Surviving on Rabbits?

[CuteBeaver]

On this play-through I tried to survive using the snares and rabbits. I think realistically the weight is about right for a rabbit. I just question on how viable they are to actually snare. The calorie cost of finding the wood, then finding a dead dear and harvesting the guts, and then creating the snare itself, and also placing it, and checking on the snares makes this a very low reward activity... Results are not immediate, or assured, and when you do succeed the rabbit flesh is not very nourishing.

Personally I think if snares could be re-used, but loose 25%-50% of their condition, instead of outright disappearing after the first time it would be a little bit less punishing. Id just like to give feedback on something I feel is not as rewarding as it probably should be. Instead of feeling elated when I caught a rabbit I start to dread crafting yet another snare from scratch.

Id also like to be able to pick up the snare and the rabbit. Giving me the option to replace the previously used (less durable) snare on the ground. Its more realistic to be able to carry tiny game back to the cabin. Once indoors maybe use another menu option to gather the meat and hide from a rabbit similar to how we collect wood. If your planning on adding fishing later it would be useful to collect your fish and then bring them home for preparation.

Either way I am loving the patch! I know its probably suicide to try and live just off rabbits but I feel we must try as E-Access Members. I will admit to cheating and eating the occasional candy bar because I haven't figured out a way to sustain myself entirely on rabbits yet. I was doing well scavenging from wolves, collecting guts and eating rabbits but overall the snares are really putting the nail in my coffin.

[ArcLight]

In real life, trying to survive solely off rabbits is a bad idea. Be interesting to know if that's factored into the game.

[Burning Bridges]

Right now not enough calories to make it worthwile, it seems

Wood: calories for reclaimed wood

Gut: calories for harvesting from carcass

Crafting: calories

Walking to snare and back: calories

Meat: calories for harvesting from carcass

Cooking: calories for harvesting fire wood, and cooking

Possibility of food poisoning: huge amount of extra calories (10h rest), when it happens

All for what, 800-1000 calories eating?

[Incariuz]

Yah, rabbits aren't a viable means of staying fed, however, I still make snares and use them just for the hell of it. Gives me something extra to do on those days I don't need to be scavenging or hunting.

[madrepityu]

I collect all the guts if I find a carcass or killed a deer. I store them and when I have 8-10pcs I bring them to the Trapper's Homestead the next time I go hunting or exlporing to that area. When I'm there, I craft all the snares and bring them back to CO. I will use them after I run out of ammo and bandage/antiseptics.

[elloco999]

I spend a lot of time without much to do, so making snares is just something to kill some time. Like madrepityu, I save them up for when I need them.

The only problem I have with snares is that you need gut to make them. So you need to find carcasses or kill deer/ wolves to get the resources you need to make a snare.

[Burning Bridges]

I lost 3 out of 4 gut because of crafting failure. Snaring really isn't worth much, just think of the time to harvest gut.

I still think it's a great feature, the whole rabbit thing just needs a bit of tuning.

[tomas_herbertson]

Right now not enough calories to make it worthwile, it seems

Wood: calories for reclaimed wood

Gut: calories for harvesting from carcass

Crafting: calories

Walking to snare and back: calories

Meat: calories for harvesting from carcass

Cooking: calories for harvesting fire wood, and cooking

Possibility of food poisoning: huge amount of extra calories (10h rest), when it happens

All for what, 800-1000 calories eating?

I agree that snares would, ideally, be reusable. You should be getting some gut from ravaged deer corpses and wolf kills on other deer, though, which would be only a small addition when harvesting the rest of a deer's benefits. You won't be out in the cold long if getting the mere kg or two off of a ravaged corpse, after all; and I'm up to my ears in reclaimed wood having cleaned out only a few houses in town, for lack of anything better to do.

I think that if you've gone into long-term hibernation/survival mode, it might be worthwhile just for the extra calories, since quite a few of the items here isn't much of an addition above your basal metabolic rate. Walking around to check the snares if you're on top of Jackrabbit hill and have several lain around the base isn't an addition if you're sleeping 18 hours a day anyways. And I don't think it's fair to include the cost of cooking when you need to do that for venison and wolf meat to (and they are the main long-term survival staples), or risk of food poisoning when that risk is inherent to all foods--perhaps slightly higher on wildlife food (unconfirmed, though seen in action), but not if you're cooking and eating at moderately high % condition.

Yeah, it costs a bunch of calories and some precious time and resources to make the snares, but again--if you're in hibernation mode, once you've reached the plateau of just checking a few snares a day, you've reached a negligible-to-non-existent additional energy expenditure for some free extra meat you otherwise wouldn't have had access to.

[Burning Bridges]

Yes, perhaps the snare should be reusable, but with the need to repair their condition. Let's say 1/3 condition loss per use or something like that.

It's gonna be hard to tell if it's worth it without trying out. So far I have spend a lot of effort into rabbit snaring and got a lot of enjoyment, but hardly any food from it. The fact that rabbit meat does not get improved by cooking is the final nail in the coffin in terms of surviving.

Currenlty I am hoarding guts for the next patch, which hopefully changes thing a little bit.

[elloco999]

That's how I feel to. It's not like there's all that much to do in the game, crafting and using the snares is just that to me, something to do.

I was surprised after the first time though that I couldn't use the snare another time. If these snares are so fragile that they are useless after 1 use, they'd not be able to hold the rabbit in the first place. It would be nice if snares degraded with every use, based on how long they have been outside and how often they failed or succeeded to catch something. the chance of successfully catching a rabbit could then also depend on the condition of the snare.

[tomas_herbertson]

Well, snares are reusable now! Makes the issue somewhat more sustainable: some snares on the southern river access while fishing in the fishing shacks, and occasionally killing a wolf that jumps you as you leave the camp office to do your fishing/snare checking rounds... (or killing a wolf that has killed a deer, in the area)

[Matty]

Is this something they have fixed already... I just purchased the game a few days ago... I laid down 6 snares and got 5 rabbits and was able to pick up all of my snares... now I didn't check their condition but I will do when I'm back in the game again

[MrFunk]

I've put down 4 or 5 snares and not bagged a single rabbit! I always put them down where the rabbits have been running but nothing ever gets caught. I don't bother anymore.

[Limited_Garry]

I've placed three snares once and two rabbits got cought. I placed them about 50 meters aways from where rabbits were hopping about and only came to check some two days later.

[brostoevsky]

In my current game (Day 32 I think) I ran out of ammunition a week or two ago so I have been living mostly off of rabbits caught in snares and by ice fishing. I have several sets of rabbit snares set up on the slopes of the valley between Trapper's Homestead (my secondary base) and Max's Last Stand, with about 12 snares in total. I spend a few days up there, catch a bunch of rabbits, then go back to the lake and ice fish for a few days.

I have had a lot of luck catching rabbits... just place the snares somewhere you see a decent amount of rabbit activity (the areas near Trapper's Homestead are crawling with them) and wait (I usually give them about 24 hours before I check them). Typically at least 6-8 of my 10 snares will have caught rabbits after 24 hours. That's more than enough to sustain me until the next set of traps yields more food. I have spent at least a week straight at the Trapper's Homestead just eating, sleeping, collecting firewood, checking and resetting the snares, harvesting the rabbits and cooking them.

The only problem is producing snares takes guts, which you can only get from deer and wolves (meaning once you run out of ammo to hunt those, you cannot get any more guts). That combined with the fact that snares lose condition and break after being deployed a few times means you are out of luck once you run out of working snares and guts to craft them with. Once that happens I'll be stuck ice fishing and living on my food stores, which are limited as well since fishing tackle breaks too and needs gut/scrap metal to repair.

[Treasurer]

OK after reading all this I thought I share my experiences with rabbits. The read is long but I think very informative. TL:DR some pages down :ugeek:

V.183 on medium difficulty but i think it applies to stalker or can be scaled up(more snares etc)

First of all the rabbits mechanics kind of broke my current play. Right now I already lived about 20 days almost completely on rabbit meat. Almost because i eat sometimes venison but its free, leftovers from wolfs. The only limiting factor is hatchet and knife degradation but i have 3 of each and about 15 scrap metal, and half of the map unscavenged including the dam. Broke because it got too easy and i think if i don't do something very stupid like falling of a mountain i could stretch the playtime longer that i would like to. Its my second play, first one was on easiest setting but i was bored after 5 ingame days. I would like try the hardest setting sometime but I don't die this time for some reason.

I started in the Coastal Highway and after 70 days being down to 3 bullets made the switch. I have to say life is waaay too easy at the Lake. So much ammunition to find and so few wolfs around I thought Ill try again living on rabbits because its very difficult up to impossible at the Highway but might be easier here at the Lake.

Situation in the Highway map:

Jackrabbit Island has no fireplace and after 3 days wasting wood on blown out fires(wind can turn quickly) and getting stuck with a wolf in one of those fishing huts(one wolf per bullet is absolute no go) i aborted the try.

Waterfront Cottages is better fireplace wise but has a wolf what feels like 24/7. That would not be a problem since I deal with 2-3 of them every day at the gas station but the Cottages have too many small hills and you see him too late coming. You just can not check the snares often enough and have to deal with frozen carcasses too often(hatchet degradation). It got so far that i was starving with snares full of rabbits a couple steps of my door so i shot the bastard in anger, ate him and left the place for good.

As i was looting the new map from my base the Camp Office. I stumbled across the Trapper Homestead. Very cozy place, so i stayed there for 2 days to check the wildlife behavior. Result was lots of deer absolute no wolfs. Nice quiet place but if I have to run through the forest every time I need meat its too dangerous because there are 2 wolf spots along the way and weather can turn quickly very bad. I could get lost in the woods with 10m vision and my bad orientation sense. I should mention that i always (try to) shoot a wolf+deer combo for best meat per bullet ratio and thats easy in the Highway but the lack of wolfs makes it hard at the Lake. I am very good at coursing the deer towards wolfs but was only able to do that at the Mystery lake itself. On my way back to Camp office my bad orientation sense led me to a small field with a broken down tree and 4 rabbits. It struck me like a lightning. A place with fire, no wolfs around and a 10 ingame minutes run to the snares its almost perfect. Its actually even better but more below.

So once i got another deer and wolf combo and had some meat in case the experiment goes wrong i moved with some supplies to the Trappers Home.

Current situation at the Trappers Homestead is:

I set up 10-15 traps at the time, 2-3 some steps apart in every grassy area, and check them twice the day(morning and evening). This gives about 6-9 kg meat per day depending on if you loot the 0.X kg scraps(if under 0.3kg i don't, since they cook for 20 minutes too(bug?) that doubles the cooking time for every rabbit and sometimes I don't have this time left). Thats only almost enough to live from and some days are worse than that yield wise, and one needs guts to maintain the snares.

BUT..... it turns out some times wolfs DO spawn in this area. Every 2-3 days a wolf+deer combo appears and even better sometimes the wolfs bring down a deer without my help. As that happened the first time I still had most of my reserve meat i brought from the Camp Office so i saved the bullet and let the wolf eat. After he left i took the free guts and a couple kg meat he left. That happens on a regular basis now and it yields enough guts to maintain my 15 snares infinite. When i run low on guts i just help the deer to meet the wolf. Many times there is meat on the deer left(5.Xkg was record) and that fills the gap in calories needed per day, but i think i could just go for 20 snares and not need the deer meat. After 20 days i spent not a single bullet, used about 50% knife condition and about 30% hatchet condition. I should mention that i try to forage wood, collect meat/guts with bare hands whenever possible (weather/daytime/corpse freeze).

The only problem is this kind of lifestyle is very time consuming. In between all the harvesting with bare hands warming up at home(because of this), cooking all the meat (rabbit is worst cooking time per calories), repairing the snares etc. there is barely time to sleep. In all the 20 days i had only 2 times "a day off" because i had 2 free deer carcasses shortly after each other and therefore enough meat to forget the snares for a day and explore the woods. I brought a half finished wolf coat for the boring days but could not put a single hour in it. On the other hand it never gets boring like when i looted all the Highway map and was just sleeping and eating all day every day at the gas station.

TL:DR It is very hard in Coastal Highway but very easy in Mystery Lake if you know where and how, but you have to actually read the above for this. HA thats what you get for not reading!

[ChillPlayer]

I am living off Rabbits for several days now out on Jack Rabbit Island. Usually 4 of my 6 layed down snares are filled and it's only a few meters to walk to gather them. Thank goodness the snares can be picked up again, which I guess makes this indeed a valid food choice. The fire didn't blow out once until now, I usually set it very close to the backside of the home (fenced entry). Just burn enough to cook the flesh from one set of traps, go inside, eat, drink, set traps, go sleep, rinse repeat. Thinking about getting silent hunter this way

[elloco999]

FYI, I think you need to spend the first 50 days of the game not firing the rifle for the silent hunter achievement. If you've used the rifle already you can't get the achievement anymore as you could shoot plenty of animals to build up a store of meat before not using the rifle for 50 days.

[ChillPlayer]

Yes I've read this in another thread, thanks But I died soon after this post anyways, so it didn't matter (beware of the Ravine, most evil place ).

[Malak]

Seems like this is fixed/tweaked now because you can re-use them quite a bit. I get the impression that either not harvesting them for awhile a few storms ruins them. Anyways, I LIVE off of rabbits almost exclusively. I put 8-10 of them out at once and I harvest at least every two days. I do agree that just grabbing the rabbit makes more sense than having to stand out in the cold to harvest the meat.

[Reaver]

+1 to you should be able to snag the rabbit and harvest it elsewhere.

[grimreefer24601]

I've been doing pretty well with just 6 snares at the Trapper's Homestead. 3-4 are usually full after 24 hours, and 1-2 ruined. I haven't been hunting for awhile, but my locker's still full, so it seems to be working.

However, now I want to catch live rabbits and raise them. In that nice fenced area behind the Homestead.

[Malak]

Ya gotta play The forest for that... lol. Each game has it's advantages and disadvantages.

[Cosmoline]

The new version of the sandbox has made snaring much more viable. I'm doing great on about ten snares and scavenged deer at the trapper's place. I put the snares out where the rabbits congregate a little ways off near the downed snag. They have an excellent harvest rate there. I do not leave them out but cycle them by putting them out late in the afternoon and picking them up in the morning. This seems to reduce damage to the snares and also ensures that the rabbit meat is very fresh.

[elloco999]

I've had only 1 ruined snare in 4 or 5 days of having had 20 snares out 24h per day in that location near Trapper's. (playing on voyageur)