Skill: Butchery

[Johan Crichton]

I was playing with a newly created cannibal alt, and having killed a wild animal on the mainland, wondered why I couldn't feast on the corpse.

That got me thinking.  Admittedly, it's not a new idea, but this was my thinking based on existing elements of the game.

Suggestion: New Skill - Butchery: You know how to butcher animals to harvest meat from their corpses.

Requirements: Level 5.

Mechanism: Reuse some of the cannibal feasting code to allow all characters with this skill to butcher dead animals and harvest 'portions' of meat from their bodies.

When a character with the skill is in the same square as an animal they have killed and they have a knife or dagger, a [butcher animal] button appears, and if they haven't over harvested the animal they can harvest a 'portion of meat' into their inventory.

There would be three types of "portion" of meat - 'white meat', 'red meat' and 'the other white meat'.

Some animals should allow for more harvesting, e.g. Elephants, while others should be limited to one harvest, e.g. rats and parrots. Others perhaps shouldn't be able to be harvested from at all, e.g. bats, giant squid.

Eating a portion of meat would restore 1hp, like other food items.  Portions of meat could not restore hp past a character's maximum hp.

Reasoning: It seems odd that cannibals can feast, but nobody else on the island eats meat of any sort   Adding this would provide a way for hunters to gain some healing sources while on the hunt, and provide more items for trading by those interested in doing so.

--

Thoughts, comments?

[Spaghetti]

Mebbe change the name to something un po 'piu macabre less frightening

[Johan Crichton]

Is Butchery frightening? I grew up with Butchers still operating, and we still have them in the antipodes, despite the rise of supermarkets.

[Spaghetti]

Quite frightening.

[DLC]

Reminds me of Age of Empires where your men could harvest meat from slaughtered game.
But what makes you think people can't eat rats, parrots or squids? Budgies used to be eaten as snacks by the Aborigines, rats are a staple in Chinese cooking, and don't get me started on squids.
Also, would the meat rot after certain exposure to outside factors causing HP damage when eaten?

DLC approves 80% of this suggestion whole-heartedly.

[Johan Crichton]

* Nyarlathotep re-reads what he wrote and rewrites a bit.

Sorry, intent was to allow people to collect meat from rats and parrots.  I recall reading about various european cities resorting to rats during various wars.

Giant squid I'm not so sure about though since don't they freeze squid pretty much immediately in the real world?

Also, would the meat rot after certain exposure to outside factors causing HP damage when eaten?

Currently, fruit doesn't rot.  That's a little weird, and I'd agree that perhaps Simon needs to consider something (ala GPS charges?) such that fruit and meat could go off over time.

[Killian]

Reminds me of Age of Empires where your men could harvest meat from slaughtered game.

I was going to put a screen cap of what you described, but alas, I can't find any.

And yes, even though this skill has been discussed in other forms, I would like to have another benefit for finishing an animal.

Also: I wonder what tiger meat looks like. I think it's striped.

Giant squid I'm not so sure about though since don't they freeze squid pretty much immediately in the real world?

No, it's fine as long as you keep it out of the sun. Tastes just like chicken. I'm thinking this thread might go into a discussion about what people around the world eat. (i.e. bugs, spiders, grubs, kangaroo, etc.)

[KingBiscuit]

Rotting might be too tedious to code?

I like this suggestion a lot.

Butchery is a fine name. There's nothing scary about butchery. You could call it 'Field-Dressing' perhaps.

[Johan Crichton]

Rotting might be too tedious to code?

Simon's already added charges to gps items - rotting could be similar, a value stored on the individual item but not displayed.

When a piece of food (fruit or meat) hits 100% of the value, the game simply changes it's base type to 'rotten banana' etc and informs the player.

[Spaghetti]

Butchery is a fine name. There's nothing scary about butchery. You could call it 'Field-Dressing' perhaps.

One night our padre come home drunk more than ushual. He make angry gesture to our madre. Then he make-a violent attack toward mama. Our madre reach for the kitchen knife, and she CUT! CUT! ...CUT!

Our padre bleed, but he not die. They get seperated soon after.

We no can look at kitchen knives the same way after. Or butcher knives (cleavers?) This butcher-name evoke that scene.

We Machittys can handle the sight of blood, but not blood from butcher knives. Is very macabre.

[KingBiscuit]

Rotting might be too tedious to code?

Simon's already added charges to gps items - rotting could be similar, a value stored on the individual item but not displayed.

When a piece of food (fruit or meat) hits 100% of the value, the game simply changes it's base type to 'rotten banana' etc and informs the player.

Good call. In that case, De La Coiffe's suggestion of turning the fruit/meat toxic is interesting. Rotten food could be used for that old salt-water drinking way of leveling up.

[Cheesesteak]

Rotting might be too tedious to code?

Simon's already added charges to gps items - rotting could be similar, a value stored on the individual item but not displayed.

When a piece of food (fruit or meat) hits 100% of the value, the game simply changes it's base type to 'rotten banana' etc and informs the player.

Good call. In that case, De La Coiffe's suggestion of turning the fruit/meat toxic is interesting. Rotten food could be used for that old salt-water drinking way of leveling up.

LOL, and to think Simon suggested decaying kelp with the GPS mechanism before animal meat...

Yeah, you heard me. KELP.

[h4x0r541]

Perhaps if you made it such that the hunter eats the meat immediately following butchering, this would solve the "decaying meat" problem, as well as make it more for healing yourself after killing the animal, as opposed to stocking up on huge amounts of meat. This would also save an AP (i assume butcher costs at least 1 AP, then eating costs another). This would make prolonged hunting expeditions much easier, but would not eliminate the need for FAK if balanced correctly.

h4x

[AlexanderRM]

Butchery is a fine name. There's nothing scary about butchery. You could call it 'Field-Dressing' perhaps.

I really think Butchery does sound kinda scary, but to be honest I can't come up with an alternative off the top of my head.

Also, I think that if this is implemented, then perhaps we should simply (probably not all at once) implement mechanics to use pretty much all of a body*, or at least the major parts- bones, fur, meat, possibly some organs, maybe a cannibal skill to store blood in bottles... that seems to be getting a bit excessive, I suppose, and I'm not quite sure I want a game where you spend like 10 AP every time you make a big kill harvesting everything and wind up filling your inventory after a day of hunting, even with the time spent getting that stuff...


*Outsiders- perhaps through a native-exclusive skill- should be more wasteful, though. This could obviously be ignored for the sake of game balanced, but historically, I'm pretty sure Outsider had a tendency to take the choice meats and leave everything else to rot, while Natives (I'm told) would often utilize virtually everything... eyes for example, though I'm not quite sure what we could make out of those...

Rotting might be too tedious to code?

Simon's already added charges to gps items - rotting could be similar, a value stored on the individual item but not displayed.

When a piece of food (fruit or meat) hits 100% of the value, the game simply changes it's base type to 'rotten banana' etc and informs the player.

Good call. In that case, De La Coiffe's suggestion of turning the fruit/meat toxic is interesting. Rotten food could be used for that old salt-water drinking way of leveling up.

Now that you mention salt water, I seem to recall that salting food was a good way to preserve it before refrigerators and such...

[lama]

...and collected meat could be stewed or roasted. With or without fruits, herbs, parrot feathers...