Reducing amount of blunt hits enough to kill prey

[Kels]

I beat a sheep to death with what would probably qualify in URW as a stone.  I expected the first blow to kill it, but it just sent it into a panic instead.  Then it was frenzy time, took maybe 5 or 6 hits to finish the job.  Any medium or large sized animal has quite a thick skull, and will survive a fair bit of blunt force trauma before dying.  Look at the power of a captive bolt gun, as used in a slaughterhouse, and even they don't always do the job in one hit.

True. However, using blunt force to kill livestock has been used for as long as livestock has existed. Our hardy Finnish survivor is not weak or unskilled by any measure and would be familiar with killing animals quickly. While finishing blows shouldn't be 100% instant kills, I think that the sometimes 30+ strikes required probably isn't intended.

Your experience of the animal waking up and requiring 5-6 hits to finish it is definitely something I would think is normal for the game. It's the sometimes 30+ repeated killing blows on an unconscious animal that seems off to me.

[Matti-patti]

I'd say usage of blunt force has through history mainly served to render the animal unconscious, the final clinical death often occurring only with the drawing of blood from the animal. Which is impossible to survive, unlike repeated hits on the skull. Even today it seems blunt force isn't considered a reliable method for killing an animal. Notably for animal that is being etuhanized (no processing after death) you essentially need to use either a firearm or a penetrating captive-bolt gun, since ethical slaughter doesn't involve repeatedly smashing the animal's head (WTF Bert? were you a kid or something?).

[Bert Preast]

(WTF Bert? were you a kid or something?).

It was during infantry training, I'm not some psycho... well, not a sheep-worrying one, anyway