Locations/Expeditions/Hunting

Sheltered 2 has expeditions, which have the player send out their survivors to help them search for more items in the game world. However, the player can also send out expeditions for hunting. Hunting can be considered a more vital mechanic, as it allows the player to easily get meat, simply from hunting on forest tiles.

About

Hunting is one of the expedition-related activities, that allows you to obtain some meat without having to catch rabbits using snare traps, or having to shoot deer using the deer stand. However, you can only hunt for animals on forest tiles. All other biomes do not allow you to hunt.

When you send survivors out to hunt, they are considered to be on an expedition, meaning you can change their route, give them travel rations, view their inventories, or assess their encounters. Once they reach the targeted forest tile, they will begin to hunt and a timer will start. Once the timer runs out, the hunt is completed and the survivors will either continue their route or return to your shelter.

There is a skill in the Perception skill tree named "Hunter" which reduces the time needed to hunt on a forest tile, up to 30% at rank ★★★. Reducing the time needed to hunt can be quite helpful, because less time spent hunting means less time the survivor(s) is spent away from the shelter.

Mechanics

Hunting has many mechanics, and it is best to learn them so you can make the most out of your hunting expeditions.

Animal Density

Animal density is a measure of how much animals are roaming the forest tile. The more animals roaming the forest tile, the more meat your survivors will obtain from hunting in that tile. this means that hunting on a forest tile with an Animal Density of "loads" will give you more meat than any other density status.

Note that the more animals hunted in that tile, the lower the animal density will be. Eventually, animal density will become very low, and your survivors will get almost no meat from it.

Managing forest tiles' animal density can help you to make the most out of your hunting expeditions, because it forces you to strategically set up your route to hunt in forest tiles with very high animal densities, and moving to new tiles after the last one has run dry.

Animal Hot Spots

Animal hot spots are certain forest tiles that have more animals roaming it than other forest tiles. Animal hot spots are symbolized by a hexagon, with a green up arrow and wolf inside of it.

While animal hot spots will give you more meat than any other tile when hunted on, your survivors can still encounter hostile wildlife in these tiles. Because of this, it is recommended to bring a party of four survivors, one or more with the "Hunter" skill and the rest with decent Strength, Dexterity, and weapons.

It is unknown if chances of animal encounters are increased in animal hot spots.

Hostile Wildlife

When survivors are hunting on forest tiles, there is a chance that they will encounter hostile animals. Hostile animals can either be bears or wolves. Encountering hostile animals can be quite annoying, because if a hunting party encounters animals, the hunt will start all over again. It is recommended to craft and equip a Animal Repellent, as it massively reduces the chances of animal encounters, thus reducing the chances of the hunt starting all over.

Despite this downside, encountering hostile animals can also be quite nice, as killing these will not only give you meat, as well as leather and animal fat, but they can also give your survivors XP. All in all, hostile animals during hunting can be both a blessing and a curse.