It is currently Wed May 15, 2024 3:56 am
skidmarx wrote:I've just finished my sixth playthrough - I picked the Lone Marko, from the 1.2 patch.
He comfortably survived to the war end on day 32, only to never find his missing family. I could cry.
He was alone, because no other survivors came to join him. He spent 32 days completely on his own. Franko visited. Friendly neighbours gave him vegetables on the day he was hungry. He was deeply troubled that he couldn't return their favour to reinforce their shelter, or help dig out the people buried in rubble. But no-one else sought sanctuary in the huge mansion that is the new house in the 1.2 patch.
He became sad for about 7 days because he had to twice turn away those neighbours looking for help. No cigarettes or coffee in the house, no books, and no guitar, either. He had a radio, but music didn't seem to help. His mood only lifted when he was able to give the two kids some meds for their sick Mother.
But he was thriving by the end. Fully upgraded workshop, mid-level metalshop, two rat traps, two water purifiers, a vegetable garden and a herb garden, two herb tables, a moonshine still, two upgraded heaters, one upgraded stove for cooking food, and one basic stove for melting snow and storing wood. And a radio.
He was not sick or wounded once. Not even slightly. There was a close call when he took out the soldier molesting the girl at the supermarket - I thought he got slightly wounded, but he was fine when he got home. I had a bandage ready for him if he needed it. I didn't take on that risk, until he had the means to recover from it.
The house was always warm, mostly above 20 degrees, even through the 8 days of snow that started around day 16. Two heaters is essential - I had three on a previous playthrough, but two upgraded heaters burning 4 wood each is ample.
There were 12 bowls of cooked food left uneaten on the stove, because once I realised that he only needed to eat every second day, a single cooking session using the 8 veg from the garden, plus the four meat left in the two rat-traps, plus the four meat, eight firewood, two filters (for 8 water) and the other 24 water he all carried back from the previous evening, made 16 meals on the cooker in the late afternoon (after the two purifiers had filtered the 8 water). 16 meals is good for 32 days of solo eating.
There were 13x4 cigarettes waiting to be made on one herb table, and 42x4 crappy rolls up waiting on the other. Two lots of 20 herbs from the herb garden goes a long way!
He had a comfy chair, that he didn't get to sit in once. And a second bed ready to be constructed, but no-one else came to join him.
He still had firewood to spare, lying about the house in the furniture he had chopped up. But the caches of scavenged materials he had left at the "safe" offsite locations were pretty much consumed, except for lots of wood. But with all that food available, and all those cigarettes to finish for trade goods, and most furniture built, he was in great shape. He was about to tackle the snipers at the construction site to open up another rich cache of materials, but the war ended that very day. Drat!
It was a tough game, requiring a lot of thought and planning, because he went scavenging on all but one night. Nothing was left in the house inventory overnight, so there was nothing for the raiders to take (hence, no books...).
Because, the key to storing stuff when you cannot guard the house, is to start production, then leave it immediately. The resources are tied up, and cannot be stolen. Likewise, leave the cooked food on the stove, moonshine at the still (until you need it for trading), vegetables and herbs on their production gardens, meat in the rat-traps, cigarettes on the tables, etc.
Scavenged/traded/gifted materials could be "stored" by starting construction (a Water Purifier or a Still were best for Parts, sawblades for gun parts, radios for electrical parts, filters or firewood conversion for left-over Components, and Firewood conversion using the second basic stove for leftover wood.)
There was a time when I had four radios and two stills awaiting construction, while saving materials for the vegetable table upgrade (everything was there, except for a wood shortage!).
To get those materials back, resume construction, and cancel as soon as the survivor gets building.
This is almost certainly an exploit, but the game would be impossibly tough for a lone survivor if not available.
But it also meant that canned food, meds, cigarettes, sugar, water, etc all had to be taken offsite at night, and stored at a "safe" drop until they were needed at the shelter. Ideally, this is at a location you would scavenge frequently. I had Marko use the Church as the main collection base, because Father Oleg seemed to have a reasonable stock of things to trade - more than his usual plethora of books, at least. The Market (Central Square) only appeared on Day 30. The Garage did not show up at all. And the Military Base only gets visited once per game, for gun parts.
I had three safe drop locations that had a lot of "partial" scavenged materials, and it took patience to move things from one to the other, to see if there was enough to build things at home base. At one point, the routine upon arriving home was to build two filters, set the purifiers going, sleep off the tiredness while the water was filtering, then spend the last few hours tinkering, chopping furniture, setting up the storage for that night, fuelling the heaters, or, making some of those cigarettes for trading. Because, putting together the 20 water for the veg garden, or 32 to set the herb garden going, took effort! (Because the production time does not vary with production quantity, I always try to set maximum production.) It was also necessary to get the fertiliser to the same place as the stored water, because Marko had to carry all of it back on the day it was needed, to set the garden growing.
All of those cigarettes mentioned earlier, meant there were 55 Components available by cancelling that production, if needed. But I never did that, since then the herbs/tobacco leaves would have to be taken offsite.
Mostly, I stored spare wood as a firewood conversion on the basic stove (that's why I needed the second cooker!), while storing Components as filters or firewood conversion at the workbench (requiring multiples of 3 or 4). After I chopped the furniture in the house, I scavenged the wood, but left the firewood, as it cannot be stolen until it is added to the house inventory. I had used up about 2/3 of the shelter firewood when the cold days passed.
I never made a knife. He had a crowbar, but the shovel proved to be an adequate weapon, and there was no-one left at the shelter needed weapons for defence. Since he had to carry the two implements everywhere, a knife would just be another thing to carry, and reduce his scavenging haul.
I made axes (four in all), and chopped up furniture everywhere else, then carrying back only the firewood I needed for the next day's heating, distilling, and cooking. I made notes to keep track of what I had stored where. Sometimes I left the implements offside, to carry back more, if I knew that I would be going back there again before needing the tool at another location.
The second stove also came in handy for melting snow, when the main cooker was tied up storing that cooked food. Just cancel the firewood conversion from the day before (you can do that by clicking the X at the workbench - the survivor does not need to go to it) melt the snow, then store the wood again.
And yes, sometimes I carried single items back, knowing that I would be carrying it out again the next night to a different place. It was a logistics nightmare, but I didn't lose a single thing to looters, even though the shelter was being raided every night. Poor Marko was fearing he might not survive the next raid, for weeks! lol.
Time planning was as important as resource management. Marko had to sleep 5 hours every day, to avoid becoming Very Tired. I missed once, only getting about 4.5 hours. I hoped to sleep for ten hours the next day, but there was “too much to do”. It proved easier to stay home to catch up on sleep two nights later, for just the one night. The door was reinforced and alarmed, so he fought off the raiders without loss.
To have done all that, only for him to get the ending where he doesn't find his family, was quite... distressing. What was the point of surviving? But that's the trouble. Until he didn't find them, he had to hope he would.
I am hooked on this game. The lone survivor challenge was so different to the usual group dynamics, it was extraordinary. I suspect that trying to do it with a survivor that doesn't have Marko's carrying capacity, will be vastly more difficult again.
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