Meat left outside on the ground


Thrasador

Recommended Posts

Hello,

I have a few noobish questions about meat game mechanics.

I have been playing long enough where I should know the answers to these questions, but I haven't tried doing these things yet so I thought maybe I could ask you all before finding out the hard way...

So I quartered a bear due to an imminent blizzard, I brought all the bags to a trailer. If I leave the bags outside in the cold will a wolf or bear notice them and eat them.

Same question but raw meat not in the quartering bag, just pieces of meat.

Same question, but cooked meat...

Lastly and unrelated, I'll be darned if I don't lose at least one arrow when I kill a bear. I figure it's a fair trade for the bear, but it would be great if any arrows in something we killed were found on the ground where the animal died after harvesting them. After I quartered the bear it's feet despawned after my first bag dropoff in the trailer and I never did find my second arrow in the snow. Same happened with the one I shot on the lake.

Guess I'll have to go to DP to forge more arrowheads if I am going to keep losing them...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any meat left outside will not currently be eaten by wildlife, I suspect it is something they will add to the game, but probably not before a suitable ad-hoc storage method is introduced. 

AFAIK all arrows are recoverable from any animal you shoot. There's 3 different possibilities when you shoot an animal:

1. The arrow drops upon hitting the animal

2. The arrow sticks to the animal and will stay in the animal until it dies and can be found either sticking to the animal or within several metres of the carcass (I think this happens if the animal falls on the side where the arrow is, but not sure)

3. The arrow sticks in the animal and stays in there for several moments until it falls out. This is the hardest to recover as you have to effectively trace where the animal ran off to and comb the area, it may also be found in the normal animal 'patrol' area. Sometimes these arrows take me 2-3 days before I find them, if at all because they are so damned hard to see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Renegade30 said:

Any meat left outside will not currently be eaten by wildlife, I suspect it is something they will add to the game, but probably not before a suitable ad-hoc storage method is introduced. 

AFAIK all arrows are recoverable from any animal you shoot. There's 3 different possibilities when you shoot an animal:

1. The arrow drops upon hitting the animal

2. The arrow sticks to the animal and will stay in the animal until it dies and can be found either sticking to the animal or within several metres of the carcass (I think this happens if the animal falls on the side where the arrow is, but not sure)

3. The arrow sticks in the animal and stays in there for several moments until it falls out. This is the hardest to recover as you have to effectively trace where the animal ran off to and comb the area, it may also be found in the normal animal 'patrol' area. Sometimes these arrows take me 2-3 days before I find them, if at all because they are so damned hard to see.

Rodger dodger, thank you very much for your speedy and informative reply! Much appreciated!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/15/2017 at 5:54 PM, Renegade30 said:

2. The arrow sticks to the animal and will stay in the animal until it dies and can be found either sticking to the animal or within several metres of the carcass (I think this happens if the animal falls on the side where the arrow is, but not sure)

Since quartering removes the carcass "prematurely", does it perhaps inadvertently break this mechanic?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a couple bugs with that bear actually. Involving me running into a shelter right before being mauled. I think that glitched things a little too...

Fog rolled in after I landed two arrows, and he came charging out of the fog while I was in front of the door to a trailer. I got a laceration, but no damage and dodged the mauling animation...

I almost wet myself...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah you shouldn't have any problems with your loot getting eaten just yet. Keeping meat outside in the cold helps preserve its condition (as you probably already know), which comes in handy a lot for me, especially because at least for now we can take advantage of the lack of a game mechanic where food left in the elements gets eaten xD. 

Besides that though, I have had experience losing arrows which frustrates me a lot.

Renegade30 mentioned a list earlier about reasons why arrows might be lost/how to find them again, my my hypothesis for your problem is this:

A few times in the past, my arrows have disappeared despite my combing the areas where they might have gone. It's awful. The latest time this happened though, I barely noticed a single feather from the arrow poking out from under the animal (a deer in this situation). No matter what angle I moved at, I couldn't get the arrow back. This leads me to believe that there are certain spots on animals where, when they flop dead on the ground, the arrow is not retrievable. 

In any case, I had to leave the carcass anyway because of weather problems. When I came back to the area a good while later, the carcass had disappeared along with my arrow. Whether or not this is actually a thing or not I have no idea, but perhaps it does present a bug.

In your case (where you actually quartered the animal), the arrow still vanished; which I think is really a bug on its own.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, NorseRaven99 said:

Yeah you shouldn't have any problems with your loot getting eaten just yet. Keeping meat outside in the cold helps preserve its condition (as you probably already know), which comes in handy a lot for me, especially because at least for now we can take advantage of the lack of a game mechanic where food left in the elements gets eaten xD. 

Besides that though, I have had experience losing arrows which frustrates me a lot.

Renegade30 mentioned a list earlier about reasons why arrows might be lost/how to find them again, my my hypothesis for your problem is this:

A few times in the past, my arrows have disappeared despite my combing the areas where they might have gone. It's awful. The latest time this happened though, I barely noticed a single feather from the arrow poking out from under the animal (a deer in this situation). No matter what angle I moved at, I couldn't get the arrow back. This leads me to believe that there are certain spots on animals where, when they flop dead on the ground, the arrow is not retrievable. 

In any case, I had to leave the carcass anyway because of weather problems. When I came back to the area a good while later, the carcass had disappeared along with my arrow. Whether or not this is actually a thing or not I have no idea, but perhaps it does present a bug.

In your case (where you actually quartered the animal), the arrow still vanished; which I think is really a bug on its own.

Basically upon carcass despawning, whether you quarter it or not, any arrows you failed to retrieve due to them being completely under the carcass and not targetable should appear on the snow where the carcass was. This does not seem to be the case currently. If you are unable to target the arrow before the carcass disappears, the arrow(s) disappear as well. That is frustrating and hopefully will be addressed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.