hunting, different strokes for different... animals...

[theTrav]

1 - Eliminate Animal levels... A bear is a bear is a bear, some will be tougher than others but really, they're all just bears
2 - Current combat skills and stats have no bearing on hunting outcomes. unarmed, melee and marksman levels are irrelevant for the scenarios depicted below.

Boar:
So like, you get a few guys with arrows and they stand behind this guy with a spear, and they're all like "pew pew pew"
The guy with the spear is all like "I click the set against charge button" and the boar attacks him cause he's the closest in that bunch of people who are pew pewing him.
The guy has a high chance of skewering the boar, and a moderate to low chance of getting gored something fierce (massive hp damage, medical attention required SOON and a week long recovery effect)
If the boar survives the charge and gores its target, it decides wether to go for the archers or to run away.
Either way the spear guy has lost his spear (broken or dropped or inside the boar, maybe he can get it back after a bit)

Bear:
So like, you get a few guys with javelins and spears, you chuck the javelins and they have a chance at sticking in the bear and slowing him down.
The guys with spears ready their spears and enter "skirmish" skill. They have chances to inflict small damages to the bear. The bear picks a target to maul, and the target has a chance to avoid mauling (use the number of spears distracting the bear and the number of javelins sticking out of it to determine success). If the guy gets mauled he's got a small chance of dying, a moderate to large chance of massive HHP damage and needing immediate medical assistance and a week long recovery effect.
Bear and skirmishers continue the dance until the bear is dead or decides that the party is too large to take on and it runs away (maybe it's not fast enough because there's too many javelins sticking into it)

Deer:
Sneaking up on the deer at a crawl pace (maybe using the "track" skill that shows you nearby animals via a similar mechanism to dowsing), you chuck your javelin or fire your bow and hope you hit it somewhere that slows it down a lot. It may take multiple tracking/sneaking/firing attempts to down the deer, or the deer might get away if you fail too many tracking rolls.

Maybe you set up your party in a very wide circle around the deers known location so they can take shots at it as it runs away.

Bloody deers are easier to track and move slower.

Fox:
If you can catch it (unlikely) you can step on its head just like a Rabbit. More likely you shoot an arrow at it and have a slim chance of killing it. More likely to kill a fox by building fox traps than by stalking one down.


Note that none of these are based on stats, and none of these have much in common with human vs human combat. Highlight on the real risk of medium to term disadvantage in hunting large prey, reduced by hunting in parties. Maybe have animals yield more meat and raw materials to reflect that (or just expect to have a smaller hunting economy and slow down metabolism)

[sabinati]

this would all be well and good if hunger was rebalanced and animals gave a great deal more meat than they currently do

there should also be some hunting traps, light snares for rabbits and foxes that you just set out and come back the next day to check/reset, maybe some others for larger animals.

and more animals i guess. badgers, weasels, i dunno what's appropriate for northern europe really.

[theTrav]

this would all be well and good if hunger was rebalanced and animals gave a great deal more meat than they currently do

Slower metabolism would probably fix a lot of things... If a hunting party of 4 could bag 3 boars in a day, that should feed them for a week to a month given the right preparation / fillers (stews and sausages).

Something of a tangent is that I reckon it's a bit weird how you currently add more ingredients and end up with a less divisible (therefore smaller) amount of food... I reckon some of them, sausages especially, should be stackable in inventory but give less hunger each (and maybe be usable in more complex meals)

there should also be some hunting traps, light snares for rabbits and foxes that you just set out and come back the next day to check/reset, maybe some others for larger animals.

Yeah, I ended up mentioning traps for foxes, but thought it was such a large area that it would probably dilute the focus from the idea... IMO getting hunting to work right is more important than getting trapping going.

and more animals i guess. badgers, weasels, i dunno what's appropriate for northern europe really.

Lynx. Again, another big thread, but something the dev's are already well aware of and have probably already spent more than enough time thinking and planning for.