Short Questions/Quick Answers

[PALU]

The tool makes a large difference. A masterworks broad knife will increase the yield a lot. A hide takes damage if it's damaged, but I don't know if there are numbers under the hood, or if it's step based (i.e. anything that doesn't result in a reported carcass degradation is 100%). The only way to ensure the skin is completely unharmed is to have all the damage being dealt to the head/skull (neck is not good enough).
My current character has gotten a few superior quality bird leathers using a standard quality broad knife and a skill of something like 85, but most attempts result in lower quality, and I haven't had any complete success with any fur yet.
Also note that penalties probably affects the result, so fatigue, injury, and encumbrance probably all degrade the skill roll. I drop everything carried (not counting worn clothes) and let fatigue drop to zero before starting to skin "important" carcasses (I don't care much about birds). If nothing else, the subsequent butchering won't build up as much fatigue if you're unencumbered (which might allow you to actually move after butchering an elk).

[Roman Lodestar]

Well managed to get a superior fox fur, the rolls are low and all the driik villages I have visited don't even have a fine quality broad knife, also ¿do size matters? meaning a big bear is far more dangerous to fight than a small one.

[Helldiver]

I've done many playthroughs in version 3.4*. In some, it took me a while to get up to "superior" hide quality from "fine", and other playthroughs where I start getting "superior" hides almost right away and the quality never drops unless I make a big mistake (like leaving the skin to soak for too long). I almost always play a Northerner hunter, with her hideworking skill buffed up real high.

If you're experiencing this at such a high hideworking skill, I would actually look at your weapon stat, how high your proficiency is for the weapon you're using to kill the animal. Generally speaking, the more blows it took to kill an animal, the more difficult it is to maintain high quality of the hide at the end, even if the carcass itself looks fine and not "harmed" or "ragged". It's worse if the wounds are in the body or neck, but the same seems to apply (at least in my experience) whether the blows are limited to the head or not. And keep in mind that the lower your weapon skill, the less you're guaranteed to hit the animal where you want to, so you might have tried hitting it in the head but hit the shoulder or foreleg ("arm") instead.

It's kind of odd in a way, because point and edge attacks tend to do more damage to the hide, but they are also more lethal and allow you to kill the animal with fewer blows... I experimented with this on elks, using blunt attacks only vs a few sharp point attacks, and the latter option offers the better results by far. However, at that point my character was at something like 93% spear skill, so I can't guarantee the same will be true if your weapon skill is even a little lower (in the 80-something percent range, blunt attacks seemed to result in the same or better outcome).

Character attribute may also have something to do with it... for example, high strength might help make each blow more effective, and high endurance might improve how accurate your strikes are even when you're tired. (This is conjecture, I have not experimented myself.) As far as my experience goes, knife quality helps but is not crucial.

[Roman Lodestar]

I'm using currently a battlesword with 26% skill but always use blunt attacks, once the game falls unconscious if it is a large animal like an elk I'd perform a edge attack to the neck with a handaxe which usually kills it instantly or by bleeding, of course I see this the better option than spamming a lot of blunt attacks to the skull but still I ponder if a cut to the neck area would affect the final product.

[PALU]

Harm to the neck affects the skin quality. I've one-shot killed small animals with an arrow through the neck, and the resultant carcass was of a degraded quality.

[Roman Lodestar]

Looks like the skull is the way to go, but still I have the slightest thinking of many hits in the head will affect the hide even if doesn't suppose to be...

EDIT: Nope, hits to the neck (only applies to large animals) seems to not affect the hide, tested with an elk falling to a spiked pit and once it fell unconscious with blunt attacks I performed a hit to the neck with a battlesword using the edge, it died later by bleeding and the result was a "elk carcass", no mangled, harmed, grisly or any negative message regarding the condition of the hide.

[Helldiver]

EDIT: Nope, hits to the neck (only applies to large animals) seems to not affect the hide, tested with an elk falling to a spiked pit and once it fell unconscious with blunt attacks I performed a hit to the neck with a battlesword using the edge, it died later by bleeding and the result was a "elk carcass", no mangled, harmed, grisly or any negative message regarding the condition of the hide.

Well, hits to the neck don't result in any of the above indicators, but they still can result in decreased hide quality, because "mangled / harmed" seems to be only one factor among many affecting hide quality... I have obtained "fine" quality skins from harmed carcasses on numerous occasions, at a hideworking skill level where "fine" was the best I could generally hope to get.

[amyhistoria]

Does anyone remember that what is the village goods restocking frequency? One season? Every year? Some months? Or randomly?

Would the "map maintenance" refresh the goods?

[Privateer]

Does anyone remember that what is the village goods restocking frequency? One season? Every year? Some months? Or randomly?

Would the "map maintenance" refresh the goods?

 Slowly over time. There is no "refresh" in a bulk fashion if that is your question.

[PALU]

Farm produce appears as they're harvested, and so turnips show up fairly early in the summer, with others showing up later. Seeds seem to disappear after a while (as does a lot of the farm produce), so you're better off buying seeds before their planting seasons start.

[Roman Lodestar]

Do Njerpez warcamps have been disabled or they are very, very rare? my latest character has traveled 4787 kilometers and never seen a single one in the map, I'm thinking it has become a exclusive feature for the "runaway slave" scenario.

[PALU]

As far as I know they've been removed apart from the Runaway Slave scenario, as you said.

[Privateer]

26 Oct 2016, 18:26 #4
No problem.

It's quite hard to say the average time interval, as there are random factors and NPCs wander their own routes. It's so that wandering Njerpez may start building war camps occasionally, and that occasionally was toned down a bit from what it used to be. Maybe the building frequency was reduced by 1/3, if I recall correctly.

War camps can appear in Reemi for sure. Only the 1/3 western area of the whole map is 'camp free' zone. The rest 2/3 of the map width can have Njerpez camps.

[Roman Lodestar]

So they are more prevalent in the eastern and northern zones? that explains why I never saw one since I settled near Driik territory for trading, but still I think they were "toned down" to the point they are non-existant. A shame, I wanted to raid a war camp for the spoils and that was a good end-game challenge, I'd exchange robber bands to bring back the njerpez camps.

[Privateer]

but still I think they were "toned down" to the point they are non-existant.

Be that as it may, The last I've seen from Sami is what I put above.