Absolute Beginners Guide

[SpeedingTurtle]

Hi all,
Thought it might be useful to have some tips all in one thread for absolute beginners to get their bearings with the game, so here's my effort.

1) This isn't Rust, you won't catch an animal running after it.

2) Patience is key, you can sneak around for a long long time, and still not even find a track, never mind get a shot off!

3) Turn your lamp on at night (L) (6pm-6am) I think, or you won't see trails.

4) Change the trail colour to suit your own preference, some people choose red, I find blue easier to spot.

5) Travel around a lot at the beginning, mainly to Lookout points (binoculars symbol) They will point out the Outposts so you can unlock them without running around aimlessly. Then you can fast travel to them to get around easier.

6) Don't waste money early on for hunting stands/ground blinds, get more guns/bows/sights/callers first. Possibly get a hunting stand near a lake where you have a wide unblocked view in many directions where animals might travel through, and you can afford it, don't grind for it.

7) Skill up/perk up appropriately. I found it best to use the skills to link the trails together with dots/line then arrow showing direction, makes tracking trails much easier.

8a) Don't let the purple/high hunt pressure area thing make you move from the area if there's animals there after you got a kill.

8b) Get used to the roe caller and deer bleat caller.

8c) If you find a herd, hide under a tree and call them. Kill one when it's close. Call them back and wait 2 or 3 minutes maybe, kill another. Repeat until none come back after about 5 minutes and they go elsewhere. Red Deer pay well, herds can be found in Ernsdorf near the river inlet, ching ching!!

9) Know your ammo, if using polymer tip and you don't get a vital hit, you'll get a flesh wound and it's pretty harmless to the animal, you'll track for hours in-game and real time trying to find it! This is especially true for big game like moose or bison. The penetration means you've more chance of getting a vital hit though. Soft point have a higher expansion score, so they'll do more damage near impact point and can cause a faster bleed-out. 12G buckshot is the beginner ammo for the shotgun, causes a fast bleedout with multiple impact injuries as shotguns tend to do!

10) Keep your consecutive harvests at 100% for best high scores and silver/gold/diamond animal ratings. Track (not run after) everything that has a blood injury that looks bad. If it still has a health of 75-100% after about 10 blood trails (if you have the skill/perk that tells you), it'll probably just die as soon as you finish your game session, that's just how it goes!

11) Use the right ammo for the animal or task. There's some great guides here about what class each weapon is and what class each animal is, although there's one or 2 discrepancies in-game. If you're looking for a gold animal for a task, you'll lose the integrity for using too high a class weapon/ammo. If you're looking for quick kills to get your consecutive harvests up to 100% then use the highest class one you like and blast the crap out of whatever comes in your path!

12) Know your poop! More often than not, you will find a trail before you find poop. Finding poop means you're in the middle of a trail. Poop goes in a stage of levels regarding the closeness of the animal;
Very old = not close
Old = getting close
Fresh = poop has lots of flies on it
Very fresh = poop still warm, you could be within hearing distance, slow down
Just now = animal is very close, probably watching you touch it's poop! Be vewy vewy quiet!

13) Watch your wind! If the direction you're travelling is within the wide end of the triangle, your scent is being blown ahead of you. In my experience animal callers are much much less effective in this situation, your scent makes them cautious and the call makes them nervous so if they appear once and you don't hit your target, you might not get another try.

14) Do the mission tasks to help level up. You get around 2500xp for later missions, can't remember what earlier missions are but it's similar if not the same. You'll get less than 250XP for almost everything you kill (don't know what the upper limit is) so 1 mission task is better than at least 10 big animal kills, probably more like 15-17 animal kills as you won't get a high XP kill each time.

15) Missions are active even if not in the phone/GPS. If you're hunting 2 coyotes in Mt Kraken or wherever that mission is, and also have Harvest a blacktail at night as a mission. You can harvest the blacktail in Mt Kraken and still get credited for it, missions don't have to be active in your phone/GPS to be completed, but if the mission says Travel to X, harvest Y, then you have to be in the X place to harvest Y, so be aware of the boundaries if you're tracking a wounded animal.

That's my 2c worth for absolute beginners, feel free to add or correct me :)

[Gunzlinger]

thanks man, just got the game. New to realistic hunting, played Carnivors back in the days. This is helpful.

[Rookie-31st]

Regarding 12, does not work this way every time. In case of close proximity of need zone, you can encounter 'very old' poop and see animal just 100 meters later. At the same time, in case of spooked animal you might find 'Just now' poop while animal is already over 200 meters away and keeps going. Just yesterday, I came across 'Very old' coyote poop, found cover and called - it came to me within few minutes, so it was very close, could be coming back while traveling from one need zone to another.

Luckily, animals travel within certain area, and do come back often. If you had close encounter with any animal and spooked it most probably when it saw you, don't run after it - find nearest cover and wait. The chances are high that animal will turn back and attempt to complete its original journey. Listen and watch

[NXS Tripp]

When you spot an animal with the binos putting a marker on it as shown gives you a very accutrate range, a distance marker you can see while stalking and it's easier to find the blood trail if it was a long shot.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1241972502

[Paul]

Originally posted by SpeedingTurtle:

Hi all,
Thought it might be useful to have some tips all in one thread for absolute beginners to get their bearings with the game, so here's my effort.

1) This isn't Rust, you won't catch an animal running after it.

True dat

2) Patience is key, you can sneak around for a long long time, and still not even find a track, never mind get a shot off!

Yup.

3) Turn your lamp on at night (L) (6pm-6am) I think, or you won't see trails.

This is correct. Also note that the lamp has no effect on your visibility to animals whatsoever, you will not spook them by having the light on - from the animal's perspective, you do not have a light on (this doesn't mean they can't otherwise see, hear, or smell you as normal, of course)

4) Change the trail colour to suit your own preference, some people choose red, I find blue easier to spot.

Yup, you do this in the options menu. I would also add you can change the colour for all track highlights, current tracked animal highlights, and collectable antler highlights. I personally have all tracks set to bright blue/aqua, current tracks to magenta, and collectables set to purple, as I didn't find white was very visible for spotting stuff in the first place.

6) Don't waste money early on for hunting stands/ground blinds, get more guns/bows/sights/callers first. Possibly get a hunting stand near a lake where you have a wide unblocked view in many directions where animals might travel through, and you can afford it, don't grind for it.

Agreed. I found it handy to get as many sights and callers as possible first. I mostly ran with the .243 for the first chunk of levels, and prioritised the 7mm and a bow as my first weapon purchases. The 7mm can help you bring down elk and bear, which are good money, and you can even bag Moose if your shot placement is good. The bow lets you farm entire herds of deer and elk by silently killing them and calling back in the spooked heard repeatedly (you can do this with guns but after a while they stop coming back).

8a) Don't let the purple/high hunt pressure area thing make you move from the area if there's animals there after you got a kill.

Agreed.

8b) Get used to the roe caller and deer bleat caller.

Also get the antler rattler for Fallow deer in Hirschfalden ASAP. Bleat covers WhiteTail and BlackTail in Layton Lakes. Roe caller is for Hirschfalden also. Next is Elk caller at level 15 iirc.

8c) If you find a herd, hide under a tree and call them. Kill one when it's close. Call them back and wait 2 or 3 minutes maybe, kill another. Repeat until none come back after about 5 minutes and they go elsewhere. Red Deer pay well, herds can be found in Ernsdorf near the river inlet, ching ching!!

Yup, you can also do this with Fallow Deer very effectively. It does work with Elk as well, but they do tend to spook a little more.

10) Keep your consecutive harvests at 100% for best high scores and silver/gold/diamond animal ratings. Track (not run after) everything that has a blood injury that looks bad. If it still has a health of 75-100% after about 10 blood trails (if you have the skill/perk that tells you), it'll probably just die as soon as you finish your game session, that's just how it goes!

Yup

To add my own tip: You can quickly detach and re-attach an equipped scope with the middle mouse button. This can be really useful in close-in situations with lots of brush. I was so happy when I found this out as previously when an animal blundered upon me in a close situation I couldn't get a shot off as the scope was just a hindrance, now if I know an animal is really close in dense brush I pop the scope off and have much better short-range target acquisition.

[NXS Tripp]

Yes. The MMB scope thing is a top tip. I always use iron sights first and then pop on the scope and it's already right on target.

[moparrtman6970]

1- "catch animal" I have never heard any hunter I know use the phrase "catch animal" in deer hunting. They would laugh at me if I said I was going hunting to see if I can catch something. You catch fish, not deer! Lol

[NXS Tripp]

Originally posted by moparrtman6970:

1- "catch animal" I have never heard any hunter I know use the phrase "catch animal" in deer hunting. They would laugh at me if I said I was going hunting to see if I can catch something. You catch fish, not deer! Lol

Read much? The statement was clearly directed at chasing the animal or trying to "catch" up to it. If you're going to try to mock someone at least attempt to understand what they are saying. Lol

[moparrtman6970]

Dang it, I don't know where I read that wrong. My apologies. Thanks NXS Tripp for pointing that out. I still don't see how I misread it lol.

[TricolorSkate]

Ty this was a really helpfull guide.

[SpeedingTurtle]

Originally posted by moparrtman6970:

Dang it, I don't know where I read that wrong. My apologies. Thanks NXS Tripp for pointing that out. I still don't see how I misread it lol.

Sorry for the confusion, I meant catch as in literally catch up to like in Rust, chase a deer and catch it, beat it to death with a rock! :D

[SpiritFire]

Originally posted by Gunzlinger:

thanks man, just got the game. New to realistic hunting, played Carnivors back in the days. This is helpful.

if you want a more realistic hunting game vs arcade, try thehunter classic. it uses actual antler socres, better weapons, more realistic animal injuries etc.

[WildHunt]

Originally posted by SpeedingTurtle:

12) Know your poop! More often than not, you will find a trail before you find poop. Finding poop means you're in the middle of a trail. Poop goes in a stage of levels regarding the closeness of the animal;
Very old = not close
Old = getting close
Fresh = poop has lots of flies on it
Very fresh = poop still warm, you could be within hearing distance, slow down
Just now = animal is very close, probably watching you touch it's poop! Be vewy vewy quiet

thx man! often when i see its old, i will never bother. looking for fresh poops xD

[SpeedingTurtle]

Originally posted by MidgetStallion:

Originally posted by SpeedingTurtle:

12) Know your poop! More often than not, you will find a trail before you find poop. Finding poop means you're in the middle of a trail. Poop goes in a stage of levels regarding the closeness of the animal;
Very old = not close
Old = getting close
Fresh = poop has lots of flies on it
Very fresh = poop still warm, you could be within hearing distance, slow down
Just now = animal is very close, probably watching you touch it's poop! Be vewy vewy quiet

thx man! often when i see its old, i will never bother. looking for fresh poops xD

No no sir, sometimes "very old" are all that you will come across on your travels, following them will eventually/might hopefully lead you towards Old, Fresh, Very Fresh, Just Now......but often it won't, on occasions it'll lead you towards a herd. Get a herd you have a caller for. Lie down, kill, call them, wait, kill, call them, wait, kill.....you get my drift I hope :D

Edit: my original reference was about animals you haven't hit, following poop trails/foot trails is normally safe for those. A wounded animals poop trails and foot trails can be completely unpredictable, some go in a figure of 8 pattern from the first hit area, then just tease you. I call that time to go to one of the other reserves time, unless you have hours of time to spare. Hours of real time, not game time!

[Nite69]

add this to the guide too, use a high rock or log piece to prone on so you get a better view of your surrounding area when waiting I been very successful with this.

its ALOT better then the hunting shacks, don't waste money on those