Raising livestock is far inferior as a source of food to hunting or manhunter packs. Perhaps the real problem is hunting and manhunter meat needs to be revisited. Tynan suggested discussing it in another thread and I didn't see one already created, so...
My #1 suggestion: Taint manhunter meat such that it has a higher chance of causing a diseases. Think "Mad Cow". After all, something made those animals go mad, right?
Suggestion #2: Make hunting more authentic. Real hunters don't have omniscient knowledge of the species and location every animal within a several mile radius. Real hunting takes patience and skill and stealth and often results in failure. Don't show wild animals on the map. Change the Wildlife tab to a Hunting tab and make it a bill system in which the player designates what animals to hunt for and the hunter goes out hunting, anywhere on the map or in designated zones. They have a chance, determined by biome and skills and terrain and human activity in the area, to sight prey and attempt to kill it.
These changes would make it much more worthwhile to raise animals for food and would create an opportunity to introduce another meat source woefully missing from the game: Fishing.
I think a couple of suggestions from the other thread are far simpler to implement and would cause far less change to the existing Rimworld mechanics:
1) Either let livestock animals produce more meat and leather per animal than wild/hunted animals or significantly reduce the number of wild animals on the map. Right now, hunting provides too much meat, period. Meat should be a relatively scarce resource unless animals are raised for slaughter.
2) Let number of wounds or type of trauma affect amount of meat and leather from butchering. If a manhunter gets shredded by a turret or IED, it provides little meat and no usable leather.
3) If 1) is implemented, milk and eggs become valuable as a renewable "meat" resource. Alternately, milk/eggs/insect jelly required for lavish meals could be a way to make raising animals more appealing.
I just want to say that hunting is ridiculously lucrative. Mowing down a pack of 6 muffalos gives you something like 1600 silver if you sell that meat and leather. It takes very little effort and almost no risk to do that, just draft 4-6 colonists with decent weapons. If the pack aggroes, micro them until all of the muffalos are dead.
No need to do something to grow wealth, if nearest town have something you want to buy, just kill some animals on your map and buy it. Need some bionics? Kill 6 muffalos. Need an archotech eye? kill 14 muffalos or equivalent.
I modded my games to have amount of animals on Temperate Forest biome be slightly less than tundra has on vanilla, otherwise it feels too unbalanced. I don't want to play on other biomes because I like variety of seasons in Temperate Forest.
Well, keep in mind he also said it's not like he's going to make large changes here this late in the game.
So any changes are probably going to be in mod form, and usually mods just buff things rather than seeking a good balance ;)
Even just dropping the spawn rate would make it less exploity. If you kill all the wildlife on the map, it shouldn't just come back after 2 days.
Counter this with allowing wildlife to breed. The player is then incentivised to not over-hunt.
Maps are simply too small to really simulate wildlife lifecycles; they take at least one year for bigger animals.
Changes like smaller groups and less frequent would be a lot easier.
Also, reducing meat a bit by damage taken sounds nice, but dont overdo it here. A skilled hunter should be able to get a shot to the heart/head, minimizing meat loss.
The best idea is to require animal products like milk (cheese?) and eggs for lavish meals. Better food comes from variety and good ingredients, instead of just taking more of the same.
Also a rework for grazing area might be cool: Add grass seeds (besides hay, that can be stored for winter) so you can actually seed a meadow: takes a lot more space but requires less work.
Quote from: Greep on August 09, 2018, 04:23:59 PM
Well, keep in mind he also said it's not like he's going to make large changes here this late in the game.
So any changes are probably going to be in mod form, and usually mods just buff things rather than seeking a good balance ;)
I took his comment to mean "for this release". It's too late for A19 to have (another) huge, destabilizing change introduced.
I still think the core problem with hunting (manhunter packs are a separate issue) is that hunting is pretty much a guaranteed food source. It shouldn't be. You, the player, see a wild animal on the map and mark it to be hunted. How does that translate into in-world logic? The colonists have some sort of radio tracker on it? So they go out there to where there are a dozen deer standing around and shoot at it. Meanwhile, the deer just keep loitering around waiting for their turn.
The problem with meat supply is fundamental to the hunting mechanic, so the hunting mechanic needs a fundamental redesign to fix it.
Quote from: Nynzal on August 09, 2018, 06:46:00 PM
Maps are simply too small to really simulate wildlife lifecycles; they take at least one year for bigger animals.
Changes like smaller groups and less frequent would be a lot easier.
Hmm.. depends upon map size if you think about it
QuoteAlso, reducing meat a bit by damage taken sounds nice, but dont overdo it here. A skilled hunter should be able to get a shot to the heart/head, minimizing meat loss.
Already done with 'missing body parts' in vanilla: this reduces both meat & hide yield from the corpse.. possibly encouraging your skilled marksmen/hunters to take up more accurate weps?
QuoteThe best idea is to require animal products like milk (cheese?) and eggs for lavish meals.
IIRC 'animal products' can already be used instead of raw meat in any meals, altho raw meat is generally preferred
QuoteAlso a rework for grazing area might be cool: Add grass seeds (besides hay, that can be stored for winter) so you can actually seed a meadow: takes a lot more space but requires less work.
IIRC DEVs are working on natural reseeding of a map; it's somewhat improved already but may be improved further in future updates. Obviously your herd of multi-muffalo will graze natural grass to extinction wiithin a small map size or allowed area, but that's your own fault :)
Quote from: Snafu_RW on August 09, 2018, 07:13:00 PM
Quote from: Nynzal on August 09, 2018, 06:46:00 PM
QuoteThe best idea is to require animal products like milk (cheese?) and eggs for lavish meals.
IIRC 'animal products' can already be used instead of raw meat in any meals, altho raw meat is generally preferred
That is true. They are able to be used. But they are not REQUIRED.
I did not propose this but I like it enough to explain my personal take on it:
Simple Meals require 10 food units (or whatever they're called) in any combination.
Fine Meals require 10 food units, but at least 5 of them must be non-plant and at least 5 of them must be plant.
Lavish Meals currently require 20 food units split 10/10 like Fine meals are split 5/5.
Lavish Meals in this new proposal would require - say - 15 food units split 5/5/5, plant, meat, and byproducts.
As it is I never make lavish meals anymore once I found that they take twice the ingredients (and I think also twice the time) and don't give anywhere near twice the benefit. I only use them with Insect meat to use it up because the Lavish buff is more than the Insect debuff.
What about going on this issue from a different direction? I hate to say the "realism" line but there is a reason we eat farmed food over wild food for many animals beyond simple volume or ease of access. Disease.
What if wild animals had a chance of causing a variety of infections to the colony that would be eliminated by raising them in the colony? Then the volume of wild meat would matter far less especially in the early days of the colony. It would also add a risk/reward factor to the narrative by forcing you to choose quick easy hunting meat or safe yet risky early farming.
You could even add an additional layer to the system for "manhunter" packs by making them extremely risky to consume. I mean something must be causing them to go mad right? Eating those free elephants might just infect your entire colony with mechanites.
Just like to add my support for making farming stronger, but in an optional way. For example, I'm quite happy with hunting being an acceptable reliable food source as you can still play the game without farming animals. But I really like the idea of lavish meals requiring things that are only obtainable through farming animals (plus insect jelly). Lavish meals are definitely not required for a colony so you're not forced into farming animals, but if you want to go down that route then it could be meaningful.
As well as dairy/eggs/jelly, perhaps introduce Veal. Becuase wild animals do not breed, so the only way to get veal for lavish meals is to breed farmed animals. And this also adds a mechanic to stop population spiraling out of control.
As a QoL for helping manage farmed animals, maybe move slaughter conditions to a bill on the butcher table as well as set designating animals. For example, "slaughter all cows below 1yr of age". "slaughter all muffalo if you have more than 4". "slaughter all wounded animals". Disallow bonded animals.
I guess I wasnt clear enough with my statements:
Quote from: Snafu_RW on August 09, 2018, 07:13:00 PM
QuoteAlso, reducing meat a bit by damage taken sounds nice, but dont overdo it here. A skilled hunter should be able to get a shot to the heart/head, minimizing meat loss.
Already done with 'missing body parts' in vanilla: this reduces both meat & hide yield from the corpse.. possibly encouraging your skilled marksmen/hunters to take up more accurate weps?
I was referring to the suggestion of lead or weapon damage reducing the yield. While hunting, damage to the animal does not reduce yield, the missing body part only comes into play if actual parts are missing.
Quote from: Snafu_RW on August 09, 2018, 07:13:00 PM
QuoteThe best idea is to require animal products like milk (cheese?) and eggs for lavish meals.
IIRC 'animal products' can already be used instead of raw meat in any meals, altho raw meat is generally preferred
Someone clarified that: animal products will not be considered meat anymore - at least when it comes to lavish meals.
Quote from: Snafu_RW on August 09, 2018, 07:13:00 PM
QuoteAlso a rework for grazing area might be cool: Add grass seeds (besides hay, that can be stored for winter) so you can actually seed a meadow: takes a lot more space but requires less work.
IIRC DEVs are working on natural reseeding of a map; it's somewhat improved already but may be improved further in future updates. Obviously your herd of multi-muffalo will graze natural grass to extinction wiithin a small map size or allowed area, but that's your own fault :)
[/quote]
Naturla grazing area yields less than a planned one, animals will not eat specific plants, therefore having a huge meadow with seeded grass is better. So if we are talking about actual animal herding the intention is not just designate an area where they can graze. I was suggesting an intermediate solution between haygrass and natural growing plants.
As an example today, if we are not talking about mass production, animals are on designated meadows for this purposed and during winter supplied with special grown food. They are not just released into the forest to go and find their own food - counterintuitive to the fact that herding spares the hunting part.
I'd be for manhunter packs' meat to be tainted/ spoiled/ toxic or whatever. You would still get significant meat from hunting on temperate/ boreal forest, but it'd be harder on tundra/ ice sheet.
And if you're playing on ice sheet, you should be experienced enough to know manhunter packs are free meat.
How about something like that :
Remove (or greatly reduce) the number of animals on the map.
To balance that, you can make some kind of "hunting" caravan who can look for animals on the world map and bring back some food home.
Quote from: fritzgryphon on August 09, 2018, 04:57:29 PM
Even just dropping the spawn rate would make it less exploity. If you kill all the wildlife on the map, it shouldn't just come back after 2 days.
Counter this with allowing wildlife to breed. The player is then incentivised to not over-hunt.
Quote from: Nynzal on August 09, 2018, 06:46:00 PM
The best idea is to require animal products like milk (cheese?) and eggs for lavish meals. Better food comes from variety and good ingredients, instead of just taking more of the same.
These are the most logical ideas imo. If you overhunt deers, there won't be deers to hunt in the near future.
When I started to play the game and noticed lavish meals - didn't yet check what you need for them - so I thought it's probably meat, vegetables and animal products. When I did check what is needed, just more meat and more veggies was a kind of a letdown.
Quote from: Keldo on August 10, 2018, 08:25:50 AM
How about something like that :
Remove (or greatly reduce) the number of animals on the map.
To balance that, you can make some kind of "hunting" caravan who can look for animals on the world map and bring back some food home.
That makes sense to me. Sending out a hunting party that leaves the map for a time and have a chance to come back with carcasses based on their skills, the time of year, biome, etc. It shouldn't be a caravan, though. That'd make it too micromanagey. It should just be a job.
I love the first idea! Good balance.
But the second.. People like seeing the animals! And what about animal taming??
FYI more faction interactions mods adds a hunting lodge event where you go to by caravan and then hunt migrating animal packs.
I am not sure what the real issue is here. Do you want keeping livestock more profitable or hunting less? I usually play on desert maps and am glad if the occasional lizard or emu shows up. Keeping livestock is my main source of animal product (meat/milk/eggs). Hunting in this case does not feel overpowered.
When playing in more friendly biomes does it not makes sense that there is an abundance of animals to hunt. If it feels its OP you could always limit yourself and not kill all the animal on the map.
It feels a little bit like complaining about having a year round growing season on the more friendly biome that you chose yourself.
I think the issue is why would you raise animals for food when you get free meat for manhunter packs. Also milk and eggs are not special compared to meat for fine/ lavish meals.
The idea of needing milk/eggs for lavish meals with meat and veg makes sense.
Quote from: Tynan on August 08, 2018, 05:01:29 PM
I totally agree with the goal, once upon a time I did a ton of analysis and balancing to try to make the farming case viable (several alphas ago), but it's hard as hell to actually get all the balance points working. Especially given how straightforward hunting is, and how manhunter packs deliver mass meat/leather. It's hard for raising animals to compete with that without being ridiculous in other ways.
I'm sure you've looked it over, but one idea is to make reproduction much, much slower. Pretty much like a special event. So they breed fast enough to increase, but if your Llama has a lifespan of 45 years, it probably shouldn't breed more than once in 10 years. No offense to Alpaca assault horde breeders, but in the sense of making it sustainable and balanced...
Ever since Colony Manager fixed the tediousness of slaughtering, I've raised boars for roleplaying reasons. But now with tameness decay I find it too counterproductive. I grow hay to feed them, now I have to grow even more and waste time to keep them tame... Hunting is the only way.
Since we want to force people to use farming (when this is by no means a farming simulator), and be forced to recruit multiple tamers and grow gigantic haygrass fields, as well as cooks to make them into kibble in order to feed livestock in numbers big enough to actually feed a colony...
I suppose that we should also make all trees and plants in the wild tainted too, and force people to grow their own, but by the logic shown here, that's not enough. We should probably also make the ground poisoned in general so you can't grow crops outside regardless of biome so that you have to use sunlamps and hydroponics since they are also underused.
Quote from: Zombull on August 09, 2018, 03:21:16 PM
Suggestion #2: Make hunting more authentic. Real hunters don't have omniscient knowledge of the species and location every animal within a several mile radius. Real hunting takes patience and skill and stealth and often results in failure. Don't show wild animals on the map. Change the Wildlife tab to a Hunting tab and make it a bill system in which the player designates what animals to hunt for and the hunter goes out hunting, anywhere on the map or in designated zones. They have a chance, determined by biome and skills and terrain and human activity in the area, to sight prey and attempt to kill it.
You serious? We go into the forest with grenades, flamethrowser and a LMG, and you ask about authenticity? I think that ship has sailed.
"One hunter with a minigun is a good idea. But a second one isn't."-Bullet Hole Bill, rotten corpse age 37
Anyway, your point is a quite good one: Hunting need patience and has a risk of failure. Problem I see in yuour idea is, that it's way too complex for rimworld. Not that it's bad, but it needs to be simpler.
Current state is, whenever you shoot an animal it will fight or flee 10 tiles and wait for getting shot again.
Let's say, whenever a shot is fired, all animals will turn "disturbed" within 25 tiles. When 'disturbed' an animal will behave like it's now fleeing, running away 10 fields and calm down again.
After being attacked few times or being disturbed multiple times, animal will completely flee off the map, making it almost impossible to catch up and kill it.
By this, a trigger happy SMG-User will empty the forest with nothing, whilst a careful aim bolt rifle, will catch animals by surprise, and a bow makes no noise at all.
Additional, fast hunting animals will greatly help, as they keep the prey busy, just as in real life (more or less).
Result: Still a lot of animals on the map, but no free meat delivery, as difficult to hunt.
Quote from: Snafu_RW on August 09, 2018, 07:13:00 PM
QuoteAlso, reducing meat a bit by damage taken sounds nice, but dont overdo it here. A skilled hunter should be able to get a shot to the heart/head, minimizing meat loss.
Already done with 'missing body parts' in vanilla: this reduces both meat & hide yield from the corpse.. possibly encouraging your skilled marksmen/hunters to take up more accurate weps?
Maybe it's not enough. When I look at my hunting results there is rarely a body part missing. And even if, it's 5-10% percent meat value lost.
It should be greatly more. Especially depending on animal size. have you ever shot a rabbit with a shotgun? You almost cannot eat it because there shot pellets everywhere.
Hunted animals should be nerved in their products. Maybe, every shot stacks up a hediff 'plumbiferous' which decreases meat/leather value by 1%. To a max of 75%
A clean sniper shot => 99% left
Maffia style hunting party =>25% left
Butcher tamed animal =>100% left
By this, Lifestock gets more instresting as they offer their full meat value.
I would prefer a buff to livestock rather than a nerf to hunting. On colder biomes with short growing seasons, hunting is very important to survival, not just for meat but for clothing. On these maps livestock is already very difficult to maintain due to the requirement to stock haygrass for the long winter. I like the idea of giving more meat from tame animals.
Quote from: giltirn on August 14, 2018, 12:07:01 PM
I would prefer a buff to livestock rather than a nerf to hunting. On colder biomes with short growing seasons, hunting is very important to survival, not just for meat but for clothing. On these maps livestock is already very difficult to maintain due to the requirement to stock haygrass for the long winter. I like the idea of giving more meat from tame animals.
This would be a good reason for winter forage to be possible. The idea that animals all starve during the winter is kind of ridiculous, and though I understand the purpose from a gameplay standpoint, I think it makes a lot more sense gameplay-wise to add some realism. Let winter forage be sparse and require more squares ingested for the same amount of nutrition compared to the other seasons. A small number of animals on the map would then be able to survive by roaming around quite a bit to graze.
If you keep livestock and want to keep them in a small, more easily protected area, you'll need to supplement their feed with hay or crops. The advantage is a sustainable meat source for cost, but hunting remains viable.
Deer are timid as hell. I could see them sticking around for a bit, but they don't overly like human company. I'd imagine the same applies to many other critters. Rats though? They don't give much of a damn. I could see a colony growing to spook animals with a higher wildness away, limiting hunting to critters like rats, squirrels, and hares, while the big game would move to adjacent tiles. It'd give more of a reason to venture out, and might give more of a feel of a big hunting trip.
Sure, it's a rough idea, but I think it could go somewhere. Better than having reliable meat-piles just wandering around a bunch of walls and constant gunfire.
Quote from: Call me Arty on August 14, 2018, 06:25:28 PM
Sure, it's a rough idea, but I think it could go somewhere. Better than having reliable meat-piles just wandering around a bunch of walls and constant gunfire.
Both wild and domesticated animals get used to constant gunfire. We kept horses at a ranch next door to an outdoor shooting range (so mostly rifles) and rode on the federal reserve land that surrounded the area. Lots of deer and other wild animals, along with our domesticated horses and the barn dogs and cats. None of them some much as blinked when they heard gunfire, including the deer we encountered on the trails.
In the game context I agree with your point that the wild animals shouldn't be such easy targets, but it's not as unrealistic as it seems. If hunting had been allowed on that federal land the deer probably would have been a lot more skittish, but as far as they were concerned the gunfire was just noise.
What this thread seems to boil down to is a group of people discussing ways to make things harder, take longer and be more frustrating. People are also not thinking about the whole game or even the biomes that their suggestions to nerf hunting and remove all meat from manhunter packs to make farming needed for meat and leather will effect.
They so far haven't thought about what you are to do for food early game when your meals run out and your rice has yet to grow enough on a desert or other low forage map. Are we supposed to now just not play those maps?
Had a problem and lost your food supply and no crops ready to harvest (raid, fire, loss of power) well that's GG if hunting isn't a thing. Caravanning running low on food, want to stop to hunt so you can make it? Well some of these folks think you should get less food or very little.
Can manhunter packs bring in a lot of meat and leather? Yes. But it is the last combat event that has any form of risk/reward tied to it. Normal raids your reward is a slim chance to have someone live to recruit and then you get penalised by having to bury/burn corpses and the resulting mood debuffs for corpses, late game you also get a ton of mostly useless wealth generating weapons that just increase the next raids size for you. Mech raids now give far less materials on disassembly so their risk / reward is far worse now. Manhunter packs you can choose to ignore but if you do fight them you can get rewarded with meat and leather for your risk. Don#t want the increased wealth from taking those? Don't kill them. Wealth control being a larger concern now with how expectations and raid scaling is now.
Quote from: Broken Reality on August 16, 2018, 02:02:15 PM
What this thread seems to boil down to is a group of people discussing ways to make things harder, take longer and be more frustrating. People are also not thinking about the whole game or even the biomes that their suggestions to nerf hunting and remove all meat from manhunter packs to make farming needed for meat and leather will effect.
They so far haven't thought about what you are to do for food early game when your meals run out and your rice has yet to grow enough on a desert or other low forage map. Are we supposed to now just not play those maps?
Had a problem and lost your food supply and no crops ready to harvest (raid, fire, loss of power) well that's GG if hunting isn't a thing. Caravanning running low on food, want to stop to hunt so you can make it? Well some of these folks think you should get less food or very little.
Can manhunter packs bring in a lot of meat and leather? Yes. But it is the last combat event that has any form of risk/reward tied to it. Normal raids your reward is a slim chance to have someone live to recruit and then you get penalised by having to bury/burn corpses and the resulting mood debuffs for corpses, late game you also get a ton of mostly useless wealth generating weapons that just increase the next raids size for you. Mech raids now give far less materials on disassembly so their risk / reward is far worse now. Manhunter packs you can choose to ignore but if you do fight them you can get rewarded with meat and leather for your risk. Don#t want the increased wealth from taking those? Don't kill them. Wealth control being a larger concern now with how expectations and raid scaling is now.
Pointed this out earlier:
QuoteI am not sure what the real issue is here. Do you want keeping livestock more profitable or hunting less? I usually play on desert maps and am glad if the occasional lizard or emu shows up. Keeping livestock is my main source of animal product (meat/milk/eggs). Hunting in this case does not feel overpowered.
When playing in more friendly biomes does it not makes sense that there is an abundance of animals to hunt. If it feels its OP you could always limit yourself and not kill all the animal on the map.
It feels a little bit like complaining about having a year round growing season on the more friendly biome that you chose yourself.
So far I am still in the blue where the discussion is going or if it will go anywhere.
Again still fully supporting the suggestion of needed an animal product + meat + veggie for lavish meals.
Quote from: Broken Reality on August 16, 2018, 02:02:15 PM
What this thread seems to boil down to is a group of people discussing ways to make things harder, take longer and be more frustrating. People are also not thinking about the whole game or even the biomes that their suggestions to nerf hunting and remove all meat from manhunter packs to make farming needed for meat and leather will effect.
They so far haven't thought about what you are to do for food early game when your meals run out and your rice has yet to grow enough on a desert or other low forage map. Are we supposed to now just not play those maps?
Had a problem and lost your food supply and no crops ready to harvest (raid, fire, loss of power) well that's GG if hunting isn't a thing. Caravanning running low on food, want to stop to hunt so you can make it? Well some of these folks think you should get less food or very little.
Can manhunter packs bring in a lot of meat and leather? Yes. But it is the last combat event that has any form of risk/reward tied to it. Normal raids your reward is a slim chance to have someone live to recruit and then you get penalised by having to bury/burn corpses and the resulting mood debuffs for corpses, late game you also get a ton of mostly useless wealth generating weapons that just increase the next raids size for you. Mech raids now give far less materials on disassembly so their risk / reward is far worse now. Manhunter packs you can choose to ignore but if you do fight them you can get rewarded with meat and leather for your risk. Don#t want the increased wealth from taking those? Don't kill them. Wealth control being a larger concern now with how expectations and raid scaling is now.
The question is about how to make keeping livestock advantageous enough to be worthwhile. Right now, on friendly biome maps where you have the natural resources to keep herds of livestock it doesn't make sense because hunting nets you everything you could get from domesticated animals, only faster and at less cost. No one is suggesting the number of animals be reduced on difficult biome maps where animals are already scarce and raising livestock is already difficult.
I have no issue with manhunter events continuing to deliver leather and meat to your door. That's a great event and can make or break a colony that's starving.
As it stands, manhunter packs are fine for me. Sometimes I ignore them because it's not worth risking injuries to colonists since later packs can deal a lot of damage.
As for herding, I'm also in the camp to have lavish meals need eggs/milk to make them. Also, an idea came to mind from reading these posts. Right now, we have a "body parts missing multiplier" for meat and leather, maybe it would be possible to make a third bar that goes with a tame animals' food gauge. If the animal is regularly fed, it's "fatness" would go up, which would increase the meat received multiplier by a %, and if the animal starts suffering from malnutrition, that bar would empty which would in turn quickly lower the meat multiplier.
Maybe adapting the addiction bar from colonists, as it only shows up for addicted colonists. Fatness would only show for tame animals, no bonus meat from wild animals.
Lavish meals compulsorily requiring animal products gets a thumbs up from me
Re: Meat availability
Would animals "passing through" the map MUCH more commonly help with this? And not large herds, just groups relevant to the species, ie a lone rhinoceros or half a dozen muffalos. This would give more realistic animal behavior (moving around more) whilst providing more short-term opportunities that would need acting on. That would be more satisfactory to me than depopulating the map of animals quickly, or simply always having some wild animals "on hand" at any point in time.
An advanced player with a map-spanning wall could even "exploit" it to trap animals, which is a totally reasonable proposition that would work in real life.