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[GreatWyrmGold]

Do hunters provide enough bone to resupply their own bolts and enough other productsnto make up for their other headaches?

[i874236951]

Bah hunters.  I've had some annoyingly dumb deaths from a hunter getting too close, especially in high passage density caverns.  They generally do OK bringing in kills on the surface (predictably, low-skill ones can easily miss 25 times in a row), but it only takes one bad situation to make you dead.  I prefer to harvest wildlife with an armor-clad military.

Plus, having the hunting job enabled apparently swears one into a devout society of dirt-sleepers.

[drkpaladin]

Yeah a hunter does supply its own supply of bone for bolts, and with food so easy to come by in the current version I don't even bother farming anymore unless I have well over 100 dwarves drinking through the booze that gathering and caravans provide.  The only downside is that hunters eventually die, they might live long enough to reach legendary archery abilities, but eventually they'll get ambushed.  Lets just say that I double check to make sure that my hunters are unloved, unmarried, with no children.

[GreatWyrmGold]

So, aside from dying, hunters are good?

Would a random drafted guy who just caved in a ceiling on my legendary miner or something be able to make up for shot bolts with new bones until he got killed?

Edit: Also, would war dogs help out my actual hunters with killng critters and preventing tantrums? And what other critters would make good huntin' companions?

[MaskedMiner]

Hunting is easiest way to get high skilled markdwarfs from what I've seen o-o

[Skorpion]

So, aside from dying, hunters are good?

Would a random drafted guy who just caved in a ceiling on my legendary miner or something be able to make up for shot bolts with new bones until he got killed?

Edit: Also, would war dogs help out my actual hunters with killng critters and preventing tantrums? And what other critters would make good huntin' companions?

Hunting dogs will. And hunting-trained big cats. If you have grass, maybe a hunting giraffe or two.

Yes, you can train giraffes. I found this out by accident.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I thought hunting x's were bugged. And by x I mean "dog, cat, giraffe, giant cave beetle, or whatever kind of bizarre creature the animal trainer hauls to the kennels."

[drkpaladin]

Well, just make sure you have a nice dining room and are cooking lavish meals and that should keep the hunter happy.  My hunters are usually ecstatic, they take much joy in slaughter.  Hunting dogs supposedly are good for hunters, but I just use war-dogs anyways.

[MaskedMiner]

I thought hunting x's were bugged. And by x I mean "dog, cat, giraffe, giant cave beetle, or whatever kind of bizarre creature the animal trainer hauls to the kennels."

Exotic animals are bugged. Though, from what I've recall, giraffe are exotic...

The non exotic animals like dogs and such aren't bugged.

[Mushroo]

Hunters are definitely worth it, especially in the early game. Embarking with hunters gives you free crossbow, bolts, quiver. (I also like to give them the Dodging skill so they have a better chance of survival.) They make a good emergency militia through the early years (incredibly useful in a Terrifying region), and produce a massive over-abundance of food, which you can trade for weapons, armor, ammo, etc. The value of a single elephant processed into roasts is staggering!

Beyond the first few years, the value of hunters is debatable due to the risk of goblin ambushes (and the possible extinction of game animal species). At that point I often choose to "promote" my experienced hunters to militia captains, teaching their skills to immigrants. Or, I restrict them to the caverns using burrows, to keep them clear of cave crocodiles and the like.

A really fun embark is 4 hunters, 2 butcher/tanner/leather/bone carvers, 1 cook/brewer. Live on the surface until migrants arrive.

[IT 000]

Hunting animals are bugged. They do not help the hunter, or attack anything at all for that matter. GreatWyrmGold is correct.

I find that hunters can seriously help a fort early on. But late in the game you need to have a better, more stable food supply.

[Madurjafro]

I have not had too much luck with the hunters, on several embarks. Although one time they did drag a Giant Panda into my Legendary Dining Room and just left it there, thats about it, when I zoom into them, all I can see is broken arrows everywhere, and alive animals.

Fishdwarves are where it's at.

[Kay12]

Farms are an easy, fast, renewable an efficient way of getting food. Butchering a dog every now and then will provide tallow for soap. I've got along without hunting very easily, I don't see any point in it other than training marksdwarves.

[Umune]

Since I generally eschew the usage of breeding livestock, hunting provides a very effective source of meat. I usually have two legendary hunters who balance out the fact that I favor fewer and smaller farms. Because I give them a few war dogs (grizzly bears if possible), they become an early warning system that might be able to beat back a single squad, if given metal bolts (goblinite is a great source). I've had the occasional ambush get beaten back by a legendary hunter in a protected firing position.
tl;dr yes

[Alastar]

Last time I tried, hunting still required too much micromanagement (they kill secondary targets but don't haul them back, they don't return to their nice comfy bad, they tend to haul things to workshops instead of stockpiles causing a lot of clutter).

Using the military is hardly more work and gives a lot more control. For volume, I prefer to eat the dogs that don't have the traits I want to breed for.