Walkthrough tactics

EXPLORING: Crickets and edible berries are your best source of food. If your energy and stamina is under 30%, you will not be able to make fire, will lead you to have hypothermia faster and you will die. Once your energy level is at zero, you can eat ONE unknown berries to get enough energy to light a fire. You will be sick with food poisoning first, but if your hydration level is high and your stamina is at 30% or higher, you will finally be able to make fire.

UPDATE: The latest version lets you make a fire with zero calories, but you have to be hydrated over 60. It may take a few tries but you should be able to make a fire. I've had less and kept trying and still made a fire, but if you have a good shelter built it's not necessary.

Pike Lake
(For New Players)

As of update 319, you should always start with this scenario. It is a great tutorial for new players, as you have very low chance to die in the first days.

First things first, you always have to worry about your "Shelter". Luckily, you have your car that will always give you 100% shelter. Remember to keep your shelter over 100% before going to sleep, or else you'll lose some calories. Don't worry if it is not at 150% shelter, rather, try to leave around 100%, since during the night, you can increase by 10% before going to sleep. After arriving in a new location, always make sure you have a shelter before it gets to nighttime. If your shelter is below 100%, you will be more likely to lose more body heat during the night, especially if it's raining, which is our case.

On that note, you will need to "Get Wood". You will most probably not carry any wood when traveling, so at the start of every location, gather some wood to start a fire for the night. The night gets cold and even colder when it's raining; and since you can die of hypothermia, a good shelter and a well-made fire will bring you close to 100 body heat. This scenario always starts with rain, so be sure to collect some wood after making your shelter.

After getting wood, start a "Fire". If you don't have enough time to build a fire, it's fine as long as your shelter is more than 100%, you will only lose around 20 body heat, more if it's raining. You can make some tinder with the newspaper you have in your backpack in the "Gear" section. Do not shred your map unless absolutely necessary, since you will be able to get a better chance at finding good locations when you travel. When starting a fire, try to use your matches, lighter and outdoor knife as few times as possible, they are your last resort if you do not have anything to start a fire with, since they are rare to find and/or can break. While getting wood, you might find Hardwood, DO NOT use it as fuel, it will be useful for crafting some items, more on that later. Wood gives you 1.5 hours of fire, Hardwood gives you 3 hours and Tinder gives you 15 minutes; always use Wood as fuel.

It is now nighttime, you have yourself a fire and a shelter, but you are thirsty. You need to "Get Water". Do not worry, you can drink water by building a Raincatcher in the "Shelter" area. Again, you have an empty bottle, so drink up! As long as it is raining, try to keep your Hydration to 100. You won't get water unless you find a puddle, you're near a water point or have raincatcher with water in it. Always try to build a raincatcher before going to sleep or when it is raining (if you haven't already built it). DO NOT braid your trashbag, the trashbag is necessary to build the raincatcher. The trashbag will also automatically go to your inventory when you travel.

Before sleeping, check your "Inventory", you will realise that you phone is broken, don't throw it though, perhaps you can repair once at home? Anyway, you have 6 sections in your inventory: "All", "Water", "Food", "Gear", "Wild" and "Fire". "All" as the name implies is everything in your possession, not very useful for finding something. "Water" is everything that related to quenching your Hydration, this includes: bottles (broken, empty, full of safe/unsafe water), drinks and berries (berries can bring your Hydration +5, useful for desperate situation). "Food" is everything that related to fulfilling your lack of calories, including: canned food, dried food, cooked food, drinks (such as vitamin filled water and whatnot) and wild food (mushroom, roots, berries and even maggots). "Gear" is everything that can be used for crafting or can be used for other situations. Things like your clothes can be ripped apart to get pieces of clothes, but they will weigh more than if you just wore them. "Wild" is usually the stuff you found while exploring/hunting, much like everything in you inventory, they can be "crafted" on the spot for other stuff, such as tinder, rope or bait. Finally, "Fire" is everything you need to start a fire, including the fuel. Always remember that you won't be able to travel if your inventory has too much weight, craft some items into other types to reduce the weight capacity and travel with you inventory at max capacity to be prepared to any situation.

Speaking of crafting, try to "Craft" during the night since it takes quite a lot of time for some items. Preferably, start with a Fire Plow or a Bow Drill so that the next time you start a fire, you don't use any matches. Then, when you can and have 5 or more rope, craft a Rope Net Bag, storage is very important. If you have Hardwood, try to craft the Wooden Spear first, it will be useless for traveling and hunting. After crafting a Bow Drill and a spear, you can use the Hardwood as fuel. Remember that every item can break while crafting, so be prepared to lose the materials used for crafting.

In this scenario, "Hunting" is pretty much useless, as you can survive by eating wild berries and crickets. In other cases, always make a trap when you arrive in a location, preferably a Snare, since it catches Hares which gives you 3 Raw Meat, Bait and Hare Skin, which can be crafted into a Slingshot or a Pouch.

Tired after this weird experience, you go to sleep. Speaking of sleeping, always wake up with 12 hours of daylight, the 1 hour power naps will useful for that.

Next up, "Explore". Exploring is very important, since it can give materials that can be crafted and then later on be useful for hunting/trapping. More on that later. Also, DO NOT confuse "Explore" with "Travel", as you can't go back to your previous location. In this scenario, at the very beginning, only explore if you have time after making your shelter and have enough wood to start a fire. Once you have explored everything in the location you are staying, prepare yourself to leave.

"Traveling". Once you with you are ready to leave, don't forget to dismantle any traps you have laid. Be sure you aren't above the maximum capacity and throw away any useless items such as wood and rotten meat. It is recommended you travel with high calories and before there is 8 hours left before nighttime. When selecting a new location to travel, read the description and select the one you feel more comfortable with.

Rinse and repeat until you have arrived near civilisation.

If you want to get the alternate win, travel to the Lake and a helicopter will pass by.

Swamp
(Very Difficult)

It is strangely not the hardest of the 3 scenarios, because of the fact that water, heat and food are abundent. The only issue is that you have to move everytime you deplete the food or water of the area, and that you have to be careful each time when you make a move, since the amount of time you have to survive is very long (there is no meter on the distance, which means that getting to salvation by traveling is out of question), and as such keeping condition and energy high, and enough food supplies for locations where food is not so easy to find is a priority.

Fishing will be the primary way of finding food since the swamp has a huge amount of bodies of water (approximately 1/2 environments I have found had some water source from where you could fish and find water). Beware of the fact that sometimes you might not find enough fish (minimum of 2 small fish per day for compensating the lost energy), so be prepared to hunt for animals, and laying traps.

Also, try to stay as much as possible in one location, since traveling wastes energy and it will be vital when you will have depleted the supplies. When you find wrecked boats and other such places, try to loot them, since they have very useful gear.

Water won't be an issue since most environments have it, just that you have to boil it, so try to make a campfire at least every 2 nights.

In rest, this map is pretty much like an infinite survival map (the only way to win is to get rescued by a helicopter), so be very careful at all times and watch all the indicators.

Canoe River
You have to walk at least 60 miles (quite a bit), but it's doable... Try to get high energy at first, by either hunting or fishing at the small creeks. After that, try to go as far as possible to cover as much ground, because towards the end it will be harder and harder to find food. Try to find as much bait as possible, since fishing will be an important source of food. Also try to lay traps in places in which you will stay for a while.

If you are lucky enough, you will be able to find many small creeks from where you can fish almost enough so you can cover the whole distance. If you ever get close to max calories (over 2700/3000), smoke or dry the meat, since it might come in handy later.

In case you don't, try to find water and hunt animals (go towards forests, since there you will have the highest chance of finding animals). As long as you find 3 or 4 kills, it should be more than enough, together with the fish you get from small creeks to survive the 60 mile journey.

In all cases, it is the easier scenario of the three, since small creeks are abundant (water sources plenty), locations with good shelter are plentiful, and it is overall balanced in resources you can find.

Mountain
It is analogue to the river one, but in this case it is imperative that you get a big fish at the fjords (they replenish a total of 1200 calories, 900 if their meat is dried), and it was enough to use the fjords for meat through my playthrough, and in rest I was able to get to safety after around 150-160 miles. I have also found snares to be useful in both the river and mountain challenges. They give you a total of 1200 calories (900 when smoked) compared to other traps which only provide a fraction of that.

Traps/Hunting
The first thing the player must do in order to set traps is to find wood. Creating bait can be done after the player has gutted an animal which can be used to create even more traps. Rope may be used as well. One perk to traps is that dead animal never spoil like fish does, and will never do so until they are cut open or skinned.

Hunting, fishing, and spearfishing should be a last resort for they are not as effective as multiple traps. Spearfishing is the best out the 3. This is because spearfishing only needs a Wooden Spear while Fishing needs bait and a Fishing Rod. Although you can fish at nigth, you can lose your bait, which is necessary for laying traps. Succesful hunting is pretty rare, but try it if you have nothing to lose, although you will most probably fail and consume calories for nothing. If there is an area where you can't lay any traps, try spearfishing more than fishing as much as needed and to balance out the 3 methods. Tip: if your fish is about to spoil, gut it. This will give you an extra six hours before the meat spoils, giving you plenty of time to make a fire to cook it.

Food
When the player has trapped an animal, they must gut, skin or cut open the animal and cook or smoke it, otherwise you will have raw meat which will do more damage than good. Skinning a hare will give you a hare skin which you can make into a pouch along with some rope. When the raw meat is cooked, consuming it will give more energy than usual but will spoil if not eaten. Smoking the raw meat will give less energy but it will never spoil.

While foraging the player can find edible berries and unknown mushrooms. Both may be eaten but the unknown mushrooms have a harmful effect whilst the edible berries do not.

UPDATE: Unknown berries have a 50/50 chance of being edible. I advise not taking the risk unless it's absolutely needed.

Shelter
Tinder and wood need to be within the player's inventory before they may start a fire. Obtaining tinder can be done most easily by shaving wood. Another way is by crumbling tinder fungus, which can be found while exploring. After obtaining both wood and tinder, the player will need to create a fire plow or a bow drill (which requires rope). Once one of those are created the player must start the fire. In doing so, there may be failed attempts (as much as three or four).

After the fire is created, shelter is going to be needed. The building time for each shelter piece varies (as much as four hours and as low as one). The first thing the player should create is the firewall. The firewall will increase the heat bonus from the campfire. After that is created, there is also the argument over the lean to/wind block and the debris hut. The best choice would be the debris hut. It does the same thing as the lean-to/wind block except it cannot collapse, although both protect against rain and strong wind. Once one of those are created, making a rain collector is a must. This allows the player to obtain water from the collector after it rains for a total of three times (as of Alpha Update 63). Tip: once all of your bottles are empty, refill them. It saves rainwater.

Update 196 Walkthrough/Tactics (Now Update 319)
Much of what has been discussed above is correct, although with update 196 some items such as the firewall are no longer in the game.

The most important commodity you can have is water. Without water, despite having heat, food and energy you will die. Therefore you should always ensure that you are at a location where you have access to water, or where your chances of rain are increased. So as discussed above, Lakes, Creeks, Fjords and Riverbanks etc will provide you with an unlimited supply of unsafe water, which you will have to purify by boiling. These locations are good ones to set up camp at and stay for extended periods in order to recover and build up energy.

As well as these there are others that have a higher chance of rain, and if your trash bag is still intact these will provide plenty of water too. Locations like Mossy Woods, or Thick Forest suggest a well watered region. You may be more likely to explore and find a water puddle at these locations too. Places like Rocky Cliffs, or Sparse Forest suggest a lack of water and your chances of finding it by exploration and/or raining are lower. Where possible, avoid staying at these locations for long periods as your water supply may dwindle.

With water taken care of, the next killer is heat. At night without shelter and/or fire you will likely get too cold and die of hypothermia. I will say that you can get quite far in this game WITHOUT making a fire every night. In the daylight hours, as long as you have shelter and it isn't raining, your body temperature will steadily rise up to 100. This takes a few literal minutes, and maybe approximately up to 1 game hour. Your body temperature will not rise during resting, so you will need to wait. Gathering wood and some hunting also increase your body heat, but use energy.

You can often recover your energy up to around 2500 by waiting until your body temperature rises to 100, and then resting all day and through the night. By the morning your temperature will have dropped to around 30 and you can then sit in the sun to heat up again. Even without any food, energy can still be recuperated this way, but again the water supply is critical or you won't be able to keep it up for long. Having traps set at the same time is even better.

Your chances of lighting a fire successfully are increased when it is not raining, your energy is not in the red, and perhaps if you are using tinder derived from birch bark. (Not confirmed). The bow drill is more successful than the fire plow, which can be very hit and miss and has caused me many deaths. If you start with the magnesium fire starter this is an even better option, although this can often get 'lost' or broken on your travels. Matches have the best chance but are limited in number. Hopefully a magnifying glass will be a nice addition to the game for lighting a fire during sunlight hours.

Once the fire is started you need to stoke it once in order to heat up. If you don't have wood, you can add tinder to heat up. If you don't have wood or tinder, consider breaking apart something in your inventory such as your walking stick or fishing rod in order to get it. To save energy when it comes to lighting a fire for boiling water, wait until your hydration is getting to around 30 or 40. That way you can use one fire to purify multiple bottles of water to get you back to 100. Lighting many fires to purify your water will also cost you energy to fetch the wood.

In terms of valuable items, it's important to keep a bandage, or something that will patch a wound available. If you are down to your last piece of cloth and you need to decide whether to use it for rope to make a bow drill to make a fire, or keep it for bandages, it's not a good position to be in. I chose fire and then pretty much bled to death later after injuring myself exploring! Great.

A walking stick allows you to travel further on each travel phase. If your leg is not injured and you have high energy you can do up to 9 miles each time. With an injured leg this will only be as much as 4. Without the walking stick these numbers are lower.

If you do not have a knife, you can often make one early from a can that may be in your inventory (Fishing kit, can of corn/peas). However this knife takes up 4 spaces in your carry load. If possible, the bone knife is smaller but it is not always easy to find bone to craft it.

I'd like to add on to what has been mentioned on top - at the beginning of Canoe River scenario, I'd set up a snare trap to catch a hare or two and gain an energy boost at the beginning. If you need Bait, get it from crickets, unknown berries/mushrooms and maggots, as these provide less energy than other foods that can be turned into Bait. Therefore you save your energy bar, peanuts if you have them and your smoked meat jerky on Camper difficulty.

If you are in the Mountains scenario, set up camp if you get to a "Wrecked Plane" location as you can explore this location for cool stuff. Get your main energy from traps as your leg injury will hinder your hunting ability. Stop at fjords too if you desperately need water. If you are "practicing" Canoe River (Survivor) or Mountains (Camper) like I am, then choose the starting gear Outdoor Backpack and Paracord Bracelet. You'll need space in your inventory and if you don't need a Rope Net Bag you'll need a Bow Drill and other things that can come in handy. All thanks to that useful item.