Anyone found a good balance for difficulty?

[MarQan]

This might change from person to person of course, but I'm looking for a good balance of progression and challenge.

Currently I'm playing above the hardest default difficulty, but without ironman mode. I'm about 20 hours into the game, with around 12 trips, and still couldn't break into the mid-zone. While I enjoy the challenge, I feel like overall it just slows me down.

Wondering if anyone found a good combo of settings, or something interesting?

[Anachronomalous]

This is already not a quick game, and Olympic Gauntlet only increases the likehood you'll need to slow-roll your macroprogress in order to play it safe and avoid an untimely death.

I'm probably somewhere in that range on IW as well, but mostly because I wanted to build up plenty of steel bits and repair putty for the mid-zone trip since it involves like 3 swift storm zones en route.

[Cryten]

Normal difficulty and challenging yourself with loot goals seemed to balance quite well for me.

[Waladil]

Personally I took Nuclear Journey and made tweaks from there -- the biggest thing is that I hate the fatigue mechanic, so that got shut off. I doubled the cost of making car parts to help compensate for the fact I don't need to make more.

I also disabled the ambient radiation that gives Nuclear Journey its name, but left most of the enhanced damages and challenges intact.

Is the game truly hard? No. I did have a lot of struggle in the early game with a lot of failed runs in a row that nearly drained all my resources, but since the mid-zone it's been pretty smooth sailing. I'm not looking for an extreme challenge and this keeps me on my toes without being too brutal.

[Og-the-Trog]

I've been playing on 1.0 damage/health/etc
0.2 in outer zone
0.5 in midzone
1.0 in deepzone
Protection when all doors are closed.
Maximum time slow/stop/invincibility in menus.
Most things/severities normal/on, QOL options off.
Offroad/mud/water to 1.5
Flat to 2
Engine to 1.5
Batt consumption 0.5 (what the ♥♥♥♥ do you mean the battery drains when the car is just idling there aaah [bleeping])
Keep crafted items
Instab start 4.0x
first wall speed 0.4x
second wall speed 0.5x
gateway speed/radius normal/1x
Faster nights on
instability amount x 0.5
Nerf radiation so that only 5k starts to actually chew your HP and parts.
An environmental hazard as prolific as it is shouldn't have that much of an impact. 5.0 is rare enough to be reasonable at the multiplier you have to set it for 2.5k to be acceptable.

Point is to make the outer zone a breeze/not-an-annoying-stage/a hassle-free learning opportunity for newgame.
Mid-zone is where the real challenge can start and deep zone is gloves-off "get as far as you can before you evac".
I think it's a good balance so far, since the increased difficulty in mid/deepzone chew up more and more of the resources you stockpiled in the fringe the longer you stay there/the deeper you go.

[MarQan]

All good ideas, thank you!
I will try to switch things up and see what works!