Quartering or normal harvesting?

[PrincessAutumn]

When it comes to harvesting your kill, would you rather quarter or harvest everything one by one?

I normally quarter bigger animals because it takes way too long to harvest things one by one. .. Today I got myself a moose by the river near the dam in Mystery Lake and for 94.1 pounds of meat would've taken almost 4 hours and I didn't have that kind of time as it was getting dark and I didn't trust the weather not to turn bad so I quartered it thinking I would just have 94.1 pounds of meat but now I have 128 pounds. How is that? The harvest screen said it was only 94.1 pounds but it now seems I have more.. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining because hey, it's more food but man, I didn't think I would end up with all that meat.

[darkscaryforest]

12 hours ago, PrincessAutumn said:

...thinking I would just have 94.1 pounds of meat but now I have 128 pounds. How is that? The harvest screen said it was only 94.1 pounds but it now seems I have more.. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining because hey, it's more food but man, I didn't think I would end up with all that meat.

IIRC, the bags you get will weigh more than the amount of meat that you can harvest from it. For example, I quartered a bear recently and each quarter was around 10 kg or so but only had 4.7 kg of harvest-able meat. To be clear, I don't think you lose any meat doing this- it's just divided up to weigh more.

Quartering will save you time if you want every part of the animal, including guts and skin.

Edited April 21, 2021 by darkscaryforest

[Schrodingers Box]

Quartering is essential in interloper. It is impossible to harvest a bear in the open.  I always quarter deer or larger when exposed. 
  I see a lot of people who give the poor advice of “don’t bother with quartering”. they either don’t understand the concept and why it’s useful or they play stalker or below.  If nothing else, at least a player should understand quartering mechanics so they can advance in skill. 
 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Schrodingers Box

[Dr. S.]

2 hours ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Quartering is essential in interloper. It is impossible to harvest a bear in the open.
 

Eh? At harvesting 5 it's 6 min/kg with the improvised knife, so you can harvest the meat from a 40 kg bear in 4 hours. 28 more minutes for the hide (and more for the guts, of course, if you need them). Hardly impossible.

For me, quartering is situational. I'm more likely to do it early in the game or when the carcass is near a cave or other location where I can take advantage of the indoor temps while harvesting the sacks you get from quartering.

[hozz1235]

Quarter Bear & Moose - harvest the rest.

[UpUpAway95]

It's situational for me.  There is always the option to harvest a small amount of meat and or the hide from the animal and keep coming back at intervals (after warming up or the weather improves) to continue harvesting.  Nothing says everything has to be taken in one go.  Quartering takes 2 hours with no option to have it take less time than that... so, if I think the weather will be decent for two hours, I'll quarter and carry a bag back to shelter to harvest.  If it's really deteriorating (i.e. the weather), I'll take the hide and a steak or two and come back in a few hours to finish the job... or to do another part of it.  It's rare that I don't manage to harvest everything I want from the animal eventually before it despawns.  Also, I never bother quartering deer.  The time difference is just not that significant unless I'm ripping it apart with my hands... which means I don't have the option to quarter it anyways.

Edited April 21, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Stinky socks]

I killed a bear last night(not the real one), and because my clothes were wet, I harvested like 3 hours worth and dropped it on the ground next to a bear because I was close to hypothermia at that point.

Reason I even began harvesting is so that bear won't disappear in case theres YUGE blizzard and I have to miss couple days.

Having level 5 makes it great; I don't need to worry about meat going bad. After cooking, you get 50% condition back and the rest doesn't even matter. I'm a very good cook, even ruined meat is yummy and edible!😋👍🐛

[Sherri]

I never quarter predators because I want to leave a tiny bit of meat on the carcass to make it take longer for it to respawn.

Other than that, I play it by how the weather is, what condition I'm in, and how desperate I am for guts and skins.

Quartering causes the meat to lose condition quickly while sitting in those bags. So that's also a factor.

[Glflegolas]

Quartering wolves & bears if you plan on eating them isn't that smart, because then you end up with more fractional pieces of meat than if you harvest. This isn't a problem in voyageur, but I don't like eating less than 1 kg of predator meat in Stalker/Interloper at once, as the risk of parasites is the same for 1 kg as for 0.01 kg.

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Glflegolas said:

Quartering wolves & bears if you plan on eating them isn't that smart, because then you end up with more fractional pieces of meat than if you harvest. This isn't a problem in voyageur, but I don't like eating less than 1 kg of predator meat in Stalker/Interloper at once, as the risk of parasites is the same for 1 kg as for 0.01 kg.

Quartering them if you don't plan on eating any part of them isn't smart because you can harvest the hide and at least some guts in less than 2 hours.

[Schrodingers Box]

8 hours ago, Dr. S. said:

Eh? At harvesting 5 it's 6 min/kg with the improvised knife, so you can harvest the meat from a 40 kg bear in 4 hours. 28 more minutes for the hide (and more for the guts, of course, if you need them). Hardly impossible.

For me, quartering is situational. I'm more likely to do it early in the game or when the carcass is near a cave or other location where I can take advantage of the indoor temps while harvesting the sacks you get from quartering.

Ridiculous. You clearly don’t play interloper. There is no way to spend 5 to 8 hours in interloper in one spot and maintain a fire.  The weather changes way too quick. Plus it’s just plain...simple...math. In less time that getting a hide and two guts you get the hide, 10 guts and the meat. math. Simple. 

[UpUpAway95]

38 minutes ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Ridiculous. You clearly don’t play interloper. There is no way to spend 5 to 8 hours in interloper in one spot and maintain a fire.  The weather changes way too quick. Plus it’s just plain...simple...math. In less time that getting a hide and two guts you get the hide, 10 guts and the meat. math. Simple. 

Ridiculous. 1) Bears don't always die out in the open, so it is entirely possible sometimes to maintain a 5 to 8-hour fire near a bear in interloper.  2) It is not always possible to maintain a 2-hour fire or to stay 2 hours out in the open without a substantial loss of condition... which is the exact time it will take you to quarter any animal.  You can, however, opt to harvest in small increments of time; and therefore, you are better able to monitor changing weather conditions as you go... adding sticks to your fire and/or moving your fire as the wind changes.  You can even cook some of your steaks as you harvest them... or even make a tea if you harvest only one steak at a time. 

Finally, quartering isn't possible if all you have on you is a hacksaw (if, say, you manage to scare a wolf off a deer it has killed before you make your forge run).  So, you may find yourself in a position of having to just harvest a deer... so don't say that it's impossible to harvest in interloper.  That's nonsense.

[darkscaryforest]

9 hours ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Ridiculous. You clearly don’t play interloper. There is no way to spend 5 to 8 hours in interloper in one spot and maintain a fire.  The weather changes way too quick. Plus it’s just plain...simple...math. In less time that getting a hide and two guts you get the hide, 10 guts and the meat. math. Simple. 

When someone brings up a good point, responding with "you don't play interloper" isn't a productive contribution to the discussion. It just makes you look ignorant. I'll point you to your own quote when you were being rude to another player on this forum:

On 4/18/2021 at 5:51 PM, Schrodingers Box said:

Don’t post on a forum unless you know what you are talking about so that you Don’t give misinformation. If you don’t know or aren’t sure, you can help out the community by just keeping silent. 

If you're not interested in the guts or skin, quartering not only adds 2 hours to the entire harvesting process- it doubles the weight of the goods to bring back to base camp so you have to add that time of going back and forth with scent. If a blizzard hits when you're carving onsite, it might not be a big deal to just come back.

Better yet is the consideration of predators nearby. One of the most powerful things in the long dark is your ability to just leave anything anywhere and have the guarantee that it'll be there when you come back.  If there's a trio of wolves between you and where you want the meat, it's a legit tactic to harvest and drop it onsite- giving you time to think about how to transport it safely (through more violence or other means).

Like almost every other mechanic in the game, there's nuance in deciding whether to quarter or not since there's so many variables at play. That's what makes The Long Dark such a great game

[UpUpAway95]

15 minutes ago, darkscaryforest said:

When someone brings up a good point, responding with "you don't play interloper" isn't a productive contribution to the discussion. It just makes you look ignorant. I'll point you to your own quote when you were being rude to another player on this forum:

If you're not interested in the guts or skin, quartering not only adds 2 hours to the entire harvesting process- it doubles the weight of the goods to bring back to base camp so you have to add that time of going back and forth with scent. If a blizzard hits when you're carving onsite, it might not be a big deal to just come back.

Better yet is the consideration of predators nearby. One of the most powerful things in the long dark is your ability to just leave anything anywhere and have the guarantee that it'll be there when you come back.  If there's a trio of wolves between you and where you want the meat, it's a legit tactic to harvest and drop it onsite- giving you time to think about how to transport it safely (through more violence or other means).

Like almost every other mechanic in the game, there's nuance in deciding whether to quarter or not since there's so many variables at play. That's what makes The Long Dark such a great game

Well said.

[Schrodingers Box]

Doesn’t change the math though. Either you understand it or you don’t. On easy levels like stalker and below, sure- just ignore quartering just like you ignore cattails. Who picks up cattails in easy levels?? But on interloper you have to know how to maximize resources.  quartering does that. It is about resource management as well as time management.  Those aren’t important when you are sitting there with a can of condensed milk and two expedition parkas harvesting without needing a fire lol. 

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Doesn’t change the math though. Either you understand it or you don’t. On easy levels like stalker and below, sure- just ignore quartering just like you ignore cattails. Who picks up cattails in easy levels?? But on interloper you have to know how to maximize resources.  quartering does that. It is about resource management as well as time management.  Those aren’t important when you are sitting there with a can of condensed milk and two expedition parkas harvesting without needing a fire lol. 

You're ignoring a large part of the math though... It takes additional time to move your bags (and unlikely that you can safely carry all of them at once) and then harvest those bags before you get the benefit of the resources from the total animal anyways.  For a deer or wolf, you can completely harvest it onsite in less time than it would take you to quarter and then harvest the bags of meat.  If your bear drops dead after returning to his cave, you can easily harvest the whole thing beside at raging fire and have a large portion of the meat already cooked in less time than you can quarter, transport, harvest and then cook it... on ANY difficulty level, including Loper... and then you can carry more of your bear out of there in one trip because the harvested meat weighs 50% less in total.

Let's talk about tool management... as I said, you can harvest with a hacksaw, but you can't quarter with one.  A hacksaw is a completely repairable tool, your hatchet has to be sharpened with a whetstone (or repaired in Bleak Inlet - where Atheenon says there is no point for Lopers to risk traveling there).

As noted, if you don't intend to eat the meat, you can always harvest the hide in less than two hours.  Yes, you won't get all 10 guts, but you can't repair your bearskin coat with fishing tackle anyways and fishing is noted to be rather useless in Loper as well... so how many guts do you need?... or are you just wasting valuable time and calories collecting them?

Also, I would counter with who doesn't pick cattails on any level?  From what I've seen on Youtube, everyone does regardless of whether or not they are playing on Interloper.  Your continued attempts to demean people who don't play on standard interloper are, quite honestly, ridiculous.  Also, your bearskin coat has a higher warmth rating and waterproof rating than the expedition parka.

Edited April 22, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Schrodingers Box said:

You either never played interloper or you have a lot to learn about plying better. 
first - no one  playing interloper repairs a hatchet or knife in BI. you make a new one. Dozens of new ones in fact because resources are limitless.  If you played interloper you would know that. 
  Second- because it is agreed that it is far more mathematically logical to quarter just for the advantage of hide and guts - anyone playing interloper knows immediately you can never get enough of these at the start of the game in addition to needing the food so it is obvious any beginning level interloper player who knows basic math will quarter anything deer it above and definitely 100% of the time for moose or bear. your answer even admits quartering is better for same amount of time if you read it. 
  not sure if you are just a bad troll or bad at math or both but I suspect you are just a bad troll. 

You have to go to a forge to craft another knife... I can repair both the hacksaw and the tools with scrap metal in any location on the map... So, the hacksaw is still a better choice as far as conserving resources (including the calories required for travel) than using up your knife or hatchet or your whetstones (which are limited).  If you weren't so focused on insulting people, you would know that.

If you knew basic math, you would know that ignoring variables in an equation provides a flawed result.  Plugging different variables into a math equation does change the result.. and you are insisting on ignoring several variables presented here, several by long-acknowledged interloper players, that do make, on occasion, harvesting in interloper preferable to quartering.  Also, you stated that it was impossible to harvest in interloper and impossible to maintain a fire for 6-8 hours... both of which are possible.

 

Edited April 22, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Admin]

This thread is very close to being locked.

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[Wish]

On 4/21/2021 at 1:32 PM, Schrodingers Box said:

Quartering is essential in interloper. It is impossible to harvest a bear in the open.  I always quarter deer or larger when exposed. 
  I see a lot of people who give the poor advice of “don’t bother with quartering”. they either don’t understand the concept and why it’s useful or they play stalker or below.  If nothing else, at least a player should understand quartering mechanics so they can advance in skill. 
 

Hi All,

I have not found quartering to be essential. Different people certainly play in different ways.

Looking at my stats really quick, I've got an old 548-day voyager run and a 748-day interloper run that I currently play. Looking just at my interloper  character, she has killed 40 bears, 8 moose, , 90 wolves, 19 deer (excluding wolf-encouraged deer kills) and 960 rabbits! I never quarter. 

Part of the enjoyment, at least for me, is staying up all night fishing or cooking bear meat. When the wind comes, I've found I can usually feed the fire one stick at a time in 9-minute intervals to keep it going until the wind dies down; except for a full-on blizzard of course, but you can mitigate that by downing the animal with good aim in a location mostly protected from the wind.

For my play style, when I leave the meat outside of my nearest base after harvesting it elsewhere, I simply drop the cooked and raw meat in different piles and move on--I rarely cook inside my shelter (save fishing huts).

Also, concerning the idea of saving time by quartering or not quartering, one of the pleasures of the survival experience with no predetermined end is not worrying about how long something takes. I'm simply existing and living in those moments. For me, cooking outside for 8 or 10 hours or so on interloper is part of the enjoyment. Who doesn't enjoy a good fire?

Also: Thank you, Hinterland Admin, for reminding us to be mindful of the way we comport ourselves.  

[Sir Major M.oos.E Sr.]

8 hours ago, Wish said:

and 960 rabbits! 
 

what? Why? Poor rabbits 😔

When the wind comes, I've found I can usually feed the fire one stick at a time in 9-minute intervals to keep it going until the wind dies down; except for a full-on blizzard of course, but you can mitigate that by downing the animal with good aim in a location mostly protected from the wind.

easy 🙂

For me, cooking outside for 8 or 10 hours or so on interloper is part of the enjoyment. Who doesn't enjoy a good fire?

right. Especially on the Blind side of a bilzzard

loper is Tough, deadman is tough, Noone Gets out Alive outerloper without Wildlife Spawn except from Wolves is tough sure. but you can always just run around killing everything without Even harvesting at all. Becoming the top predator and just Own Great bear and Win survial mode 😛
 

 

 

[Cranky]

I’ve found quartering useful at times but that’s very rare. When I take down a bear or moose I usually harvest 4kg, start 2 fires and cook, build a snow shelter near the fires and kill, then harvest as I cook in 1hr increments. Also most of my bear and moose kills tend to be near a structure (carter dam, farm house, service station, etc.). 
 

There is no real need to move any of it due to the fact that nothing dropped/harvested gets taken or snow covered or moved by any other force in the game. I take with me the meat I’ll need for the time being then return as needed. Food, fire, and shelter all in one spot. 

[UpUpAway95]

On 4/23/2021 at 1:18 AM, Sir Major M.oos.E Sr. said:

 

Yes, that's true.  One of my recent custom runs has been a "no animals" one... where I turned the spawning of all the animals to "none" in the custom memu, leaving just the fishing setting alone.  No animal attacks so it can get boring, but it does make you rethink some things... no rabbitskin hats or bearskin bedrolls.  Guts are limited to those you get out of the prop deer... things like that.

[Stinky socks]

5 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

turned the spawning of all the animals to "none" in the

Wow, that is certainly a very unique challenge!! Hey, did you check if fluffy still spawns inside milling station? 🐕🥰

[UpUpAway95]

59 minutes ago, Stinky socks said:

Wow, that is certainly a very unique challenge!! Hey, did you check if fluffy still spawns inside milling station? 🐕🥰

Sorry, no I didn't check and  I got admittedly bored with it pretty early on.  The map feels eerie and quiet when there are no animals around at all.  Also, there wasn't much reason to to go in there... no use for a rifle or revolver in the challenge.  My guess is that he wouldn't spawn, but you've got me curious... I may try it again, spawning in Mystery Lake and heading directly into Bleak Inlet with aurora frequency jacked up to high just to have a quick look.  Bonus, of course, is that there is a lot of birch bark in the Ravine.