Build 42 Hunting & Tracking — Deer Routes, Traps, and the Leather Chain

Build 42 adds real hunting: wild deer roam the map, the new Tracking skill turns those sightings into a repeatable route, and trapping gives you a passive overnight meat supply. Yes — with a few skills, fresh bait, and patience, you can live off the land in 42.20. This guide covers the full loop: tracking a deer to a recoverable shot, butchering it for meat and hide, processing the leather chain, and running traps that catch while you sleep. Facts come from PZwiki's Tracking, Trapping, and Softening Beam pages plus cross-checks against stable 42.20.0 on 2026-08-05.

The hunting loop in four steps

Hunting deer is not a random loot roll — Build 42 turns it into a two-trip process:

1. Recon trip: open Search Mode and set the focus to Animal Tracks. Follow footprints (they show direction), droppings, broken twigs, and flattened plants to confirm a route. Mark the last useful position on the map and leave.
2. Prep trip: return with a weapon you can finish a shot with, a knife for butchering, and the leather stations already built at base.
3. The hunt: park outside the clearing, walk the final approach, and take only a shot you can recover from. A firearm solves the deer problem but creates a noise problem — do not keep firing once the deer vanish into cover.
4. Process: butcher on the spot with a knife, then run the hide through the leather chain at base. The same kill gives meat, blood, bones, and other animal parts.

Deer routes are tied to your individual world — another player's route is only a clue, your save needs its own record.

The Tracking skill

Tracking is a Survivalist-class skill added in Build 42. In Search Mode under Animal Tracks, it reveals more detail and smaller clues as it levels: footprints with direction, resting and eating signs, and how recent a track is. Higher Tracking also lowers the noise of getting near wild animals.

• XP comes from finding different track types and from sneaking near deer or rabbits.
• No occupation or trait currently grants a starting Tracking level.
• Skill books (1–5): Animal Pawprints, Hunting with Hemingway, Long Range Animal Tracking, The Smell of Ivory: An African Adventure, Understanding Animal Behavior Through Spoor Placement.

If you just want meat without the skill grind, roadkill works — deer and rabbits can be hit with a vehicle, and small species like rabbits can often be picked up or killed without a weapon.

Wild animals you can hunt

Trapping: the passive overnight loop

Traps catch rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, birds, mice, and rats. Two numbers that decide everything:

• Distance: no catch happens while any player is within 80 tiles of the trap. Set traps, then sleep, loot another cell, or work elsewhere.
• Window: rabbits, squirrels, and raccoons only roll between 19:00 and 05:00; birds, mice, and rats roll any hour.

Every in-game hour, each baited trap runs two independent rolls — (trap weight + bait weight + Trapping × 1.5), then (zone weight + Trapping × 1.5). Both must pass. Bait must be fresh (rotten fails), and baiting a trap costs −5 hunger from the item.

Zone weights decide the second roll: rabbits and squirrels want Deep Forest (15) / Forest-type (12) / Vegetation (10) — Town and Trailer Park drop to 2. Rodents and birds prefer farm/land/town zones. Best practical baits: carrots for rabbits (45), peanut butter or cereal for squirrels (45), bread/worms for birds (50), cheese for mice and rats (60). Traps can break or lose bait without catching; check them in the morning.

The leather chain: from carcass to usable hide

A successful hunt gives meat plus a hide that runs through four stations. Build them before the kill — they are cheap and only the bellows has a skill gate:

1. Softening Beam (2 planks, 2 nails, hammer — no skill): Remove Flesh is mandatory and turns the hide furred; Remove Fur is optional.
2. Tanning Bucket (2 planks, 2 nails): soak the hide with a Bowl of Brain Tan — 1 animal brain + 300 mL water, no skill or magazine. One bowl tans exactly one hide regardless of size.
3. Drying rack sized to the leather: a de-furred deer hide becomes Medium Leather and dries on the medium rack.

Two traps to avoid: keeping the fur commits you to a large rack (the wet furred state sizes as large), and the Remove Fur option disappears once the hide is tanned — there is no un-tanning and no salvage, so decide at the softening beam.

Verified on 42.20 · Last checked 2026-08-05

Tracking and Trapping mechanics come from PZwiki's Tracking and Trapping pages (42.18-era stamps), the leather chain from the Softening Beam page, re-checked against stable 42.20.0 (July 29, 2026). Wild-animal population and flee behaviour are community-reported from 42.19/42.20 testing and may shift in hotfixes — re-verify after any patch.