The hunting system has two functions:
To provide a combat based mini-game
To supply meat and other hunting produce.
You need a hunting skill of 1 to attempt to find creatures and your level of success will be relatively low at this level. The quality of the animals found is capped by the hunters skill.
Different terrains have different animals and the exact animal found is based upon a mixture of the terrain and chance. Some animals are highly aggressive and most are capable of doing serious damage - it is recommended that you hunt with friends whenever possible.
To hunt you find a room which suits your needs and type the Hunt command. The code will then let you know what type of animal you found and give you three options:
Kill - Kill is designed for the professional hunter. It represents an attempt to trap/ambush the creature and thus kill it outright. If this check fails the creature will turn up in the room and will generally be hostile.
Avoid - Avoid attempts to avoid any contact with the creature. If you succeed at the check the animal will never be spawned. If you fail it will be created in the same space as you and will often be hostile.
Watch - Watch enables you to find animals for combat use, taming or simply to look. It will create the animal in the same room as you and it will not generally be hostile. Some animals will always be hostile even when this command is used.
If kill is successful the animal will immediately become a corpse. If it is not then you will want to fight the animal (or flee) and then use slaughter on it once it is unconscious.
Once you have an animal corpse you need to decide what to do with it. The bulk of the downtime cost in hunting is spent butchering the prey but luckily anyone can butcher an animal. Butchering trains hunting however so you may wish to do this yourself. You can also +junk a corpse if you do not wish to make use of the meat and other goods gained through butcher. The cost of butchering an item is based upon the produce gained. At present the maximum cost is somewhere in the region of 70 downtime points. You will be notified about the downtime cost before being asked if you wish to continue.
Most items gained through hunting need processing by a furrier.
Relevant Commands
Hunt, +wildlife/all, Slaughter <animal> & Butcher <corpse>
