Ranching: tending to your animals

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Survive and thrive are two different things with VERY different applications. I'm afraid if you make death the immediate outcome you'll end up with the situation I described a few posts up.

 

 

 

 

Any word on this?

The reason is to help balance animals. Pigs produce a lot of babies, and if you can't handle that, you shouldn't be able to keep them. If they only get thin, you can still stock up as many as you like, and then simply fatten the ones you want to kill. If they don't die, they don't solve the problem we're trying to rectify.

[Maga 99]

The reason is to help balance animals. Pigs produce a lot of babies, and if you can't handle that, you shouldn't be able to keep them. If they only get thin, you can still stock up as many as you like, and then simply fatten the ones you want to kill. If they don't die, they don't solve the problem we're trying to rectify.

 

Very valid point. I believe I might have a solution. Once the animal becomes sickly it waits a week then does a check for the animals of the same gender and species in a 30 block radius. If there is another animal of the same gender and species then the sickly animal dies. If it's the only one of it's kind in a 60 block diameter circle I think it's safe to say that this would be enough grazing room for the animal to survive until a player gives it some love and attention. The circle size could be configured for different animals (obviously cows need more room than chickens) Eventually you would end up with a thin and sickly breeding pair or you would need to give your animals PLENTY of grazing room and separate them so they would have enough grass to eat to stay alive.

 

This way sick herds would die off until players had just enough left to re-breed. Getting a healthy herd back from 2 sick animals (sickly animals should not breed, would need weeks of feeding first) would be punishment enough and the server wouldn't be mob-free in 10 years.

 

Hopefully this satisfies our shared desire to punish players who neglect their animals while keeping worlds safe from irreversible population decay.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Animals should and will be able to sustain themselves on wild grasses, basically grazing (on tall grass), however animals would rather quickly eat all of the grass if there are more animals than a given space can support (ie the population density you would see in the wild). The only self-sufficient number of animals is at most as much as you might find in a similarly sized area in the wild. This means that (assuming you contain your animals in a reasonably-sized space) your animals won't die off completely, and instead settle at a stable number of animals. Any animal density you wish to have above the natural equilibrium would require you to feed them.

 

What this means is that you might be able to fit 20 pigs in a 80 x 80 enclosure without feeding them, but that's impractical, and so you would have to supply them with food in order to shrink it down to something more manageable, such as 20 x 16 or something like that. These are just random numbers though, not to be taken as a statement of a future feature.

[Maga 99]

Righto, I'm still thinking about how people will end up with only one pig of one gender and have to go find another... But the more I think about it, the less of a worry it is. If they're in singleplayer then w/e, let the idiots suffer. If it's SMP then I usually run 10k from the madness and set up a town on my own then invite only the intelligent ones over who hopefully won't keep them crammed in a 1x1 hole.

 

On a related note, here's my pigpen on rhodance's server after my latest breed job :3

 

Yeah... something needs to be done about this. 

 

PS. Hoping animal products will have more uses when body temperature comes into play with things like insulated armor and heavy coats/pants/hats/boots that take a LOT of leather, wool and feathers. True or false?

[TonyLiberatto 364]

One of the things i like about this change is that it would give a reason to have bigger grain farms.

maybe even a reason to use the scythe in harvesting.

[AllenWL 186]

Animals should and will be able to sustain themselves on wild grasses, basically grazing (on tall grass), however animals would rather quickly eat all of the grass if there are more animals than a given space can support (ie the population density you would see in the wild). The only self-sufficient number of animals is at most as much as you might find in a similarly sized area in the wild. 

But in some areas, tall grass won't re-spawn, and tall grass respawn rates(from what I see) are pretty darn low.

 

So I'm wondering, just how far should animals go to to survive?

Will they attempt to eat flowers or grass blocks(like sheep)? Will they attack your crops and devour your berry bushes?

Will they attempt to eat low-hanging leaves? Will they resort to eating thatch blocks?

 

Me, personally would like it if when an animal eats tall grass, it turns to short grass, then it disappears, after which animals resort to eating grass off blocks.

Existing tall/short grass will make the respawn rates of grass near it significantly(or not so significantly) higher, and while eating grass(blocks) will keep your animals alive(somewhat) they will be extremely sickly. Animals should attempt to eat crops whenever possible.

 

Really sickly animals should have a chance to just die of sickness so people can't just feed animals the bare minimum food then just fatten a few up whenever they want to kill them

[transcengopher 349]

Animals should and will be able to sustain themselves on wild grasses, basically grazing (on tall grass), however animals would rather quickly eat all of the grass if there are more animals than a given space can support (ie the population density you would see in the wild). The only self-sufficient number of animals is at most as much as you might find in a similarly sized area in the wild. This means that (assuming you contain your animals in a reasonably-sized space) your animals won't die off completely, and instead settle at a stable number of animals. Any animal density you wish to have above the natural equilibrium would require you to feed them.

 

No area is sufficient in case of a miltiplayer server, considering grass should be in loaded chunk to regrow tall grass on top of it, whereas animal doesn't have to be loaded to "get hungry".

 

In this particular case you would also need to make grass play catch-up along with animals once chunk loads in. Which is a performance hog and a half.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

These are things we must address. With everything else that happens in TFC, it's not unreasonable for tall grass to grow all at once when a chunk loads, just as all other processes catch up when a chunk reloads. Overall, a few changes will have to be made that determine how and where grass and plants grow in order to  accommodate animals. For one thing, there will have to be a way for animals to forage during the winter in colder climates. It will most likely be harder for animals to find enough to eat during these times, so colder climates might support fewer animals in the same space. It's also possible that animals will eat wild vegetables, from berry bushes and from fruit trees (if they can manage that)

 

Carnivores will probably end up being a bit more complicated.

 

The whole system needs a good looking-at, because some of the factors that support ecosystems in real life are hard to replicate in game. For starters, wilder forests often support more animals than one might initially think, as many of their inhabitants avoid human contact or contact with other animals. Carnivores like wolves can be sustained because more prey animals are born each year within the area that they hunt than they consume each year. This might require ratios upwards of 20 or so deer for each wolf, which in TFC wouldn't work, as most animals sit there dumb and let you kill them. It's difficult to code them in such a way that it's a challenge to run them down and stab them. I'll look into this though. Better pathing might be required; at least a way for them to pick a destination that doesn't have them running in circles or back towards the player.

 

Ideally, I wouldn't mind large herds of animals like deer or cows, especially if they would run at the sight of the player. If players had to sneak up slowly on a herd and peg one with an arrow, the game could support larger herds and I think would be more fun. For cows at least, they should be able to retaliate when wild, lashing out or charging.

 

Currently, animals are few and far between because otherwise they're too plentiful. The first step in making animals require food is making animals behave properly, and that means new AI. 

[TonyLiberatto 364]

One of the things I think should be consider when talking about animals eating crops is the initial gameplay. Would that make it even harder for the player to find crops?

I have no problem with fencing my farms Witch I already do just because I don't want mobs roaming around.

Maybe a solution would be to have the animals eat the grain or vegetable but not destroying the plant just bringing it back to a stage before maturity.

This way there would be no change in how hard it is to find vegetables and grains since when you are exploring what matters is to get the seeds for your farm.

I know IRL many animals would eat the whole plant but this is a game after all. 

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

One of the things I think should be consider when talking about animals eating crops is the initial gameplay. Would that make it even harder for the player to find crops?

I have no problem with fencing my farms Witch I already do just because I don't want mobs roaming around.

Maybe a solution would be to have the animals eat the grain or vegetable but not destroying the plant just bringing it back to a stage before maturity.

This way there would be no change in how hard it is to find vegetables and grains since when you are exploring what matters is to get the seeds for your farm.

I know IRL many animals would eat the whole plant but this is a game after all. 

yeah, that would have to be the plan

[TonyLiberatto 364]

The reason is to help balance animals. Pigs produce a lot of babies, and if you can't handle that, you shouldn't be able to keep them.

 

That's Ok but as any farmer knows you don't leave breading to luck. Farm animals are bread on purpose and only when wanted.

[cogfactory 0]

Vanilla horses are pretty well done IMO, but for TFC I think that we should be able to ride bareback(less control than a saddle, maybe?) and iron horseshoes later in the game for speed increase. Putting shoes on the lesser farm animals sounds overly complicated and unnecessary.