Hunting and butchering

Hunting is quiet food. A gun brings every zombie for tiles around; a bow does not. This page covers getting close, the weapons, traps and baits, following a wounded animal, and what to do with the kill. The animals themselves are on the wildlife page.

Getting close

Animals see, hear and smell you. Smell reaches farthest: a deer can smell you from 37.5 tiles away, much farther than it can see. But scent travels with the wind.

• Downwind (the wind blowing from the animal to you), it cannot smell you at all.
• Upwind (within 45° of the wind blowing from you to it), it smells you at its full range.
• Crosswind, at a third of the range.
• Calm air: a small circle all round, 30% of the range.
• Walking halves the range, crouching halves it again (25%). Rain damps it by up to 60%.

Work out which way the wind blows, circle round to come in downwind, and crouch for the last stretch. A spooked deer barks an alarm and the whole herd bolts.

Weapons

Bows and crossbows are quiet, and their arrows and bolts can be picked up again where they land, unless they break.

Weapon	Damage	Range	Ammo
Bow	62	20.3 tiles	Arrow
Crossbow	82	34.4 tiles	Crossbow Bolt

Ammo	Breaks when it misses	Breaks in a body	Range
Arrow	15%	35%	× 1
Crossbow Bolt	10%	25%	× 1
Fletched Arrow	8%	20%	× 1.15

Arrows make animals bleed hard, so a hit animal often runs and drops later.

Tracks and blood trails

Animals leave prints on soft ground (sand, grass, forest floor, dirt, marsh and ash). Prints fade over 5 game hours, faster in rain. An animal bleeding hard leaves a trail of blood drops and a pool where it lies down; the drops last 6 game hours. Follow the blood to find what you shot.

Traps

Trap	Catches	What happens	Springs within
Snare	small animals	Kills the catch	0.4 tiles
Heavy Trap	medium and large animals	Holds the catch alive (a 30-damage leg wound, 5% of the meat ruined)	0.6 tiles

Traps also work while you are away: they catch with a chance per game hour that grows with how many animals the island has, and more when baited. A catch spoils in the trap after 36 game hours, so check your traps.

People step into traps too. A Heavy Trap holds a zombie, soldier, companion or any other person for 4 seconds, and you too if you sprint into one; you free yourself by holding a move key or E for 1.5 seconds. A Snare trips whoever walks into it for 1.2 seconds. Traps round your home can hold up a horde.

Baits

Put food in a trap or on the ground and animals in reach come to eat it.

Bait	Draws	From
Berries	Deer, Rabbit, Wild Boar, Bear, Grouse, Duck and Mountain Goat	15 tiles
Mushrooms	Wild Boar, Deer and Mountain Goat	12.5 tiles
Raw Meat	Wolf, Bear, Wild Boar, Feral Dog, Crocodile and Snake	20 tiles
Rotten Meat	Wolf, Bear, Feral Dog and Crocodile	25 tiles
Raw Fish	Crocodile, Bear and Feral Dog	17.5 tiles

Carcasses and butchering

Small game (Rabbit, Grouse, Duck and Snake) is picked up whole and cut up later. Anything bigger is butchered where it lies, or dragged home slowly (70% of your speed for a medium animal, 50% for a large one).

Butchering needs a blade: Hunting Knife or Bone Knife, or an Axe at 2 times the time. Bare hands will not do.

Animal	Time with a knife	Meat	Also gives
Deer	8 s	8 × Raw Meat	Animal Hide, 4 × Animal Bone, 2 × Animal Fat, 2 × Sinew
Wild Boar	7 s	6 × Raw Meat	Animal Hide, 3 × Animal Bone, 3 × Animal Fat, Sinew
Rabbit	3 s	2 × Raw Meat	Animal Bone
Wolf	6 s	3 × Raw Meat	Animal Hide, 2 × Animal Bone, Animal Fat, Sinew
Bear	14 s	12 × Raw Meat	Animal Hide, 6 × Animal Bone, 5 × Animal Fat, 2 × Sinew
Grouse	3 s	Raw Meat	4 × Feathers
Duck	3 s	Raw Meat	5 × Feathers, Animal Fat
Mountain Goat	7 s	5 × Raw Meat	Goat Hide, 3 × Animal Bone, Animal Fat, Sinew
Snake	2 s	Raw Meat
Crocodile	12 s	8 × Raw Meat	Crocodile Hide, 4 × Animal Bone, 2 × Animal Fat, 2 × Sinew
Feral Dog	5 s	2 × Raw Meat	Dog Hide, 2 × Animal Bone, Sinew
Toxic Wolf	6 s	3 × Raw Meat	Animal Hide, 2 × Animal Bone, Animal Fat, Sinew, Toxic Gland
Toxic Boar	7 s	6 × Raw Meat	Animal Hide, 3 × Animal Bone, 3 × Animal Fat, Sinew, Toxic Gland

A carcass rots: it is gone about 2 days after the kill, and the meat gets worse as it goes (a rotting carcass gives spoiling meat). Cold slows the rot: below 0 °C it rots at 25% of the speed. Meat that zombies have fed on is gone, and an eaten-out carcass leaves only bones.

Butcher fast

A kill draws zombies by smell. Butcher it, take the meat and go. Hunters from the outposts compete with you for the game.

Spoilage and preserving

Fresh food spoils. Each food keeps for its number of days at 20 °C. Every 10 °C warmer it spoils twice as fast (at most 4 times), every 10 °C colder half as fast, and below freezing each food spoils at its own slow rate (the table). Food turns stale halfway through and then rotten.

Food	Keeps (at 20 °C)	Below 0 °C	Turns into
Raw Meat	2 days	25% speed	Rotten Meat
Cooked Meat	4 days	25% speed	Rotten Meat
Hunter’s Stew	3 days	25% speed
Smoked Meat	30 days	10% speed	Rotten Meat
Salted Meat	45 days	10% speed	Rotten Meat
Raw Fish	1.5 days	25% speed	Rotten Meat
Cooked Fish	3 days	25% speed	Rotten Meat

Getting sick

Eating…	Chance to get Sick
Raw Meat, fresh	30%, for 10 min
Raw Fish, fresh	20%, for 10 min
Any stale food	at least 50%, for at least 15 min
Rotten food	always, for at least 15 min

Cook it instead. To keep meat for the long trip, smoke it on a smoking rack ( Smoked Meat) or salt it at the workbench ( Salted Meat): both keep for weeks and barely spoil in the cold. See effects for what being Sick does.

Leather, bone and feathers

What you cut from an animal becomes clothing, tools and arrows.

Makes	Where	Needs
Bow	Workbench	2 × Plank, Cloth, Sinew
5 × Arrow	Workbench	Wood, Animal Bone
2 × Leather	Workbench	Animal Hide, Animal Fat
Fur Pelt	Workbench	Animal Hide, 2 × Animal Fat
Fur Coat	Workbench	3 × Fur Pelt, Leather, 2 × Cloth
Fur Hat	Workbench	Fur Pelt, Cloth
Leather Boots	Workbench	2 × Leather, Cloth
Leather Vest	Workbench	4 × Leather, 2 × Cloth
Bone Knife	Workbench	2 × Animal Bone, Cloth
Bone Needle	By hand	Animal Bone
3 × Bone Meal	Workbench	2 × Animal Bone
Leather Gloves	Workbench	Leather, Cloth
2 × Leather	Workbench	Goat Hide, Animal Fat
Rough Fur	Workbench	Dog Hide, Animal Fat
Rough Fur Hat	Workbench	Rough Fur, Cloth
2 × Crocodile Leather	Workbench	Crocodile Hide, 2 × Animal Fat
Crocodile Vest	Workbench	4 × Crocodile Leather, Leather, 2 × Sinew
Crocodile Boots	Workbench	2 × Crocodile Leather, Sinew, Cloth
5 × Fletched Arrow	Workbench	Wood, Animal Bone, 3 × Feathers
2 × Antitox Pills	Chem bench	Toxic Gland, Charcoal
2 × Fuel bottle	Chem bench	2 × Animal Fat, Chemicals

Traders pay more for hides at outposts, and much more for fur in winter. See trading.

Other hunters

You are not the only one. Survivor and scavenger hunters stalk deer (large) and wild boar (medium) by day and butcher what they kill.