Harvesting Deer Hide is quicker by hand?


ChillPlayer

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Using a knife is quicker than by hand. Also bear in mind you can't use your hands on frozen carcasses.

I guess, from a 'can't think of a scenario' way of thinking, it's that the hatchet is rather large and cumbersome. Whilst you might try and 'delicately use the blade of the hatchet to helpt cut away the hide from the tissue below it, you would end up putting it down multiple times whilst predominantly using your hands to try and ease it off in one piece rather than lots of odd chunks. Whilst the hatchett head might speed up some portions of the process, overall perhaps it would be slower.

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The Deer wasn't frozen, I've had a fire going for a while. Strangely enough only harvesting the hide was quicker without a tool, the guts did take less time with the hatched. Even with a rudimentary self made hatched I'd expect to be far quicker than with my hands, simply because I could separate the hide from the flesh quicker, not to mention making the first cut which without a tool might take more than an hour itself. That's why I think it's a bug.

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if you want the hide for leather I think its easier to use hands to pull the hide, which is only attached in a few places, (I'm thinking of chicken but believe all animals are like this) you'd be more likely to get a whole hide, tbh I think a knife would also be needed, using an axe to cut the attached points would be cumbersome.

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A bit of helpful advice about harvesting for anyone playing Interloper for the first time:

  • 1) Find a hacksaw ASAP.  Not only can it harvest meat and guts faster than your bare hands, it can do it while you're waiting for your campfire to thaws the carcass.  Plus, since you won't find any regular hatchets or knives on Interloper difficulty, it's the only harvesting tool available to you at the start of the game.

  • 2) Try to build your campfire as close as possible to your frozen carcass; it won't melt it any faster, but the dead body will provide a decent wind barrier.  You can harvest a whole bear in just a few consecutive hours if you manage to fell him beside a building or on a hillside.

  • 3) The optimal time to be outside is early afternoon to dusk, so whenever possible plan to begin your harvest within that time frame.  The worst time to be outside is the entire morning--dawn until noon--since this is when the air temperature is at it's coolest.

  • 4)The best weather to be outside and harvesting a carcass is during heavy fog.  While it's foggy outside, the wind won't blow hard enough to smother a campfire and the fog general lingers around for several hours at a time. This bestows a large window of opportunity upon you for doing outdoor activities, such as harvesting carcasses.

    Oh, and by the way, if you see snow flakes beginning to gently fall to the ground, be smart and start heading back to shelter; there's a storm on the way and you can always come back to harvest that carcass when the weather is more agreeable.

  • 5) Don't use the improvised hatchet to harvest carcasses.  The improvised hatchet and hacksaw take the same amount of time to harvest a carcass, but the hacksaw is significantly lighter (2.2 lbs vs 3.5 lbs) and doesn't burn through rare whetstones to keep it sharpened.

  • 6) Prioritize sharpening your knife before your hatchet.  Whetstones are rare and your hacksaw (which can accomplish almost every task that a hatchet can do) can be easily repaired with seemingly endless amounts of metal within the entire game, so just set your hatchet aside and save it for chopping wood and wolf attacks.

  • 7) Harvesting Tool Prioritization:

    • Meat:

      If the carcass is more than 50% frozen, use the hacksaw (or hatchet, if you left your hacksaw back at base camp).

      If the carcass is less than 50% frozen, use your knife.

    • Guts:

      Use your knife.  Period.

      Otherwise, hacksaw or hatchet, if you goofed up and forgot your knife back at base camp.  *Facepalm* -_-

    • Hide:

      If the carcass is thawed enough, use your hands.  Surprisingly, your bare hands are just as effective at undressing a carcass as your improvised knife is; plus, you don't have to sharpen them afterwards! :D

      Otherwise, if the carcass is still frozen and your in a hurry, use your knife.

*Edit*

Oh yeah, I forgot this little nugget of knowledge!  

When you've harvested all the meat you wanted and start heading back to your shack to cook it, don't go inside and light a fire in that ol' pot belly stove.  Campfires and outdoor wood stoves burn significantly longer than indoor stoves (between 20% to 40% longer), which will allow you to cook more food with less firewood!

Instead, find a spot that is sheltered from the wind (e.g. fishing shacks, caves, the backside of some buildings) and cook your meat outside. Heck, boil your water out there, too!  Plus, it's a great way of staving off cabin fever. ;)

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2 hours ago, Muk_Pile said:

When you've harvested all the meat you wanted and start heading back to your shack to cook it, don't go inside and light a fire in that ol' pot belly stove.  Campfires and outdoor wood stoves burn significantly longer than indoor stoves (between 20% to 40% longer), which will allow you to cook more food with less firewood!

In Interloper I alwas have a fire while harvesting a (full) Deer due to low temperatures and I use that fire also to cook the meat so my smell factor goes down a bit.

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2 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

In Interloper I alwas have a fire while harvesting a (full) Deer due to low temperatures and I use that fire also to cook the meat so my smell factor goes down a bit.

What do you do when the deer is on a slope too steep to let you build a fire?

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55 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

kill it on a place where it isn't too steep to build a fire - seriously, I never had this problem you mentioned ;)

Guess I need to get better at insta-killing them, then.. when I don't get a clean kill, the so-and-so's always run off and die in the most inconvenient location they can find.

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19 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Guess I need to get better at insta-killing them, then.. when I don't get a clean kill, the so-and-so's always run off and die in the most inconvenient location they can find.

If they run off it's best to go sleep for an hour somewhere, preferably with a loading screen. In most cases they'll do a full circle and conveniently die where you've shot them. Feels like home delivery especially on Jackrabbits :D

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5 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

If they run off it's best to go sleep for an hour somewhere, preferably with a loading screen. In most cases they'll do a full circle and conveniently die where you've shot them. Feels like home delivery especially on Jackrabbits :D

u mind reader.

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16 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

If they run off it's best to go sleep for an hour somewhere, preferably with a loading screen. In most cases they'll do a full circle and conveniently die where you've shot them. Feels like home delivery especially on Jackrabbits :D

 

14 minutes ago, nicko said:

 usually shoot it and hit, (good shot) just go home, rest /sleep the kill should near to where you took your shot.

Yeah, this wants fixing if you ask me. I'm sure the devs must have known about this for a long time, but surely it can't be what they intend for the player to do? Not tracking down your kill is more advantageous than tracking it? It shouts "broken mechanic".

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Why broken mechanic, maybe it just want's to die close to it's family :D

No it's obvious why, like wolves the deer move around the map (the ones in packs that is) and while they first run away after you've shot them they will try to get back to their "designated" area.

Much worse in that regard is that a whole pack of wolves can vanish into thin air right before your eyes, as happend to me some days ago when I tried to chase a deer into them. One second there are 4 wolves, the next there's nothing, all 4 just vanished. Have it on video but didn't bother to upload it yet.

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I've field dressed deer, rabbits and various game birds in real life and I could see it being more tedious with a hatchet.  I've always used my hands and a knife together, but a hatchet would be a bit unwieldy I think.  I feel like you'd have to put the hatchet down a lot and use your hands, then pick the hatchet back up, etc.  So I can see why the time would be a bit longer.  A knife should always be the fastest way, though.

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11 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

If they run off it's best to go sleep for an hour somewhere, preferably with a loading screen. In most cases they'll do a full circle and conveniently die where you've shot them. Feels like home delivery especially on Jackrabbits :D

I've just in the last few days started doing this.. still feels a bit like cheating, to be honest. (and for the record, twice, the bugger still went and died on a nearby slope!)

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10 hours ago, Pillock said:

Yeah, this wants fixing if you ask me. I'm sure the devs must have known about this for a long time, but surely it can't be what they intend for the player to do? Not tracking down your kill is more advantageous than tracking it? It shouts "broken mechanic".

 Not sure about any real advantage. If you don't track it, you first might lose it and second, have to go walking around - suffering calories and cold - to find it. The giveaway - and the aspect that needs to be tweaked - are the birds that end up telling you exactly where the animal fell. Anyhow, I think the track/no track dilemma offers unique risk/rewards, each with their own benefits and drawbacks.

 Wounding a bear is the worst though; they go truly mental when injured with a sudden athleticism that is a marvel to witness and take ages to bleed out. Maybe I'm just cursed, but they always end up keeling over in one of the improbable places their 'injured pathing' takes them.

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14 minutes ago, Carbon said:

 Not sure about any real advantage. If you don't track it, you first might lose it and second, have to go walking around - suffering calories and cold - to find it.

Well, that's the whole point: you don't  have to walk around looking for it. See:

11 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

If they run off it's best to go sleep for an hour somewhere, preferably with a loading screen. In most cases they'll do a full circle and conveniently die where you've shot them. Feels like home delivery especially on Jackrabbits :D

I think there two main things that need tweaking with regards to this:

  1. that shot animals do what @ChillPlayer describes;
  2. that carnivores aren't attracted to and don't start eating the kills you make if you leave them alone for too long.

(Actually there are two more as well:

3. that fleeing animals have such mental pathing, as you describe!
4. that blood trails disappear too quickly, making tracking frustrating and unrewarding.)

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10 minutes ago, Pillock said:

that carnivores aren't attracted to and don't start eating the kills you make if you leave them alone for too long.

 This is a great idea.

 I may be wrong, but wouldn't a wounded animal going well off it's normal path be a good thing in terms of motivation to keep track of it? So if you go and sleep, it could be anywhere. This might also then take care of the wounded animal dying on your doorstep, as it were.

 And yes, if you are indeed tracking the kill, blood trails should linger, but of you go inside and sleep, then I'm fine with them being gone.

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On ‎2017‎-‎07‎-‎04 at 8:26 PM, Pillock said:

Well, that's the whole point: you don't  have to walk around looking for it. See:

I think there two main things that need tweaking with regards to this:

  1. that shot animals do what @ChillPlayer describes;
  2. that carnivores aren't attracted to and don't start eating the kills you make if you leave them alone for too long.

(Actually there are two more as well:

3. that fleeing animals have such mental pathing, as you describe!
4. that blood trails disappear too quickly, making tracking frustrating and unrewarding.)

Blood trails have been a problem for a painfully long time :( 

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