How Dying and Recovering Works
Your condition ("health") is what determines life or death. It's indicated by a percentage in the bottom left of the HUD. When this number reaches zero, you die. When you die, your game is over and you need to completely start over again. You cannot load your saved game once you're dead. You only get one chance.
How your condition decreases
One or more of your "needs" is depleted
When one of your needs meters becomes completely empty, your condition will start to decrease. Each depleted need lowers your condition at a different rate.
- Warmth: 1% per 16 seconds (about 1.5 game minutes)
- Fatigue: 1% per 4:48 (about 30 game minutes)
- Thirst: 1% per 4:48 (about 30 game minues)
- Hunger: 1% per 2:25 (about 15 game minues)
You can see that a depleted warmth meter has the most affect on your condition. The effect increases as more needs get depleted.
You're attacked by a predator
When attacked, a chunk of your condition will be subtracted. Different predators will do different amounts of damage, and how long it takes you to fight them off also has an effect on the amount of damage you take.
Afflictions
Certain afflictions, like bleeding from a wound, will drain your condition until you get healed.
Fall damage
Falling from too high will also subtract a percentage of your condition.
Recovering your condition
Your condition improves automatically while all your needs are above zero and you have no serious afflictions. But it does so very slowly at about 1% per 6 minutes (1 game hour). There are a couple ways to speed this up.
Sleep
Your condition improves by several percentage points per hour while sleeping. The longer you sleep at once, the greater the benefit (meaning your condition will improve more in the sixth hour of sleep than the first, for instance). However, you must have all your other issues resolved first. None of your needs (except fatigue) can be depleted and your critical wounds must be healed. Or else your condition won't improve with sleep and could even cause death if you sleep for too long while your condition is dropping.
Use a stim
An emergency stim gives a modest percentage boost to your condition, as well as some other temporary benefits. But it also comes with a cost.