What the Puzzle Locks Away
The Church Hill fishing shack crate is one of Silver Pines' quieter secrets: the clue is right there on the wall, but the cipher takes a beat to click. The silver pines not dead yet code is 4514, and once the logic snaps into place, you will never need to look it up again.
The crate contains the S-1 Carbine — a semi-automatic rifle that fills the gap between the handgun and the shotgun. It is optional, but players working through Church Hill and the Sewers without a reliable mid-range option will find it makes a real difference. Picking it up early is worth the detour.
How to Reach the Church Hill Fishing Shack
Church Hill opens after you work through Riverside and reach the tunnel connecting the two districts. The fishing shack sits at the dock on the south side of the area, below the chapel grounds — not at the chapel itself, which is the obvious landmark that draws most players uphill first.
Steps to reach the crate without unnecessary backtracking:
- Enter Church Hill and move toward the waterfront rather than heading straight up to the chapel.
- Pass the boathouse on your left. The fishing shack is the smaller structure at the far end of the dock.
- The shack door is unlocked — no key or tool required to enter.
- The combination crate is against the back wall. The only thing standing between you and the S-1 Carbine is the four-digit code.
While you are at the dock, the boathouse is worth checking for a Hip Bag and there is a Pale Lichen herb under the dock planks. Pale Lichen combined with an empty bottle makes an energizing tonic, which is useful before the longer Church Hill encounters. After looting, work your way back up toward the chapel grounds to tackle the Church Cube Gate puzzle — the other significant optional challenge in this area.
How the NOT DEAD NOT YET Cipher Works
The back wall of the shack is spray-painted with the phrase "NOT DEAD NOT YET" in large letters. That phrase is the entire clue.
Pull the word DEAD out of the message and convert each letter to its position in the standard alphabet.
| Letter | Alphabet position | Code digit |
|---|---|---|
| D | 4th | 4 |
| E | 5th | 5 |
| A | 1st | 1 |
| D | 4th | 4 |
Reading left to right gives 4 – 5 – 1 – 4. Enter that on the combination dial and the crate opens.
The phrase "NOT YET" contributes nothing — it is misdirection, written so the full message reads as graffiti rather than a cipher. Silver Pines uses this kind of layered misdirection in several other puzzles. The holding cells code, for example, uses badge number 0013 reversed to produce 3100, hiding a simple reversal inside what looks like a random serial. The fishing shack is the only puzzle confirmed to encode alphabetical position directly, so this specific trick does not repeat elsewhere.
If you want to verify the logic before you enter the digits: D is the fourth letter of the alphabet (A, B, C, D), E is the fifth, A is the first, and D is the fourth again. There is no ambiguity, and the answer does not change between saves.
What You Get and Why the Difficulty Setting Matters
The S-1 Carbine handles mid-range distance more cleanly than either the handgun or the shotgun. The handgun requires multiple shots against tougher enemies; the shotgun delivers reliable staggers but punishes misses with slow reloads. The carbine sits between them, rewarding accurate shots with consistent damage at distances where the shotgun starts to lose effectiveness.
How much the carbine matters to you depends on your chosen difficulty. Silver Pines has four settings, and you can switch between them at any time without penalty.
| Difficulty | Damage taken | Damage dealt | Weapon wear | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relaxed | 40% | 150% | 50% | Item stacks doubled; fewer and easier encounters |
| Tense | 70% | 130% | 80% | More forgiving resource drops |
| Survival Horror | 100% | 100% | 100% | The intended experience |
| Nightmare | 170% | 70% | 100% | Ammo pickups give 35% less; more frequent tough fights |
On Survival Horror and Nightmare, the carbine's ammo efficiency becomes a genuine factor. Rifle rounds are more common in Church Hill and the Sewers than shotgun shells, so having a weapon that uses them pays off across the mid-game.
All Church Hill Codes at a Glance
Church Hill has three combination locks in total. All three codes are fixed — they are identical across every save file and every difficulty.
| Location | Lock type | Code | Where the clue comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fishing shack crate | Four-digit combination | 4514 | "NOT DEAD NOT YET" on the shack wall — D, E, A, D map to 4, 5, 1, 4 |
| Chapel grounds cube gate | Four-symbol sequence | Triangle, Cross, Cross, Triangle | Father Foster's necklace in a photograph at the Funeral Home |
| Funeral Home coffin room | Three-digit keypad | 752 | Flower prices at Ashbrook Florist: lily ($7), rose ($5), bluebell ($2) |
The Funeral Home door is required story progression. The fishing shack and the cube gate are optional, but together they provide the S-1 Carbine and a memento that helps in the game's second half.
For context, here is a broader selection of the codes players look up most often. The only code that changes between saves is the Crimson Bear Motel gate — read it from Eddie Velvet's row in the Motel Guest Ledger inside the reception building.
| Location | Code | Fixed or per save |
|---|---|---|
| Miner Diner radio | 89.0 | Fixed |
| General Store freezer | 2311 | Fixed |
| Crimson Bear Motel gate | Random five digits | Per save — read the Motel Guest Ledger |
| Gift shop weapon locker | 6671 | Fixed |
| Ammo Zone cage | 2367 | Fixed |
| Sheriff's Office front door | 1715 | Fixed |
| Holding cells | 3100 | Fixed |
| Church Hill fishing shack crate | 4514 | Fixed |
| Funeral Home coffin room | 752 | Fixed |
| Sewer flow control lockbox | 1467 | Fixed |
| Mt. Siah Kopa top station | 0441 | Fixed |
FAQ
What is the silver pines not dead yet code? The code is 4514. The phrase "NOT DEAD NOT YET" is spray-painted on the wall inside the Church Hill fishing shack. Extract the word DEAD and convert each letter to its position in the alphabet: D=4, E=5, A=1, D=4.
Where is the fishing shack located? It is on the dock at the southern end of Church Hill, below the chapel grounds. Walk past the boathouse and the shack is the last structure at the end of the dock. The door is unlocked; the only barrier is the crate code.
Does the fishing shack code change between saves? No. The code 4514 is the same on every save file and every difficulty. The only lock in the game confirmed to generate a different code per save is the Crimson Bear Motel gate.
What is inside the crate? The crate contains the S-1 Carbine and a starter supply of rifle ammunition. It is optional but valuable for mid-range encounters in the Sewers and later areas.
Why does "NOT YET" not affect the code? The cipher only uses the letters in DEAD. "NOT YET" is misdirection — its purpose is to make the full phrase look like graffiti rather than a puzzle clue. This is a deliberate design choice Silver Pines uses in several other puzzles to hide straightforward ciphers inside ordinary-looking text.
Are there other letter-to-number ciphers in Silver Pines? The fishing shack is the only puzzle confirmed to use alphabetical position as its encoding method. The holding cells use a simpler reversal — badge 0013 backwards gives 3100 — but that is a different technique. No other lock has been confirmed to use the same A=1, B=2 system as the silver pines not dead yet code solution.
