Why do they disappear?

[Leeanda]

Does anyone know why the harvested bags of meat disappear after a few days!? Its always puzzled me! I mean its not like Bigfoots hanging around and wants a free dinner! It'd make more sense if the individual pieces disappeared due to opportunistic wolves!

Edited August 21, 2021 by Leeanda

[Cranky]

Are you referring to meat bags when animals are quartered?

[Funguy]

Bags decay superfast and disappear when rotted.  Cut steaks decay slower and only disappear if stored in a container.  Cooked steaks decay even slower.

Why?  I dont know...

Edited August 22, 2021 by Funguy
cuz

[MrWolf]

I think the quartered bags are considered to be a "carcass" (since you still need to harvest the meat from them), so they decay at or near the rate that a carcass decays.  And like the carcass, they disappear when they reach 0%.  It would be an interesting test, to kill two deer or wolves near the same time, quarter one and harvest part of the other, then see if a quartered bag lasts longer than the remains of the other carcass or vice versa.  I think the quartered bags last a little bit longer, but not sure.  I'll test that next time I find a couple wolves.

[Leeanda]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

I think the quartered bags are considered to be a "carcass" (since you still need to harvest the meat from them), so they decay at or near the rate that a carcass decays.  And like the carcass, they disappear when they reach 0%.  It would be an interesting test, to kill two deer or wolves near the same time, quarter one and harvest part of the other, then see if a quartered bag lasts longer than the remains of the other carcass or vice versa.  I think the quartered bags last a little bit longer, but not sure.  I'll test that next time I find a couple wolves.

Yes that would make sense! Still its a bit unfair after spending all that time harvesting it in the first place! 

Still I'd be interested to know what result's you get!

Edited August 22, 2021 by Leeanda

[Serenity]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

Still its a bit unfair after spending all that time harvesting it in the first place! 

No. It's right for game balance. Quartering is not something you usually do. And almost never with small animals like deer and wolves. It allows you to harvest animals in the safety of a shelter. And you get the guts + hide for free. In return bags are heavier than the pure meat and they decay very fast.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Serenity

[Leeanda]

52 minutes ago, Serenity said:

No. It's right for game balance. Quartering is not something you usually do. And almost never with small animals like deer and wolves. It allows you to harvest animals in the safety of a shelter. And you get the guts + hide for free. In return bags are heavier than the pure meat and they decay very fast.

I never catch small prey unless starving . It's mostly moose and bear and they are always harvested. Sometimes I just take the hide and then harvest but it depends on the area and weather. I don't bother with deer at all and only kill wolves for their hide.

I know it's a risk to harvest on any mode.. Even on pilgrim I've been caught out by the weather but the risk for me is worth it. I'm an impatient player!☺️

Edited August 22, 2021 by Leeanda

[odizzido]

14 hours ago, Serenity said:

No. It's right for game balance. Quartering is not something you usually do. And almost never with small animals like deer and wolves. It allows you to harvest animals in the safety of a shelter. And you get the guts + hide for free. In return bags are heavier than the pure meat and they decay very fast.

I dislike when things are so far off reality that people don't even understand what's happening "because gameplay". I think there are better ways to do it.

[hozz1235]

On 8/22/2021 at 7:24 AM, Leeanda said:

I know it's a risk to harvest on any mode.. Even on pilgrim I've been caught out by the weather but the risk for me is worth it. I'm an impatient player!☺️

I actually had a moose carcass decay and disappear before I could even finish harvesting it.  For that reason, I quarter all bear and moose now.

[Leeanda]

32 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

I actually had a moose carcass decay and disappear before I could even finish harvesting it.  For that reason, I quarter all bear and moose now.

Surely they shouldn't disappear that quickly! I gather it only happened once?

[UTC-10]

The quartering bags are containers.  When the meat condition inside the bags reaches 0% (ruined) the meat will disappear per the general ruined item in a container rule and since the bag's reason to exist was to hold the meat [and bones] from quartering, it disappears too. 

How fast quartering bags decay may depend on the difficulty mode for I play in Pilgrim and I remember that the meat in the bags decayed at what seemed to me to be near the ordinary rate, maybe marginally faster but not super fast.  I know I quartered a wolf and kept a couple bags unharvested then took one bag inside the fisherman's cabin in Coastal Highway and it disappeared when the meat contents reached 0%. IIRC it certainly didn't decay like it was on the wolf carcass. 

I never depend on the quartering bags, on those occasions when I do quarter a large animal, to act as storage.  I will harvest the meat from the bags at my earliest opportunity. 

[Leeanda]

2 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

The quartering bags are containers.  When the meat condition inside the bags reaches 0% (ruined) the meat will disappear per the general ruined item in a container rule and since the bag's reason to exist was to hold the meat [and bones] from quartering, it disappears too. 

How fast quartering bags decay may depend on the difficulty mode for I play in Pilgrim and I remember that the meat in the bags decayed at what seemed to me to be near the ordinary rate, maybe marginally faster but not super fast.  I know I quartered a wolf and kept a couple bags unharvested then took one bag inside the fisherman's cabin in Coastal Highway and it disappeared when the meat contents reached 0%. IIRC it certainly didn't decay like it was on the wolf carcass. 

I never depend on the quartering bags, on those occasions when I do quarter a large animal, to act as storage.  I will harvest the meat from the bags at my earliest opportunity. 

That makes sense. Can't say I really pay attention to container decay rates but 3 days for the bags to disappear seemed very low time to me.

I'm also on pilgrim so its easier to quarter  big animals  because of the weather being more lenient! But it does take me nearly all day to cut it all up!

[Stinky socks]

3 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

disappear per the general ruined item in a container rule

In my experience, stuff in containers can reach ruined state and will stay ruined in the container, just like in your inventory, but if you were to put something ruined into the container, then it immediately disappears. This is why I became puzzled in ash canyon first arrival when I put something ruined into container behind the fishing hut and lost it.

[Leeanda]

17 minutes ago, Stinky socks said:

In my experience, stuff in containers can reach ruined state and will stay ruined in the container, just like in your inventory, but if you were to put something ruined into the container, then it immediately disappears. This is why I became puzzled in ash canyon first arrival when I put something ruined into container behind the fishing hut and lost it.

I would think then that the best thing to do is ,if you find ruined food in containers just leave it there! That's what I do anyway! Don't take it out until desperate and level 5 cooking achieved!

 

[UTC-10]

Food that reached ruined inside a container disappears. *

Food that spawned in the container can remain there even if it goes to ruined.  I just don't find that too often and if I was wrong I would only find an empty container anyway. 

The only things, so far as I have found, that can go to ruined inside (or be put as ruined into) a container is clothing.  One can also put ruined torches into containers and they survive.  I suspect that is a dispensation on the assumption that the ruined items can be harvested for materials (i.e. cloth or sticks). 

It would be convenient and helpful to be able to store food supplies (meat, canned goods, etc.) in a container rather than strewn all over the desk/table/floor, but the danger of losing it if one were to walk away to explore some other region seems too great. 

 

* Strange event.  After Lost and Found, I came out of the Camp Office and looked into the Regional Lost and Found (RLF) box on the porch.  I was astounded to see ruined meat in the box.  What I should have done (in hindsight) was grab every piece and throw it on the snow but, instead, I was so surprised I ran inside to "save" the game and when I came out again the ruined meat had disappeared. Possibly the Lost and Found event had moved all that ruined meat strewn all over the region to the RLF box which 'saved' it but once I then "saved" the game the usual rule applied. 😓

[stratvox]

Yes. If an item hits zero condition and is not a harvestable item inside a container it will disappear. If it is a harvestable item it won't.

At least that's been my experience.

[Stinky socks]

Hmm, this requires further research and stephanie 

[Leeanda]

Surely 3 days isn't long enough for meat to reach zero percent though!?

On 8/25/2021 at 11:52 PM, Stinky socks said:

Hmm, this requires further research and stephanie 

Who?

[UTC-10]

I ran a test using a quartered deer, leaving two of the bags outside on the porch of the Camp Office and two inside the Camp Office.  This was in Pilgrim mode.

To my surprise the bags inside and the bags outside decayed at functionally the same rate which was about 2-3% per day.  Starting at 87% on day 173 they had decayed to 29% by the end of day 196.  

Part way through the test, I put a piece of raw venison on the porch outside and it decayed about 0.5% a day.  A raw white fish I put inside decayed about 8% a day. 

When the bags hit about 20%, I harvested the bulk of the meat.  I left one last fractional piece in one outside and one inside bag to see the final result.  The bags eventually got to 2%, the last time I looked at them, and then disappeared when presumably they hit 0% sometime around day 205. 

As noted this was run at Pilgrim level.  YMMV with Voyager, Stalker, or Interloper mode. 

The results seem to indicate that (for my game) there was no real advantage to keeping the quartering bags unharvested as a means of storage other than temporary convenience.  Raw venison on the snow decayed several times slower (0.5%) than the quartering bags (2.0%). 

[Leeanda]

I was surprised by the decay  rate of the fish being somewhat higher!  Seems possible that each type of meat has its own decay rate.?

[UTC-10]

The raw fish was inside the Camp Office. Anything raw inside a dwelling decays several times faster than if it was outside.  The 8% decay rate for the white fish was a bit higher than expected - I expected it to be about 6% a day.  The raw venison was on the porch of the Camp Office so was outside. 

I was also running a check on food decay in a stone cache.  Part-way through that test I left raw white fish in the snow next to the stone cache and the decay rate was about 1% a day (25 days, 21%).   I was getting some screwy (as in unexpected) decay data from the stone cache contents.  Seems that cooked fish and meat in the stone cache decayed at slower (i.e. 2x or 3x) than expected rate. Raw fish and meat decay rates in the stone cache seem to be somewhat consistent with that of being left in the snow. 

[Leeanda]

It does all seem rather  erratic. But I have had untouched bags disappear within 3 days. So wondering if picking up and moving them affects decay too?

[Leeanda]

13 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

The raw fish was inside the Camp Office. Anything raw inside a dwelling decays several times faster than if it was outside.  The 8% decay rate for the white fish was a bit higher than expected - I expected it to be about 6% a day.  The raw venison was on the porch of the Camp Office so was outside. 

I was also running a check on food decay in a stone cache.  Part-way through that test I left raw white fish in the snow next to the stone cache and the decay rate was about 1% a day (25 days, 21%).   I was getting some screwy (as in unexpected) decay data from the stone cache contents.  Seems that cooked fish and meat in the stone cache decayed at slower (i.e. 2x or 3x) than expected rate. Raw fish and meat decay rates in the stone cache seem to be somewhat consistent with that of being left in the snow. 

Many thanks for all the time spent! Very interesting results!

[UTC-10]

No reason I can see for quartering bags to disappear in 3 days.  I can imagine the decay rate for Voyager, Stalker or Interloper being multiples of what I saw but  I find it hard to imagine the multiple getting to 10x what I saw.  I would concede that if it did then 3 days would be "reasonable".  

I did click on the quartering bags about every day to check their condition.  The condition of the meat would be what the quartering bag's condition was.  I did find that between checking in the "morning" (about dawn) and "evening" (about dusk) the condition of the bags would go down by 1% fairly consistently. 

If you quarter an animal again, you might check the condition of the quartering bags regularly rather than leaving them alone until they go *poof*. 😅 

I would be interested in how fast they decay in your game. 

[Leeanda]

9 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

No reason I can see for quartering bags to disappear in 3 days.  I can imagine the decay rate for Voyager, Stalker or Interloper being multiples of what I saw but  I find it hard to imagine the multiple getting to 10x what I saw.  I would concede that if it did then 3 days would be "reasonable".  

I did click on the quartering bags about every day to check their condition.  The condition of the meat would be what the quartering bag's condition was.  I did find that between checking in the "morning" (about dawn) and "evening" (about dusk) the condition of the bags would go down by 1% fairly consistently. 

If you quarter an animal again, you might check the condition of the quartering bags regularly rather than leaving them alone until they go *poof*. 😅 

I would be interested in how fast they decay in your game. 

Well this game is making me a liar!  This was a 10 day experiment cos I ran out of supplies including food ironically!

Harvested the wolf and left one bag where it was untouched and the other inside the basement on Skeeter's ridge! 

The results were the same at 2% per day! The only exception was I had a short blizzard on day 5 and the meat outside went down an extra 1%. Other than that there was no difference!  Wondered though why the blizzard made any difference and why last time I left bags they disappeared at all?   Must have been a weird bug or some such!?