Tracking
| Crafting skill |
|---|
The ability to recognize and follow tracks. Upon finding some tracks you will gain information from them according to your tracking mastery. Tracking can be used both on the zoomed-in map and the wilderness map. On the wilderness map tracking is signficantly more difficult if you don't have a good idea of the animal's location beforehand, but random tracking is still practiced by hunters searching for new game. On the zoomed-in map animal tracks can be visually spotted from a close distance if the print left matches the level of your tracking skill. Obtaining more information calls for using the tracking skill at a preferred track's location. Usually it's not worthwhile to use the tracking skill on every new track you find, but to draw a conclusion as to where the animal may be heading to and hurry ahead.
Whether the animal leaves a visible print at a given location or not depends greatly on the type of ground as well as the type (especially the weight) of the animal itself. Winter is the best season for tracking since even the smallest animals will leave prints on the snow - which even an inexperienced tracker can find.
Tracking and spotting tracks while moving about can be used not only in order to actively follow your prey, but also as an indicator of animal activity in a certain area - for it's wise to set your fox-trap in an area you where find signs of recent fox activity. However the success of your traps is measured by your trapping skill.
Track Freshness
Track freshness is represented as follows:
- Very fresh (animal is nearby)
- Quite fresh
- Fresh
- An hour old
- Some hours old
- Half a day old
- Day old
- Few days old
- Old
Tracking advice
Tracking is the skill used to find animals and other wandering humans on the wilderness map, especially when hunting. It provides a passive chance to locate a trail as you travel, and you can actively search for tracks by pressing [Alt+T], or going through the [s]kills menu.
When standing over a track in the zoomed in map, you can find the direction of the tracks by using this skill. Sometimes the animal pursued will have walked in a circle, making it hard to determine the final direction. The older a track is, the more faded the track will seem.
The tracking task of the Living in the Wild course gives a boost to this skill.
