Hunting

After the cataclysm, food found in cities is liable to rot or be consumed and eventually run out for good, hunting is the main method for a player to obtain meat and sometimes plant marrow to keep themselves alive, it can be either easy, or tricky.

Where to hunt?

The most obvious place to hunt is the forest, a wide variety of animals can be hunted here, including bears, coyotes, dogs, etc.

What weapons you need

Animals vary in their behaviour, therefore you need different weapons for them.

• A firearm is the best thing to bring for many bigger animals, such as moose, bears, and deer, if it's a bear or moose, it can be used to shoot them as they approach, without taking damage. Do note, if you use a firearm against a smaller animal, you are likely to damage the corpse, decreasing the amount of meat harvested.
• A bow or crossbow is a quintessential hunter's weapon, it can allow the player to kill many smaller creatures quickly without much damage to their corpse.
• A good knife, for both butchering and defending yourself from a hostile animal, hunting knives have good butchering, but are never good for combat, if you don't have a hunting knife, a combat knife, trench knife, or even machete is very versatile for both killing and butchering without wasting ammo or damaging the corpse severely.

Animal difficulty

• Deer are fast, flighty, and almost impossible to hunt without very special strategy, you may be more likely to trap them then kill them, or take advantage of other monsters attacking it one side and corner it in the other.
• Moose, bears, coyotes are liable to approach the player to attack them themselves, luckily, this can make them vulnerable to melee attacks, but be careful, they can still hurt you...
• Wolves are not particularly threatening by themselves, but are typically found in packs, and their attacks are more likely to cause bleeding than others.
• In later days, Zombie Animals begin to replace most of the living ones, you may get the occasional raw pelt or tainted fat to create tainted tallow from them, but it'll never be safe to eat unless you are a mutant adapted to poisonous foods.

How to deal with the corpse

After you kill an animal you now will need to butcher it, which is a slightly complicated subject for which you need some tools, perhaps some furniture and some time. See the Butcher page for more information on how to do that.

What to to with the meat?

So you think you have enough to keep you occupied for weeks? Sorry, but if you have a lot of meat, it will rot faster than you can get through a week with it, you'll have to preserve it somehow...

• An early recipe in game you can turn it into is meat jerky, meat jerky will make you thirsty, but can still be used for many recipes. The jerky will last up to 3 weeks when cooked. This is the worst preservation method, and should be stopped once you have some better preservation methods.
• A food dehydrator or (less preferably) charcoal smoker can turn the meat into dehydrated meat, this food can be rehydrated, and lasts up to 3 seasons.
• Smoked meat is very good, but it needs charcoal and a tool to smoke it, such a charcoal smoker or smoking rack, as well as higher cooking skill.
• Sausage is very hearty and lasts a long time, but it is very advanced, requires seasoning, and yet again needs a smoking tool.

Traps

Contrary to what you might think, traps are not an ideal way to hunt, as the world is very large, and a trap takes only relative small space in the world, making sure the animal walks over the trap and gets killed by it is a difficult task. And the animal might also just be wounded and flee. Luring a bear or a moose through a minefield (from a distance, as landmine shrapnel is dangerous) Fish traps, who work via a different mechanic are different however.

Fishing

More interested in the relaxing art of fishing? There is a (somewhat outdated) post about fishing on reddit