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Honestly you don't really need to hunt much. My last desert play through animals died en masse. I couldn't even butcher them all before they started rotting. Also, if you're in a mountainous desert with plenty of metal it can be more lucrative to go for fertilizer pumps first. As they can make dirt patches wherever you'd like and they don't cost electricity after crops start going.

i had a successful colony on a flat desert biome.
first thing is to find a plot of dirt large enough to sustain around 5 colonists, and plant berries on it. any other dirty areas nearby should be for growing trees.
then  simply grow the colony like normal, mining metal from whatever veins you can find and cooking the berries into simple meals.
as soon as you are able, research the fertilizer pump (turns 25 sand into dirt = food for 4 more colonists)
place as many pumps as you can afford, leaving 4 squares between them. once they've finished you can recycle them.
plant berries, cloth or devilstrand in the newly made dirt and sell the excess for metal.

This is exactly how I did it. I found a patch large enough to sustain a smallish colony, and put food all up in it. There were a couple smaller patches where I grew trees but, by in large I mostly mined into the mountain for rooms and such. The first thing I researched were the fertilizer pumps and then I simply made 5x10 rectangles for growing fields.

If you're not in a mountain biome or don't want to build your colony into the mountain then you're gonna be hurtin for every scrap of metal and wood you can find. Cactus' can give you some wood but not much, it's always best to farm trees as much as you can.

I usually grow a mixture of both potatoes and berries. Berries I keep stockpiled in case there's a solar flare and my supply of meals doesn't outlast it, and I'll have the potatoes be whats first cooked into meals and made into nutrient paste

cant you just tell the warden not to feed the prisoners so they will feed themselves?

I'm pretty sure they will still take food from it before dying...

Nah. I had a nutrient paste machine in a prison and my main warden (the one whose primary job it is to warden) get sick so I was keeping him in bed. I didn't even realize the prisoners were starving until I noticed two had died.

Depends on which one really, well... they're kinda the same bit kinda different.

For the ones with the rapid fire guns I typically have all my guys spread out and stick to the best possible cover, walls are ideal, but out in the open is a death sentence.
For the ones with the cannons I'll have them spread out but I won't have them hide in cover. Anyone whome its aiming at will be constantly on the move while my other colonists will be far away from each other.

In both cases the only thing to do is to slow whittle them down, I've also found its best to have all your colonists focus on one at a time if there's more than one. Once one is incapped or killed then you focus on the next.

I didn't even know that was a thing until it was no longer a thing!

Wound infections are much more common!?

Shit, half the raiders I capture end up getting infections of some sort o-o

Tynan said it was because its difficult to go to older saves on steam. And each update typically isn't compatible with previous updates, for obvious reasons, and people'll start getting pissy if the colonies they have worked hard on suddenly aren't functional anymore with the game

My least favorite occurrence is when someone gets shot in the head and survives. You either have to let them die, euthanize them, or let them suffer on, walking at the speed equivalent to a man with two peg legs

My preferred method is the holy war on mountains. Barring that however there's also machining mechanoids and smelting slag chunks. Aside for waiting for metal to drop from the sky your only other option is to buy it from industrial merchants

Here ya go. I call it New Mining Town. The roads are concrete with stone side walks. There are lamps here and there, though I didn't want to go overboard. There's also the suburbs near the mines where everyone lives, which is next to the square/ trade beacon. The farmlands are out of the way and there are even separate rooms for each hospital bed (not the most efficient use of space, but I felt sick people should be quarantined. The prison is pretty large with separate(ish) cells for each prisoner with a community eating area and medical wing for prisoners. The crematorium is built into the wall behind an auto stone door.

I've even taken pains to role play the building of powerlines. I stuck to a rule that no power conduit could travel more than 10 spacesl, and they had to go straight, the exception for this being walls. So the keen eye may observe random single wooden power walls with connecting power conduits. It certainly made bringing power to my colony more interesting, with a noticably heavier reliance on building power into the walls and just building small connections on multiple points between many buildings.

http://imgur.com/nvTcr7D

I usually use it yeah. I'll map out bare bones districts or big-ass-buildings, calculating out where stuff will go and where structural support beams will be etc. I find it easier. often times I'll let the game run in the slowest form instead of doing the 2x fast forward like I normally play in, that way haulers can haul stuff and shit can get done while I plan

On my desert map most of the animals ended up starving to death. Which I found to be weird, but ya know, whatevs. But yeah they do respawn. Had a dromedary herd spawn in not too long after they all promptly starved themselves off the map.

You should be able to find a large enough patch of fertile soil that should keep you sustained on veggies, at least until you research Hydroponics and/ or fertilizer pumps. I personally favored the pumps as it required less long-term power but Hydroponics will end up growing more food faster. So to each his own.

I'm figuring this is the more ethical way of getting rid of prisoners. You aren't killing them or mass harvesting them, and you aren't selling them which upsets your group. Maybe when you release them they become temporarily neutral and just walk off the map?

well.. I..

[various images]

(You can hunt them after you 'let them go' can't you?)

Funny you should mention that. Because that is the VERY FIRST idea I had

Oh yeah. Raider weapon and clothing becomes a major source of income for me. No sense letting all those tribal garbs and tshirts go to waist after all