Wild game, hunting and butchery

Six kinds of Fortress game

Rabbits, Deer, Boars, Frost Elk, Mountain Goats and Salt Goats are the colony’s hunted game. Each has its own biome pool and carcass yield. Newly founded colonies use the current colony combat scale for animal health. Older hunting colonies keep their earlier health values. The greater health does not multiply the meat or hide from a carcass.

Finding game on the land

Game starts on known, dry surface grass or forage ground that settlers can reach. Initial herd locations are at least 14 tiles from the camp, including diagonals. When hunting begins, the local game cap is the number of eligible reachable cells divided by 600, rounded to the nearest whole number and held between 2 and 10. Founding tries to place roughly 70% of that cap, with a minimum goal of 2. Placement can still fail. This cap belongs to hunted game, rather than the colony’s livestock or every hostile animal.

Arrivals and departures use the calendar

The current daily arrival check runs at 15:00 on the displayed colony clock. Below the game cap it has a 15% arrival roll, then still needs a legal entry and placement. An arrival can bring part of a herd if little room remains. The same daily branch can instead send an unmarked, calm herd away when the land holds more than half its cap. Departure has its own 10% roll. Marking a departing animal for Hunt can stop its departure. Game does not instantly refill when you kill it.

Who takes a hunt

Select an animal and choose Hunt, then give a settler Hunting work. A free hunter with a loaded ranged weapon takes priority over an unarmed worker. Without such a free ranged hunter, an unarmed worker can still be eligible. An existing hunter can continue without that preference check. A Boar hunt is refused below 50 health. The Hunt order follows the animal’s position and ends if the animal is gone. A free ranged hunter with more than 25 but less than 50 health can still block a healthy unarmed worker from starting a new Boar hunt, despite being too hurt to take it. Turning off Hunting for that injured ranged settler removes this preference block.

Range, shots and frightening the herd

The hunter needs weapon range and a clear line of sight. Range includes diagonals. A ranged attack spends a shot even if it misses. Its chance to hit is 70% plus 3 percentage points per combat level, capped at 95%. A melee blow lands. Damage is rounded, with a minimum of 1 on a hit. An attack frightens its target for 40 action steps, including a missed shot. Game normally flees from settlers within 3 tiles and watches an 8-tile radius while frightened. Animal movement and attack cadence count action steps, while arrivals and spoilage use the calendar.

A surviving Boar can turn on the hunter

A hit that leaves the Boar alive can anger it and other Boars from its herd within 4 tiles, including diagonals. It charges the hunter and can gore every 8 action steps, with armour reducing the damage. It gives up when the target is gone, dead, unable to stand, off the home map or more than 10 tiles away. It also gives up after its 60-step anger window or when its own health falls strictly below one quarter of maximum. The Hunt order and the settler’s hostile response share the attack clock, so those routes do not give a double strike.

Butcher the carcass before it rots

A successful hunting kill leaves one carcass with its animal’s identity. A hunter who may haul and can find suitable storage can carry it home. A Butcher’s Table turns one carcass into its species’ meat amount. Hide is added only where that animal has hide and the colony supports the forge. The catalogue’s ordinary six-meat batch is not every animal’s yield. Fresh meat begins its own freshness budget after butchering.

Cold storage and the hourly rot check

A fresh carcass has 2 warm days of freshness, raw meat has 3 and dried meat has 14. An underground location or Frost uses freshness at one third of the warm rate, giving 6, 9 or 42 days in constant cold. The game checks freshness hourly using where the goods lie at that check. It ages stored bin stacks and ground piles that nobody has picked up. Carried ground piles and ingredients already reserved for jobs are outside this rot pass. Moving a stack into cold storage slows later loss rather than restoring freshness.

Automatic station orders and kitchen priorities

Finishing the first Butcher’s Table adds a repeating Butcher order if the colony has no order for it. A Drying Rack adds a Dry meat order that aims for 20 Dried meat and leaves 3 Raw meat for the kitchen. Existing orders, including suspended ones, are kept. Drying uses 3 Raw meat and 1 Salt for 3 Dried meat. The kitchen can use 3 Raw meat and 1 Water before its ordinary forage input when the meat can actually be reserved. Raw meat is last in the household food preference order and costs 4 morale when eaten. Dried meat is preferred before aged wheels.