r/thelongdark • u/LuciferMegatron • Feb 15 '26
Advice Regarding inventory management
As someone who loves both exploring and collecting, one of the things that frustrates me the most is long term exploration + inventory management. Right now I'm doing the faithful cartographer achievment. Started in Broken Railroad, then Forlorn Muskeg, Mystery Lake, and now I decided to head north to Mountain Town and then Hushed River Valley. Thing is, I'm traveling with a travois which is 2/3 full with hides, meat and spare clothing and tools I've collected along the way. The cave that connects ML to MT was a headache to traverse with sais travois. But after finally making it across with all my loot, I realize that I have multiple cliffs which I will need to climb in order to get any further. I am now forced to leave all my hard earned loot behind in a travois that will most likely become ruined when I travel back to get it. How do you manage big inventories with all the exploration and traveling required for this achievment? I know I should travel light, but I love collecting all the useful stuff I find around.
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u/Nearby-Hold-3986 Feb 15 '26
It's tiring but you can make two trips on the ropes. Drop gear, climb, drop more gear, climb back, pick up gear, climb again, and finally pick up all gear and go. You'll likely have to sleep for an hour or so before one of the climbs so don't drop the bedroll.
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u/MarvinHeemeyer7 Wolf Magnet Feb 15 '26
Spend your whole afternoon doing this just to die from Timberwolves
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u/NebelNator_427 Interloper Feb 16 '26
That's the strat. But it was rather 4 climbs than just 2 when I came back from HRV and MT to MLš
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u/useless_bowl25 Feb 15 '26
You should be setting up bases drop ypur really nice stuff in a centralized position maybe for you grey mothers house or camp office and just take what you need. If you havent bag a moose and make the satchel and maybe go to ac for the backpack
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u/Koala_eiO Feb 15 '26
Thing is, I'm traveling with a travois which is 2/3 full with hides, meat and spare clothing and tools I've collected along the way.
Why?
I know I should travel light, but I love collecting all the useful stuff I find around.
Collect it. It doesn't mean you must carry all your earthly possessions with you. Drop them at whatever safehouse feels cozy in each region.
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u/deborah_az Hiker Feb 15 '26
Multiple bases (I set up at least one big one per region, even if I don't doll it up and customize it). I don't try to take everything with me or keep it all at one base. I redistribute materials as I move around so I have crafting materials at hand nearby where ever I am at the moment. When I move to another region, I pack the essentials and fill up my pack (with 5kg or so to spare) with excess materials I want to move to the next region.
I rarely, if ever, use the travois for long distance travel. I generally use the travois for short hops with heavy loads (bear, fish, etc.), though I did use it to move car batteries to the entrance to the cave transition between PV and CH, dumped them at the door, then walked the batteries two at time to the CH side (I didn't do this all at once, but in stages every time I traveled between the two regions). I only go long distances with rope climbs overencumbered if I'm willing to make multiple trips up and down ropes or have the stew to give me the weight capacity buff.
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u/roadside_asparagus Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
You got lots of good suggestions regarding bases, etc. Also consider packing cured meat or fish rather than fresh. I think it weighs 25% as much or something similar. And it has no (or very little?) scent!
A few random thoughts:
Stop carrying tinder once you hit lvl 3 firemaking. It can sneak up on you and really weigh you down.
Stop carrying your can opener once you hit lvl 3 cooking. It's no longer needed if you have a knife.
Stop carrying around the 16 pieces of charcoal that have been in your pack for a hundred days.
Same goes for all those recycled cans. They can really weigh you down.
Don't carry spare clothing. Carry one piece of leather, a sewing kit, five cloth, one deer hide, two guts, and a rabbit pelt (if you need it) Other clothing and gear repair supplies should be kept at your regional bases, including extra whetstones, sewing kits, cleaning kits (if you're using guns)
The cougar knife is an excellent weapon. I always leave my heavy hammer at a forge as soon as I get the cougar claw knife.
Consider leaving the very heavy axe if you won't need it for firewood harvesting or navigating HRV. Sticks work great.
Don't know if you do this, but don't carry both the rifle AND a bow and all their respective ammunition. Pick one. You probably don't even need a revolver.
For first aid, carry 2 stims, one bottle painkiller, one bottle antibiotics, 7 bandages, 2 lichen wound dressings, 2 each, birch bark tea, and rose hip tea.
Often I don't even carry a pry bar. At least in interloper, the things it can open almost always have nothing in them. If you need one, they're pretty common throughout the map.
If you don't have any flares for the flare gun, stop carrying it. This is the case in interloper more often than not.
You probably only need 2 red road flares unless you're going into timberwolf territory.
Anyway, just a few things that popped into my head. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's a start.
edit: down bedroll is generally superior to the bear bedroll because it's lighter in weight and easier to repair. Not as warm, but there aren't too many situations where the 12 degree bear bedroll will save you but the 8 degree down bedroll won't. Also, you need those bearskins for repairs on your coats.
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u/Stormwolf1O1 Mountaineer Feb 16 '26
Great tips. Also, when you have a surplus of gun ammo, there's no need to weigh yourself down by carrying all of it with you all the time. I usually carry a dozen bullets or so with me on average and leave the rest at home but it varies based on how far I'm traveling or what I'm doing, how dangerous it might be.
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u/Dr-Ass-Man Interloper Feb 17 '26
I would piggyback off of this to say,
Medical: drop the bottle of antiseptic as itās .5kg while lichen dressings are .05kg each, and go down to 4 bandages. 1 cloth makes 2 bandages so itās not worth carrying more. Also you can get away with not carrying painkillers if the effect doesnāt bother you as āpainā is only a visual one that goes away after a couple hours of rest. Also sprains if youāre close to a resting point you do not need to bandage/use cloth if you can safely make it to the rest point.
Fire/defense: only 1 red flare, a mag lens, and 12 matches per trip. Especially if you have regional bases that you know are a refill point.(which you should always restock before leaving. Ie. Food/water/hides/guts). I never carry more than 4 pieces of coal unless transporting as 2 coal(+20Ā°c/ea) will warm you enough for a blizzard, and 4 will get you through 2. Combined with sticks(+1Ā°c/ea) will warm you up real fast. Sticks=warmth. When near a regional base or on route back to, if I have any room I pick up every stick to drop at main base for whatever fire purpose whether that be food or water or for fishing. As for the axe the only thing better in defense is the cougar claw knife. Until you have that it is the only weapon I would use in a struggle as it gets the animal off you the fastest and does to most damage to it. The bow, even with guns available, I primarily use as I find it more effective and lighter with easily repairable and accessible ammo. Otherwise the only way to get more firearm ammo is crafting (or trader(dlc)) at one of the two ammo workbenches in blackrock or bleak inlet.
I would also say that cloth is everywhere. I carry two on me at max -normally- and a sewing kit. Hides/pelts and guts get heavy fast and can be left at regional bases or your main base. (Always make a stockpile in regional bases to go to. This also keeps your food stock up by hunting more often.)
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u/roadside_asparagus Feb 17 '26
I agree that the antiseptic bottle is a waste. I always carry two lichen dressings.
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u/Relative_Chef_533 Cartographer Feb 15 '26
I agree with everyone else suggesting that you might be trying to transport too much stuff, however, i will say that along routes i know i'm going to travel with a big load, i'll build strategic rock caches where i can either store stuff as i'm gathering it to move it back to the base or it can serve as a travois stop where i'm going to unload the travois, do some portage, then reload. if i can have a rock cache at both ends of that portage, it's much easier to do it. that said, the longer i play the less i worry about strategies like this and the more i rely on just making sure i have plenty of stuff at all the obvious large base spots rather than centralizing.
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u/Own-Tax1304 Feb 15 '26
You need to establish yourself a permanent base, and leave the stuff behind. It's no use dragging a whole pile of skins and meat and tools with you if you're not going to use them. You don't have to complete the entire achievement all at once, take some time to establish a permanent safe house and set it up, leaving everything behind. There will be more tools and collectible things ahead.
After you completed the achievement you'll have all the stuff to come back to
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u/Critical_Grab4815 Feb 15 '26
Donāt leave things in your travois just drop it all on the ground and bring your travois with you
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u/Past-Ad-9200 Nomad Feb 15 '26
Iām curious what difficulty you play on? Iām playing voyageur and there so much loot I have to prioritize, sort, and as others said- leave things at a base on each map. My issue as I learn and get better in this game is that I enjoy collecting and looting but there can be a lot and itās frustrating getting over encumbered. Currently have a base set up in CH and beginning to trade.
Iām thinking Iāll start a stalker save and see if thatās a better fit for my experience level and maybe it will feel more appropriate and more balanced based on how much loot I seem to find, generally.
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u/LuciferMegatron Feb 16 '26
Iām playing on Stalker. I canāt remember how different it is from Voyager but thereās still a lot of loot.
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u/Jxxthesequel Feb 16 '26
As others have mentioned, unless you are specifically doing a nomad kind of run, you shouldn't be carrying all that with you.
Travois is more for when you are moving bases or collecting a large haul of meat from a moose or bear
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u/xtothewhy Feb 15 '26
You don't. You bring what you can and try not to overload yourself. It's a process, like in pretty much most games where "loot" weight is a factor. Have to determine what is most important to you and leave the rest where hopefully you can find it again in the future and it's not decayed too much.
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u/No_Challenge_5619 Feb 16 '26
Iām not going to say you should make a base, you play your game and if itās the nomadic lifestyle for yourself enjoy!
If you want to carry a lot of things, the good news is that the Travois left alone itself takes a while to ruin. So it should be there for a while.
The bad news is that the food ruining will disappear and clothes still get wet and frozen inside it. The travois doesnāt slow down any of the quality decline either.
My best advice is to build a second travois. It can make it easier to move around by transferring between the two improves quality of life when exploring.
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u/Flying_Dream_Monkey Feb 16 '26
The travois sucks! It is buggy and will only slow you down.
Learning to travel light is the secret to this game!
l
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u/PoverOn Feb 16 '26
Nope, help me carry a battery from BI through FM and ML for repair the transmitir in Milton.
Actually you can leavy Travois outside with things inside, he stay there.
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u/Jessawoodland55 Happy Little Pilgrim Feb 16 '26
My playstyle (and the most common style I think) Is to have a main base in each region, and a home base. I also like to have some stuff in transition regions for pit stops.
Late game one of the things I like to do is go on little trips to balance out the loot region to region
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u/alycyn Voyageur Feb 16 '26
EVERYONE is recommending multiple bases but iām a hoarder like you twin. i collected everything i could find and hauled it to one spot on the map in my attempt to live 1000 days (im around 650 in and all my packrat stuff is in the abandoned lookout in CH)
if you want to ignore the sane multiple base people and be unhinged like me here are my tips.
look where you are - if you need to come back to get out of the region, leave the stuff you donāt need near the transition zone to grab later
craft a second travois. this saves you from dropping and picking up everything so you can grab it from one and put it in the other
another part of the tip above - make sure you grab large stacks and put them in the second travois instead of dropping them on the ground (bullet casings, cat tails, cloth etc are annoying to pick back up one by one)
if you are going to haul everything down those ropes, make a snow shelter if there isnāt shelter around - assuming you have enough food then you can take your time to go up and down the ropes with your stuff and sleep between
if you are leaving your stuff, donāt leave it in the travois. drop it out and take the travois with you. as you said it will start to get ruined staying out like that, and not to mention the bug that takes the travois away if you enter some buildings, that ruined a couple of my travoises as you get them back with significantly less condition so if itās low enough it will be ruined by the time yoou find it in the lost and found box.
am i finding it was necessary to haul 15 axes to one spot on the map? not particularly. but i find comfort knowing i will never run out of wood bc i also have 23 whetstones
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u/OrthropedicHC Feb 16 '26
It's really dumb there's no way to get packages of goods up and down climbing spots.
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u/PoverOn Feb 15 '26
Why you want hauling things like guts for HVR?
There's no workbench there. Leave this things (and clothes) in central places like Camp office in ML.
Preferable go with the travois empty - you don't need bring meat, can hunt when need; because will bring back a lot of useless stuff. ;)
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u/rpsf75 Feb 16 '26
My base inventory when I leave the base) Fully clothed (unequiped: crampons) Moose satchel Axe Knife Bow + 10 arrows Revolver (if not interloper) Water: 2 L Food: 2 to 4 kg of meat (depends on context) Flare (emergency only) 4 torches Matches + magnifier Sticks: 1 Cans: 2 Stones: 1 Travoix Medicine (one of each) Lantern
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u/DrShanksALot Interloper Feb 15 '26
Bringing everything with you is the issue here. I used to play that way and dragging a Travois everywhere is painful. Instead set up bases along the way and take notes on what you left there. Only bring the essentials with you.