More skinning research

I took Goat to Cysaegir and started hunting vor'taz and faeroths. While I was at it, I wrote some tracking scripts, for both skinning success and appraisal results (skin quality and estimated value). First I figured it would be interesting to get a snapshot of what 1 1xFA/1xSurvival sorcerer could do, since those data points on skinning effectiveness aren't especially plentiful. Then I collected data on hunting while damaging multiple random locations with a combination of mana disruption and dark catalyst (roughly 5 spots damaged per critter) versus damaging them with 711 only (no wounds).

Results

There's nothing especially conclusive in here. I leveled up before I could get enough trials to find any really mild effect.

Some have asserted that mana disruption does no damage to skin value (breaking bones, not skins). This seems plausible - I saw only slightly higher value from lesser faeroth when not inflicting any wounds at all, and very minimal improvement in greater faeroths.

Oddly, even when casting 719 once per vor'taz doesn't seem to impact their horn values. It seems quite plausible that horns are not damaged by damage to the head. Perhaps Simu forgot to set which wounds damage skins in some cases, or perhaps in this case the idea is that this magical horn thing is impervious to damage even if the head is split open.

It doesn't take a ton of trials to see higher-quality skins show higher estimated values, but there's definitely a measure of randomness involved.

It seems that skinning does in fact have a fumble mechanic (unsurprisingly, since almost everything does). Note the lesser faeroth trials - I botched twice in 59 attempts, but never got a crude or poor crest.

Future research
Now that I have all the scripts written and everything, I hope to see if there's a noticeable difference in kneeling or not, and in going to stance offensive or not. I've died several times getting caught with low DS by skinning, so I'm looking forward to quantifying the difference, even if I can't actually nail it down exactly.


Now on to the data

Skinning after wounding critters
Level 51 sorcerer. Skinning knife in left hand. kneel. offensive. no injuries or scars (on me). 702 everything (but 719 first on vor'taz only). Skin with a black vultite skinning knife with a troll teeth crossguard.

Vor'taz
killed	70
skinned	53
botched	16
cumul_value	21782
skinned, shiny	4	imbeddible, can't be sold at furrier
avg skin value	410
avg kill value	311

quality	count	avg. estimated value
crude	12	285
poor	7	267
fair	17	463
fine	6	466
exceptional	5	550
outstanding	2	425
superb	0
magnificent	0

Lesser Faeroth
killed	26
skinned	25
botched	1
cumul_value	26898
avg skin value	1075
avg kill value	1034

quality	count	avg. estimated value
crude	0
poor	0
fair	1	500
fine	2	775
exceptional	2	800
outstanding	1	550
superb	2	1075
magnificent	9	1016

Greater Faeroth
killed	25
skinned	26	I think one died while I was not in the room.
botched	0
cumul_value	24743
avg skin value	951
avg kill value	989

quality	count	avg. estimated value
crude	0
poor	1	600
fair	7	560
fine	2	650
exceptional	1	1200
outstanding	5	930
superb	0
magnificent	5	1390

Skinning without wounding critters
same as above, but casting 711 on everything (which leaves no injuries)

Vor'taz
killed	51
skinned	37
botched	14
cumul_value	16232
skinned, shiny	3
avg skin value	438
avg kill value	318

quality	count	avg. estimated value
crude	6	354
poor	4	375
fair	13	428
fine	7	457
exceptional	4	468
outstanding	0
superb	0
magnificent	0

Lesser Faeroth
killed	39
skinned	38
botched	1
cumul_value	45507
avg skin value	1197
avg kill value	1166

quality	count	avg. estimated value
crude	0
poor	0
fair	1	600
fine	3	700
exceptional	4	1050
outstanding	2	850
superb	6	1100
magnificent	22	1229

Greater Faeroth
killed	33
skinned	32
botched	1
cumul_value	31695
avg skin value	990
avg kill value	960

quality	count	avg. estimated value
crude	1	750
poor	3	716
fair	7	685
fine	5	770
exceptional	7	914
outstanding	5	1300
superb	4	1075
magnificent	0

Anything with nails or fingers would be susceptible to 708.

________________________________
>Barnom exclaims, "I smell delicious!"

>Barnom says, "Like sage and nutmeg."

>> Anything with nails or fingers would be susceptible to 708.

That's a great idea, I'll have to try it at some point.

>> I'd expect to see a significant difference for knee (a 1-2 point shift on the quality scale) and nothing from stance.

I'm currently establishing a baseline for level 52, and will then move on to kneeling and stancing. I'll be pretty happy not to see a stancing difference; it's a much bigger DS drop than kneeling.

>> Did you check if there was any correlation between your fumbles and wounding the skin location?

The major weakness in the tests I run is that I don't have any 'wounded the skin location' trials. Rather, I approximated with 'sometimes wounded the skin location' trials vs. 'never wounded anything' trials. All I can say about the presumed lesser faeroth fumbles is that I got one in the non-wounding trials and one in the sometimes-wounding trials