Hopeless Rescue Challenge quick guide

This guide will tell you what you need to do and what not to do in order to complete the Hopeless Rescue Challenge easily and safely.

Objectives and what they really mean

At first glance this challenge looks easy. Go there, pick up this, go here and use it. And do that within 7 days. Looks like piece of cake, but it is much harder than it looks.

Above all else, this challenge will certainly teach you how you travel as fast as possible. The easiest way to loose this challenge is to run out of time.

In order to complete in time you need the following:

• Keep walking, really
  
• Travel a specific route
  
• Limit your weight to 25-30kg, so know what you carry and what not to
  
• Manage your fatigue

Lets see those in detail.

Keep Walking

What this really means? Lots of things that make perfect sense to do at sandbox do not apply at this challenge. Actually, here is what you do:

You walk from one waypoint (usually a shelter) to another, always. When you reach the waypoint, you search it if it is the Summit or before and head on to the next waypoint.

You don't run, you walk. Exception is noted below.

You do not perform time consuming actions like mending, repairs, fishing, breaking furniture, choping wood, harvesting and the like. Exceptions are noted below.

You stay to a waypoint only if you can't keep up been wamth or you are exausted and condition is below 75%.

What you do during your stay:

If it is just cold your problem, try mending some clothes, one at a time. Choose what matter most e.g. coat wins socks. After finish go out and check. During mending you get warmth and improve your clothes bonus somewhat. Also the weather may improve (or get worst). If you see you can travel to the next waypoint, stop mending and go. If not, keep mending another cloth.

If it is fatigue your problem and the weather is fine, you can choose to travel to the next waypoint. You lose some condition but not much. Or you can rest 1-2 hours if you do not want to risk condition, or you condition is already low (<75%). However avoid long rest when the weather allows travelling. You get a chance to rest when weather gets really bad and if not, it does not matter sleep 2 hours at each waypoint and move on again and again on nice weather.

If it is both cold and fatigue your problems then grab the chance and sleep 6 hours. Wake up and see how things are.

When to go:

If you mend all reasonable cloth damage and still can't travel to the next waypoint you either sleep a while (2-4 hours) or collect wood from within the shelter you are. If there is a storm so visibility is limited, you better sleep. If there is visibility or you can safely travel (e.g. travel alongside a river or trainrails you can't miss) and there is no fatigue to rest nor clothes to mend, you have to go. Make sure you have fire fuel, top warmth, eat warm food or drink and you are good to go. By exception you can increase your load to <40kg and sprint. The objective is to sprint as far as you can, start a fire just before you start freezing, warm up and sprint again, and repeat as long as you have sufficient fire fuel. Branches are prefferable here because you need fire heat over duration.

Dead end:

If there is really cold outside (-20 or lower), very limited visibility (e.g. storm + night)and no clear path to go and: You have mend all your clothes, loot all wood you can carry and sleep up to rest entirely then:
If you have coffee or tea, cook all of it.
If you dont have enough coffee, tea and sodas make sure you melt and boil water. You need 2-4 litres minus 250 ml for each coffee, tea and soda.
Clean up (again) your inventory. Make sure you carry only the nessesary items, and the best of. Keep fresh and light food, >50% and best calories/weight ratio.
Clean your rifle up to 100%. You will use it and it better fires.
Eat and drink to fill your bars
If after all this the weather is the same, then make sure you have 5 clothes and 15 sticks as well as other fire fuel, and go. The plan here goes like sprint, fire camp, sprint, fire camp, sprint, snow shelter, sleep 2 hours, sprint. If after all this the weather is still like storm then perhaps this is the most unlucky thing ever happen to a player to this game.

Travel a specific route

You need to travel a specific route. This is:

Mystery Lake -> Carter Hydro Dam & Environment -> Pleasant Valley -> Timberwolf Mountain -> Pleasant Valley -> Coastal Highway -> Old Island Connector -> Desolation Point

This route is the fastest possible, i believe. It includes from simple road following to caves and mines crossing as well as multiple mountain climbing.

For walking along roads and hills and other countryside you only need to be carefull not to loose your path, avoid bears and kill or avoid wolves.

For crossing mines and caves you need a lantern and fuel, or any other light source you find prefferable. Even just matches will do the job and you will find lots of.

For climbing now, you need fatigue. If you do not have, you cannot climb, so you need to rest at the spot. You need to climb a total of 3 times, and the final climbing at the summit is the largest in the game, needs full rest plus ledge break. Ledge break is when during your climbing you jump off a ledge, stay there to recover stamina and then climb back and continue the rest of the climbing with fresh full stamina bar. Do not underestimate climbing, if your stamina bar depletes you will simply fall and if you are high enough or in low condition you may die.

Now regarding waypoints, there are few options:
Mystery Lake: 1 has more loot, 2 has much better landmark almost all the way (trainrails)
1. Cabin, Forestry Lookout, Logging Camp, Upper Dam or
2. Tunnel Colapse, Camp Office, Derailment, Upper Dam

Carter Hydro Dam & Environment: This is pretty much linear, Upper Dam to Lower Dam then outside straight to the caves lead to Pleasant Valley

Pleasant Valley 1st time: 1 has better landmarks, 2 has much more loot
1. Signal Hill, PV Farmstead, Hunters Blind, Timberwolf Mountain Path
2. Signal Hill, PV Farmstead, Barn, Rural CrossRoads, derelict Cabins, Point of Disagreement, Timberwolf Mountain Path
Normally at this point you will have all you need to reach the Summit, so you probably take on the path (1)


Timberwolf Mountain: The only route here is Pleasant Valey path -> Mountaineers Hut -> Summit -> Mountaineers Hut -> Pleasant Valey path
Due to climbing you may need to rest outside so you may have random waypoint(s) where you rest on your sleeping bag or snow shelter.
The only option here is before you go to Summit using Secluded Shelf or not. If you do use Secluded Shelf you need light for the cave.

When reach Mountaineers Hut take with you only what you need to go to the summit. Leave the rest to the hut. That is your rifle with rounds, very few medicine, a firestarter or matches, few sticks, your light source if you will use Secluded Shelf and your sleeping bag. From food you only need 5-6 coffees and 1-2 tea, nothing else.

Don't be greedy on loot - that is another challenge! You really do not need to loot anything other than sticks on your way. Your objective is to reach the Summit and by now you already have much more than you need. Once you reach the Summit there are about 100kg of loot up there of all kinds of stuff that obviously you cannot even carry. And the flare gun, of course.

Pleasant Valley: Derelict Cabins -> Cinder Hills Coal Mine
Not much here, no places to loot, just shelters if needed

Coastal Highway: Log Sort -> Quonset Gas Station -> WaterFront Cottages -> Commuters Lament
Same as above, no places to loot, just shelters if needed

Old Island Connector: Coastal Highway Path -> NO. 3 Coal Mine
Same as above, no places to loot, just shelters if needed (though very short)
A narrow place, beware the wolves and your condition

Desolation Point: NO. 3 Coal Mine --> Lonely Lighthouse
Same as above but take no chances. If you have time, restore condition. If not be carefull. No bears here, just wolves. Keep your rifle and the flare gun with ammo(and clothes of course). You do not really need anything else at this point and speed will help you.

Limit your weight to 25-30kg, so know what you carry and what not to

Maybe the most important rule for that challenge, together with the don't do time consuming tasks, just keep wakling.

You really need to understand that certain items you need on sandbox are totally useless here. It is important to keep your weight low.

Remember, you will find plenty of items of all kinds.

So lets see what you need.

Clothes:
You need warmth clothes. Always pick up clothes, compare, wear and drop the rest. Do not select as preferable the one that will be better if you mend it, because chances are that you never mend it, you find a replacement faster. Also if a cloth is a little better but much heavier and slows you down, select the lighter one. Probably you will have a nice set before you step at timberwolf mountain the latest, exiting the lower dum the earlier.

Fire materials:
A firestarter or 12 matches box will do. Keep a spare 12 matches box or a secondary firestarter. You also need about 5 tinders and 5-20 sticks you usually collect on the go. Since time is important, collect accelerants and always use them. Do not bother carry heavier fuel like reclaimed wood or cedar or fir. When you need a fire for some hours you certainly find fuel right where you are.

Medicine:
Few pills of all kinds, 2-3 bandages and 1 anticeptic is all you need. Stims are welcome but more than 2 is quite useless. Use water purification to save boilling time but do not stock them for long

Food:
To be clear: Coffee is exception. Stock up as much as you find. 5, 10, 15... 50? is ok. If i had to choose best clothes, or complete tool set or 50 cups of coffee, i get the coffee for this challenge.

Do not pick up anything below 50%, except first tea found and coffee. Sickness out of rotten food will slow you down.

Do not harvest animals or go fishing for meat or fish, it is a waste of time. There is about five times the food you need searching only half places on your travel.

Prefer sodas, condensed milk and pinnacle peaches that satisfy hunger and thirst. Another choice is to avoid cans entirely so you do not carry tin opener nor use your knife.

In overall, prefer to choose the best calories/weight ratio. Salty crackers looks the best but increase thirst. Energy Bars is my favourite.

Finally you need coffee, unlimited coffee. And about 5-10 cups of herbal tea. Coffee is needed to avoid sleep. As long as you have coffee you decrease fatigue and keep walking. Imagine that from the Summit where you find about 5-8 boxes of coffee, you may go directly to the lighthouse without sleep at all within 24-30 hours.

Tea is needed for rest, when you rest. Drink it to make the most rest out of your wasted sleeping time. And you need to rest when you run out of coffee or you cannot go out travel.

You need water according to coffee, tea and sodas. 2-4 litres total, count 1 coffee, tea or soda for 0.25 l

Tools:
Believe it or not, you do not need much things here. A rifle, rifle ammunition, a knife for close encounters if unlucky, a lantern and oil or flares (if one of those is your light source) is quite mandatory. I exclude torches because it takes time to craft. And the lightest thing to be honest is matches. Take on a bedroll to be sure although not really needed. If not take on, you will need to be prerared for snow shelter on timberwolf mountain. Once reach the summit you can certainly drop it. A sewing kit may be needed at start while at mystery lake. Later is useless. You need a hacksaw at the summit but there is one there already. And the only thing you really need there is coffee.

Materials:
As you guess, almost nothing here. Just 5-10 clothes - depends if you carry a sleeping bag. Nothing else is needed.

Manage your fatigue

You need quite some travelling within a certain tight timeframe, and without rest or coffee this is not doable.
Rest also needs time thus narrowing your already tight timeframe even tighter. Coffee is magic here - but you need to find it. You will find sufficient quantities at the summit so about the 2nd half of your travel may go once away without any rest.
But until you reach summit you find some coffee, maybe none. Thus you need to rest.
So, here is what you need to do to manage your fatigue:

Do not run, walk. Running is a waste compare to walking. You get exausted fast and need rest. You consume more fatigue than walking compared to distance travelled.

Do not be afraid to loose some condition to keep on walking even exausted. You recover on rest. Just make sure you handle the weight penalty and walk at acceptable speed.

Rest 2 hours if the weather is good, 6 hours if not. 6 hours is the max rest needed.

If you havr coffee cook it and use it. The more the better. Keep up with fatigue for as longer as you can and keep walking.

If you sleep, drink herbal tea to maximize your rest bonus.

[Czort]

"keep walking" is the best advice i found for this game. Did the challenge in 4 days 13 hours, would be faster if i didnt get lost in timberwolf mountain. Thanks :)

[Goldbarth]

@Isador the same happend to me. but near the flaregun i found A LOT coffee in the cargo containers and could manage fatigue reduce for climbing. at this point i didn´t need to sleep til lighthouse. end of story.

[Isador]

Just made it to the top of Timberwolf Mountain and i forgot to pick up my sleeping bag and before i managed to gather cloth from my inventory and build snowshelter i froze to death while being super tired.
I had 3 days left in this challenge. Now to start over.

[szilellis]

Irene you have to go to timberwolf mountain to collect the flare gun. I know this path you mention, but you never need to go from ML to CH directly in this route

[Jennie花子]

Uuuhhh from mystery lake why do you have to go through pleasant valley and timberwolf mountain? There is a an instant path from mystery lake to coastal highway past the dam, Through the ravine, follow the mystery lake railroad opposite of tunnel collapse

[Mcnasty]

other notes, some are common knowledge i'm sure. Mystery Lake: always 2 flares at the red train cars and one in the upper dam. also usually a knife, a red scarf and a torch in the middle dam levels. Safes are worth opening - don't skip. a crowbar is worth the weight until you have the clothes you need. i prefer soda over water until i need to brew coffee/tea. i don't carry water at all. melt/purify/brew. PV: if you don't want to go farmhouse : barn : lonely homestead, you can go farmhouse : hay storage : skeeters ridge: point of disagreement. 50:50

[Mcnasty]

excellent guide. a couple comments. i don't bring a rifle or bullets. also no hatchet, no can opener. too much weight. for wolves i carry flares and torches - no lantern - and run away. i am rethinking my lantern/torch choice based on your crafting time observation. and as you say, stay light. i try for ~25. also, i carry up to 3 stims for climbing in case of lack of coffee.

[szilellis]

Thanks all for your positive comments!

[ChillinInChornobyl]

Great guide thanks a bunch, thanks for making the hike a little happier

[The Media Jack]

If it helps at all, I completed the challenge with the help of this guide. I recorded it and created a play list. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp34ZKy_X6tOJJsEtSEowVeBtyBryAZSe It is definitely a repeat playthrough challenge as the weather, wildlife and items are never the same.