Overview
This guide describes the basic method I used to survive 30 days in Desolation Point on Voyageur mode.
Critical Items You Must Find
Sewing kits:
These determine how long you can stay in Desolation Point before you have to move on. Keep your clothes in good repair and watch the degradation on those kits. When you’ve nearly used them up, it’s time to move on to Coastal Highway.
Hunting knife:
Keep this sharp with the whetstone.
Cool ♥♥♥♥ You Don’t Need
Hatchet:
Collect sticks on the ground and coal in the mines. When you’re desperate, break down crates with your hands. Don’t waste energy carrying this thing around, and certainly don’t waste energy chopping up limbs. When you need tinder, go to Hibernia and break down cardboard boxes.
Hunting rifle:
This thing weighs over 4 kg and is a pain to aim when something is charging you. Stick in a corner and admire it.
Fur clothes/bedroll:
This ♥♥♥♥ is a colossal waste of resources and is super delicate. In order to make anything, first you have to spend time outdoors and hunting knife quality collecting skins and gut. Time outdoors=calories spent and risk of freezing. Hunting knife quality=more chance you’ll wear it out and not have it later for something more important. Then you have to drop the pelts and gut somewhere and leave them for a few days to cure. Then you have to spend time and calories hauling the ingredients to a work bench. When you finally get to the work bench, you spend calories and water and, most importantly, your SEWING KIT building this ♥♥♥♥. Then when they invariably degrade, you have to spend more cured pelts (which you got with time outside and hunting knife quality) and more sewing kit to repair them. OR…you could just be good about repairing the clothes you find. Your sewing kit will go much further and you won’t waste all those calories.
What to do
As soon as possible, visit and loot the Stone Church and Mine #3. These places are mostly likely to contain a hunting knife and some matches. The stone church might also contain a rifle, which is nice, but you won’t need it.
Once you have a hunting knife, go to Abandoned Mine #5 (West). This is your “hunting base.” Leave anything you don’t need for hunting, like bedrolls and storm lanterns and such. In order to go hunting, you’ll need fire materials, (enough to start four fires and keep them burning for at least two hours), your hunting knife, and some food and water (not much). You’ll also need bandages (preferably the ones made with old man’s beard lichen, which you can make at the work bench inside Coal Mine #3). Rose hip tea and reishi mushroom tea are also good, but antibiotics and painkillers will be fine. Whatever you do, never go outside without at least two bandages. Blood loss will kill you in minutes.
On your first trip, there’s probably a dead deer in Katie’s Secluded Corner. If you’ve already been there, here’s what you do: walk out and across the road, then up on the little hill. Check for a wolf over toward the Lighthouse. If you see one, chase a deer toward it. If you don’t, go back to the mine and take a nap for an hour. Once you chase a deer toward a wolf, let it kill the deer for you, then go over there and attack the wolf. If you have a mouse, check the other guides to see how to fight. If you have a Macbook, press the trackpad as fast as you can. When the bar fills up, you won the fight. As soon as the wolf leaves, treat your injuries. Then follow the blood trail until you can see him running around. Let him tucker himself out and die. If he’s just kind of staggering slowly, and you think you won’t lose him, go start harvesting the deer. You’ll hear him whimper when he falls over, and you can go harvest him. Only take the meat of both the deer and wolf. Take one kg at a time, watching for the freezing icon. When that comes up, start a fire nearby and let it burn while you harvest. Then go get the meat from the other animal. You should end up with around 12-13 kg.
When you’re done, go to the Lighthouse. This is your “hibernation base.” Take off your clothes so they don’t degrade inside. Have a big fry up and cook all your ♥♥♥♥ and make some potable water. Loot the place and repair your clothes, if necessary. Then sleep in the bed for five hours at a time until you’re down to four kgs of meat. No more than six hours at once so you can stop and eat and drink. Sleeping in the bed like this means you don’t wear out your bedroll, which you should’ve left at the mine.
When you have four kgs or less of meat, go back to the mine and repeat.
When you are low on tinder or cloth, go to Hibernia. Be sure you have full health because you’ll probably be attacked by a wolf or two.
When you go exploring, watch the skies for crows. They circle over corpses and dead deer.
If you notice the bear is down on the water or something, you can go check out the cave. There should be a deer there and some firewood in the cave itself. Get in and get out. You don’t want to be around when the bear comes home.
Collect all plants you see and cook them during your fry-ups. Take Old Man’s Beard Lichen to the work bench and make bandages to use instead of carrying around antiseptic.
When your last sewing kit is about to die, it’s time to leave. Hibernate and eat whatever food you still have until you’re down to about 4 kgs of food. Then head off to Crumbling Highway.
Remember
There are three wolves most of the time. One stays near Hibernia, one is near the Lighthouse, and the third is usually near Hibernia but sometimes over near the Lighthouse. Deer that can be chased into wolves are over near the water’s edge by Katie’s Corner. The bear is most often at the cave, but likes to walk in a circle around Hibernia. If you see him, turn and run away. Never try to accost the bear.
If you’re bored, you can make snares and trap rabbits. However, they are worth at most 1.3 kg of meat, and getting them takes so much effort it’s basically full-time work. You will not hibernate if you rely on rabbits.
If you’re a dumbass like me and actually try to make some furs, you’ll last about a month on this plan. If you’re more conservative with your sewing kit, you could probably last longer.