Hunting
Hunting
editHunting is a gathering skill in which you track and kill wild game across the world's Biomes. Unlike other gathering skills, hunting is a combat activity: each kill deals damage to you, so tougher quarry demands better equipment and a stock of cooked food to keep your health up. See Creatures for the beasts of the world and Taming for capturing and raising them instead of hunting them.
Every hunt yields Raw Meat — the primary source of meat for Cooking — along with chances at Hide and Bone, staple materials for Crafting and Smithing. Some hunts can also drop a rare Grassland Trophy — not tied to any one biome, despite the name.
How to progress
editEach kill grants Hunting experience and raises your Hunting level, unlocking larger and more dangerous animals that give more XP and more materials but hit harder. The Power value below reflects how much punishment an animal deals per kill — bring armour from Smithing/Crafting and healing food from Cooking before taking on high-power prey.
Most game lives only in a specific biome reached via Expeditions; you must be there to hunt it. A few early hunts — Compsognathus, Titanis, Gallimimus, Wild Raptor and Pachycephalosaurus — have no location requirement and are huntable from the start; the Biome column still names each one's home biome below, since that's also what decides which armour material it pays.
Actions
editEvery hunt has a home biome and, from the Redwood Wilds onward, also pays that biome's armour material at a 50% rate (v0.36.58; re-anchored to reach the Redwood Wilds in v0.54.9) — so making Badlands plate means hunting the Badlands. Each quarry's drawn portrait arrived in v0.36.90.
| Quarry | Level | Interval (s) | Power | Biome | Outputs | XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hunt Compsognathus | 1 | 4 | 2 | Grasslands | Raw Meat; Bone (25%) | 6 |
| Hunt Titanis | 6 | 4.5 | 4 | Grasslands | Raw Meat; Hide (30%); Bone (30%); Grassland Trophy (0.5%) | 9 |
| Hunt Gallimimus | 12 | 5 | 6 | Grasslands | Raw Meat ×2; Hide (40%); Bone (30%) | 14 |
| Hunt Pachycephalosaurus | 25 | 6 | 10 | Redwood Wilds | Raw Meat ×2; Hide (60%); Bone ×2 (50%); Grassland Trophy (1%); Ridgeplate ×2 (50%) | 26 |
| Hunt Wild Raptor | 40 | 7.5 | 16 | Grasslands | Raw Meat ×3; Hide ×2 (80%); Bone ×2 (60%); Grassland Trophy (2%) | 46 |
| Hunt Kentrosaurus | 45 | 8 | 19 | Redwood Wilds | Raw Meat ×3; Hide ×2 (70%); Bone ×2 (60%); Ridgeplate ×2 (50%) | 54 |
| Hunt Daeodon | 50 | 8.5 | 22 | Redwood Wilds | Raw Meat ×3; Hide ×2 (70%); Bone ×2 (50%); Primal Sinew (2.5%); Ridgeplate ×2 (50%) | 62 |
| Hunt Deinosuchus | 55 | 9 | 26 | Murkwater Swamp | Raw Meat ×4; Hide ×3 (70%); Bone ×2 (60%); Bogscale ×2 (50%) | 70 |
| Hunt Cave Crocodile | 60 | 9.5 | 30 | Cavern Depths | Raw Meat ×4; Hide ×3 (70%); Bone ×3 (60%); Deepchitin ×2 (50%) | 80 |
| Hunt Arthropleura | 63 | 9.8 | 33 | Cavern Depths | Raw Meat ×4; Hide ×3 (60%); Bone ×3 (70%); Deepchitin ×2 (50%) | 86 |
| Track the Migration | 65 | 10 | Trailhorn Antler | 100 | ||
| Hunt Utahraptor | 66 | 10 | 36 | Scorched Badlands | Raw Meat ×4; Hide ×3 (80%); Bone ×3 (60%); Primal Sinew (3%); Slagplate ×2 (50%) | 92 |
| Hunt Xiphactinus | 68 | 10.2 | 38 | Coral Shallows | Raw Meat ×5; Hide ×3 (60%); Bone ×3 (70%); Reefshell ×3 (50%) | 96 |
| Hunt Woolly Bison | 70 | 10.5 | 40 | Frozen Wastes | Raw Meat ×5; Hide ×3 (80%); Bone ×3 (60%); Frostbound Hide (3%); Rimepelt ×3 (50%) | 100 |
| Hunt Cave Hyena | 74 | 11 | 44 | Frozen Wastes | Raw Meat ×5; Hide ×4 (70%); Bone ×3 (70%); Rimepelt ×3 (50%) | 110 |
| Hunt Acrocanthosaurus | 78 | 11.4 | 50 | Ashen Peaks | Raw Meat ×6; Hide ×4 (80%); Bone ×4 (60%) | 122 |
| Hunt Teratornis | 82 | 11.8 | 58 | Skyreach Plateau | Raw Meat ×6; Hide ×4 (70%); Bone ×4 (70%); Windquill ×4 (50%) | 132 |
| Hunt Vale Stalker | 85 | 12 | 55 | Sundered Vale | Raw Meat ×6; Hide ×4 (80%); Bone ×4 (70%); Grassland Trophy (5%); Apex Scale (2.5%); Valehide ×4 (50%) | 140 |
| Hunt Purussaurus | 92 | 13 | 68 | Sundered Vale | Raw Meat ×7; Hide ×5 (80%); Bone ×5 (70%); Valehide ×4 (50%) | 177 |
| Hunt Titanoboa | 94 | 13.4 | 74 | Sundered Vale | Raw Meat ×7; Hide ×5 (80%); Bone ×5 (70%); Apex Scale (3%); Valehide ×4 (50%) | 198 |
| Hunt Dire Mammoth | 97 | 13.8 | 80 | Frozen Wastes | Raw Meat ×8; Hide ×6 (80%); Bone ×5 (70%); Frostbound Hide (5%); Rimepelt ×3 (50%) | 222 |
Percentages show the chance of that drop; unmarked items are produced every time. Intervals are base times before speed bonuses. Higher Power means more damage taken per kill.
Track the Migration only appears during Morning Mist or Migration weather (see weather-window gathers) — it's tracking, not combat, so it has no Power or biome requirement, and unlike a hunt it can't be assigned to a hired hand.
Staying alive
editEach kill costs you health scaled to the quarry's Power — the exact amount is randomized a little each time and cut down by your defense, though some damage always gets through — so keep cooked food in the Bank. Your pack fights with you here too — its Pack Power sharpens your attack and its members soak part of every hit. Auto-eat takes a bite mid-fight whenever your health runs low; a food dropdown lets you pick which food it reaches for first (it falls back to the cheapest food when your choice runs out), and an Eat button lets you take a manual bite. Because auto-eat now heals mid-hit, a big pile of weak food won't save you from a high-Power blow — match your meal to what you're hunting. Drop below 25% health and you become Wounded: your defense is halved until you climb back above that line, so a run of bad luck can snowball — auto-eat's 50%-health comfort floor exists to keep you clear of it.
If a hit would drop you to 0 health while you are actively playing and auto-eat has nothing left, you die: you lose that fight's spoils and one random equipped item is dropped where you fell (see Death and reclaiming gear). While you are offline, hunting still stops safely before a knockout, exactly as before — you can never die away from the keyboard.
Nemesis hunts
editNemesis hunts are named alpha predators that stalk the late hunting ladder — each one an alpha in its own right, so it is left out of the ordinary alpha roll. A nemesis is not fought for a trophy: it carries a second artifact income stream instead, dropping its biome's Arena Artifact and rare materials.
Entering a nemesis hunt costs surplus alpha trophies as a lure — the entry fee that finally gives all those spare trophies a use. Nemesis fights run long and pay big Hunting XP, filling the gaps between the normal hunt rungs.
| Nemesis | Hunting level | Lure (entry fee) | Key rewards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stalk the Scarred Titanis | 18 | 2× Grassland Alpha Fang | Artifact of the Herd (30%), Primal Sinew (10%) |
| Hunt the Old Tyrantbird | 30 | 2× Redwood Alpha Fang | Artifact of the Wilds (30%), Ridgeplate ×6 |
| Stalk the Sundered Matriarch | 88 | 3× Vale Alpha Crown | Artifact of the Sundering (35%), Apex Scale (25%), Valehide ×12 |
| Hunt the Vale Colossus | 98 | 3× Vale Alpha Crown | Artifact of the Sundering (40%), Primal Sinew ×2 (50%), Valehide ×12 |
The Vale Colossus (Hunting 98) is the hunting ladder's final rung, above the Titanoboa (94) and Dire Mammoth (97) capstone hunts. Cull contracts now reach up to Hunting 92 (the Cull Purussaurus contract), closing the old gap in the late board.
