation) what you want is even distribution over the maps, the exact opposite of what you did. It's now very likely you will spend a lot more time transporting weight in the opposite direction.

The simplest strategy is to eat everything where you find it, without carrying very far. The other strategy is shleping 100's of kilos of equipment, even though you dont need them in the short or mid term. One could probably make a calculation or graph and show a huge difference in energy used between the two approaches.

Of course we all need points with some provisions. But concentrating 25% of the total loot of each map is already enough. Whenever you need more of something, you just go back and get some more. You dont spend months carrying everything that you might ever possibly need.

I now have a base on all of the three maps. Ideally I try to leave a set of hatchet, knife, lantern and other heavy stuff in each of the bases, so that I need not carry that all the time. I also dont need or more than 10 bullet or lots of antiseptic. That's ca 10 kg of gear that I dont need with me any longer. The extra weight is used for meat from carcasses and whatever I find and discover on the way. Surviving is a whole lot easier when you're not encumbered.

I've got to disagree with the one-location-for-all-loot method. For one, you've wasted a huge amount of time, energy and resources to do this. You've worn down your clothing, expended extra calories and consumed more food and supplies in this endeavor. Secondly you've screwed yourself for being in the other two levels you have emptied of supplies. One bad snowstorm or loss of direction and you're dead. Thirdly you've made your game boring. If you claim you simply have no need to go in the other 2 levels that you depleted, then where's the fun to stay in a single level for the rest of your days?

I believe a better strategy is to have a central location in each level with the bulk of your supplies for that level and then to have a second and third location in each level with supplies for just in case. These would be spread out so that no matter what corner of any level you are in, you have a nearby life-saving refuge. If you are out doing whatever like getting meat or specific furs to repair your coat, boots or mittens ( unless you abstain from using those higher quality items ) you need supplies spread out so that where ever you are and no matter what hits you, you can survive. If a snowstorm hits, if you get injured, if you have conditions that are beyond your control that you must buckle down and stay far from your one-location-for-all-loot, you've got resources to use in an emergency. Of course maybe your idea of fun is different than mine. Maybe staying in one place and sleeping 20+ hours each day with time spent to only eat and drink after you load up on meat once a week is your thing.

Thirdly you've made your game boring. If you claim you simply have need to go in the other 2 levels that you depleted, then where's the fun to stay in a single level for the rest of your days?

Especially this is probably going to be a huge problem in the long run. It's rather unavoidable that you'll sooner or later stop playing if things get too boring. I've been changing (and exploring) all maps several times during my current game, not because it was really necessary, but just to give some variety to the daily routines.

I also favor a playstyle in which you don't explore all maps right at the beginning of your game. It's better to leave some fun for day 200 - maybe even 300 or 400.

There is, however, some point in time when centralizing all your remaining treasures in one spot becomes advisable, but that's only when you're almost completely out of ressources. There's no point in having 5 snares in Mystery lake and 3 pieces of scrap metal in Coastal Highway while you sit in Pleasant valley and are out of everything.

Ironically there is ca 1000 calories of food in most buildings, exactly the amount you need for 1 meal. That means it will never get better than at the beginning of the game.

I usually take only salty crackers and energy bars with me and eat what I find. Water is a bigger issue because it is not as evenly distributed as food.

Well. So far, this technique got me to 64 days, 35 bullets, and a lot of scrap to repair the three important tools.

I used that technique in the three maps successively, so that for 15 days each I had a very easy life.

I had no need to go far from my base anymore, thus reducing the danger.

When I saw my stuff was becoming scarce, I moved eveything in 5 days to the next map, and processed that new map the same way.

I played the game like : 5 days work, 15 days holiday, etc...

So right now, whatever the clothes I have, I have everything to find meat for a long time. I think I have enough to get to 100 days (maybe not 200).

I've noticed later that everything was decaying very fast. Actually, I think this goes a lot too fast, as well as hunger and thirst. I usually don't get dehydrated after sleeping 10h in real life. And speaking about fun, this ennoys me quite a lot

About the fun : I know by heart all of the three maps, so I feel no need of going there again. I find fun in discovering new locations... and trying to expand my lifetime, but not in returning to where I've already been.

So in any ways, the game would get boring for me in the long term. This is because the maps are finite. I heard there's going to be more maps, that's cool. And a story mod as well.

I have to say I'm a minecraft player, where you have new things all the time, and many ways of finding and crafting the stuff you need.

I think this lacks in TLD : as we can replace coats, boots, antibiotics, bedrolls... with things crafted form natural elements, we should be able to find a way to craft everything we need for survival, from nature.

At the cavemen's age, they didn't have cans and pieces of industrial cloth, but still survived.

Then for me, to remove the danger of boredom, we should have a way to live off civilisation completely in TLD, a sustainable one.

Another thing I think could help : I think being able to play longer and see the spring meltdown, then dealing with the hot of summer and sunburns, along with slower decaying stuff would also reduce the boredom problem.

Hey bro. I did not say lawnmowing is not a legitimate way to play the game. But it's not the one that I would suggest, quite the opposite.

The reason I posted in your topic is that I switched my style completely and believe in the opposite of what you do. I noticed that TLD is only interesting to me as long as I have problems to solve, items that I need, but once I have solved those problems I will usualy spend only a very brief time before I become bored. Your playstyle is probably interesting as long as you work towards your goal, but then it also results in boredom.

Perhaps next time you want to try a completely different way of playing? On new maps I mean. My feeling tells me that the way decay is delayed for items before you find them (cells are randomized when you enter them for the first time) will stay with us. It increases performance and saves a lot of memory, and it allows players to last almost indefinitely on the 3+2 maps we have now. We also never know what the game will provide in the future and suspect the fact you find the maps uninteresting is mostly a result of your play style. It is of course not interesting to go into buildings that contain nothing anymore. I find it much more interesting to live a nomadic lifestyle switching between different hunting areas, find it much easier to provide myself with food, and pick up a little new stuff all the time. Along the way I also discover many of the little things the developers have hidden in remote or unexpected places (and they always add new ones), I dont spend much time encumbered or browsing through my inventory, so perhaps the game could become interesting to you again too?

Anyway bro, do whatever floats your boat. Your style made imo a lot more sense when we only had one map but now the distances have increased and the possibilies are much greater.

i did the same thing as you (third play-thru). I looted and stored at camping office (got the good bunker too), harvested, fixed my shit, moved to dam. Then to the mine, spent some time at Rabbit Isle, harvested/fixed etc, then to PV and the farmhouse. I got everything there by day 30ish. Harvested, fixed my shit, made some clothes, checked out PV (my first time on the map) found the other bunker, hunted, stockpiled and then sat back and looked at it. Here i was, day 70ish, tons of materials, tons of cloth (like 50 or something), over 60 bullets, multiple knives/hatchets/sewing kits/tools, even made a new wolf coat, and i thought "Oh shit, i can last here for like 200+ more days, easy."..... and then i logged out. I came to realization that centralizing your stuff was in one way a great idea, but in another a TERRIBLE idea... because now i'm left with the same routine. Get up, drink some water, check my snares, gather some wood, check my clothes/tools, start a fire, boil water, eat, drink, go to bed. Every 5 or 6 days i kill a wolf/deer combo, collect and then back to the routine. BOREDOM ensued. You can last a long time centralized, but it comes down to do you want to?

My next play thru, i'm going nomadic, that way every day is a new and different challenge

I think in the story mode we will be moving from place to place. We will move into an area, solve some problems, restock what we can carry, move on, rinse, lather, repeat. Sometimes the devs could strip us down and other times they may build us up... but I believe the basic method will be the same. Which means the current decay cycle on supplies is fine.

However, setting us in three large zones (+ the two connector zone) changes everything. The survivalist part of me says, "Always improve your position." So I stock up as best I can. The second thing the survivalist part of me says it "Always have a back up." So I build a cache. The survivalist part of me then says "Always improve your position" I am in a constant state of establishing bases, caches and new bases. However, the game punishes you as soon as you touch an item. It would be better if the game just put set the durability of everything at the start of the game and then made the decay a bit more on point. We could then walk into a house and find ruined food in the over or canned peaches that have rusted into something less than edible. By the same note, we might find food in a freezer that was still solid as a block of ice (if a bit freezer burned) or canned food in the back of the cupboard that could last another year. Items left out in the elements would decay faster than items protected inside. Some areas that have a more stable climate (like a cellar, bunker or cave) would keep items fresher longer. I find it odd the can of pork and beans setting next to an open crate in the Hunter's Blind in PV is at 87% at Day 80, when the can of peaches I found on Day 2 (at 95%) went into the yellow and was eaten weeks ago.

Right now the only thing I stock in a location (besides my base) is wood, matches, kindling, potable water, axe, knife, extra set of clothing, snares, a few fishing lines, a bed roll, and either a fire striker or an magnifying glass. If I can find about 2000 cal above 90%, I will toss those in there too... knowing full well they may rot before I return. I don't carry by rifle about, so it and all my bullets are left in the home base. I only carry it when I plan on hunting or plan on shifting zones.

Let us salvage what we can from the elements and protect it, thereby extending the shelf life of the items. If we can put the items in a even more controlled environment, let them last even longer.

The problem with letting items decay before they are found is after a certain time, the player will only find items that have degraded to 0%. I will bet you most players will not like that very much!

You can say the game punishes you for touching an item, you could also say the game rewards you for not touching an item. The way it works now, any item you find will have a higher condition than if the decay of all items starts at the start of the game.

Technically it's not so difficult to do this. If you know how fast an item degrades (taking into account if it's in a container or not) you can calculate the amount of condition that would have been lost since the start of the game. Subtract that from the randomly generated condition of the item when you pick it up and you will have the condition the item would have at that point in time if the items condition would have been generated at the start of the game and the game would have degraded it like items you've already found. This way the game doesn't have to generate all items at the start of the game and it doesn't have to keep track of all of them. The current mechanisms don't have to be changed except for a little extra calculation when you pick an item up.

You can say the game punishes you for touching an item, you could also say the game rewards you for not touching an item. The way it works now, any item you find will have a higher condition than if the decay of all items starts at the start of the game.

It takes the realism and tosses it out the window. It also forces player who want to optimize the lifespan of goods into making treks between established areas (and the risk contained therein). It also goes against common sense. If I find something and I think I may need it, and I am capable, I take it with me. I don't leave it and pray conditions are favorable for going back out to get it later.

I am going to jump out on a survival limb here and say no one, who was capable, would leave tangible supplies in a location if they could take them back to base camp. Unless you are making caches for backup contingencies or forward operations.

Well. I played the game in a logical way. The challenge was : survive the longest.

I told myself : what would you do IRL to survive the longest ?

The logical answer is : set up camp, gather everything you can, improve camp, centralize everything, protect camp.

If the game gets boring because you find a logical answer to the challenge, then the game itself has a flaw. But as it is an alpha version, I think this is being looked at.

And I think a solution in sandbox mode could be to add seasons. If you survive 3 month and snow begins to melt, you would soon be struggling with heat instead of cold, and have to find different wildlife. Also you would have to avoid previoulsy available pathways, that are now melted.

I think if there's an actual boredom source in the fact that at one point, we know the map by heart, then, the map must be subject to changes with time.

And I think a solution in sandbox mode could be to add seasons. If you survive 3 month and snow begins to melt, you would soon be struggling with heat instead of cold, and have to find different wildlife. Also you would have to avoid previoulsy available pathways, that are now melted.

I think if there's an actual boredom source in the fact that at one point, we know the map by heart, then, the map must be subject to changes with time.

Coastal Highway alone would have a radical shift when seasons set in. The fish huts are going to sink. All those bodies on the ice, gone. The wolves wont have as much area to cover and the islands will become islands. We would then be forced to use the boats to get from point A to B. We could start using the fishing nets piled up on the shore to make cast nets and fishing traps. We should be swimming in food. Then next winter, the fishing huts will be gone. The easy time of fishing will cease and the times will get hard again.

Count me in!

The problem with centralisation is when u are a community of a lot of people it can be hard to get everything out to the people in an organised fashion, and there will be corruption. But since you are only one guy centralisation is no problem for you in this game.

Also centralisation doesnt mean to take everything to one place, it means to take everything you find to one place

Well. I played the game in a logical way. The challenge was : survive the longest.

I told myself : what would you do IRL to survive the longest ?

The logical answer is : set up camp, gather everything you can, improve camp, centralize everything, protect camp.

You answered your question as you would answer it IRL. In TLD (as TLD is at this moment anyway) your answer was flawed and you've learned that by playing it this way. Now you know better and should answer your question differently. This is very much a part of playing TLD: you think of a solution to a problem, try it out and learn from that experience. And next time you may use that new knowledge and decide to go a completely different way, just fine tune your previous approach or maybe it was already spot-on and you do it exactly the same way.

Gathering everything you can at one (or multiple) location(s) is not the best strategy for surviving the longest possible. Not with item degradation the way it is now.

If the game gets boring because you find a logical answer to the challenge, then the game itself has a flaw. But as it is an alpha version, I think this is being looked at.

Yes, the game gets boring on very long runs, but less so with every new update. It's still in Alpha and a lot of content and mechanics still need to be added and a lot of existing things get tweaked or revised all the time. I'm positive the final game will not have this problem or at least not to the same extent.

While I agree that playing a normadic life-style and only picking up new stuff, once the old area you just left is completely empty, I tend to take a middle ground usually, by gathering just enough for a while, so I have enough to not having to worry for stuff every day, but not so much as decaying rates will become a problem. When I played the game at first, I played ratting mode, trying to gathering everything I could an centralizing it to one point. Usually I was so greedy to wanting to take everyone at once, going way over-encumbered and becoming an easy snack for wolves. 8-)

Right now I am working the middle ground. Playing Stalker in PV is really difficult at the start. I usually have a hard time locating the tools necessary to survive. Looted the house around the bend, found a can opener and some food. Took all that to the farm and found more supplies. Took that to the homestead and found more supplies. Sheltered in place and geared up for a trip the the Radio Tower. Found more supplies, better clothing, a worn out rifle and a prybar. Went back home and consolidated. I still don't have a knife or an axe to my name. Jaunted over to the Crystal Cave, found an axe, a better rifle and more supplies. Took all that back home and found my first Prepper's Cache. By first I mean the first time I have EVER found one playing the game. Looted that and took it back home.

Now I am sitting on a kitchen full of food, 27 rifle rounds, an axe, 4 can openers, a lantern, a few sewing kits and a very low value tool kit. There are wolves chasing deer all over the field across the creek, there is a bear on patrol nearby and rabbits are hopping all over just outside my doors. It is day 6. Part of me says I need to lay in "more". I expect to lay in a cord of wood and about 60 lbs of water. That will put me at about day 10. I know the "continue to improve" part of my brain will say keep exploring and consolidating. However, it is at this point I am going to have to put on the breaks. I probably have 20 days of food if I don't hibernate. It looks like the bear is on a 2 to 3 day patrol cycle near my house. I believe I am just going to wait for supplies to run thin and shoot the guy outside my home. That will give me, what, another 20 days of food. IF bears respawn, I can do this another 20 some odd times. I will be walking around my home in long johns bored to tears.

So I will hold off on exploring the other zones when I would usually be hoofing over there around day 14. There is really no pressing need to explore. Until my tool kit runs out, spare parts or cloth push me back out into the cold I will hunker down. If the game would let me keep all they non-perishible supplies in my home and not worry about them rotting away, I would be pressing on. As it stands now, it is counter intuitive to how the game needs to be played. It shoots realism in the foot at the expense of your boots!

Well. I played the game in a logical way. The challenge was : survive the longest.

I told myself : what would you do IRL to survive the longest ?

The logical answer is : set up camp, gather everything you can, improve camp, centralize everything, protect camp.

If the game gets boring because you find a logical answer to the challenge, then the game itself has a flaw. But as it is an alpha version, I think this is being looked at.

After survive for almost 900 days, i have to say that is a very long run. 100 days past, i looted everything in all maps, not the match of source, and when you have everything you need it become quite boring. So i need a new play style to refresh myself . Changing play style sure make the game more interesting, like try spending the night in all the caves at least one time, or chose a broken house and try sleep through the night without freezing to death. Try to live in all houses for at least 20 days each. One time i challenged myself to survive in a bunker near fishing hut at Pensive Pond in PV, with only 10 snares 10 fishing line,axe, knife, antibiotic, no guns, no repairing cloth, in short i tried to survive for as long as i can with only what i have in my body, that was quite hardcore. Chopping many hardwood, fishing for 48h in 1 go because 1 match is used, eat and sleep, place snares,... One all fishing lines and snares are all gone, i take off clothes and sleep at fishing hut so wolf will attack me(at that time all animal in PV had been killed and in that version they dont respawn at PV so that is the only way to have wolf), i repeated 5 times, wolf meat dont have much valuable but they have guts, used up all antibiotic, harvest broken axe for metal, take metal and guts making fishing line and snares again, keep on survive with what is left. At the end, i only have 1 snare left, be starving almost all the times, and eventually my last snare is gone, i survived that way for 100+ days. Then i head back to main base and go to CH and ML maps.

In those two maps, i tried to live in all house for quite some time before moving to another. Then come the update with the bear, kill them all, live for more 100 days in luxury meat, my last piece of bear meat have 1% condition. And now i am staying at Camp Office, live on by rabbits, looking for a new playstyle. :lol:

P/s: i m so surprise myself when i come back to some places, sometime i found something like cloth, metal, bullet, lantern,... in some place that i miss the first time i came.

Sounds you had quiet the adventure! I find with one of the the later updates it does not provide an enjoyable "live style" to life off rabbits exclusively anymore. There is not much meat, and the calorie gain is quiet low, whereas the chance for depopulation is quiet real. The rabbit pelt is also usually the only pelt that i have in abundance without even trying hard, whereas wolf pelt gets quiet scarce, since I usually play to conserve ammunition due to me rarely being in a position where I like to chase a bleeding out wolf after a struggle. Fishing seems more lucrative, but the fishing lines still keep snapping on me. Also... I don't like to eat fish all day. (There is also no way to turn the

I would like to see the loot a lot more spread out, when it comes to spawning points: after a while you know, that in _that_ particular building, under _that_ particular bed, there is a chance to find _that_ tin of sneaky beans. As it is now, all these possible locations for items base on fixed spawning points, with a percentage chance to emerge based on the difficulty setting. What might be interesting thou, might be to add a lot more spawning points for item "kinds" (e.g. "food"), not just a particular item and some mechanics, to determine which item you will find. This could be done by utilizing some saturation counter of the basekind of loot that was already spawned inside this current area to ensure a more or less even item distribution. This way, you can no longer be conditioned to learn the possible spawning points by heart, but you will have to look more carefully throu-out the entire area.

(On a related note, I would still like to see the total amount of loot you find in stalker mount be lowered to approx. a quarter of what it is right now (V.228), especially when it comes to tools and food, and possibly, for a lesser extend also for clothing.)