Broad Knife vrs Hunting Knife

[Labtop 215]

Small question...  I know I've been playing this forever, but I'm wondering.  Which knife is better for getting more cuts of meat vrs which one is better for getting hides?

I've always thought that the hunting knife is better for getting more meat while the broad knife is better for getting higher quality hide.  Yet, if I have an equal quality hunting knife and a broad knife, I always use the broad knife.  If butcher an animal for meat, I use a broad knife.  If I skin the animal for hide, I use a broad knife.  If I do any hide work, I use a broad knife.  What is the point of the hunting knife if it isn't good at anything specific?

[PALU]

UrW uses the "first" item of "equal" quality for a job, so if you shift the knives in your inventory (e.g. by dropping and picking up) I'd expect the broad knife to be used for skinning and the hunting knife for butchering, i.e. a broad knife is the preferred tool for skinning, while butchering only cares for knife quality, but not type (possibly with the exception of a stone knife, which may be deemed unsuitable for the task, and tends to be of a horrible quality anyway).

I suspect a hunting knife is a better weapon than a broad knife (although I wouldn't chose to use a knife for fighting).

It can also be noted that the Fishing Knife has no preferred use at all currently (it would presumably be used for cleaning fish, but that task is currently abstracted away in the game, which sort of results in the lack of fish cuts).

[Dungeon Smash]

I believe the only advantage of the Hunting Knife is for fighting.  Broad knife is preferable for all processing/crafting tasks.  I'd have to go back and look, at one point someone compiled all the damage statistics for weapons.  However, that was years ago and it may have changed.  But I do remember that Hunting Knife had a higher stab damage.

[Brygun]

IIRC Hunting knife was more likely to have bleeding wound results than a broad knife. Which for a hunter means the animal dies from blood loss vs multiple openings in the hide.

[werepacman]

I always use hunting knife for finishing animal. It is designed for final blow. However I don't know if this is implemented in game mechanics.

[Tom H]

Given blades of equal quality my experience is that the game selects the broad for skinning and the hunting for butchering, regardless of the order in my inventory. I have no idea how one might determine which yields more cuts. I always assumed the choice of the knife was based upon it being more appropriate for the job.

[PALU]

Given blades of equal quality my experience is that the game selects the broad for skinning and the hunting for butchering, regardless of the order in my inventory. I have no idea how one might determine which yields more cuts. I always assumed the choice of the knife was based upon it being more appropriate for the job.

You can perform statistical checks by saving the game and copy the save, perform your intended test one way and note down the result, save, discard the save and copy the copy, rename that copy to the "proper" name, resume, perform the same test again, repeat a large number of times (noting the results each time), then continue on with the next alternative for a large number of times, and then compare the statistics of the two (or more) sets of experiments.

To explicitly select which knife to use, walk two tiles away and drop the other knife, walk back (so the dropped knife is out of reach) and then butcher the animal. Note that dropped items within reach are used if preferred and available for some tasks (such as butchering): in fact, I drop everything carried before skinning an butchering to lower the encumbrance, with the dropped broad knife being used from the ground (I don't carry any other kind of knife).

[Tom H]

Yeah, the proximity of items works the same when building, too. One does not have to have the various twigs, slender trunks, boards, etc in the hex one is standing in to build/craft with them: they need merely be adjacent... MOST of the time, that is. Making arrows, for instance, requires that you have cords in hand. The game mechanic won't reach for them in an adjacent hex.

 "then continue on with the next alternative for a large number of times"

Lol- I think I'll just allow the mystery to remain and perplex me.