Predator in Chernarus

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

So I log in on the slopes of the Devils' Castle, testing less-than-top-notch weapons against wolves (I know the shottie is the best but I really want to try out most civilian ones). I hear howling in the distance, I go prone and stop moving immediately. However, the wolves appear to have some ridiculous spotting capabilities and soon the whole pack converges on me. With my shotgun, I get 3 wolves, including the leader. 3 other wolves run away dowhill (I don't know where's the 7th). I switch to AK74 and manage to land some hits but fail to make a kill (5.45 ammo seems to fare poorly against animals).

I get back to my kills, just a few steps, not wanting to lose my trophy steaks in the forest. I quickly skin the 3 kills (really taking only as long as 3 skinning animations) and run back to pick up the chase. Soon I find the 3 escapees... or rather what's left of them. I find 3 wolf pelts and wolf pelts only, slightly farther from where I last shot (but failed to kill) the wolves.

I'm 100% sure that there were no shots or other sounds of fight like wolf whimpering. I'm 100% sure that if there was any killer, he wouldn't have time to kill and skin the wolves and disappear before I fwas done with the first 3 wolves and ran back (I had high ground and could see the entire hill slope). Of course I scouted a wide area around but failed to see anything suspicious, not a single bone.

So what happened? Yet another 'because dayz' situation or does the Predator lurk in our forests? What's actually the story behind the Devil's Castle?

 

Now that I'm writing it, it comes to me that on the same private server, for two nights in a row I would find human steaks and remains at various spots in Vereshnik, like it was a message. But I'm sure it's a coincidence...

[Old Man River 14]

You are not alone.

Those pelts you found may be from an earlier encounter with another player, I can't verify 100% but, I believe pelts may linger around a bit longer than the lard, guts, and bones.  I have found only pelts on the ground in the areas of wolf spawns - no bones, no guts, no lard - just the pelts.  I just haven't had a chance yet to compare the persistence of the remains from my kills.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

11 hours ago, Old Man River said:

You are not alone.

OK, so that's the explanation. I was thinking about it so much. I mean, I know how glitched the dayz reality is, but I thought I can more or less understand/predict what Chernarus throws at us. It still seems unlikely by a large margin, just think about it - someone chases wolves down the hill and gets three kills, and after a while, in the exact timeframe where the remains spawn but the pelts don't, I let go 3 other wolves down more or less the exact same path. And my pack was intact so it must have been another one prowling in the same spot. Unbelievable as it seems, I can't find any other explanation. "When we eliminate the impossible..." and all that. Still, wow.

Thanks!

[emuthreat 2837]

18 hours ago, Old Man River said:

You are not alone.

Those pelts you found may be from an earlier encounter with another player, I can't verify 100% but, I believe pelts may linger around a bit longer than the lard, guts, and bones.  I have found only pelts on the ground in the areas of wolf spawns - no bones, no guts, no lard - just the pelts.  I just haven't had a chance yet to compare the persistence of the remains from my kills.

Are people not eating the lard?  It is the most nutritious item in the game.  Even if the wolf lard is 40% lean, it is still good eating.  It also has powerful superstitious benefits...

I can confirm that wolf pelts lay around for a long time.  Our Experimental camp was right in the middle of 4 wolf spawns, and we had a tent with a shotgun in it that we would use as a pillbox to take down the free meat twice daily.  The place was absolutely littered with wolf remains by the end of the first week.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

15 hours ago, emuthreat said:

Are people not eating the lard?  It is the most nutritious item in the game. 

Damn, and here I was still trying to put lard into that extra slot in cooking pots. Been a long time since I checked the wiki so I thought that lard is eatable in the same way that guts are eatable (i.e. eatable not edible).

Wolf pelts still not tannable, right? Can we expect it in a hotfix or is it a long way ahead?

[General Zod 1114]

On 18/01/2017 at 2:43 AM, Old Man River said:

You are not alone.

Hey that's my line! 

Edited January 19, 2017 by General Zod

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

On 18.01.2017 at 10:24 PM, emuthreat said:

Are people not eating the lard?  It is the most nutritious item in the game.  Even if the wolf lard is 40% lean, it is still good eating.  It also has powerful superstitious benefits...

Emuthreat, you look like a man in the know with the issue I have here. I quickly noticed that cooking times (and canister lifespans) got longer (right now it's ca 1:15min for one pot). I saw some variations but attributed these to my poor timing. It was only tonight when I was cooking cow and deer together that I discovered that we have different cooking times for different kinds of meat. Did you time these or any other times related to cooking? If not, will you care if I get the results?

So far I know that it's some 15 secs to warm up a pot, then it's 1:15 for at least cow and wolf, and a large canister lasts for some 15 minutes, or 12 pots' worth of food.

[emuthreat 2837]

6 hours ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

Emuthreat, you look like a man in the know with the issue I have here. I quickly noticed that cooking times (and canister lifespans) got longer (right now it's ca 1:15min for one pot). I saw some variations but attributed these to my poor timing. It was only tonight when I was cooking cow and deer together that I discovered that we have different cooking times for different kinds of meat. Did you time these or any other times related to cooking? If not, will you care if I get the results?

So far I know that it's some 15 secs to warm up a pot, then it's 1:15 for at least cow and wolf, and a large canister lasts for some 15 minutes, or 12 pots' worth of food.

I usually standardize my cooking on the Portable Gas Stove with a Cooking Pot. The first cycle takes 90 seconds, and each cycle after that (with a pot up to temp) takes 70 seconds.

I always cook two pots at a time on two stoves.  it helps to have a camp with twice as many pots as stoves; you can hot swap them for maximum efficiency.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

6 hours ago, emuthreat said:

I usually standardize my cooking on the Portable Gas Stove with a Cooking Pot. The first cycle takes 90 seconds, and each cycle after that (with a pot up to temp) takes 70 seconds.

Yesterday I put cow and deer steaks in the pot and the deer was done faster than the cow. Need more testing with that.