Flying Hunters' Gear (Technology)

Flying Hunters' Gear is one of the Technologies in Frostpunk. It increases the nightly Raw Food output from Hunters' Hangars from 30 to 45, a 50% increase.

Summary
If you have not yet researched Hunting Tactics, it is more efficient to research that before researching this technology. The Raw Food per Worker ratio increase is identical for both technologies in Hunters' Hangars, but Hunting Tactics is a much cheaper technology, and available much earlier. Hunting Tactics also improves any remaining Hunters' Huts you may have, while this technology only affects Hunters' Hangars.

You need to have at least one Hunters' Hangar to get any value from this technology. Once you have at least one Hangar, it is more steel-efficient to research this technology than upgrading a second hut, if you have to choose (not taking opportunity cost of other technologies into account). That one hangar will gain 15 Raw Food per night from this technology, while a second Hangar will only gain 10, and the steel cost of this technology is less than one Hangar upgrade. If wood is scarce, the efficiency tipping point is 2 hangars, as this technology provides 30 Raw Food at 2 Hangars while costing 50 Wood, while upgrading a third Hut to a Hangar provides 10 Raw Food for 20 Wood.

With this and Hunting Tactics, the Hunters' Hangars will provide 45 Raw Food for every 10 Workers, which is the best ratio available for hunting. With regular Food Rations, you only need to employ 11% of your population in raw food production, from the 50% that was necessary at start. By supplementing this with the even more workforce-efficient (but much more expensive) Industrial Hothouses, you can reduce the workforce cost of Food even more.

When using Temporary Hazards, it is a good idea regardless of ideal efficiency to have a mix of hunting and farming, since the "Animal Migration" or "Rotting Roots" hazards can always cripple either food production approach, but never both simultaneously.

Hunting Efficiency
This table shows the efficiency of various possible hunting setups. The factor can be multiplied by your Worker count to see how much Raw Food they would produce, or you can divide your necessary Raw Food production by this factor to see how many Workers you will need. The worker count necessary to supply the Endless mode starting population of 80 is also shown, as reference.