Wow, that sounds not only challenging but hella fun! At least for me it would have. The challenge is the fun for some. May RNG smile on you from this point forward to increase your enjoyment
You're right Exxodous, if I hadn't been grinding my teeth by the time I made to the gas station, and had benefitted from a bit more rng love, aka had some food, it would have been fun.
And thank you for the kind wishes, may they be returned to you ten fold this holiday season
Your not looking hard enough, I find a cooking pot on day 1 almost always if not, I have one early day 2 usually. There are MANY poi's that have cooking pots just sitting in the kitchen in the open. Not to mention in the burnt forest biomes there are those corners of houses that often have both a stove and a sink, both of which can have cooking pots in their loot. That bar Poi, the small one always has 1-2 cooking pots in the kitchen just sitting there for you to take as well, forgot what the pub is called, but its a older poi.
As for meat, what do you expect? when you hunt you need to travel, not expect dinner to come to your door. Unsure what the respawn time is in a17 but in a16.4 it was 7 game days between animals respawning in a chunk, you want the meat? you need to travel preferably to places on the map you have not explored yet. I usually have 50+ bacon and eggs by day 6 or so, and tons of spare meat just sitting there in storage. The problem here isin't the game, its the player, if your huddled in one spot well no wonder your having issues on the first week.
If you can find a sledgehammer your golden though for breaking into poi/safes, it has the highest block damage in the game, you cannot harvest with it though so don't try you'll get nothing, its stricktly a breaking stuff and bashing heads Tool.
If I had any major complaint about a17 it would be how useless the perception and agility perk lines are in general, really isin't any must haves in either. Compared to str/int/fort. Lots of QoL stuff, but early game you can't really afford the skill points to get them. Getting int and str and fort up are too important.
Other than the small house next to where I spawned in the only other poi I saw on the way to the snow biome trader is the mid-sized dungeon poi just west of traders. I was on Nav map which may not have as many sites as rwg; only my impression from rwg pics folks have posted during experimental.
Roland let me know that due to my color choices about half of my post you replied to wasn't visible on mobile devices. I know about the large number of burnt remains of houses in the burnt forest biome, and the high likelyhood of finding pots & wrenches.I did travel there to secure a cooking pot.
Maybe Snow Berries were a bit to easy in 16.4, Yukka was of course. In A17 however my experiance has been that it's simply not possible to survive by foraging. Berries give a single point of Stam/Food. Each time I've eaten 5 I've gotten food poisoning. Previously in 16.4, if you ate 2 or 3, then waited a short while you could eat another 2 or 3. You could, slowly & carefully, top off food.
Eating raw eggs in A17 has also been fairly dicey. I've tried eating one, waiting a couple rw minutes then another. My experiance has been that you may be ok eating egg # 2, but egg # 3 a couple mins later has given debuff every time I've tried it, for a net loss.
And no, I don't expect dinner to come to my door. No issues that you need to roam to find animals; if there were at least partial alternatives. I've had a couple starts where I had over a 100 meat in the first day. Might have been TFPs adjusting spawn rates, might have been rng luck. In the start I described I had about 2.3 km traveled by the time I reached gas station the first night. I had seen one rabbit. A previous start in the burnt forest I'd gotten a rabbit and 2 boars in the spawn area.
I "huddled in one spot" during the night. If TFPs add in a 'spotlighting deer' mechanic then I'll hunt at night. As it is I don't see the point in even attempting to hunt at night. Maybe if I really boosted gamma I could see game at night? Haven't tried, and frankly that would feel like cheating to me.
I also prefer, my choice, to try and play more along the lines of 'what would I do if this were real?'. So minimize risk. Try to have a reserve. Meaning I'll try to avoid z encounters if less than ~75 Health, especially if no healing items.
It's their game. Their choices. They may have intentionally set things up so early game is heavily reliant on hunting. Intentionally changed it so 'wild' foraging is no longer an option. Not speaking to the very large corn fields in Nav; though I don't think that's viable early game either? Not certain but raw corn I think is only worth 1 or 2? and 5 or 10% debuf chance? Something like that. Think it would work once you have a pot or a grill.
As things are at the moment, spawning in the burnt forest have been, by far, my easiest starts. Basically certain to have a pot & wrench by mid day. Nests are easy to spot, as are z's & boar/deer/wolves.
Part of my frustration is that there are ways to reduce rng dependance that are known yet not in place. And I have no idea if it's due to conscious decisions or due to rng favoritism, heh. Maybe MadMole's apparently preferred nomadic playstyle is what they've balanced for, no idea.
Just my opinion but while 16.4 yukka was OP'd, I thought snow berries were about spot on. Viable, but you really didn't want to be dependent on them.
Finally, factor in if you're more builder inclined. Nothing previous to A17, not even Ravenhearst or WoW, forced such a dramatic change in focus. Now the early games number one priority is food. And the bulk of that must be hunting & eggs & Master Chef 1.
So as I said, I'll tweak stamina cost, add in a non-pot-dependent egg recipe, bump to warrior and go back to having some fun.
Happy Holidays & good tidings to everyone, one and all
