The Long Dark

[Unkillable Cat]

CUSTOMIZABLE SAFEHOUSES.

Over 100 locations now have 'editable' interiors.

Furniture can be built.

Safehouses can be 'upgraded' to include essentials like workbenches.

Broken cabinets can be repaired to become usable containers.

And this is in the BASE GAME. You don't need the DLC, but having it adds more options.

This feature will receive further support in the future.

This is a literal gamechanger. Before TLD felt like a stagnant, dying world. Now it isn't anymore.

I'm balls deep in a game right now, but I'm gonna restart to fully enjoy this update.

 

[Iucounu]

New cougar looks like an improvement. But preserving meat seems unnecessary, as long as Cooking 5 already lets you safely eat ruined meat (which shouldn't be possible in my opinion).

This is a literal gamechanger. Before TLD felt like a stagnant, dying world. Now it isn't anymore.

I'm sceptical, home decoration doesn't quite fit the survival mood of the game --if you have time to build decorative furniture, the game has become too easy! Also I think it verges on bloat, just like all the cooking recipies.

I kind of liked that the world is stagnant and dying. If we're going to rebuild civilization, they might as well introduce romancing and childbirths as well.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Did a quick first look.

# There are new achievements. Most of them pertain to the Far Tales-regions, like finishing the questline there, traveling from one point of the game world to the other, collecting all the thermos bottles, etc. Of course there are a couple of tough ones. You think surviving 500 days is a tough challenge? Try surviving 1000 days without using the 'Cheat Death'-system. Or try surviving for 25 days in the Langston Mine in the Zone of Contamination, that one is going to be a bitch.

# If you've already completed some of the new achievements, they'll get added automatically. Sometime you may have to trick the game into noticing it, like with the thermos bottles.

# Every 'noted' house now has a CB radio, if it didn't have one. That's how Sutherland the trader makes contact. He sells basic stuff like food items, flares and ammo. Part of the 'unique' stuff he's selling is large packages of salt, cans of pineapple and a blueprint on how to craft wolfskin pants, which is a new item. When I wanted to trade for the blueprints, he asked for some cloth, some lighter fluid... and a dozen car batteries. 180kg+ of stuff for learning how to craft pants that probably aren't that good? :/

# The storage cupboard in Thomson's Community Hall in Pleasant Valley had its carrying capacity reduced from 200 kg to 60 kg.

# It is quite possible that some of your items were deemed to be in an 'illegal' place due to this update, and have been removed. Fear not! If items inside a house are missing, check around the entrance for a red box marked 'Lost and Found Container'. You'll find your missing stuff in there.

# The update disabled all of my mods, so I'm back to vanilla game now. I'll have to wait until the mods get updated before starting a new game.

# For those who still haven't explored Sundered Pass - holy hell, that was a ride. Elevation differences are so great in places that the map is frickin' vertical at times. If you think you're well-protected against the cold - you haven't seen shit yet. The weather regularly hits under -70°C, and once came close to -90°C for me. The map is designed around this, so there'll be long treks needed with next to no shelter available. Come prepared.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

After a few essential hotfixes and tinkering with my mods, I've started a new run in The Long Dark.

Warning, Text Ahead!

Once again I'm on Voyageur difficulty, I have scurvy disabled but the cougar and trader enabled.

I'm running the same mods as before: Disable Nag Screens, Enable Jumping, Quality of Life-changes, Item Decay Management, and I've added a mod that allows me to repair bows now. In my last playthrough I ran into a mod conflict; in the Zone of Contamination I got a gas mask that allows me to traverse hazardous gasses, but the mask burns out Canisters while I'm dangerous areas. Except the Item Decay Management-mod was interfering somehow, making it so that the Canisters never burned out, and I didn't need any! This time I micromanaged the settings in the hope of fixing this and making it work as intended.

Since I have previously visited every part of every region in the game, I figured I'd challenge myself and let the game pick a random starting location for me, see how quickly it takes me to 'find myself'. I'm supposed to have great spatial awareness - time to put it to good use.

It took me ~8 seconds to realize I'm at the far end of the bottom tier of Hushed River Valley. As I'm wearing a baseball cap, a sports vest and biker gloves, my temperature is sinking like a stone. I quickly formed an escape route and started running, pausing only to check the cave down there to see if it had anything for me. Nothing gamechanging to find there.

I run towards the southern rope and start climbing without realizing I'm not wearing any crampons, meaning my fatigue bar actually runs out before I reach the top. Fortunately I manage to finish the climb and can walk the rest of the way to the exit.

Except my travels take me past bear territory. It's at this point that I remember that they added a new 'dynamic' system for animal placements, and no one has figured out how it works, so it's all up in the air where the critters are. Fortunately I don't encounter any bears and manage to make my way out of Hushed River Valley with only minor Condition-damage due to the cold.

That's when I recognize my second problem: I'm inside a cave now, but I only have a book of matches for a light source. With two of my four Needs tapped out, I decide to rest at the cavern entrance and regain some energy. Luck was on my side, for my first night in this run is an Aurora-night, meaning I can see key points in the cave due to holes in the ceiling, and only needed to use two matches to get out.

I emerge in the far northern part of Mountain Town in the middle of the night with a blazing aurora overhead. And it's still lethally cold. I evaluated the risks, said "fuck it" and literally ran all the way to the Grey Mother's house. I get to the front porch close to dawn there when I realized something; save for some crows in HRV, I had not encountered a single animal in the game so far. Unusual, considering the route I've covered in just 24 hours.

I secure the house as my base, and start experimenting with the 'safehouse management feature'. With the press of a single key you can enter this mode, where you can move furniture around and either destroy unwanted furniture, or sometimes fix it to make it better. You can fix stuck cabinets with a two-minute operation that adds +1 to your Repair-skill, but most changes require Woodworking Tools which I've yet to find. Of far greater concern is that Safehouse Manangement Mode puts a blue outline on every piece of furniture you can interact with, effectively giving players free indoor night vision. They'll patch that out eventually - right?

I'm on Day 4 now and I've been exploring the town of Milton, and it wasn't until now that I ran into my first critter - a single doe that had wandered into town. Otherwise I had neither seen or heard anything living around me. I'm slowly finding better clothes, but the lack of a prybar and a hunting knife is starting to bother me.

 

[Iucounu]

Safehouse Manangement Mode puts a blue outline on every piece of furniture you can interact with, effectively giving players free indoor night vision. They'll patch that out eventually - right?

Maybe they could make you return to your starting location in the house once you switch off the management mode? Otherwise it sounds like a major oversight. I recall you can already "feel" your way through darkness by "moving" an object, which outlines any obstacles its green outline hits into.

I'm on Day 4 now and I've been exploring the town of Milton, and it wasn't until now that I ran into my first critter - a single doe that had wandered into town. Otherwise I had neither seen or heard anything living around me. I'm slowly finding better clothes, but the lack of a prybar and a hunting knife is starting to bother me.

Does Voyager normally contain wildlife from the start, like the other difficulties?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm on Day 4 now and I've been exploring the town of Milton, and it wasn't until now that I ran into my first critter - a single doe that had wandered into town. Otherwise I had neither seen or heard anything living around me. I'm slowly finding better clothes, but the lack of a prybar and a hunting knife is starting to bother me.

Does Voyager normally contain wildlife from the start, like the other difficulties?

Yes, Voyager normally has wildlife right at the start, at least rabbits and deer.

But things are different now, it seems.

EDIT: Spitball theory here, haven't had a chance to play more TLD since my wall 'o text: Bears have either received minimal changes, or not been changed at all.

Bears are connected to caves. Every bear has a cave he calls home, and he patrols a specific area. I've checked user-made maps of the regions, and on Voyager every time a cave is marked as a bear cave, it has a bear living in it. Only three regions are exempt from this rule: Mystery Lake, Pleasant Valley and Blackrock.

Mystery Lake has four bear caves in total, but only two of them are ever occupied during a game, randomly selected.

Pleasant Valley has seven bear caves in total, but only four of them are occupied during a game, with two constants and two randomly selected. I can confirm this information up to the point that I only ever found three bears in PV during my last playthrough, the two constants and one random.

Blackrock has three bears, but two of them do not have a cave to call home. One of them is stuck in Bear's Bend however, so technically that area is his entire cave. Another bear can be found within the Blackrock prison yard at times, but not always.

We'll see if/how they act differently in time.

In other news of the update, people are complaining that Timberwolf packs can now spawn on any map - and utterly ruin the game as a result. I can understand their stance, as during my past playthroughs I've discovered that Timberwolves are quantum-based lifeforms, they only exist when observed. How do I know this? Because if I cause a bleeding injury on any other animal, it eventually dies somewhere on the map, even though I'm not around to witness it. Timberwolves, however, require that I be present for them to die from blood loss, they exist in some kind of limbo state until I'm nearby, then the game checks their status and finds that they're actually dead, then proceeds to drop them where they stand. This happened four times to me during my last playthrough, and in one case it was two wolves at once in close vicinity to each other.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Hinterland's next project is a sequel with co-op. Hopefully jumping as well.

Except for the nuclear power plant, this could easily be The Long Dark: Reykjavík.

They really need to read up on the Osbourne-effect though.

Top YT-comment: "Astrid is finally gonna be able to eat a horse!"

 

[Iucounu]

Bears have either received minimal changes, or not been changed at all.

Could their patrol routes have changed? Or maybe the timing of when they spawn (until now, I assume they spawn at their cave when a level is loaded)? Maybe wolf patrol routes have changed too?

Timberwolves are quantum-based lifeforms, they only exist when observed.

Did you mean that literally, or that they despawn at a certain distance (similar to how wounded animals despawn if you go indoors for too long)?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Bears have either received minimal changes, or not been changed at all.

Could their patrol routes have changed? Or maybe the timing of when they spawn (until now, I assume they spawn at their cave when a level is loaded)? Maybe wolf patrol routes have changed too?

With bears, I have no idea.

With wolves, however... I've finally made some time to play more TLD. I'm on Day 7 now and have managed to visit some of the sights of Milton. There was a wolf at the Barker-farmstead (as usual), but there was also a wolf at the mountaineering-point leading to Mystery Lake (by the cabin and the benches, not down by the cave) and I can't recall ever seeing one there.

Timberwolves are quantum-based lifeforms, they only exist when observed.

Did you mean that literally, or that they despawn at a certain distance (similar to how wounded animals despawn if you go indoors for too long)?

Literally.

 

[Iucounu]

there was also a wolf at the mountaineering-point leading to Mystery Lake (by the cabin and the benches, not down by the cave) and I can't recall ever seeing one there.

Me neither, except when they've followed me there. (I once took refuge inside the mountaneering hut, with a wolf circling outside. Since it didn't go away, I went outside with a lit torch, but that got automatically got me inside the wolfs attack range despite the torch. That was the end of that run.)

Timberwolves are quantum-based lifeforms, they only exist when observed.

Did you mean that literally, or that they despawn at a certain distance (similar to how wounded animals despawn if you go indoors for too long)?

Literally.

I don't have much experience with Timberwolves, but this should be possible to test. If you shoot them with arrows maybe a despawned wolf will make the arrow drop. But if you find a dead wolf out of view it didn't despawn.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Well, I found a detailed source on the wildlife changes. I was wrong.

On bears

More bears have been added. There are new bear caves in Bleak Inlet, Ash Canyon and Blackrock. Bear caves were then moved in Timberwolf Mountain, Blackrock and Pleasant Valley.

No word on how many bears are now present in Mystery Lake and Pleasant Valley (see one of my previous posts) but I doubt they'll fill every cave.

At least not to start with.

On critters

I had developed a theory that there were next to no animal spawns at the start of my run, and that seems to hold so far. Tracing my path through the world in my current build, I crossed both a bear and a cougar area, but there were no critters in either one. It wasn't until about the fourth or fifth day that I started seeing some critters about, and I get the feeling they'll keep coming as more days go by... possibly in greater numbers than before.

Speaking of cougars, the idea of them occupying the more remote areas of regions only appears to be a half-truth. I'm seeing cougars being reported very close to vital travel paths both in Mystery Lake and in Pleasant Valley. In Sundered Pass they're the critter spawn closest to the entrance. On the upside they're not present in every region; they cannot be found in the smaller transit regions and not in Forlorn Muskeg either, to name one example. Thank fuck for small favors.

Timberwolves are also not present in every region, contrary to internet crybabies. Mountain Town seems to be free of them, for example. Bleak Inlet seems to be full of them, though.

But in general terms predator spawns seem to have been moved about to make certain travel paths more dangerous to players. A new wolf spawn can be found in Broken Railroad for example - on the oppsite side of the broken bridge! Timberwolf Mountain now lives up to its name, I'll leave it up to players to figure out what that means. The biggest change though has to be Ash Canyon. Before it was a region on three 'layers' of map, with the bottom one having some wolves and the top one having a bear and some environmental hazards, but the middle one (the western and central area) was generally flat and free of predators. Now there are wolves all over the middle layer, and a bear is now on the bottom layer as well. Bleak Inlet also jumped up in hazards, travelers visiting the Echo Radio Tower might be in for a nasty surprise. Only one region seems to have become safer after the changes - Mountain Town. The area below the rope leading to Mystery Lake is now predator-free, as is the entire area leading to the crashed airplane.

Overall the game just got harder for everyone. Is that a good thing? Hard to say.

In terms of geography I'm only noticing one change - the Misanthrope's Homestead in Coastal Highway has been expanded somewhat to accomodate the trader.

In terms of bugs though I'm noticing tons. The 'safehouse customization' feature has literally shaken loose a great many things, leading to items clipping in and out of other items. Bulletin boards that had notes and calendars on them no longer don't, because the smaller items are now behind the bulletin boards. Curtains can end up floating in mid-air. The game reported being unable to save my progress a few times. Knowing how slowly Hinterland operates it's gonna take them months to suss this all out.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Finally had some time to play more. I'm at Day 11 now.

Spoiler

One change I put into effect via mods is to have toilet water non-potable, meaning it has to be made safe for drinking. In Mountain Town I accrued ~15 liters of non-potable water via toilets, but only managed to find one packet of purification tablets, I'd have to boil the rest myself. For some reason I'm a real stickler for starting fires and tend to hold it off as long as possible. By the end of Day 10 I found myself nearly out of drinking water because of this, and was forced to start a fire to boil all that water. I also had a small pile of animal meat (and fat) to cook, so that meant an extended cooking session that elevated my Cooking-skill to Level 2.

A new addition to the game is Animal Fat, this is a food item that is a by-product of harvesting carcasses. It has four uses, since it has a Scent it can be dropped as bait, it can also be eaten but has an abnormally high change of inflicting food poisoning. Then it can be rendered via cooking into Cooking Oil, but it's the final usage which got me interested. Apparantely the trader has a high-end food recipe to trade, the Pemmican Bar. This food item only confers positive Afflictions, and of the highest order. It appears to be THE foodstuff/crafting recipe to get, but has a literal boatload of prerequisites to get. Something for the endgame, I reckon, so I keep my fat around.

After careful exploration of Milton I finally have the essential gear: A prybar, a lantern and a hunting knife. I even found a flare gun and a single flare for it. Still missing a hacksaw, but that can wait. Before even thinking about moving on to other regions, I wanted to loot the cars on the bridge in the northeast part. The problem? Mountain Town's only bear lives there, and his patrol area is tight and nasty, he can easily get the drop on unsuspecting players. So I approach the bridge with caution, but not without noting that there's a deer carcass close to it. Do I dare harvest it, knowing there's a potential bear nearby? I decide to wait until I know more.

With my flare gun drawn, I sneak up on the bridge while trying to use as many vantage points as possible. No visible movement. I approach the first truck, and was about to move forward when I noticed that there's a large item in the front seat; an expedition parka. I drop all pretenses of caution and start looting the vehicles. I get some flares, two more shots for the flare gun and a cured deer skin on top of the parka, this has now proven to be well worth the effort... but where's the bear? After skulking about like a paranoid crab I finally reach a conclusion: There is no bear. The bones are there to signal his upcoming presence, but right now he's not around, no tracks in the snow. With a sigh of relief I go full loot ninja and empty out the place of everything, with the intent of never coming back. I also find another deer carcass on the other side of the bridge, and can get back to town via the cave to the south. I make the daring call to harvest both carcasses. This takes time, paints a giant target on my back, but beside a distant wolf howling there is no one else around but me.

I enter the cave. Nothing in there except some poor soul who had lots of food and lots of firewood all sorted and ready, but no source of fire. I emerge on the other side to find the (empty) prepper cache and two deer carcasses side-by-side. Since this part of the region is now predator-free, I take the time to harvest both of them. That's four now. As I head back towards town I spot the fifth carcass and have my way with that as well. I reckon this is the last time I'm gonna have an easy time with harvesting so many carcasses in one go, so I make the most of it.

I now have a decent supply of food and water, good clothing and only a handful of spots left to explore/loot, and will soon be ready to leave for Mystery Lake. I'll return to Mountain Town later when I'm ready to take on Hushed River Valley proper, instead of having to run out of it almost on all fours.

tl,dr: Animals now seem to be introduced into the game in timed sessions. Wolves taking a few days to appear, bears some more days, I'm hoping cougars take their sweet time showing up.

 

[Iucounu]

With a sigh of relief I go full loot ninja and empty out the place of everything, with the intent of never coming back.

tl,dr: Animals now seem to be introduced into the game in timed sessions. Wolves taking a few days to appear, bears some more days, I'm hoping cougars take their sweet time showing up.

Doesn't it ruin much of the replay value of the game if we can begin each new run going on a looting spree? I'd likely head straight for the Technical Backpack.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

If I'm right in what I'm saying, then yes - there would be a tremendous advantage to bee-lining it to the good loot right at the start.

But also note that I only provide a single data point to this: My current playthrough. I could be right, I could be wrong. It could also be region-related, Ash Canyon might trot out its predators right on Day 1, if the player happens to spawn in it, while Mountain Town is slow in its roll-out.

Also, the game just got a hotfix - a 3.6 Gb "hotfix".

 

[Iucounu]

Timberwolves might be bugged, at least in Blackrock, and before the recent patches. From 2:54:15 (and 10-15 minutes onwards) in this video their pack moral drops from 75% straight down to zero, yet after that the moral of the multiple subsequent wolfpacks barely take a dent, suddenly goes away, only to return again and again:


(more action that usual for a TLD game).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

From what I see is that the first pack takes lots of damage via multiple hits in quick succession (2 wolves getting burnt at once) and I think that triggers a rout.

The second pack barely takes a dent from standing close to a torch, but then a third pack calls a howling while the second one is still active, which screws up with the morale-meter. She successfully starts a rout on the second pack, which causes the meter to fade out, until the game remembers that the third pack is still active and brings up its morale meter.

She then seems to get a fourth and fifth howling simultaneously again.

She may also be on to something that this part of Blackrock (eastern road leading to the mine if I'm not mistaken) is bugged when it comes to Timberwolves.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Got in some more TLD gameplay.

Spoiler

I finished exploring/looting Mountain Town and stashed away my gear, when I noticed that I had a spare Mountaineering Rope. During my last playthrough I realized that Mountaineering Ropes only serve one purpose (to be fastened where a rope climb is possible, but no rope is available) and that there are too many Ropes around. So I was just about to leave it behind when a thought came to me; there's one ropeless rope climb over in Hushed River Valley - right next door. Why don't I just pop over there and fasten it? It's on the southern plateau, right next to one of two possible spawns for the mysterious signal fire. This had the added bonus that if the signal fire is on the same side as the rope climb, I'm almost guaranteed to score a Moosehide Sack, which adds +5kg to my carry limit.

The downside is getting up there. The easy way is through the ice caverns, but it takes far too long and I'd have to venture deep into the map to get there. The shorter way is via a rope climb, and I won't have to venture that deep into the map - but it's a tough climb. Despite that, I choose the rope climb.

I end up timing my travels so that I'm exhausted and in need of sleep by the time I reach the entrance to Hushed River Valley and make camp in the cave. When I emerge fully rested in the morning I find myself full of energy and easily ascend the rope. The only threat here (besides gravity) is a single wolf, but to my fortune he's not around today, so I spend the time and loot everything in the area. And much to my fortune the signal fire is on this side of the valley, so not only did I lose a 5 kg burden, but I also gained an additional 5 kg weight limit. But after both the climb and the exploration I'm exhausted, so I walk back to the cave leading to Mountain Town (there's a one-way drop from this plateau right next to the cave) and have a good sleep in there.

The next day I finish packing my essentials and make my way over to the Trapper's Cabin over in Mystery Lake. A totally uneventful trip, save for one moment. I had seen a wolf earlier by the rope climb in Mountain Town, so I was expecting some lupine trouble. Instead, as I approach I hear a haunting moan, clear and audible, right in front of me in the fog. I have never heard this sound before, so I had no idea what was going on. I turned back and ran, then tried being sneaky by hugging the cliffside. As I was inching my way towards the rope, the fog lifted and I could get a proper look around.

A moose. A moose can spawn here now. Scared the heck out of me. I must have been real close to it without either of us noticing. With the moose clear in view I could easily avoid it, descend the rope and complete my journey.

Next up, Mystery Lake.

 

[VioletShadow]

Decided to get back into it and having a lot of fun with base customization and crafting stuff.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Finally got in some more playtime.

Spoiler

I thought I knew Mystery Lake like the back of my hand, but the new animal placements makes it feel like new neighbors have moved in. Worse than that, I finally explored the most remote parts, and found strange things there.

For this playthrough I decided to try finding all the cairns. There are 165 of them scattered throughout parts of Great Bear Island, and while nothing is gained by finding them it makes for a nice diversion. And it turns out some of the hardest cairns to find are in Mystery Lake. Let's begin with cairn #23. It's located in the far northern part of the map, so high up that one begins to see the curvature of the earth from up there. It's really far up, so far up that most players doubt that there's anything up there but the map edge. If you go looking for it, you must climb until you hit unpassable cliffsides, then inch your way along it. There's another cairn in a similar position further west, but at a far lower altitude.

The really bothersome cairn is #160, and strangely enough it's very close to #23... but getting there is the problem. It's located in a part of Mystery Lake that was probably never intended to be reached, as there's nothing there but trees on a slope. But someone found a way there via mountain goating, so Hinterland decided to stick a cairn in there. You'll never find it without consulting a map, it's that out-of-the-way, and the path to it that obtuse - even though it's almost right next to the Carter Dam.

A thought occurred to me regarding the Carter Dam - it's one of the few interiors that has hazards - namely electric cables that become live during Aurora events. With the new Safehouse Management-feature, we can re-arrange furniture... can players now place furniture on top of the electric cables to prevent getting shocked by them? Or better yet, to create new shortcuts through the place? Something to experiment with once I'm better settled in.

I'm also getting a lot more blizzards than I recall. Could just be a fluke.