Humane and Proper Butchering?

[RileyDylan]

Hi all, I started my game with the scenario where you get a leashed ram. I tried to kill it as fast as I could by stabbing its skull with the kaumolais spear, and it took like 5 tries before it finally died. It was knocked unconscious with the first strike, so I shouldn't feel too bad (also it's a game), however I found it kind of sad that it took so much. In the end, I got a rough skin, despite landing several precise blows to the skull, so I'm disappointed with that as well.

What I'm basically asking, is how I can safely, cleanly and efficiently kill an animal? Should I have gone for the heart instead? Or maybe use a blunt weapon?

[Karmatose]

I'm also curious about this. I've been playing for a fair bit but I keep doing the same thing over and over again (knife to the skull) instead of actually trying different options, so I haven't experimented much. I did once try switching to a club once the beast was unconscious and I killed it instantly, can't remember what I hit tho. I think I hit the skull again, pfft. Maybe it was just a one-off thing but try that and see if it changes anything?

I need to go experiment some more now.

[Buoidda]

Blunt trauma to the skull works well with the right weapon: mace or stone axe for example. Masterwork mace is a real killer.

With blades I'd try neck. Neck and thorax hits often lead to serious bleeding and loss of consciousness / death. This does affect skin quality a bit, sadly. But with good enough hideworking skill, the larger animals such as ram will yield decent or even fine skins even if the carcass is "harmed".

For role-play / rl simulation, I'd do both. First knock it out / then cut carotid arteries (neck veins). Once the poor unconscious thing is bleeding, you can wait a bit to see if it dies. If not, only then cut again.

I usually just pound the skull though. But it does need the right weapon. Here's a sad story from one of my suggestions:

I know I asked to buff them up, but please don't make the head any harder.

Spoiler: Story of a particularly hard-headed elk • show

That sums up to 27 solid hits to the skull with the blunt end of a woodman's axe. 

[PALU]

I wouldn't make too tight a connection between the game mechanics and the real world. It can also be noted that the concept of "humane" killing of animals is a modern western thing more or less. Iron age people were probably interested in efficiency rather than reduction in animal suffering (although most of them probably didn't cause the animals to suffer more than they had to).

To preserve the skin as much as possible, you should hit the head exclusively, as even neck injuries affect the skin quality.
When hunting, causing a bleeding wound and then track the animal as it gushes blood to then kill it with attacks to the head is one of the best way to preserve the skin as much as possible. However, bleeding can stop, so just causing a bleeding wound is no guarantee the animal will get caught.
The other way to preserve the skin as much as possible it to hunt the animal to exhaustion (not exactly humane, but something done a lot historically) and then perform blunt attacks aimed at the head. Blunt attacks that hit elsewhere cause limited skin damage.
It can also be noted that attacks from behind gives you the best chance to hit (and to hit where you aim), while attacks from the front gives you the most amount of training in the weapon due to the many misses. From a training perspective, the lightest weapon should be used, but for a speed perspective the most damaging one should be used.

It can also be noted that when an animal is unconscious, targeted melee attacks never miss their target, but it's possible for the animal to wake up in between your order to perform such an attack and the execution of it. Walking up to an unconscious bear to finish it off can be a fatal move (for your character). It's also possible for an animal to wake up while you're hitting its head if your blunt attacks do little damage and unconsciousness was largely due to fatigue.

I usually use blunt attacks with a spear, as spear is the main weapon of my characters and blunt attacks keeps the skin in the best condition.

The game does not provide any means to slaughter (tame) animals, so you have to use combat mechanics (and some people get a nasty surprise when the cow they attack makes a rare attempt to fight back [the same goes for elks and reindeer: their attacks are not to be taken lightly unless you're completely and heavily armored]). However, a surprise attack from behind to the head has a good chance to render the animal unconscious.

[Dungeon Smash]

Personally I always bludgeon their heads to death, to preserve the hide.  Even if you have no weapon you can use 0 to kick.  Probably not the most humane though.  Most humane would probably be to attack the neck with whatever your strongest weapon is. 

[Brygun]

Good point on modern humane concept.

Our ancestors used to drive panicked herds off cliffs... and they would have time to think about it on the way down.

Or the idea of wolly mammoths with a goon squad chasing them into a pit to stabby stabby.

But for Unreal Word game what I like to do:


For animals in a trap birds and small kick in the head then crush the skull. Usually they are KO after one or two or three hits.

Dangerous animals in traps  I keep a pile of stones and rocks to toss at them but thats hardly humane and may impact the pelt. Once unconscious then come up for bleeding neck wound.

Once I got broadhead arrows I stand with just a safe gap between and shoot them for a few bleed wounds then wait. Modern humane hunting is about the same with even gun shots could mean following at least a short blood trail until they pass out.

Once a large animal is unconscious use a knife to the next. A hunting knife stab or other knives edge will create a bleeding wound.

In a way the humane thing here is for the animal to be quickly unconscious while keeping your self safe.

You are an animal too and you screaming at the shredded flesh of your now bear clawed limbs isn't my idea of humane either.

[JP_Finn]

This looks to be another spambot snuck through. Original thread

[Erkka]

This looks to be another spambot snuck through 

Yeah I also noticed that, for somehow the question sounded familiar. I banned the user account but left the thread for it had already generated good replies, which might be useful for new players facing similar questions. But I forgot to mention that, like I did in some other similar cases where I've edited the post to describe the action taken. Sorry about that, I'll try to remember making a public mention whenever I decide to ban or delete a spambot account while leaving the thread.

[Felius]

Human butchering is pretty annoying nowadays, you can only do it if nearly starving, so feeding the dogs from the corpses of of my enemies is not quite as easy as it used to be. Still,. could be a possibility if- Oh, wait, humane butchering.

Anything small, I go for blunt handaxe to the brain. Midsize, if trapped and close enough to my home, I go grab a grain flail: They are more damaging than they seem, and one to the skull can kill pretty large creatures. Large creatures, piercing to the skull, wait until they bleed to death or the bleeding stops, reapply as necessary. Very occasionally, for very large creatures (bears mostly), cutting the throat might be necessary. The latter might lose in humanity, but definitely win somewhat in efficiency. Otherwise you need something with a pretty large blunt damage, as ending a bear or elk with a strike to the skull is quite hard. Grainflails occasionally work, although the average lack of skill in it doesn't help, but a few of the heavier axes can have a pretty good blunt damage when it comes down to it.