living in a cave [interloper mode]

[Indiana Jones]

Hey guys.

My main goal was to live on the Ravine. I just love the place and to not have to focus on predators but only on survival.

So I managed my time to get all the tools, finding a bedroll, plenty of stuffs, crafting snares to finally spend my first night on the cave closest to the Dam.

I was so happy! I was finally reaching the real game I wanted to play and then...I died during the night on my 19th day.

Do you know at what min temperature the caves can be on this area?
It was a wonderful journey and I wish so much I could go back there and only sleep for 1hour...


If anyone is doing this challenge (living outdoors on Interloper), please give me some of your tips! :)


Cheers.

[Cute Beaver]

I have some experience with this Cave. (The one near Mystery Lake Entrance)

1) Consider using a reversed or opportunistic sleep cycle. Sleep during the day. When I am living in TWM for the challenge on interloper, using a reversed sleep cycle means there is less risk for the temperatures to suddenly plummet with a blizzard. This only works when a player has significantly good clothing to insulate them (and may not work soon due to balance changes. Be careful if this is your method when patch lands.)

2) Sleep during periods of fog. In the Ravine since there are no hostile wildlife you can recondsider this advice. My point is (in a snow shelter or other hostile place) the fog means your safe from Blizzards for a few hours. (Helpful when living under bridges) So you can sleep for a longer chunk of time which is more restorative without your fire being blown out. (Cave shelters your fire and prevents this risk) I like bright sunny moments for outdoor activities (magnifying glass is amazing) and to sleep in foggy conditions.

3) Run a perma fire and get used to being sleep deprived. Permafires demand almost all of your time be spent maintaining and gathering wood. Its super difficult to pull off and I have struggled to achieve this in places where it was possible on Stalker Mode. The challenge comes from lack of stick spawns and extream cold making harvesting limbs painful without proper clothing and lucky conditions. Running a perma fire means you will make water in stages between warming up. Making the most of every moment you are near that fire. Downtime between warming up is useful to break down old clothes, create water, make a bandaid. Or craft something incrementally (TWM Hut example).

4) As your playthrough continues weather and temps will drop further and further. This impacts your ability to remain in exposed locations to your fuel sources.

5) Consider the additonal warmth of brands and torches being carried to extend your "range" when picking up sticks.

6) Do not use a lightweight loadout when living outdoors. Stack for warmth. The extra warmth will keep you alive more then carry capacity for picking up sticks. Sticks can also be dumped in loads so a tiny amount of carry capacity isn't a big deal.

7) Repair gear when able, and maintain the bedroll as it degrades and temperature bonus drops. I have never used the bearskin bedroll for outdoor living but this might be a situation where it would pay off to craft that item. Especially on interloper as the temperature drops far worse then stalker.

8) Thankfully the Hydro Dam is nearby. As you progress through several week of cave living. Use brands to create a pathway which leads towards the tracks. So that even during the worst Blizzard you have a reliable way to escape the zone should you need to. I am a big fan of using newspapers, tinder, brands, anything to create pathways in the snow so i can navigate during storms.

[Indiana Jones]

Hey,
Thanks both of you for the infos!

I never considered perma fire (I need to confess I thought it was impossible) AND I guess I didn't prepare myself enough (haha, as always). Not having the best clothes (only the ones the game gave me), nether a tons a coal and wood in case thing get worse...

About degradation, I don't think it matters a lot. Thanks to the three Cabins nearby the Dam, you can grab a tons of clothes for your bedroll (and prepare your pelts).

About food I think it will be OK for you. In interloper we are getting used to use the min. calory possible and the Ravine provides cattails, teas, rabbit and deers + the river nearby the Dam have a lot of food too (including wolf haha).

Anyway, never did a perma fire, I need to try now.

[Indiana Jones]

Then, one question from here: how to you keep a perma-fire? O_o

You stock hundred of kg of sticks before starting installing?
Hundred of coals?
Every day you spends hours searching for branchs?
How do you do when you need to craft something on the workbench?

I would love to see one your games doing that to improve my knowledge of task planification ^^

[listless]

If you were playing on any other mode, you'd be fine with crafted clothing and a snow shelter, but it gets a lot colder on Interloper.

It's possible that certain changes in the coming update will make it more feasible - but for now, even with all the crafted clothing and a bearskin bedroll, it seems pretty risky to sleep more than a few hours at a time. If a late night blizzard rolls in, and you're in the middle of a ten hour snooze... well, that's that.

[lesha_shui]

I am playing interloper mostly. I think permanent life in a cave on this level is just impossible. With every day spent on this level conditions of weather are more and more severe. There is no such a thing as stable drop of temperature during blizzards - at one time drop can be tolerable but during the other blizzard in the same time of the day it can be dramatic. So the only option as was mentioned above - have a fire on during your sleep hours. At least once in a few days because constant sleep deprivation doesn't let you restore health. But if you live in Ravine you will soon find that it could be very boring survival. 3 deers will be killed and eaten in no time. Then no prey to hunt. At least I have no enough patience to live there on rabbits only waiting for respawn))) Just imagine spending days and days collecting sticks and flaying rabbits))) I suppose I woulld probably jump to abiss intentionally because of boredom)))

[listless]

Originally posted by lesha_shui:

But if you live in Ravine you will soon find that it could be very boring survival.

That's true. It's a great place to hang out and hunt for a week or so each month, and you could perhaps prepare enough fuel to keep a fire going for the duration of your visit.

But beyond that, you wind up hibernating for extended periods of time.

[Cute Beaver]

Perma Fire: Location / Location / Location.

Not all places will support the perma fire. Basically you learn locations where you can go to pick up sticks. I would suggest learning in TWM on Stalker Mode first. Just go to the mountaineers and live there until the bitter end.

Rule #1) When your picking up sticks you need to develope routes. There is no sense in searching the same place twice and wasting warmth going over the same ground and getting nothing out of the journey. (Keyword there - getting nothing out of the journey) (Obviously go back if the payoff is worth while) The biggest challenge between stalker and interloper is the stick respawn rate, and that interloper has fewer sticks. IN ADDITION the tempterure is lower on interloper which means you can travel less further out without becoming injured from the cold and losing condition.

Rule #2) Alternate your routes. If you went to a Stick Happy Location to the West one day, go to a different Hotspot the following day. If a location takes 3 days to repsawn the sticks, your going to need at a minium 3 good routes to keep your fire going. You will learn the best spots to find sticks near your home through trail and error. You will start to develope better and better routes as you repeat them. Eventually efficently pick up sticks on the journey there and back, using windbreaks to minimize condition loss as you travel back and forth to your fire.

Rule #3) I said this before, but carry a torch, lantern or brand during moments of opportunity. (Sunshine, fog, and good windless weather) having the extra heat source can extend your reach / and allow you to pick up more sticks before freezing.

Rule #4) Stalker : You can learn to trade some condition for sticks. I would NOT advise this on interloper (unless the siutation is dire) because interloper doesn't allow you to heal back as quickly... Meaning condition lost from the cold is much more of a drawback.

Rule #5) Gear, craft animal hide gear ASAP because the warmer you are, the further away from the perma fire you can go without taking damage to collect more sticks. The more sticks you collect the less difficult the perma fire becomes to manage.

Rule #6) Timing: Morning time is normally the most dangerous time to gather sticks. Its nearly just as cold as the middle of the night and it takes a while to warm up. You should start to see conditions improve when there are 10 hours daylight left on Stalker, and Roughly 8-6 or hours of daylight on Interloper. Its absolutely horribly cold, so stay near the perma fire and break down branches which are close to your house. This is a good time to make water, or repair gear, sharpen a knife, or craft (Your not trying to put time on the fire - you are simply stalling and waiting for better warmer temperatures that will allow you to go futher out.) (Also keep in mind blizzards will eat through your stockpile - and sometimes force you to take sticks form less then ideal locations just to cling on to keeping the fire alive)

Rule:7) Stalker/Interloper. Sundown is actually one of the best times to harvest a large log, or go on the biggest journey to collect sticks. Its warmest (assuming no storms) in the evening hours so you can try and take advantage of an extra run, or grab sticks a little further then normal if your lucky enough to head out during this time. On stalker mode you can use windbreaks and safely collect fir limbs if you are carrying a brand it keeps you from freezing.

Rule #8) Interloper only : Tea may be used to provide you with a super effective stick run. Replenish a stockpile to prevent yourself from slowly running a deficit. Again if you combine power ups like (evening time) + (brand / torch) + (warm clothes) + (walking using windbreaks) you can go so much farther away from the fire and collect waaaay more sticks.

Goodluck have fun its a challenge trying to do it but once you succeed you will not be too fearful of conserving matches. Its not really ideal to do this until the game your playing is more mature and you have all crafted gear, or your running out of matches for some reason. Ideally you should have the magnifying glass as early as possible so you can start to use that when the chance comes up and conserve matches far more effectively and with FAR less effort then running a perma fire.

That said perma fire can save your life and get you through some horrible situations.

[Indiana Jones]

@rainyday: YES. I am waiting the next update to see if the new clothing system can help me with this challenge.

@lesha_shul: I am not sure I will feel boredom there more than in other places. In fact, I think living in a cave - exposed to the outdoors - is far more interesting than living in a house. You are in constant danger. Plus, you are far from civilization and I find it more immersive and beautiful than anything else.

@Cute Beaver: as always, so many tips :)
You managed to live how many times in the MH on Stalker? I always thought it was better to live in the warmest cave on TWM but I really hate to idea of living in the dark so, congrats!

[Goozie]

Although I have not yet played on interloper so far I managed to get a perma fire running for more than 100 days whilst staying 99.9% outdoors.

Here are some tips I could share:
- I usually choose CH for this kind of playstyle. It has the most welcome climate. CH also regularly spawns valuable items like softwood, hardwood, cloth and scrap on the beach.
- I prefer to create a snow shelter on the most eastbound outer ledge of JRI facing its output towards the lonely fishing hut between JRI and MH. The snow shelter gives a warmth bonus of +18 during sleep n or rest without bedroll (+27 when using the bearskin bedroll)
- As long as temperature bonus of +18 is fine I do rest without the bearskin bedroll to preserve its condition.
- As Cute Beaver already said - the most dangerous point in time is from sunrise until 3 hrs afterwards. I therefore recommend to only sleep until 4 hrs nighttime left. Now here comes the bummer: Between 4h nighttime left and 10 hours daylight left only sleep in 1 hr intervals during fog or only let the time pass. For whatever reason - if a blizzard sets in while you are passing time you remain well protected, can hop into the bearskin bedroll or sprint over to your perma fire.
- Go collect the sticks from JRI and MH. This will suffice to keep the perma fire up and running.
- To gain some comfort you might do a trip to the mine between CH and PV to grab some coal.
- Another coal mine trip is the mine towards DP although the one towards PV has many protective shelters on its path, so its more secure.
- With the scrap metal found on the beach you can easily maintain fishing tackles to repair your stuff and to get some fish for oil for the lantern.
- Make sure you enter at least one building a day. Otherwise sticks and wildlife will not respawn.

[Indiana Jones]

Hey Goozie thanks for the new advices!

Today I made my Ravine Cave challenge on Voyager. I managed to get the perma-fire for forty hours and then I got borred to come back every three hours to fuel it. I don't know how to you guys have the patience to take care so much of your fire haha.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this place and I noticed the same as you about the coldest times of the day.

Definitely I great place, now the only thing I need in this game:
- being able to craft boxes to organize my cave ^^

Your plays seems great, I might wait a bit more and then try on a Stalker game :)

[Goozie]

Originally posted by Indiana Jones:

- being able to craft boxes to organize my cave ^^

Sooooo true. I wish we could grab some backpacks lying around here and there to create some containers. Or have some storage space inside a snow shelter.