Herd management

Update 0.1 trailer

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Official Early Access Update 01 trailer covering ecosystem tools.

Fitness, group size, and infrastructure

Herd fitness is the long clock: player work on the reserve raises local potential over time. Infrastructure repair is the verb list — bridges, feeders, habitat, pollution, invasive species. Update 0.4.0 then connected population health to visible group size, so a neglected feeder is not just flavor text. Reserve monitoring in the store copy ties those jobs to thermal and night gear rather than to a separate mini-game.

Both 100 km² reserves use this loop. Headquarters is too small to be the main fitness classroom; do the jobs where the moose and buffalo live. There is no published numeric fitness table, so this atlas describes the loop instead of inventing percentages. If a herd looks wrong, check infrastructure first, then season and time of day, not a hidden spawn seed.

Ammo loadouts in the same backpack

Loadouts let you swap rifle ammunition in the field after buying extra types at the lodge. Backpack size sets whether you carry two, four, or six sets. Default ammo remains free; alternate types are paid. Bows do not get alternate ammo at 1.0. That is a 1.0 limit, not a hint that a bow pack is coming tomorrow.

Put the loadout work on Headquarters’ range, then hunt. A Kilimaya buffalo load and a New Laurentia coyote-and-hare load are the reason the backpack count exists. Shot review will still show whether the chosen load hit the placement you wanted. The Update 0.1 trailer on this page is the ecosystem half of the same Early Access year, not a second animal list.

What herd management will not become

This is not a live map of every feeder. Shackmaps has a community New Laurentia layer; Kilimaya’s map URL 404s in the research capture, and neither layer is first-party. Herd management therefore stays a system chapter with five records, then points you at the reserves for the actual walk.

If you came here from editions, Deluxe does not add extra feeders. If you came here from co-op, remember that single-player and multiplayer worlds do not share animal populations, so a feeder you fixed alone does not greet your friend. That split matters more than any cosmetic lodge statue.

A week of reserve jobs

Pick a feeder on New Laurentia and keep it working while you run the moose file. Fix the bridge you actually cross. Pull invasives off a wetland that holds mallard. On Kilimaya, the same verbs apply to a different 100 km²: pollution and habitat work still raise fitness, and 0.4.0 still grows or shrinks groups from that health.

Monitoring in the store copy is the thermal and night loop, not a second UI. You look at herds with ZEISS glass and then decide whether the infrastructure is the problem. There is no published fitness percentage. If groups look small after 0.4.0, the health is low. If they look large, your work landed.

Ammo loadouts belong in the same week: buy the extra rifle type at the lodge, slot it, hunt. Bows stay on one ammo. Co-op will not inherit the feeder you fixed alone. Deluxe will not add extra jobs. The Update 0.1 trailer on this chapter is the ecosystem pitch from Early Access, still true at 1.0, now tied to group size from 0.4.0.

Same jobs, two continents

Fitness work on New Laurentia helps the moose story because a thin herd is the plot. Fitness work on Kilimaya helps buffalo and wildebeest groups after 0.4.0 because group size now follows health. The verbs do not change: feeders, bridges, habitat, pollution, invasives. The scenery does.

Headquarters is a poor classroom for this loop. Sixteen square kilometres and five overlap animals will not teach you African group scaling. Do the jobs where the 100 km² herds live, then check the claim screen when you shoot into those groups.

Loadouts ride along because they are the other pre-hunt setting: backpack size, paid alternate rifle ammo, no bow alternates. Buy them at the lodge, use them on the reserve you just repaired. Co-op still will not share the feeder. Deluxe still will not add a sixth job.

Do the feeder and pollution jobs on the map you will actually hunt this week. A repaired New Laurentia wetland helps mallard and moose. A repaired Kilimaya pan helps wildebeest and buffalo groups after 0.4.0. Then set the rifle loadout and leave the lodge. The jobs are slow on purpose; they are not a daily checkbox that prints a 29th animal.

Check group size after a few hunts, not after one feeder click. 0.4.0 made health visible as more or fewer animals in a group. If the group stays tiny, keep repairing. If it grows, hunt it and hang the result at Headquarters.