Why can't I sleep?

[Reasons]

So I decided I was going to set out to find silver because I can't make anything decent without it.
This meant traveling father than coming back to the pod would be. So I crafted a few sleeping bags.
The minute I found silver I became tired, but the hand is greyed out. I wandered back to the safety(?) of the forest biome.
Still greyed out.
Tried creating a platform. Still greyed out. I've never died before and this seems like a really dumb death to.... not be able to use a sleeping bag when I'm tired.

[TheMartian]

SPOILERS AHEAD!!



He's a few tips:

First priority after crash landing is to get the most important things built. Don't worry about food & water just yet. You have enough to last till you get the basics done.

Immediately heal yourself with the bandages. Then scout the immediate terrain and mine iron, carbon and silicon.

Build the emergency 3d printer, bio generator, FAD, storage container, medium 3d printer and armoury.

Make a stasis chamber and components for a few solar beacons.

Upgrade to a jet pack Mk2 and multi tool Mk2. Make a bunch of batteries.

Scout for water, herbs and fruits. Kill animals and mine nests. Do not take on the stone throwing monster. Mine it's nest until it comes after you and then run!

If you find a place with a number of herb/fruit trees nearby, place a solar beacon and set it to navigation mode so you can return there easily.

Make dried meat in the FAD. This is the best starting food. Make as much purified water as possible and dried meat.

With at least 30 - 40 each of food and water and batteries, disassemble the stasis chamber and go on a longer trip for other minerals. Try and keep within 5K of the crash pod (unless you stayed longer at your base and made the top food and water available). If you need to rest, rebuild the stasis chamber (you did keep the components in your inventory didn't you?) and rest up. When awake, disassemble the stasis chamber and continue your journey.

I wouldn't bother building any vehicles or structures early in the game. It's a waste of time and resources. When you are properly kitted up with the best food, water and a load of batteries, go on a longer trip to find the harder minerals e.g. xaenite. Usually by the time you find this you have most of the other metals already. Set up a new temporary base and make Mk4 everything, load up with metals and herbs/fruit/seeds and return to the crash pod.

Sort yourself out, pack everything up and go find a nice place to build a lovely base that has nearby herb/fruit trees.

That's it. Survival is incredibly easy. Too easy really. The biggest challenge is finding some of the metals, so you might have to travel a fair way from home.

[Reasons]

Great newbie tutorial. Except it really does not apply to me...

I've never made meat. The first thing I did was plop myself down next to a trio of herb bushes and built my base around that. This enabled me to make top food and water outright.

If you've read my other thread, you'd know that I have 0 silver and a good amount of everything else. This means I can't upgrade my gear which means I can only travel 4k from my base.

I didn't really ask about animals, so I'm guessing this is just a cut and paste instead of being actually helpful.

I don't know if it's a bug or what. Most times I can't use the sleeping bag at all because the hand is greyed out.
When I can use it, if it's night, it eats the sleeping bag and gives me jack. No increase in energy.
If it's day, I will get rest and it turns to night. So most of my scouting is at night. I'm guessing these sleeping bags aren't worth making?

[fura]

What were your hunger and thirst levels when you couldn't use the sleeping bag? You can't sleep if any of those are below 30. That's a sort of safety mechanism to avoid dieing in your sleep.
If none of them were below 30, this might be a bug related to the safety mechanism.

[Maslostroj (Daniel)]

What fura said right above.

[Reasons]

I don't let myself get hungry and thirsty. I had enough water and food and kept on scarfing then down just to get miniscule energy back. I sure did keep getting "exhausted" and "tired" though.

[fura]

Spoke too soon... I had this today, barely made back to my base. Both my thirst and hunger levels were above 30, my stamina was ~15 when I tried to sleep in the sleeping bag. But as Reasons describe, the 'Use' icon was greyed out.
Although I had several bad condition as well. Radiation poisoning, thermo regulator malfunction and a third one, which I can't remember what was. And I know the sleeping bag does not protect from environmental hazards, so I'm wondering if the bad conditions were what prevented sleeping?

[Reasons]

I did have radiation poisoning one of the times, thermal another but I did travel back to the forest, a place that I would assume has no radiation and since the tooltip says sleeping will cure it.
I also was able to create a top tier suit and kept having the same problems at the same intervals. Does an upgraded suit really work differently than a non-upgraded one?

[catseyes818]

I suggest carrying the stuff to build mini-shelters every 4 k or so to solve the distance problem. You should be able to carry everything you need to build a base, stasis chamber, generator, FAD and compact container in 4-5 slots, and you can stash stuff as you move. Don't forget the beacon so you can find it again.

[Benjamin (ShadowFlightBA)]

The sleeping bags really need to be seperate from the enviroment, it's way too complicated this way. Just let us use it whenever we want, where ever we want, regardless of levels and enviroment and weather. If the development keeps on going like this, the game will become too complicated for anyone to play. While the concept is cool, we simply expect the sleeping bag to do what it is supposed to so, energize us again when we need it. It whould simply function like the sleeping chamber, simply and effective. Don't overthink the game, it takes the fun out of it.