u/Gozertank

For those of you who are allergic to reading patch notes and/or the wiki:
The driver sells the very difficult to find Oil Filter and also beers and water, making it do much easier to finish the Generalist tasks.

He officially appears on day 15, BUT only on Wednesday so the first day you can meet him is day 17. He spawns as soon as you enter the map, but his (random!) route isn’t guaranteed to make him stop. If his route doesn’t get him very close to any of the 4 bus stops on the map, he just keeps driving and leaves the map again. You don’t have to be at/near a bus stop for him to stop and once he stops he stays there.

i can’t confirm if he stays on the map if you enter the shelter because I don’t have the garage key yet.

So your best bet is to enter the map, run to a bus stop and use a scope to find the bus and check if he stops. Finding him by sound is doable. From the bus stop near the gas station (village map entry point) you can pretty much see 3 stops with a good scope.

From that spot you can also quickly run back to exit the map to reset. Note that there are often bandits hanging around the gas station. And they can snipe you from the fish market, so take care.

I ran a little experiment. Filled up my inventory with just food and melatonin and entered village at 23:55 on Saturday. As long as you don’t exit the map or enter a shelter, they cannot despawn. Even moving to the other side of the map and breaking line of sight does nothing.
According to my Tactical Watch it is now Friday 21:25 and they’re still there. Spent a week mostly sleeping and looting a bit to see how far I could stretch it.
Eventually you’ll run out of food and things to trade for food as the loot doesn’t respawn, so you can’t keep them hostage indefinitely.
But I’ve kept the Gnomads hostage for nearly a week now 😈
Handy if you just want a couple of days of quiet, undisturbed fishing.

Didn’t notice the 2nd Special crate until after I had lit the fire to warm up. This was 10 minutes into a new Ironman run :)

Took about 25 minutes. Followed the old basic guide from the mobilread forums for the Aura HD. They are internally similar enough to make the guide relevant for the 2E too.

Spent the first 10 minutes carefully prying the case open, scared to break anything. Kept the backlight on throughout so I could see where they were. Just 4 screws and some gentle pushing to get the entire pcb/screen assembly loose from the front bezel.

I decide to use a “LEE 204 FULL C.T. ORANGE” filter from a LEE filters sample book. This filter is basically designed to turn cold 5500k daylight into warm 3200k tungsten light. The sample filters are too small, but if you cut a 0.6mm strip diagonally from the center, the strip is -just- long enough. Use a fresh scalpel blade, you want the cut to be as smooth as possible.

Prying the LED strip loose was a bit nerve-wracking so I spent a good 5 minutes on that. Once loose, I found that the side of the light diffuser was tacky from the adhesive of the LED strip. So I carefully positioned the strip, pressed it on and then replaced the LED strip and pressed it down gently. No need for glue or double sided tape.

Light is nice and warm without being too orange, illumination is still very even.

Was much easier than I expected and took less time than I had anticipated. Very happy with the result. Give it a try.

NB: the photo shows the backlight at 100% to make the effect visible for the post. At my normal backlight levels (1-5%), the background is black but the type is warm amber. Reverse screen is through the “Developer mode” hack.

Which is curious because Crivit actually has their own (small) range of Kettlebells that look completely different.
Perhaps some graphic designer just used a stock photo and no one noticed this.

Well my previous post was a bit premature because I thought my luck would be over. Tried to edit it to add this but didn’t work. In short:

New Ironman run.

Day 1: very first loot: Cellar Key.

Day 2: Oil filter, waterlock, 4 waters. Getting the sugar and yeast took the longest 😂

Less than 24h in game time to unlock Attic. Anyone here done it faster?

Day 1: Spawn in Outpost horse stable with 63 health and 51 body temp. Think I’m gonna go balls deep and run to apartments. No chance, bandit outside barn. Run across field to tent to get warm, get shot on the way but just make it.

Decide to run straight through school to village and to the cabin. Loot a few garbage bags along the way, all empty. Decide to loot tents by the lake because I desperately need a drink and warm gear.

Instead I get a cellar key as my very first loot of the game. It has a 90% RK and a useless M4 both have no mag/ammo BUT on the ground is a near complete winter gear kit, fishing rod and a backpack and a juice. Run to cabin and survive barely.

Day 2: decide to play it safe as I still have no functional weapon, so I fish a bit to have something to trade hopefully for a mag and ammo. I also go loot the tents and the Generalist and find, in one run, 2 waters, the waterlock and… the oil filter 😂😂😂

Absolute insanity. Attic key by day 3? Stay tuned 😁

Remove the Canteen table. Get an Office table and place it as far back as possible. A Nomad bed can be placed on top. You can then place 3x military crate under the office table. Bit fiddly but it fits. No haxx, no mods, no cheeze. Enjoy.😉

There’s me just minding my own business, trading with the Doc for some lockers and bandages. Hear sirens outside…

Tell myself to ignore it because I have no armor and only one clip (KAR-21 .308). Still busy trading with doc. Hear the van stop and doors opening. He magdumps the window. No idea how he even saw me. Mild Panic. But I’m safe, the doctor’s door is closed, right? Right..?

Consider running to classroom but he’s already on the stairs and I’ll probably get clipped in the back if I try. Run to the back of the classroom and kneel and side peek from behind the gurney. Those green privacy screens are apparently bulletproof. Must be Kevlar…

I pump headshots into him and he goes down with me on 4 health. His 2 bodyguards never showed up… I assume they’re roaming downstairs somewhere. Didn’t bother to check, waited for a quiet moment and bolted to the classroom 😂

You know that wooden crate in the shed just outside your OG village shelter? The one you never loot because it never has anything in it? Well today I looted it and found the Gymnasium Key. First time in over 120 hours into my current run. I hit F12 to commemorate this historic occasion and as I did, I heard sirens in the distance. My first fhought was: EHRMAGHERD! Gym key AND bunker key in the same session! EPIC! But then my sensible side prevailed. Be sensible, be safe, kill the Punisher another day. So I sprinted straight back into my shelter to put the key in a safe spot. Only to realize that in the confusion of seeing the key and hearing the sirens, I had never actually picked it up…

See title. If you snuggle up and crouch, you can soak up the buff and if a bandit does walk by in the right direction and spot you you can usually take him out first. There may be other spots where you can enjoy an outside fire indoors :)