Game Mechanics

=== Kill Cam ===
While kill cam is enabled (on by default) in the settings menu, any shot that would potentially kill a non-engaged enemy will trigger a killcam montage to kill the creature.   A potential killcam shot gets a bit of 'leeway', or 'aim assist' , and will trigger killcam even if it's a 'near miss'.  If the ranged attack would only kill with a critical, then the 'leeway' area is only around the critical zone (usually the head).  If the shot would kill without a crit, the 'leeway' zone is around the entire animal, making a killcam shot much easier to trigger.  To clarify, only a shot that will instantly kill a creature who isn't engaged (unaware, out of combat) will trigger a killcam.  A damaging crit that doesn't kill will simply hit normally.  Since animal level impacts HP, sometimes even the same damaging attack will fail to killcam a higher level creature of the same type.  To get more killcams, increase the damage of your ranged attacks - Javelins, high level arrows, high level bows, and rifles are all excellent at triggering killcams.
Disabling Killcam in the options will, as expected, prevent the killcam montage from playing, while also removing the 'leeway' or aim-assist from applying to ranged attacks.
=== Defensive Stats ===
Most armor offers physical resistance as well as resistance to environmental temperatures.  Physical resistance gives an equal amount of percentage resistance to Melee and Projectile damage, shown in the primary stats screen (inventory).  Environmental temp resistances (cold and heat resist) increase the 'comfortable range' your prospector can be in.  For example, clear sky, daytime travel in the arctic requires 58% cold resist to not have the Cold debuff.  This is also impacted by other buffs that raise or lower body temperature, like "Chilled" from drinking from a canteen.  Some armors have more specific resistances, like Melee resistance, or elemental resists (Fire resist, for example). These are all also direct 1-to-1 percentage reductions in those types of damage.
Armor takes durability damage each time any source deals damage to you, scaling based on damage taken (before defenses are applied).  This is regardless of if the armor is helping you mitigate that damage or not, so storms and poison can do an unexpected amount of armor durability damage.
=== Environmental Temperature Debuffs ===
Being too cold or too hot will apply negative conditions to the prospector.  Being below the 'cold' threshold (the diagram on the bottom left of the UI) gives the 'Cold' debuff, lowering stam and stam regen.  While 'Cold' the prospector has a chance each minute of becoming 'Chilled' which has more severe penalties.  If returned to a comfortable temp while Chilled, the debuff will get a timer that ticks down, but becoming Cold again will restart the timer.  While Chilled, the prospector has a chance to gain Frostbite, a permanent (until healed with a warming bandage) debuff with extreme penalties.  
In addition, a hidden 'coldness' stat is tracked based on how cold a prospector is below the uncomfortable cuttoff point.  When that 'coldness' stat is too high, Hypothermia is gained, which deals damage to the prospector for an amount of time, and can be very deadly.  Therefore, the colder a prospector is BELOW the Cold threshold, the faster Hypothermia will set in.  This is tracked separately from Chilled and Frostbite, so can overlap.  The 'coldness' hidden stat slowly raises while the prospector is comfortable, rather than resetting immediately.  
All of these same conditions and penalties apply to being too hot as well, with different conditions on each debuff (visible in the tooltips). Like being Cold, the prospector can be Hot, gain Overheating and Heat Stroke, as well as taking damage from Hyperthermia.
=== Tool Stats ===
Tools, as opposed to weapons, use different statistics to determine effectiveness.  
Axes use Felling Damage, a separate damage stat that determines how many swings are needed to fell a tree or split a log.  This does not impact nor is it impacted by Melee Damage, which is damage by the axe dealt to creatures and structures.  Yield on axes determines how many pieces of wood (or any other applicable material reward) are granted when harvesting.
Pickaxes use Mining Radius, which impacts how much of a voxel is cleared on each swing.  Higher radius clears a voxel faster for the same reward, effectively speeding up mining.  Again, Melee Damage (and elemental damage, if any) only impact creature and structure damage. As with axes, Yield increases the rewards from each voxel, regardless of mining speed. Different types of mining yield bonuses stack multiplicatively, but their interactions with 'base' mining counts aren't completely clear, so predicting exact yield from any given voxel is difficult.
Knives have Yield as well, which is a multiplier to all rewards from skinning.  The whole integer of the original base reward is multiplied by the yield percentage, then rounded (5 arctic fur and 225% yield would give 11, for example).  Note bashing bones are not impacted by knife yield.
Sickles' yields are calculated much the same as skinning yield, applied after the roll of base reward.  Sickles base yield is a separate range set per plant (sometimes even granting different rewards entirely from hand-harvesting), including separate yields for wild and farmed crops. Using a sickle also has a 50% chance to give seeds, higher than collecting by hand.
Hammers repair time stat lowers the amount of time it takes for the circle to fill.  Hammers swing at a constant rate and spend stamina on each swing, so filling the circle (thus finishing the repair) faster may end up using fewer swings, which greatly lowers stamina usage.
=== Destroying Items ===
Many crafted items can be right-click 'Destroy'ed to recover half of the materials used to craft the item. Half of the whole stack is returned, so if something only takes one of a crafting material, destroy two to get one back.  food, medicine, sticks, some processed materials don't destroy for mats (Trophies for example, return nothing).  Inert material (expired unstable explosive) destroys to salt.  Even ingots destroy to ore, if needed (gold and aluminum ore are used for some crafting)
Category:Mechanics