Best place to create a base camp? (Frostfall)

[Squid]

So here's the situation. I'm playing a game with a bunch of survival mods (Frostfall, iNeed, Hunterborn, etc.), with fast travel disabled. I've played the game before so getting through the main quest is not a priority. I'm using Alternate Start - Live Another Life, so I have a variety of possible starting locations and scenarios.

My question is this. Considering that Fast Travel is not an option ... if you could set up a base camp anywhere in Skyrim, where would you do it? I can place a bed, tent, water collection barrel, and cooking pot with Frostfall. I have Solar's Portable Crafting and Solar's Portable Containers, so I can place crafting stations and safe containers anywhere I choose to, if I create the equipment and haul it to the desired location. So there are very few limitations on where I can set up a fully functional base. It could even be on the exterior map ... but it could also be a cave, or a shack somewhere, or a dungeon.

Any ideas? It might make sense to set up somewhere near a city with carriage access, so that I can at least use carriages to quickly get around between a few key locations within the holds. However, I'm open to setting up anywhere, especially if it is in a cool or unique location and I can still get to a nearby town or other source of food and water.

So ... if you could set up camp anywhere in Skyrim ... where would YOU do it?

[Angry Nord-Grunge Syndicate]

Blue palace, main room.

[SpeedFreak1972]

Nah Dragonsreach right next to the fire in the main room.

[Ilja]

I am a devoted fan of Frostfall,Realistic Needs and Diseases and Hunterborn. I do not usually make a base camp, but just carry my small tents with me, placing them when ever I need. I can forage firewood from almost every location in Skyrim, so there is rarely any need to create a bigger camp.

Only exception is Pale. Realistic Needs and Diseases makes it risky to sleep in bandit/necromancer/beast (etc.) lairs, because already based bedrolls can cause a disease. This is why I carry (or rather my horse carries) one large fur tent.

Finding firewood in Pale is very hard and often fails, so my character looks for a safe(ish) location to build the large tent and then carries both firewood and fresh water there. He carries the smaller fur tent and adequate amount of firewood with him, just in case that something goes wrong, but leaves all the heavy stuff and horse near the main camp.

There are plenty of firewood and fresh water in other holds, so there is rarely any need to build a bigger camp there. I don't even own large leather tent right now.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Ilja:

Finding firewood in Pale is very hard and often fails,

Out of interest, how do you gather firewood? Speaking as one who hasn't tried it, does Frostfall offer any unique options?

Probably the most painful thing in the game to do, I found, was chop firewood. It's painfully slow, the animation is absolutely tedious, and you can't even move the camera around. This is a shame, because AFAIK the wood chopping block is the only way to get a supply of firewood that'd be practical for the purposes of arrow crafting.

(Thus I gather up all the loose bits of pre-chopped firewood whenever I see them, but they're really very rare, so I hoard them up for the purposes of enhancing wooden swords.)

Mining's pretty bad as well, but I eventually discovered you could short-circuit things by manually attacking veins with your pickaxe. Am I missing anything like that in regards to wood collection?

[Squid]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Originally posted by Ilja:

Finding firewood in Pale is very hard and often fails,

Out of interest, how do you gather firewood? Speaking as one who hasn't tried it, does Frostfall offer any unique options?

Yes. Since Frostfall makes Firewood essential to survival, it provides a solution for gathering it in the wilds. After all ... why should you have to go into town to gather Firewood, when there are trees all around?

In Frostfall, just activate the "Survival Skills" special ability, and pick "Harvest Wood." It will fade to black, some time will pass, and then you will gather 4 firewood.

However, there is an even better option, that is more immersive. There is a mod called "Dynamic Things" that works well with Frostfall. With Dynamic Things installed, just swing your woodcutter's axe at any nearby tree. A few swings will get you a little piece of wood here or there ... but if you keep swinging, there will be a fade to black, you will hear the sound of a tree falling, and then when it fades back in, there will be a pile of wood where the tree used to be. The pile of wood is a container ... "loot" it, and you will get over 20 firewood. More than enough to make a few campfires. Just make sure not to chop down all the trees!

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/32448/?

Dynamic Things has some great features in addition to this ... such as "You may now turn ANY container from Vanilla, ANY DLC and ANY mod into a "safe-for-storage" container simply by adding anything to that container!"

I highly suggest reading the overview and giving it a whirl ... even if you aren't into the whole cold weather survival metagame that Frostfall introduces.

[Ilja]

Yes, Frostfall does allow you to find firewood or deadwood.

I am using Hunterborn and using it's forage skill to find the wood instead. It is very painful at first - I always had to carry firewood with me - but it is a skill that develops. Later you can find all sorts of things with it. It even asks if you are specially searching for firewood, while skill progresses further.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Kamikaze Snark:

Dynamic Things has some great features in addition to this ... such as "You may now turn ANY container from Vanilla, ANY DLC and ANY mod into a "safe-for-storage" container simply by adding anything to that container!"

Sounds great!... but, erm, is there a way to change them back again? Sounds like it'd generate a lot of save bloat... :/

[Nazenn]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Originally posted by Kamikaze Snark:

Dynamic Things has some great features in addition to this ... such as "You may now turn ANY container from Vanilla, ANY DLC and ANY mod into a "safe-for-storage" container simply by adding anything to that container!"

Sounds great!... but, erm, is there a way to change them back again? Sounds like it'd generate a lot of save bloat... :/

Sorry, cant weigh in much on the original discussion but thought I would quickly contribute to this.

It is completely optional, you can chose what containers to change and what not to. So far as I know once changed they cannot be un changed though at least as it is at the moment.

Dynamic things also has a host of other features, like doing the same thing mentioned above with the trees that you can also use on rocks, being able to make all containers lootable, even things like the conventional wood stacks etc. It also has some other features that work well with survival mods such as adjusting if containers show up with loot, and being able to drink directly from kegs of ale/water etc that you find around the world and inside inns.

[Squid]

Originally posted by Ilja:

Yes, Frostfall does allow you to find firewood or deadwood.

I am using Hunterborn and using it's forage skill to find the wood instead. It is very painful at first - I always had to carry firewood with me - but it is a skill that develops. Later you can find all sorts of things with it. It even asks if you are specially searching for firewood, while skill progresses further.

Hunterborn is pretty awesome. Setting it up so that it takes time on the clock to field dress and butcher an animal is great. With Frostfall enabled, it means that you have to be careful, or else you'll start working on getting some meat from a kill and end up freezing to death.

I just burned up an entire in-game evening killing an Elk during a rainstorm, setting up a camp, chopping a tree down, starting a fire, warming up, field dressing the Elk, going back to warm up again, butchering the Elk, taking the meat back to camp and cooking in my cooking pot, eating dinner, drinking some water, and then sleeping for six hours as my character was beginning to get drowsy. Upon waking I ate more of the meat, drank some more water, and wrote an entry in my in-game journal about the previous night's events.

I've never been so completely entertained by such a mundane experience within Skyrim.

Journal mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/48375/?

[Skyrimnut]

My two cents on surviving, as I am a huge fan of Frostfall. As Ilja and others have mentioned. I also make use of the tent and I keep one loaded in my horse at all times. My build travels by horse. Something to seriously consider with these survival mods, though I understand if there are some wild mountain people out there who shun horses. My Altmer is a bit more refined. Only a bit, though. Some firewood is also loaded, though not much cause really the horse is not a cart. I keep enough units to make 3 campfires.

Love the idea of dynamic things. Very immersive. Neat idea. The surival skills menu in Frostfall isn't bad, though I don't use it much, just to set up the campfire. You can construct some cool things though.

My big thing is that I know and plan my routes ahead of time. Cause well, wouldn't your character do that? In my fanfiction, he frequently takes out a worn map and it is heavily marked with stops along major roads. Yeah, I'm crazy and have a pretty wild imagination. For example, if I'm heading to the Pale, if you can kill a few bandits, I usually stop at Fort Dunstad. The forge there is a great source of heat and that saves you making a fire. Then I can continue to Dawnstar without much issues. When I head to Winterhold, I usually make two stops, Nightgate inn and then Fort Kastav, once I've cleared the skeletons. I have to make more stops, my build's an Altmer and I have frostfall set to hardcore.

I have two routes to Windhelm. One is along the road to Winterhold, except I add a stop at Anga's mill. If I follow the White River and then travel towards Mixwater, it's a route to Windhelm that's a bit less cold.

The Jerral Mountains are also a challenge, but once you've cleared Bloodlet throne and Fort Neugrad, you'll have places to stop. I have Requiem installed, so once it's clear, it's cleared.

Having Frostfall, iNeed, Climates of Tamriel, and Requiem has completely changed my game. No more running around like a crazy person whacking things. If you don't plan, you die. It is a thrilling game experience when you are stuck in the Ice flats and you clear a cave of falmer just to stay warm. Or when you're caught in a snow squall in mountain pass Between Helgen and Ivarstead.

[Squid]

Originally posted by Skyrimnut:

My two cents on surviving, as I am a huge fan of Frostfall. As Ilja and others have mentioned. I also make use of the tent and I keep one loaded in my horse at all times. My build travels by horse. Something to seriously consider with these survival mods, though I understand if there are some wild mountain people out there who shun horses. My Altmer is a bit more refined. Only a bit, though. Some firewood is also loaded, though not much cause really the horse is not a cart. I keep enough units to make 3 campfires.

Love the idea of dynamic things. Very immersive. Neat idea. The surival skills menu in Frostfall isn't bad, though I don't use it much, just to set up the campfire. You can construct some cool things though.

My big thing is that I know and plan my routes ahead of time. Cause well, wouldn't your character do that? In my fanfiction, he frequently takes out a worn map and it is heavily marked with stops along major roads. Yeah, I'm crazy and have a pretty wild imagination. For example, if I'm heading to the Pale, if you can kill a few bandits, I usually stop at Fort Dunstad. The forge there is a great source of heat and that saves you making a fire. Then I can continue to Dawnstar without much issues. When I head to Winterhold, I usually make two stops, Nightgate inn and then Fort Kastav, once I've cleared the skeletons. I have to make more stops, my build's an Altmer and I have frostfall set to hardcore.

I have two routes to Windhelm. One is along the road to Winterhold, except I add a stop at Anga's mill. If I follow the White River and then travel towards Mixwater, it's a route to Windhelm that's a bit less cold.

The Jerral Mountains are also a challenge, but once you've cleared Bloodlet throne and Fort Neugrad, you'll have places to stop. I have Requiem installed, so once it's clear, it's cleared.

Having Frostfall, iNeed, Climates of Tamriel, and Requiem has completely changed my game. No more running around like a crazy person whacking things. If you don't plan, you die. It is a thrilling game experience when you are stuck in the Ice flats and you clear a cave of falmer just to stay warm. Or when you're caught in a snow squall in mountain pass Between Helgen and Ivarstead.

Sounds awesome. This is definitely the kind of experience I've been trying to cultivate with this round of mods that I installed. I set up "Convenient Horses" so once I can get a horse, I can use it to store some equipment on. It'll be necessary since I'm also running "Realistic Carry Weight." I used MCM to set the weight limit on the horse to 600 pounds, and I'm also only allowing access to the horse inventory if I am physically next to the horse.

I'm using the "No GPS in Skyrim" mod to remove the ability to just look at the map to see where I am, and I used iHud to turn the compass off completely. If I need to figure out which direction I'm facing, I will use landmarks ... or the "Sense Direction" ability from Hunterborn. I installed a mod to add some more signposts to the roads, to assist with navigation when the map is no longer a GPS system. Warbug's paper map helps make the map look more like a map, too.

It's definitely looking like having a mobile camp site is the most realistic option if I want to keep exploring ... but I will probably try to purchase property in one of the holds at some point as well. I've disabled fast travel ... but I haven't yet decided to go so far as to remove the option to travel by carriage or boat that is provided in the vanilla game.

[Ilja]

Originally posted by Skyrimnut:

My two cents on surviving, as I am a huge fan of Frostfall. As Ilja and others have mentioned. I also make use of the tent and I keep one loaded in my horse at all times. My build travels by horse. Something to seriously consider with these survival mods, though I understand if there are some wild mountain people out there who shun horses. My Altmer is a bit more refined. Only a bit, though. Some firewood is also loaded, though not much cause really the horse is not a cart. I keep enough units to make 3 campfires.

That's sounds a lot like my own character does things, altough - as a SkyRe user with Wayfarer skill developing while on foot - I rarely ride my (Convenient Horses) horse at all. It has a solid carry weight limitation and wanders after my character as a pack mule.

My horses are never immortal ones, so I have to watch after them as wel.

---

I favor Realistic Needs and Diseases over iNeed, but latter has one feature that I would like to see in RND: the ability to feed your horse. RND main development has been finished, but author gave free hands to community. We are already seeing support mods popping up. I might actually try it myself.

[Squid]

I'm also running Duel: Combat Realism ... anybody have any experience with that mod, or thoughts about it?

[Squid]

Originally posted by Ilja:

I favor Realistic Needs and Diseases over iNeed, but latter has one feature that I would like to see in RND: the ability to feed your horse. RND main development has been finished, but author gave free hands to community. We are already seeing support mods popping up. I might actually try it myself.

I was seriously torn between RND and iNeed. RND appears to add a little more complexity to the game. iNeed has the very slick and unintrusive UI icons that tell you when you are hungry, thirsty, or tired. iNeed now has support for death by dehydration or exhaustion, as well as deadly diseases ... so I think it's featureset is starting to catch up with RND.

In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of using RND vs. iNeed? I might consider switching and trying it out.

Edit: I'm reviewing the RND page and I remember one thing that jumped out at me about it. I'm running a mod which disables health regeneration entirely. If I want to heal I have to use a healing spell or potion. So a penalty to health regeneration as one of the main drawbacks from starvation doesn't really make sense within the system I've got going.

[Factualious]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

Originally posted by Kamikaze Snark:

Dynamic Things has some great features in addition to this ... such as "You may now turn ANY container from Vanilla, ANY DLC and ANY mod into a "safe-for-storage" container simply by adding anything to that container!"

Sounds great!... but, erm, is there a way to change them back again? Sounds like it'd generate a lot of save bloat... :/

When you first put things into a container you are asked if you want to convert it into a dynamic (safe) container or ignore it. IIRC, when you empty a dynamic container it eventually reverts to it's vanilla state. So, unless you are creating safe storage everywhere you go there should be no problem with `save bloat'.

Another mod you should check out if you are looking for base camps is...

Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/49723/?

...it places 20+ sheltered locations around the map with a cooking fire, bedroll, and safe storage. Options let you choose how easily found they are and whether or not you need to battle current occupants for them.