The bare essentials (What are they?)

[norker77]

So far unless death comes a knocking I end up running (or rather pushing) through the wilds with a shopping cart (with 4 backpacks), 2 backpacks (on in hand, one on back) and still find myself in want of more storage.
I often set up shop somewhere and stash stuff there.

Now I'm beginning to think that I need to trim the "fat". Am I carrying stuff around that I really need or am I a hoarder (yeah, probably the later).
Do I really need to carry around 12 bottle of sterilized water, 80 pills, 20 bandages, 50 shots of ammo, shotgun, pistol, sling and war club and more?

What do you usually tote around with you?
Do you carry that sleeping bag around or stash it somewhere safe?
How much water? How much food?

Would love to hear how others go through the wilds before I start my "No vehicle, no stash, no strong skill, allways unburdened" run.

[Genso]

Clothing: shirt, cargo pants, hoodie, boots are minimal; i use dogman coat/tunic to replace a sleeping bag since i don't have to drop it everytime i sleep; gloves + balaclava are optional

Weapons: 1 melee (wrench or crowbar) 1 ranged (gun w/ 3 full magazines or bow with 5 spare arrows)

Tools (in one backpack): 1 multitool, first aid kit (10 rags, antibiotics, painkillers, whiskey), 2 lighters, 30 paper scraps, 20 string, binoculars, and a sauce pan.

These are the bare essentials for me if im playing hunter/gatherer/roamer. With these tools I can boil water whenever I need to; the scraps are easy to find and are compact fuel for fires. I also have Trapping skill, so string and wooden branches makes a squirrel snare, providing small bits of food to sustain me as I roam in search of deer or dogmen to hunt. They provide larger meat that I can also cure and take with me as I continue my journey. Arguably I should throw in a nanobot kit in case of emergencies, but generally I win out fights pretty easily, so I don't often get terribly injured. In any case, the whiskey is good at disinfecting major wounds.

[norker77]

Thanks, that sounds like a pretty complete list.

Never knew about the whiskey, maybe that's because I've never gotten a major wound (and survive long enough to get sepsis from it).

And the paper scraps... That's a really doh thing for me. I kept carrying around bunches of barks and twigs. That's going to help a lot (paper scraps are what? 0.03 kg for 30. Twigs are 0.25 kg for a stack of 5. Plus 2x1 instead of 2x2).
Great thing!

I'm probably still going to lug around a water tester or two (plus a AA and a laptop battery for charges).

[MissCreep]

Instead of carrying food with me, I use botany.

[Dragoonseal]

Here's the bare essentials I try to slim down to end game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=239406335

No vehicle.

Add to this a nanorobot medical kit. Normally I'd be carrying one late game but I haven't come across any in ages in this game, sold my earlier ones when I still needed money.

Camping supplies in the bottom backpack, everything I need to craft a tarp shelter and four noise traps before sleeping, which I then break down and take with me again when I break camp. Around 5 of every type of pill except water purification tablets (I just sell those), I sell all the excess above that I collect. If I have enough smartphone batteries I'll keep one of those handy to store charges for my water tester, otherwise I'll bring a laptop battery. Weapon can be either the war club, monkey wrench, or crowbar itself depending on what I want to try out at the time, I still haven't made up my mind which I like best.

Top backpack is mostly food and water, I usually only carry around 5 water bottles with me as a reserve, it's plenty since you come across so much water. One or two bottles of soda for emergency caffeine boosts in case I get dangerously low on stamina and enemies are still around. One bottle of 6 whiskey to sterilize any extra nasty wounds. I used to carry that in an actual whiskey bottle for easy identification but these days I just store it in a soda bottle to cut down a little extra weight. Food varies a lot, I don't mind dedicating up to around 1/4th of a backpack to storing extra food for convenience if I'm coming across a lot, but otherwise I don't really carry much with me since I find it on demand and even when you aren't actively looking for it you'll sometimes find a good amount of it.

Earlier in a game when I still need money I'll tote around a vehicle with as many backpacks as I can fit in it so I can become the dreaded shoe hording bandit. I'll carry twice as many water bottles, extra food, and medium string with me as well as long as I have the extra space of a vehicle, but those are the first things to go if I start running out of shoe hording space or get overburdened.

I do waste space and weight for convenience items like the camping supplies (especially the sticks) but I can always ditch them if I end up needing the space or weight badly enough. The amount of pills, bandages, and other emergency supplies I carry with me is well beyond my worst case scenarios, I never get messed up enough to really need even a fraction of it.

A "No vehicle, no stash, no Strong skill, always unburdened" run would be rough, I'm already surprisingly close to being burdened with what I have and the Strong skill. Without Strong you'd probably have to make concessions on things like crowbars, armor, helmet, sauce pan for boiling water, camping supplies, etc, as they're all pretty heavy. Might not be able to carry as much food/water either, and just spend more time actively gathering them instead of occasionally refilling your reserves. You lose a lot of convenience factor without Strong.

[norker77]

@Dragoonseal:
That looks a lot better then what I'm used to.

I've already cut down on lugging around so much food. Conserved food (ketchup/soup/blinkies...) is just way to bulky and meat, even if cured, just spoils to fast.
Trapping and/or botany means no need to carry food ever. Food does seem to be abundant enough though.

And yeah, been carrying around to many pills...
I think in my current playthrough I just popped 2 pills (painkiller and antibiotic) and that was after the Merga-Wraith.

I'll probably skimp on the nanorobot medical kit (It weighs 4+ kg) and the whiskey. Might have to run for DMC or the ATN camp in case something bad happens...