Raising Boars for Food. Worth it? My Numbers/Results

[Ventus]

I found painfully little information on one of the more cumbersome mechanics of the game, feeding your crew. So here are my findings on using Boar captures to feed your whole party.

Conclusion: In short, you can expect to get 20ish pork, which is 120 food (pork-salt) or 80 food if no salt, for each boar (lvl 4). The boars will eat 14 food before being ready to slaughter, resulting in a net gain of 66-106 food per boar.

For my party to Rest 7 times, my crew (at 75 food per rest) costs me 525 food over those 7 days (12 people, 7 pony, 4 boars). The 4 boars that I fed over those 7 rests gave 80 pork (84/85/74, so lets just call it 80 pork), meaning a total of 480 food total if you just grill each pork with 1 salt. This means that Four lvl 4 boars will reduce a parties food costs from 75 per rest to 6.5 per rest over 7 days, and give you grease and a carcass (which can give 4 more cured meat).Thus, if you wanted a Pork Only Diet, I recommend keeping 1 Boar for every 4 people you feed (with all the consumption perks from Path, Compendium, and Master Chef, and 2 star Cooking pot).
Other than Salt Costs, doing 1 boar per 4 eaters, you should net more pork than you eat, and you would need to recapture boars every 7ish days.

From a food perspective purely, this is worth it. You get more food than they eat. On average you get 15-25 for lvl 4 boars. I did get 30+ in rare instances, but I think you should assume a lvl 4 boar fattened up will net about 20ish pork. From almost every other perspective, this is not worth it. While the costs are low at 2 food a day and a single rope, I found trading the bulk goods in the same amount of time it took to fatten up boars gave me so much money that I could buy food and still have money left over.

My Party:
-I have a party of 12 people and 7 ponies, plus the 4 boars below.
- My party eats 75 Food with a Master Chef and the 4 boars (they eat 67 without the boars).
- I have all of Travel and Mysteries done, and only Backstabbing in Cruel, and everything from power save the top right two skills.

Capturing the Animals: You already know that Pony’s can either be combat or non-combat pack animals. Boars have a similar specialization if they are at least level 3 where you can spec them to eat less. There is no value in capturing lower level boars and leveling them up for this food purpose, so only capture lvl 3+ boars for this.

Boars can spec into “Livestock Boar”. This lowers how much they eat before you fatten them up and slaughter. The goal for livestock boars is to 1) capture a boar, 2) spec it into livestock, 3) wait till the boar gains the “Fat” trait after half a dozen rests or so, then you execute the boar and get the meat (from the cog on the character menu, bottom right).

The Pros:
-The first time I slaughtered all four Boars, I got 84 pork (11/34/21/15) and 147 Grease (40/32/27/48). In another round of testing, I got 85 pork. The third time I got 74 pork.
-Boars carrying capacity is 3, so at least they are weightless pork that can carry a little.
-Because of the high returns and the weight, keeping boars equates to low food cost that -carries itself (until slaughtered)
-This can be a great way to level up a chef.

The Cons
-Minor, but you need 1 rope per capture. You also need 1 salt per cook.
-The Boars show up in combat, which is annoying. Animals tend to get in my way, and even though I can control them (Hunter Spec) they ‘could’ still get killed. Even just having them on the combat map and you having to move them somewhere safe got tedious.
-Boars suck up exp, but I've been told in responses that XP is flat (regardless of numbers of party). I haven't confirmed personally, but if true this is irrelevant.
-You have to capture them in the first place, which can be difficult if your party hits hard. Only my 1-handed tanks were capable of hitting and not 1-shotting them.


Things to Note:
-I captured 4 boars in the same fight. They were level 4. I did this several different times.
-I put 2x points in Con for two of them, one random stats, and the last got all strength. I wanted to test if Higher Con meant more Meat upon slaughter. This did not appear to be the case. Sometimes the 32 Con boars gave 15 meat, sometimes they gave 34. The same was true for the 24 Con boars.
-It took 7 rests for the boars to get the Fat all three times. Every time all the boars got Fat at the same time, and every time it was upon completing the 7th rest.
-I did not spam rest.. I play slowly (faming white leather, for example) and finished Arthes, having already done Tiltren, and am in Vertruse Province now and during most of this testing.
-I am on region locked settings, not adaptive.
-Save scrubbing isn’t clean here. I got EXACTLY the same numbers even if I killed them in different order, it was the same numbers. I moved to another region (and the day changed) and I got 15/32/19/15, which was slightly worse. In short, you will not be able to save, execute, reload, and execute for a different amount of pork. They numbers did change, but always slightly worse than ‘just rested-slaughter numbers’.
-After resting the 7th time, all four Boars got Fat for me all 8 times. 7 rests was my number.
-The boar will eat 14 food over those 7 rests before becoming Fat.
-People have claimed their Boars got Fat in 4-5 rests. I could not replicate this over several rounds of taming (always was on the 7th).
-People have said they got up to 50 meat from a single slaughter. One screenshot showed 78, but I am suspicious of that screenshot, given the advancedness of the camp and my own testing. Could be older than 1.0 too.
-Boar level might matter. ALL of my testing was on lvl 4 boars (captured at lvl 4). Perhaps lvl 8 boars with the Fat trait give more meat?
-Beware of Weight. Killing 4 boars for 80 pork means your party can now carry 12 less, but suddenly has almost 100 weight more to haul (8 more in carcass, 80 more in pork, and 14ish more in grease).
-7 Rests for my crew (at 75 food per rest) costs me 525 food. The 4 boars fed over 7 rests that gave 80 pork (average), meaning a total of 480 food total. This means that Four lvl 4 boars will reduce a parties food costs from 75 per rest to 6.5 per rest over 7 days, and give you grease and a carcass (which can give 4 more cured meat).

[Ninth Hour]

The work you put into this analysis is commendable but it's a topic that actually has been discussed before. It is generally accepted that raising livestock boars is- mathematically- a viable, albeit cumbersome way to obtain food.

Originally posted by Ventus:

The Boars show up in combat, which is annoying

This is actually one of the big disincentives to boar farming, especially in Adaptive mode. I previously posted how, after capturing a few boars, my deployable army size was artificially inflated, causing the AI to throw larger groups of enemies against me. This was particularly painful during my exploration of the Vertruse Tomb, as I happened to take 4 captured boars with me, raising my army size to 18. This caused 25+ Creepers and Mole Rats to spawn with every battle.

The effort and increased number of enemies wasn't worth it.

Originally posted by Ventus:

You also need 1 salt per cook until you get an item (Salt Spoon) that gives 1 free salt per recipe

The salt scoop no longer works like this. As of 1.0 Release, it only generates 2 Salt upon completing a rest. It no longer gives -1 Salt required per recipe. Previously, it allowed you to create Grilled Pork and a wide variety of other dishes for 0 Salt, which was probably unintended.

Originally posted by Ventus:

Boars suck up exp

This is actually not an issue. The amount of XP gained does not depend on party size. Whether you deploy 5 or 12 units, all of them will gain the same amount of XP from combat Nor does XP scale with enemy numbers.

In other words the XP number at the end of combat does not depend on numbers on either side of the battle. This actually has been a point of criticism from some players, as it makes combat less concretely rewarding, especially on Adaptive mode, when you potentially face a lot of enemies, yet are rewarded with a pitiful amount of XP, especially once you reach level 9+.

Traits, buffs from the banner, and the training dummy can provide additional XP but advancement is still slow going at a certain point.

[[e-mail]]

Don't for get the use as pack piggies. Choose the right "skills" add sable bags and select the feed of scraps and while they carry a 1/3rd of a pony they eat only 2 per - a 1/3rd of a pony.

[buchecker]

My biggest problem with lifestock boars is that they run around in battle.

[capitan Ty-Ty]

Originally posted by buchecker:

My biggest problem with lifestock boars is that they run around in battle.

archer has skill that allows you to command animals as other units

[buchecker]

Originally posted by capitan Ty-Ty:

Originally posted by buchecker:

My biggest problem with lifestock boars is that they run around in battle.

archer has skill that allows you to command animals as other units

Not only do i not want to waste that skillpoint, it still has them running around on the battlefield, means especially in battles with reinforcements or rats nests i have to make sure they are nowhere near anything that would kill them.

[Robin of Spiritwood]

You're slaughtering them too fast OP.
Give them a few days after becoming Fat. Also, it's better to have multiple mercs who are Master Cooks as the bonuses stack. (just switch the professions at rest time)

[watcherzero]

I got 42 pork and a few other giblets from a single level 4 boar, slaughtered it about three days after it became fat.

[The Konrad]

I love the scientific approach to this. Commendable!
Saves me a lot of work trying this myself.

Maybe I start an all boar party, the only human party members have raised by boars in there. Wonder if it will be sustainable.

[Batailleuse]

Originally posted by BrennanTate:

Don't for get the use as pack piggies. Choose the right "skills" add sable bags and select the feed of scraps and while they carry a 1/3rd of a pony they eat only 2 per - a 1/3rd of a pony.

rats also only eat 2, eventually 0 if they score any kill, apply fever, get stacking damage, WILL reproduce for free when you rest, and at max level they are almost unkillable by DOT and gain a 70% chance to dodge attack (or flee outright), all of them can carry a saddlebag for extra 10 carry. and they give you so much cheese that you'll end up with 200+ in like 2-3 weeks.

if you pick 1 (or more ideally) beast master, you can basically make the rat swarm/circle everyone and just one shot pretty much any target since all animals going to do the opportunity attack can be boosted (10% with tactics) but also gain a 25% per nearby rat, + fever stacks + Fury (50%) for each of them doing the attack.

who needs anything but rats ? they are the best best.

bear is a fun tank, but you can have 9 rats for the cost of food of 1 bear.

[Ralfus]

Originally posted by capitan Ty-Ty:

Originally posted by buchecker:

My biggest problem with lifestock boars is that they run around in battle.

archer has skill that allows you to command animals as other units

you can solve it with the bacon collar (win the recipe by rescue wolfie for the circus gang in the Vertruse province nerby Browrock city.

[Ralfus]

Originally posted by Batailleuse:

Originally posted by BrennanTate:

Don't for get the use as pack piggies. Choose the right "skills" add sable bags and select the feed of scraps and while they carry a 1/3rd of a pony they eat only 2 per - a 1/3rd of a pony.

rats also only eat 2, eventually 0 if they score any kill, apply fever, get stacking damage, WILL reproduce for free when you rest, and at max level they are almost unkillable by DOT and gain a 70% chance to dodge attack (or flee outright), all of them can carry a saddlebag for extra 10 carry. and they give you so much cheese that you'll end up with 200+ in like 2-3 weeks.

if you pick 1 (or more ideally) beast master, you can basically make the rat swarm/circle everyone and just one shot pretty much any target since all animals going to do the opportunity attack can be boosted (10% with tactics) but also gain a 25% per nearby rat, + fever stacks + Fury (50%) for each of them doing the attack.

who needs anything but rats ? they are the best best.

bear is a fun tank, but you can have 9 rats for the cost of food of 1 bear.

lol i's about to try this one... you know even with a infected o more than one you could do a support unit for the swarm, coz they make a poison gas aoe when they engage in combat and you know, rat's are healed with poison. In adition you can equip the infected guy with the fireproof salve (alchemy recipe belt item) just to ensure he would end up roasted be some fire (they're all pyrophobics)

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by The Konrad:

Maybe I start an all boar party, the only human party members have raised by boars in there. Wonder if it will be sustainable.

It's probably feasible but would be highly annoying. Even if you are able to get them under control (e.g. with the Beastmastery skill), boars are not particularly efficient in combat and may bog down the proceedings. Having said that, Dominant Sows can tank reasonably well with the -25% damage option. Crocswines offer some DOT damage, if I'm not mistaken. As I said, not really worth it on Adaptive mode, as the boars just inflate your numbers and cause the AI to increase enemy numbers as well- in this case, disproportionate to your actual combat potential.

[Joseph Dirticus III]

Is there a special way you have to slaughter/butcher them? I captured a dominant sow just to test it out (yes i gave it the "livestock" trait). I went to the "manage companions" and "execute" that was the only way i found to do it. All I got was a carcass and a huge load of grease but no pork chops

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by SLEEP:

Is there a special way you have to slaughter/butcher them? I captured a dominant sow just to test it out (yes i gave it the "livestock" trait). I went to the "manage companions" and "execute" that was the only way i found to do it. All I got was a carcass and a huge load of grease but no pork chops

Sadly, Livestock Boar only works on standard Boars. It does not work for Dominant Sows or Crocswines. Possibly a bug. But if it's intended, the option for Livestock Boar in those variants should not be available, as they are totally pointless.

For standard boars, you have to keep them with you through multiple rests, until you receive the post-camp message that they have become Fat. The trait description should say that they have reached the optimal weight. You would then choose that time to execute them. Or you could wait. From what I understand, feeding them several more times after they become Fat actually improves the amount of resources that you get but I have not been able to personally verify this.

[watcherzero]

Originally posted by SLEEP:

Is there a special way you have to slaughter/butcher them? I captured a dominant sow just to test it out (yes i gave it the "livestock" trait). I went to the "manage companions" and "execute" that was the only way i found to do it. All I got was a carcass and a huge load of grease but no pork chops

Once you select fatten to eat talent you have to wait until it gains the 'fat' trait. First one I did at level 4 took 2-3 ingame weeks to get the trait, just done a level 8 dominant sow and it got it after only a couple of days, then you do the same execute option to slaughter it.

Incidentally this one gave me 54 pork as opposed to the 42 I got from the level 4 normal pig.