Skinning

[Rogerthat]

I've been thinking. I know while skinning a beast usually you get two, to one piece of single meat, why not four or five? Or a large piece of meat with more times to eat from it? Something? I only say this because lets say you kill a beetle, scrab, raptor or whatever. Sometimes you get two pieces of meat to one piece, however you're good at skinning - Beetles are large as hell! That one piece of meat doesn't fill you and you have to hunt for more of your meat, ideas?

[evilcabbage]

Skin something bigger.

Also, you need to remember that while beetles are large, they're mostly exoskeletal creatures and the amount of viable meat inside of a beetle might be nonexistent, so the amount you do get is very realistic. If you want an animal that gives you more meat, try scrab, or carru, or mekillots (LOL if you dare).

I recommend challenging a Mek with a least a large party of either very brave or very stupid people.

[Lizzie]

One of the problems with the skinning situation, is that it's stupidly, remarkably, ridiculously easy to amass stupid, remarkable, ridiculous amounts of meat over a relatively short period of time.

There are stockpiles of meat in clan halls - I've been in clans that have had HUNDREDS of pieces of meat stockpiled, even though those same clans have a coded cook standing in the same room as the stockpile. I've even bugged one clan room, where I'd weed out all the meat - over a hundred pieces. And the game would reboot a few weeks later with all of those pieces of meat right back on the table I had junked them from. This would happen every single reboot. And in the meantime, the hunters would continue bringing in MORE.

If you're an independent, it's marginally tougher to acquire meat. And by marginally, I mean - only slightly. In fact, all you really need to do, in order to acquire food, is make friends with your local clanned hunter. I'm sure his boss would be deliriously happy to know that SOMEONE at least is interested in the ridiculous stockpile of meat that he can't get rid of even when he tries. The hunter just needs to ask his boss if it's okay to unload some of the meat that's been stored for the past 5 years and is probably inedible by now.

[Harmless]

I don't see huge stockpiles of meat forming. I do see meat being left out in the dirt quite a lot, though, but only in *ahem* one part of the world, and that is mostly a player behavior-related outcome... and is likely a side effect of certain monsters being used for combat training to the point near extinction.

As far as I can tell, the meat economy is fine.

There is an informal policy that when on a hunting trip, you only kill 2-3 monsters max per hunter involved. That might get you 6 pieces of meat or so on average even if very skilled. If you need to eat one meat meal a day, and ruin on average one of your meals when cooking.. then you've got about 4 pieces of meat from the hunt.

Feels about right to me, assuming people aren't overhunting.

[Yummri]

I also think that only getting one or two is fine, especially as a new hunter, so it encourages you to hunt something else to get better at skinning. But I might be wrong.

[slvrmoontiger]

Really this depends what you are killing. Larger prey provide more meat just as they would in RL.

[sprucebark]

I think the meat recovered is unrealistic, but when I play an independent hunter or even a hunter subguild, food is usually the least of my concerns which may be the point. Just imagine what you get as the -extra- that you don't need to feed yourself when you are logged out.

I am concerned with how piles of meat get found in the wilds. Who would waste a resource like that in a place where starvation is the norm for most of the populace. I'm assuming it isn't nobles out hunting.

[bcw81]

I think this would be an amazing idea...

If meat would rot and decay after a time.

As it is, if you hunt three times in one RL day, you're bound to come back with enough food to hold you over for at least a RL week if you're decent at it. (Though, to be fair, that does include fruits and the like. Also, I'm talking in the North.) If the food you got could decay, I would say sure, lets be able to cut 5-6 cuts of steak from a carru. But as it is, it's not really a problem.

[Barsook]

I think this would be an amazing idea...

If meat would rot and decay after a time.

+1 for the realism at least for the RAW meat

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think this would be an amazing idea...

If meat would rot and decay after a time.

+1 for the realism at least for the RAW meat

Oh yeah. Food needs to decay.

[slvrmoontiger]

I think this would be an amazing idea...

If meat would rot and decay after a time.

As it is, if you hunt three times in one RL day, you're bound to come back with enough food to hold you over for at least a RL week if you're decent at it. (Though, to be fair, that does include fruits and the like. Also, I'm talking in the North.) If the food you got could decay, I would say sure, lets be able to cut 5-6 cuts of steak from a carru. But as it is, it's not really a problem.

Thing is, Zalanthas is a desert world that is a dry place not humid conditions in the desert. I'm not sure how raw meat decomposes in the desert. I know that I saw a segment on the History Channel showing how desert climates actually preserve dead people. So what happens to meat in the desert? Does anyone know? I'd think it would dry out quickly.

[Potaje]

What if you could branch skinning from cooking, like if you mastered cooking, wouldn't a master cook know how to skin?

Just throwing a what if out there.

[RogueGunslinger]

Everyone already has skinning.

[solera]

Everyone already has skinning.

Really? I'm not doubting ....wait...maybe I am..

This is a skill which, for those guilds which get it, will increase over time

I was going to ask how you knew this.

[Delirium]

Not everyone gets skin.

[evilcabbage]

Pretty sure if you look at the guild list you can seriously guess who -doesn't- get it.

But, like I said, hunt bigger game (at your own risk).

As skinning goes up and gets higher, you'll get more stuff from the things you do end up killing. Some things require you to be pretty good at skinning (for obvious reasons) to get the good good good stuff.

[RogueGunslinger]

Not everyone gets skin.

Huh, weird. Could have sworn on this. I can't remember ever not having the skill, even with the non-combat classes.

[Lizzie]

Anyone can attempt to skin a skinnable dead thing, and anyone has a chance for success. That chance can improve if you have the skill on your skills list, up to mastery, depending on the guild/subguild.

There was one time, many moons ago, when skinning without the actual skinning skill on your list, meant you were almost (not totally) doomed and would surely starve to death if you had to rely on your skinning skill to eat. Morgenes changed that many moons ago, minus one year, such that now there is a fair chance that you would at -least- get something to eat, if not the skin, bone, or anything else.

[Twilight]

There was a time when you didn't have skinning on your skill list at all, because no one did, and it depended entirely on your guild how well you skinned things.  So rangers came out of the box skinning well and warriors okay and lots others bleh.

That changed around 1999.

[LauraMars]

I'd like it if the skinning skill had a delay of some kind, based on the size of the creature.

Right now, it's a little too fast, imo.

So instead of this:

Code Select Expand

The tall, muscular woman hacks off a piece of meat from the corpse.
The tall, muscular woman hacks off a piece of meat from the corpse.
The tall, muscular woman hacks off a piece of meat from the corpse.
The tall, muscular woman pries a series of segmented legs from the corpse.
The tall, muscular woman separates the thick chitin from the rest of the body.

You'd see something like this:

Code Select Expand

The tall, muscular woman hacks off a piece of meat from the corpse.

<delay>

The tall, muscular woman hacks off a piece of meat from the corpse.

<delay>

The tall, muscular woman hacks off a piece of meat from the corpse.

<delay>

The tall, muscular woman pries a series of segmented legs from the corpse.

<delay>

The tall, muscular woman separates the thick chitin from the rest of the body.

It doesn't make a ton of sense that someone can skin something the size of a mekillot or a bahamet just a quickly as a creature the size of a gurth.

[RogueGunslinger]

I really like that idea. Then it'd be much easier to append emotes for each action. So I don't have to be so vague with my skinning emote.

Em cuts into the flesh of the beast cutting up its abdomen and cracking its ribs apart. He starts extracting organs and cutting away meat, then begins peeling back the hide, slowly scraping it off the musculature.

>You pry a talon from the beast.

[evilcabbage]

What happened there is you cut the musculature and stuff out, but it was so wrecked and damaged that there was just no use in it, and you had to scrap it.

[RogueGunslinger]

What happened there is you cut the musculature and stuff out, but it was so wrecked and damaged that there was just no use in it, and you had to scrap it.

Yep.

[Lizzie]

I usually just emote my -attempts- to skin something, and let the code give the resulting echo.

Or - I might not emote at all.

Or - I might use the skinning command, and THEN type out an emote to show that I'm gathering up the bits and tossing the ruined parts away.

As for a delay - nah. I'd rather -minimize- screen scroll, rather than maximize it. Maybe something like:

The tall, muscular woman hacks off a few pieces of meat from the corpse.
The tall, muscular woman pries a series of segmented legs from the corpse.
The tall, muscular woman separates the thick chitin from the rest of the body.

And give a starting delay to the skinning process, dependent on the skill vs. the level of skill needed for a critical success. And definitely NOT a realistic delay. I mean honestly - if you're talking about an animal as big as a real-world elephant, covered with a shell thicker than that of a plank of wood, and using only a bone, stone, or claw-bladed skinning knife to do the job, you'd be talking several DAYS to cut that fucker up.

[manonfire]

Sort of related, but not really, but I remember a scene where Vash spam-skinned like sixty hawks(?) in seconds.

It was an explosion of feathers and one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

[Delirium]

Sort of related, but not really, but I remember a scene where Vash spam-skinned like sixty hawks(?) in seconds.

It was an explosion of feathers and one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Buzzards.

[Barzalene]

My poor soldier had the hugest crush on Vash. (Most of my pcs don't have crushes.)

(I also normally wouldn't post something like that, but as this was 2008 it should be safe.)