Game play suggestion
New Skill – Hunting
You would get xp for harvesting animals. The higher your skill the more animal items you can harvest (Animal Hide, Fat, Meat) and the rarer animal parts you get (bladder, Sinew, Pork Belly, Venison Tenderloin, and Bear Flank). Change the Bone Shiv and Hunting Knife to Hunting Skill leave the Machete and new Sword for Bladed Weapon Skill. Have another knife recipe available at maybe lv65 Hunting the “ Butchers Knife”, and it would harvest better than hunting knife but have low damage but high head shot damage. With this we can have a “meat” item that drops as a portion size per the animals size ex: Rabbit has 2 Meat chicken has 3, Pig has 20, deer has 25 bear has 50. Food recipes would need more than one “meat” per recipe so Charred Meat might need 2 Meat and a meat stew might need 8 Meat. At higher level or less chance at lower levels have a special meat items from each animal like Pork Belly for bacon and eggs and Bear Flank for Bear Steaks. Also the higher your Hunting Skill the better chance at getting animal items like Bladders and Sinew.
This would also help out with the new cooking system I’m about ready to put in. I am putting in a system where nearly every item can be combined with ever other item up to four items to make a meal, with added bonuses for more food and different foods. So for every food combinations I have to make a recipe and a food item. With all the different meats Rabbit, Chicken, Pig and so on makes it crazy complicated and if we just had “Meat” it would be so much better. Also with this system we can still keep our animal specific recipes like only pork belly from pigs or Bear stew made from Bear Flank.
So in closing lose the separate animal meats and go to “meat” but still keep separate animal meat drops for animal specific recipes. Add new Hunting Skill that levels off harvesting dead animals and improves loot from dead animals as you level.
Animal Parts Usages
Bladder - large flask - water proofing
Skin - leather
Bone - Shiv - fish hooks, awls, needles, spear points, bone meal.
Brain - Tanning - Food
Fat - Glue - Tallow - Food - Paint - lubricant - fuel,
Sinew - sutures, fish line, bowstrings, lashing and snare line.
Feathers - Fletching - Insulation
Meat - generic "meat" portioned by animal size
Special Meats - Pork Belly, Bear Flank, Venison Tenderloin
Thoughts?