Quick list of Beginner Tips for the Long Dark

This a no-nonsense list of tips for playing the long dark from someone who has put in several hundred hours. Contains no spoilers, contains no BS about controls, menus, game options, etc. Just quick and dirty tips for survival mode divided into categories and a few solutions to the most annoying problems in the game.

Environment/Survival

• When you exit a building go around all 4 sides of the building and check the wind temperature on each side. That will tell you what direction the wind is blowing. Keep mind of this direction as you move outside. Avoid wind and always approach animals that are upwind from you, they are less likely to detect you and/or flee.
  
• If you are cold and go inside, sleep for 1 hour rather than use a fire to warm up. Bed + your clothes = quick warmth
  
• As a beginner Indoor fires are preferable (with the exception of pot belly stoves) to outdoor fires. Outdoor fires burn wood a little more efficiently but the wind sometimes changes directon and blows the fire out, usually at the worst possible time. Don't make outdoor fires unless you are very comfortable with the mechnics.
  
• Have one main base and 2-4 temporary bases on each map. Occasionally switch bases and take ALL your meat with you, and the things you need even if you have to make several trips. You can leave other stuff like water and wood and skins and stuff at your main base.
  
• It takes forever to starve. Prioritize food lowest unless you're really hurting.
  
• When you leave a map, move all your loot to near the map entrance so you can run back and grab it if necessary.
  
• If food is a problem, don't become overencumbered, you will burn calories faster when you move while overencumbered.
  
• Don't carry firewood or water from place to place, leave it at the closest shelter, you can always get more

Scavanging

• At the beginning of the game, explore as much of the map as you can. Eat any non-canned food who's condition is below 65%. Don't bother with hunting or fishing or even making a fire until you've foraged most of the "civilized areas" on the map. Toilets should prevent you from needing to build a fire for water for several days.
  
• Whenever you are searching a building, always use use your lantern, or torch even if it's during the day. And make sure to crouch as well as stand, there is lots of loot hiding in places you can only see while crouching
  
• Always investigate things birds are circling around. They will point out dead animals and people.
  
• If a dead animal is frozen, the hatchet if most efficient for the meat, but still use the Knife for the skin and the gut.
  
• If you have more than one knife or crowbar or axe, use up the lowest quality one first, only use a whestone when you're on the last one you have. By mid the time you leave any map, you shoud be carrying several whetstones.
  
• When you approach a building for the first time walk all the way around it, sometimes there are good items there.
  
• Using the charcoal can detect animal corpses as well as special items such as maple saplings.
  
• Make sure you are sheltered from wind if you use the charcoal, time passes while you update the map and you can get cold quickly.
  
• Don't carry a crowbar or rifle with you all the time, only when needed
  
• Do carry the sleeping bag with you all the time
  
• If you must carry meat, venison has the best calories/weight ratio.
  
• Carrying things in your stomach costs no weight. Eat and drink until you are full before leaving your base.

Food/Hunting

• Remember you need time to track down your kill and harvest it. Don't start hunting deer or wolves if it's almost dark, or you're tired or cold.
  
• Try this trick to save ammo: Two for one Hunting: Chase a deer into a wolf's path. The wolf will kill the deer and be distracted when it starts eating the deer. At that point you can shoot the wolf and harvest both animals before they freeze.
  
• If you don't have any ammo or weapon you can use the same technique, but instead of shooting the wolf, throw a lit flare at him, or a torch to scare him away. Then build a fire near the deer, the wolf will avoid the fire while you harvest the meat.
  
• Always harvest the meat first and always pause afterward (Don't get meat and skin the animal in the same action). Consider dropping meat back at your base before coming back and skinning/gutting the animal. The meat is time sensitive, the skin/guts, not so much.
  
• If something bleeds try to follow it or the blood trail. If you lose it or have to go inside, keep note of the last place you saw it's trail and return there afterward. Crows will circle all animal kills.
  
• Deer respawn after their bodies dissapear. You can speed this by harvesting everything out of a corpse, which makes the body dissapear faster.
  
• Carrying rabbit corpses around will make a lot of stink and the meat rots quickly. Just harvest them where you find them.
  
• Let skins and guts dry in the shelter closest to when you found them. don't carry them to your main base until they are cured. That will attract fewer wolves
  
• Unless starving, Don't rely on rabbits for meat. The kill, skin, cook, eat cycle will not produce much calorie "profit" and will not get you ahead quickly.

Wolves

• Wolf fights should always be a choice. When you hear growling run in the opposite direction until you can't run anymore, THEN decide if you want to engage it.
  
• If you must fight a wolf try to lure it to a shelter so he dies closer to your base.
  
• If you can't avoid a wolf, but don't want to fight it, walk into his range, drop a fresh gut and back off. When he eats it he will run away from you for about 1 full real time minute before becoming aggressive again. Chase him a bit (but not too long) and you can push him out of the area where he was without a conflict.
  
• Always use a hatchet on wolves you will take less damage
  
• Wolves do not respawn until the body of the old wolf despawns. It takes longer for an animal corpse to despawn if you leave something inside it. For that reason always leave a piece of gut in a wolf body, and it will be a much longer time before he respawns.
  
• Wolves can damage your clothing to the point you can't repair it. some pieces of clothing are very good you don't want to chance losing them. Repair any clothing that is less than 65% or take it off if you care about it before engaging a wolf.

Nighttime/Darkness

• You can use some workbenches during the aurora. Take advantage of that light.
  
• Keep a torch on you at all times and use it to light fires. You will use fewer matches. Trade it in for a better quality torch after the fire gets started
  
• Try to spend the entire night either sleeping or cooking, take little naps during the day to time it so it works out.
  
• To pass time in the dark when you can't rest anymore, remember anything you can harvest with your bare hands can be harvested in the dark, including curtains, chairs, crates, and clothing you are carrying. Use the lantern to find them and then turn it off, then harvest away! Time will pass quickly.
  
• If it's dark and you're inside with nothing to do, go outside. There might be enough moonlight to forage for sticks, etc. But beware, wolves move around more at night.

[DoctorVideo]

Thank you so much for the tips!

[munch15a]

what are the reasons for harvesting rabbits on the spot ?

[Kaezia]

Thk man

[Greggbert]

Ha! Didn't even know about the outdoor fire bonus! I'll test it out and add to guide.

[ilynrot]

I would really include the "outdoor fire bonus" and explain it to newer players. You are writing in
"Environment/Survival" that indoor fires are preferable. That´s actually not always the case since you can waste huge ammount of firewoods by not using outdoor fire bonus. Aside from that it´s a great guide for beginners.

[Greggbert]

Oh no! I accidentally deleted someone s comment! Don't know how to get it back!

He asked if lighting a torch used a match. It does. But lighting a torch is 100% guaranteed to work. Lighting a fire is not. So light the torch first then use it on the fire and you get more than one chance to light the fire with only one match

[Snake Plissken]

with the new cooking method you can place drinks in cups next to the fire as you cook food or boil water and it heats up the drinks so when your fire goes out you have a nice hot drink for when you start traveling.

[Paul S. Yates]

Wonderful! There is something to add though. You can place any item in order you need, e.g. inside your base on shelves using RMB to make it more convenient for further pick ups and make it more ergonomic. So you can store lots of cans and water bottles etc. I've accidentally realised this feature only after 150 hours gaming)

[axelblackmare]

verry nice thanx

[Adzu nyan]

Nice tips dude