Trapping

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Gameplay > Player > Skills > Trapping

Trapping is a survivalist skill in Project Zomboid. It allows the player to use traps to catch animals, which can then be butchered to be used as food. Higher Trapping skill increases the chance of catching an animal.

Basics

To trap animals:
1. get a trap and bait (see trap and bait)
2. place the trap in a valid zone (see zones)
3. add bait for the animal you want (see animals)
4. wait over 75 tiles away for at least an hour of in-game time (see mechanics)
5. return to collect your spoils

Traps

Different traps are required to catch different animals. Some traps are craftable via Recipes.

The simplest trap a player can use is a mouse trap, which can be found in the world. The player can also use their trapping skill to create traps, if the player's skill is high enough and if they have learned the crafting recipes. All traps except Mouse Traps can be crafted by the player. All traps need bait to be effective. Traps placed without bait can still break. (see mechanics)

Recipes

All traps except Mouse Traps can be crafted by the player. Creating a trap requires the player to have the necessary materials and/or tools in your main inventory to make it. You will also need to learn the recipe for the trap from a skill magazine in order to know how to craft them. Once these prerequisites have been met, you can select the crafting option by either right-clicking the materials in your inventory or opening the crafting interface.

Product	XP gained	Skill(s)	Recipe	Ingredient 1	Ingredient 2	Ingredient 3
Cage Trap	0 XP	Trapping 3		Wire x5 (consumed)
Snare Trap	0.25 Carpentry	Trapping 1		One of: Saw Garden Saw (keep)	Plank (consumed)	Twine (2 units) (consumed)
Stick Trap	0 XP	none		Sturdy Stick x4 (consumed)	Twine (2 units) (consumed)
Trap Box	1 Carpentry	Carpentry 1 Trapping 2		One of: Saw Garden Saw (keep)	Plank x4 (consumed)	Nails x7 (consumed)
Trap Crate	0.75 Carpentry	none		One of: Saw Garden Saw (keep)	Plank x3 (consumed)	Nails x5 (consumed)

Trap Types

A trap's strength determines its chance of catching something and if it will break, so higher strength traps have a higher chance of catching something and not breaking. Trap Crates currently appear strictly better than Trap Boxes. That is, they require less prerequisites, less materials and have a higher chance of catching squirrels. Trap strength does not appear to be affected by carpentry or trapping skill.

Item	Description	Weight	Strength	Can catch ?	Can catch ?	Can catch ?	Can catch ?	Can catch ?	Base ID	Skill Level
Mouse Trap	Small trap used by beginner trappers. Used to catch mice and rats.	0.3	50	Yes (30%)	Yes (25%)	No	No	No	Base.TrapMouse	Uncraftable
Stick Trap	Small trap used by beginner trappers. Used to catch small birds.	0.5	15	No	No	No	No	Yes (40%)	Base.TrapStick	Trapping 0
Snare Trap	Medium size trap used by novice trappers. Used to catch squirrels and rabbits.	0.5	10	No	No	Yes (30%)	Yes (30%)	No	Base.TrapSnare	Trapping 1
Trap Box	Medium size trap used by apprentice trappers. Used to catch squirrels and rabbits.	1	15	No	No	Yes (25%)	Yes (30%)	No	Base.TrapBox	Trapping 2, Carpentry 1
Trap Crate	Medium size trap used by beginner trappers. Used to catch squirrels and rabbits.	1	15	No	No	Yes (30%)	Yes (30%)	No	Base.TrapCrate	Trapping 0
Cage Trap	Medium size trap used by journeyman trappers. Used to catch squirrels and rabbits.	1	20	No	No	Yes (40%)	Yes (40%)	No	Base.TrapCage	Trapping 3

Bait

Baits vary in attractiveness to different animals. Baiting a trap removes -5 hunger from the chosen bait, so baiting a trap may not consume the entire food item. If there is less than -5 hunger remaining on a potential bait, it cannot be used as bait. Only fresh or stale food can be used as bait. You cannot use rotten food.

Recently-added forageables such as caterpillars, millipedes, termites and slugs do not appear successful as bait.

Item	Can be grown?	Can be foraged?	Attractiveness for ?	Attractiveness for ?	Attractiveness for ?	Attractiveness for ?	Attractiveness for ?	Comments	Base ID
Apple	No	?				40	35
Banana	No	?					35
Bell Pepper	No	?				30	40
Bread	No	?			50
Bread Slice	No	?			50
Cereal	No	?			45	45
Cabbage	Yes	?					40
Carrot	Yes	?					45
Cheese	No	?	60	60
Cheese (Processed)	No	?	55	55
Chocolate	No	?	30	30
Cockroach	No	Yes			50
Cooked Popcorn	No	?				40
Corn	No	?			45	40	35
Cricket	No	Yes			50
Grasshopper	No	Yes			50
Lettuce	No	?				40	40
Orange	No	?				40
Peach	No	?				35	35
Peanuts	No	Yes				40
Peanut Butter	No	?	40	40		45
Potato	Yes	?					35
Tomato	Yes	?	35	35			35
Worm	No	?			50			Can find in Composter or when digging furrows.

Zones

Animals can only be found in certain zones. All traps are usable in every zone, but not all traps are effective at catching animals in certain areas. Roads do not count as trapping zones. Zones cannot be determined definitively from in-game interaction. Zones are hard-coded: a zone won't be re-classified via player actions (e.g. de-foresting, fires, farming etc.)

Zone	Weighting for	Weighting for	Weighting for	Weighting for	Weighting for	Comments
Deep Forest	10	10	20	15	15
Farm	60	50	35	0	0
Forest	10	10	20	12	12
Town	50	30	30	2	2
Trailer Park	60	40	20	2	2
Vegetation	20	20	30	10	10

Animals

The following animals can be caught in game currently: rabbits, squirrels, birds, mice, and rats.

Item	Description	Weight	Strength	Trap	Zones	Bait	Base ID
Mouse	Small animal that can usually be found around farms, trailer parks and urban settings. They can be found rarely in the forests. Active all day long. Butchering will produce small animal meat.	0.2	-		Farm (60), Trailer Park (60), Town (50), Vegetation (20), Forest (10), Deep Forest (10)	60 55 40 30 35	Base.DeadMouse
Rabbit	Small animal that can usually be found in the forests. They can be found rarely in urban settings. Nocturnal creature that usually is out between 19:00 and 5:00. Butchering will produce rabbit meat.	0.2	24		Deep Forest (15), Forest (12), Vegetation (10), Trailer Park (2), Town (2)	45 40 35 35 35 40 40 35 35 35	Base.DeadRabbit
Rat	Small animal that can usually be found around farms, trailer parks and urban settings. They can be found rarely in the forests. Active all day long and a bit more rare than mice. Butchering will produce small animal meat.	0.2	-		Farm (50), Trailer Park (40), Town (30), Vegetation (20), Forest (10), Deep Forest (10)	60 55 40 30 35	Base.DeadRat
Small Bird	Small bird that can be found all over Kentucky. Active all day long. Butchering will produce small bird meat.	0.2	-		Farm (35), Town (30), Vegetation (30), Trailer Park (20), Forest (20), Deep Forest (20)	50 50 45 45 50 50 50 50	Base.DeadBird
Squirrel	Small animal that can usually be found in the forests. They can be found rarely in urban settings. Nocturnal creature that usually is out between 19:00 and 5:00. Butchering will produce small animal meat.	0.2	20		Deep Forest (15), Forest (12), Vegetation (10), Trailer Park (2), Town (2)	45 40 45 40 35 40 40 40 30 40	Base.DeadSquirrel

Spoils

An animal corpse is created when the player checks a successful trap (not when the animal is first trapped). Until then, the animal is stuck in the trap (hence the noise potentially attracting zombies). Butchered meat inherits the proportion of freshness the corpse had. For example, a Dead Bird butchered with 2 days freshness remaining (out of a total possible of 8), will yield Small Bird Meat with 0.5 days freshness remaining.

Hunger numbers in this table represent the base hunger. Trapped animals can vary in size, based on a randomly generated number, within limits that vary by animal type. The animal's size will proportionally modify the corpse's hunger, weight, macronutrients and XP gained. Butchered meat inherits the corpse's hunger.

Item	Description	Weight	Days Fresh	Days until Rotten	Cook Time	Burn Time	Hunger (base value)	Unhappiness	Base ID
Dead Bird	Corpse of a Small Bird. Can be butchered into small bird meat.	0.2	8	12	25	60	-20	20	Base.DeadBird
Dead Mouse	Corpse of a Mouse. Can be butchered into small animal meat.	0.2	6	10	10	50	-10	30	Base.DeadMouse
Dead Rabbit	Corpse of a Rabbit. Can be butchered into rabbit meat.	0.2	8	12	25	60	-40	20	Base.DeadRabbit
Dead Rat	Corpse of a Rat. Can be butchered into small animal meat.	0.2	6	10	10	60	-15	30	Base.DeadRat
Dead Squirrel	Corpse of a Squirrel. Can be butchered into small animal meat.	0.2	8	12	25	60	-30	20	Base.DeadSquirrel
Rabbit Meat	Obtained by butchering a rabbit.	0.3	2	4	25	70	-30	-	Base.Rabbitmeat
Rodent Meat	Obtained by butchering a mouse, rat, or squirrel.	0.3	2	4	20	70	-15	-	Base.Smallanimalmeat
Small Bird Meat	Obtained by butchering a small bird.	0.3	2	4	20	70	-15	-	Base.Smallbirdmeat

Mechanics

Traps can break or trigger without trapping an animal inside, so check them often. Traps will not catch anything while any player is within 75 tiles of them. One way to count tiles is to use the right-click "move to" function, or if your traps are deep in the forest, build a picket every 10 tiles. If any player moves within this area, there is no need to attend to the traps to "reset" them (unless the player wants to check on them, of course), just move out of range again.

Zombies are attracted to traps with animals in them (similar to their response to generators).

Due to a patched exploit, traps cannot be placed near walls or windows (the UI should prevent you from doing so), nor should the player build windows near the traps, once placed otherwise the traps will be destroyed.

Traps "tick" every in-game hour to check:

• if an animal is caught
• if bait is lost
• if the trap is destroyed
  

Times when animals may get caught in a trap:

• Rabbit or squirrel: 19:00 to 05:00 (7:00 PM to 5:00 AM)
• Bird, mouse, or rat: any time

Every in-game hour the game will run the following checks for every animal type:

• Is the animal catchable at this time?
• Is the animal catchable in this zone?
• Is the trap baited?
• Is the bait valid for this animal?
• Is the bait fresh?
• Are there no players within 75 tiles?

If the answer to all these questions is yes for that animal, then the chance of catching that animal in that hour is:

Chance = (Trap type + Bait type + 1.5 * Skill) * (Zone + 1.5 * Skill)

Each animal that passes this check is added to a list of potential catches. One animal from that list is randomly chosen as the spoils. If no animals passed this check, no spoils are chosen.
If an animal was not caught, the game will then check each hour if the trap should either lose its bait or be destroyed, with the trap strength being the only variable.
Chance to lose bait: 1 / (strength + 10)
Chance to destroy trap: 1 / (40 * strength)

If a trap loses its bait or is destroyed, the animal is not caught.

There appears to be no constraints on the number of traps in a zone, proximity of traps to one another (or their configuration), or way to deplete animals from a zone.

Leveling

A player gains trapping experience when they collect an animal from a trap that they placed. The amount of experience gained for this action is proportional to the animal's size (noting that size is slightly randomised, see spoils), with a floor of 3 XP.

Certain occupations and traits can raise the initial Trapping skill, and the XP multiplier for the skill.

Occupations

Name	Points	Notes
File:Park Ranger.png Park Ranger	+2 Trapping +2 Foraging +1 Carpentry	Park rangers know all the trap recipes.

Traits

Name	Points	Notes
File:TraitHiker.png Hiker	+1 Trapping +1 Foraging	Hikers know the snare, stick, and wooden crate trap recipes.
File:TraitHunter.png Hunter	+1 Trapping +1 Aiming +1 Sneaking	Hunters know all the trap recipes.

External Links

• Forum post introducing trapping
• Reddit post analysing Trapping source code
• Reddit post playtesting aspects of Trapping

See Also

• Farming
• Fishing
• Foraging