Carcass Harvesting is a Survival Skill that is used to harvest meat, hides, and Guts from Wildlife. There are 9 types of harvestable animals in The Long Dark, and apart from Rabbit and Ptarmigan, all animals can only be harvested at the location of the carcass, unless that animal has been quartered. Higher levels in the carcass harvesting skill reduce the amount of time required to harvest and increase the amount that can be harvested by hand from a frozen carcass.
How to harvest
Players can only harvest at the location of the animal, which cannot be moved by the player. The only exceptions to this are rabbits and ptarmigan, which can be picked up and harvested at any location.
In order to harvest a carcass, the player needs to have a tool on them, as any non-ravaged carcass (other than rabbits and ptarmigan) cannot be harvested with bare hands, regardless of Carcass Harvesting skill level. Once a carcass has been harvested with a tool, to any degree, the player will be able to use their hands. This is shown by the carcass having exposed flesh.
Choosing to harvest a carcass barehanded below Carcass Harvesting Level 3 will always result in 8-17% of the unharvested usable meat to be lost, even if the hide/guts/feathers was harvested instead. This is similar to smashing cans open without a tool before reaching Cooking Level 3. As such, it is best to use a tool to extract the cookable raw meat first before choosing to harvest the hide/guts/feathers without a tool.
A carcass deteriorates over time, based on how frozen it is, which lowers the condition of the harvestable meat. Once said condition reaches 0, the carcass will become unable to be interacted with, so any remaining meat, hide, feathers, and guts will be lost.
Carcass harvesting is messy, and the raw animal parts the player takes will emit an odor that attracts predators from greater distances than usual (indicated by a icon of three wavy lines on the upper center area of the HUD). Cooking the meat and curing hides and guts reduces or eliminates the intensity of the scent.
Equipment
Players can harvest carcasses by hand, but can decrease the amount of time needed for harvest with certain types of equipment. In most cases, any bladed tool will harvest faster than using one's hands, however, in a few situations (e.g., when harvesting guts with only a hatchet available or harvesting hides at high skill level) harvesting by hand may be slightly faster.
A 100% frozen carcass cannot be harvested barehanded if the carcass is intact, regardless of skill level, and requires a tool to break the carcass open first. After this, a frozen carcass can be harvested barehanded depending on carcass frozen state:
- 50% frozen level at Level 3
- 75% frozen level at Level 4
- 100% frozen level at Level 5
If a carcass is less than 50% frozen, a Hunting Knife is the most efficient tool for harvesting. If the carcass is more than 50% frozen, a Hatchet or Hacksaw is more efficient for harvesting meat, but a Hunting Knife is still more efficient for harvesting guts and hide.
| Tool | Harvest rate (minutes per kg) |
Harvest rate (minutes per unit) |
Tool decay (per hour) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meat | Frozen Meat | Hide | Gut | |||
|
Bare Hand | None | ||||
|
Hacksaw | 15.0 | 10.0 | 60.0 | 30.0 | 1.0% |
|
Hatchet | 15.0 | 10.0 | 45.0 | 20.0 | 1.0% |
|
Hunting Knife | 8.0 | 20.0 | 30.0 | 10.0 | 1.0% |
|
Improvised Hatchet | 20.0 | 15.0 | 60.0 | 30.0 | 1.5% |
|
Improvised Knife | 12.0 | 30.0 | 40.0 | 15.0 | 1.5% |
|
Cougar Claw Knife | 7.0 | 18.0 | 30.0 | 10.0 | 1.0% |
|
Scrap Metal Shard | 8.0 | 20.0 | 30.0 | 10.0 | 1.0% |
Carcasses
Carcasses can be obtained through Hunting, Trapping, or by scavenging for any existing ravaged carcasses.
Status
A carcass can exist in two different states: Ravaged or Normal. A third state, Frozen, can occur if a carcass fully freezes over.
A ravaged carcass has a significant lack of meat on the corpse, depending on how long the carcass was being fed upon by a Wolf if it was killed by one after world generation, or if it spawned into the world ravaged. A frozen carcass generally requires a tool to harvest the carcass, depending on the player's carcass harvesting skill level. A normal carcass has either been recently killed or has been warmed up by a nearby Fire.
Types
Quartering
Harvesting a whole freshly killed animal often takes several hours to complete. Players can instead choose to quarter an animal, which harvests the hide and guts, and additionally harvests the meat into "quarters" with a weight of up to 10 kilograms (roughly 22 pounds), each of which contains half their weight in harvestable meat. Depending on the harvestable meat, a Wolf may yield only one "quarter", while a Moose may yield up to nine "quarters".
| Animal | Minimum Weight | Maximum Weight | Quarter Bags Produced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bear | 50.00 kg (110 lb)  Bear Quarter
|
80.00 kg (176 lb) Bear Quarter
|
5-8
(10kg per bag) |
| Cougar | N/A | 4.00 kg (8.8 lb)  Cougar Quarter
|
1-2 (2.00kg per bag) |
| Deer (Stag) | 25.00 kg (55 lb)  Deer Quarter
|
25.00 kg (55 lb) Deer Quarter
|
5
(5kg per bag) |
| Deer (Doe) | 15.00 kg (33 lb) Deer Quarter
|
15.00 kg (33 lb) Deer Quarter
|
3
(5kg per bag) |
| Moose | 60.00 kg (132 lb)  Moose Quarter
|
90.00 kg (198 lb) Moose Quarter
|
6-9
(10kg per bag) |
| Poisoned Wolf | 0.00 kg (0 lb)  Wolf Quarter
|
0.00 kg (0 lb) Wolf Quarter
|
0 |
| Timberwolf | 5.00 kg (11 lb) Wolf Quarter
|
10.00 kg (22 lb) Wolf Quarter
|
1-2
(5kg per bag) |
| Wolf | 5.00 kg (11 lb) Wolf Quarter
|
10.00 kg (22 lb) Wolf Quarter
|
1-2
(5kg per bag) |
To quarter an animal, players have to interact with the animal carcass and select the Quarter option. Players are notified of the amount of time and the number of calories that will be spent while quartering. A bladed tool must be used in order to begin quartering, and all bladed tools take the same amount of time to quarter a carcass. Quartering can be interrupted and resumed without loss of progress, so if the player wishes to do other things intermittently while quartering, they can interrupt the action whenever they feel the need and resume where they left off.
Quartering a carcass yields Skill points at a ratio of 1 point per hour spent harvesting and will destroy the carcass in the process, leaving behind a blood stain, the creature's legs, and any unharvested meat, hides, or guts. After quartering a carcass, any overhead Crows despawn, so if one requires Crow Feathers from the corpse sitting out, they may want to take this into account.
Quartering may be the safer option if there are nearby predators or potentially dangerous weather conditions, as the quarters can be harvested elsewhere at a later time. Quartering automatically harvests the hide and guts and place them on the ground, and is usually the fastest way to harvest large animals with lots of guts, namely Moose and Bears.
"Meat bags" created by quartering are much heavier than the meat they contain (or the meat you would get if you harvested the carcass outright). This should be taken into account as weight management is always important.
Skill Levels
Players can increase their carcass harvesting by harvesting meat, guts, or hides from a carcass.
The player will gain about 1 skill point per hour spent harvesting. If possible, one's hands should be used to acquire skill points faster. However, 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of meat will require 30 min with the Basic Harvesting skill. Therefore a large-sized Moose can take more than one day to be fully harvested (including hide and guts).
A limited increase can be obtained from the Research Book Field Dressing your Kill, Vol. I, which allows players to increase their Carcass Harvesting by 10 skill points with 10 hours of research.
| Level | Skill points | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 |
|
| 2 | 15 |
|
| 3 | 30 |
|
| 4 | 50 |
|
| 5 | 100 |
|
| Primary |
| ||||||
| Secondary | |||||||
