Animal Fat

[Doug R.]

We have bones, meat, feathers, sinew, and hide/fur, but we don't have fat. Fat is a major component of some animals, and it has many uses:

Candles (from tallow)
Soap (with lye)
Dubbin (used to protect leather, tallow+cod liver oil+beeswax)
Cooking (from lard)
Sealant (hardened fat used to seal jars of food)
diesel fuel (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/17/news/fuel.php)
Various medicinal uses

Whale blubber could be made into oil. (Fat and Blubber would be separate animal products).


http://www.1771.org/uses_fat.htm

The most immediate use is in cooking, and if blubber-bearing animals were added, it could become an alternate source of oil. Soap will be necessary if dirtiness is ever introduced. Petrol could be made to fuel vehicles (granted, much harder than refining oil from the ground)

[sem]

If fat were to be added it should probably be rendered from meat during cooking rather than being added as a product of hunting.

Maybe add a drip-tray of some kind that you could use while roasting meat to catch the fat?

[Doug R.]

If fat were to be added it should probably be rendered from meat during cooking rather than being added as a product of hunting.

Why?

[sem]

Firstly both tallow and lard (which you mentioned in your original post) are rendered fats.

Secondly fat cut directly from meat would consist of fat cells which would contain a higher proportion of impurities than rendered fat.

Thirdly it provides an in-game mechanism for adding the extra resource by adding a new tool with which to extract it. I realise that it could be argued that the fat was there all along, and that people have only just come up with a use for it, but somehow it feels more satisfying (to me at least) if someone has just come up with a suitable way of collecting it.

(edit: I've finally got around to taking a look at the link you provided: First sentence?

Before fat can be used it must be rendered.

)

[formerly known as hf]

I've always thought repairs should require some additional resource input rather than just time. Fat would be good for that.

It should also be essential for clothing in cold areas if weather is ever implemented...

[Doug R.]

Secondly fat cut directly from meat would consist of fat cells which would contain a higher proportion of impurities than rendered fat.

From the same website:

Scraps of fat trimmed off the meat during butchering are placed in a pot with a small amount of water and heated for several hours.

Rendered fat is fat cut from the meat and heated, so you are confused as to what rendering means, at least according to this website. You seem to be implying that the fat is leeched out of the meat, which is not the case. Also, all fat comes from fat cells, no matter where in the body it's located.

[sem]

Possibly a confusion of scale. I may not be as old as Tiddy, but I'm old enough to have eaten beef dripping on toast, and I do remember the fat that came from the beef being saved after roasting it (and there could be a fair bit of it depending on the cut). I've never worked in a slaughterhouse, so I'm not familiar with industrial scale processes.

[Wolf]

... Soap will be necessary if dirtiness is ever introduced. ...

Why would soap be necessary?
Even before soap was invented, people had ways to clean themselves.
Water, sand, shells, treebark, throughout history many things other than soap have been used to successfully scrub off dirt.

Also, plant-based fat or oil can be used to make soap, and from what I've read from several sources this is nowadays considered the more efficient way, so the need for soap wouldn't be as big a reason for animal fat, though it could be reasoned that there'd be a primitive form and an advanced form of soap, one using animal fats, the other using plant-based fat or oil.
Though perhaps that would be expanding into a whole different suggestion of plant fat or oil, and different types of soap.

[Solutions Maximus]

I think it would be awesome if whaling was implemented. That would add a whole new culture to Port locations. The whole whaling culture is something that I'm quite interested in. Also, it would add new items (harpoons, dragnets, etc.)
It could also add a criminal aspect, if certain whaling is banned.

[sanchez]

If we are discussing resource placement like this, again, I want to see some different food items, like peppers. Whale blubber is interesting, and as it goes with something completely new in game it makes some sense. But adding more resources to existing animals populations is a bad idea. I don't want to redo all the foods. We could set up a cooking project or a special machine to get fat from meat, perhaps. But I want a better reason.

[Nakranoth]

Honestly, in the current productions of bio-diesal, fats are assumed to be contained within the "meat" resource, and are extraced durring productions. Also, making "petrol" from blubber is a definite misnomer. It could however be used as a much more potent replacement for meat in bio-diesal productions.

[Gran]

This suggestion is good.Creating fat and other alternative resources is a good idea.Also, where's olive oil?

[Arlequin]

At least I guess fat would be more weight efficient than smoked meat, duh...

It would be funny otherwise.