Playing on Randy Extreme difficulty I faced something I've never seen before even with over 700 hours of gameplay! All my 23 pet huskies suddenly turned manhunter on me and
pretty much wiped out my colony! Since they are my pets they can freely open/close doors and my turrets do not attack them! I think this is a bug as pets should not be able open your doors after becoming manhunters. In addition turrets should now regard them as enemies.
Backstory:
I had 23 pet huskies, 17 of which were fully trained to the brim and 6 were puppies. The 17 had unrestricted access.
Randy threw a Poison Ship (the drone one) right smack dab in the middle of my base.
I prepare for it. I had just survived a tribal attack of 20+ pawns immediately followed by a pirate attack of 10+ pawns and was just cleaning up.
A few days later he/the ship turns my huskies manhunter. I am totally caught off guard so I try to take them out (even locking the doors). To my horror the manhunter huskies *can* open all my doors and my turrets DO NOT attack them!
I consider myself a veteran player but this was a massacre, lol! Btw, my colonists wore armor vests and were armed with assault rifles but wow....
Never heard of this one. What mods are you running?
Edit: I totally derped over the part where it was a psychic ship turned the huskies. Ouch!
I can confirm this. Tamed animals can freely pass trough any doors, and turrets wont attack them.
And for event itself, i don't think it requires any mod. I had once a psychic drone that turned all rats on the map into manhunters. It seems its very rare. I believe it can affect any type of animal.
And it can be tested with psychic animal pulser :)
I've had a manhunter break before but it was because of a failed taming attempt. But the break was from a 16 year old fox. Poor vixen died from the first punch.
Poison ships don't cause psychic activity, by the way. They only cause plants in the area around them to die off, which grows the longer the ship is around though I believe it stops spreading past 100 tiles or so. If the ship is in the middle of your screen at max zoom at 1080p, the top and bottom of the screen is about the effective range. I've had one on my map for over a year doing nothing adverse to me because it's on the other side of the map.
Unfortunately the same happens if you use Psychic Animal Pulser. So if you want to unleash your horde of pigs on invaders, you have to literally wall yourself in!
@Goo Poni Yes it was a psychic ship... the one that causes the mood debuff and gets worse if you don't do anything about it. The failed-taming turned manhunter sometimes occurs and if there are others around they'll also turn on you. I've seen that occasionally.
@mrm and b0rsuk I bought the psychic animal pulser a while back just for emergencies/backup. Can't wait to use it! While we're telling stories, earlier in the same colony I had a visit by 3 thrumbos who just roamed outside my base. Then randy sent me 10-15 melee/shield-wielding pirates. There was no way my trap system would thin their numbers and my mortars won't do that much damage to them because of their shields. Instead when the pirates came close to my base I shot one of the thrumbos. All 3 then proceeded to attack the pirates. The thrumbos took them all out and then came after me. I easily disposed of the thrumbos since they were moderately hurt and got a lot of pirate loot after that (not to mention 3 thrumbo horns) lol.
Anyways I only had 2 survivors left (out of 12) so I reloaded that game before the manhunter event and took care of the pyschic ship early on. I put too much time into that colony to start over again and there was no way my 2 survivors could defend against any new raids as my colony is worth a decent amount.
Haha it happened again but without a psychic ship! This time *all* my pets turned manhunter. But now I was to control the situation. Lost a colonist to friendly gun fire but he just joined so its no big deal.
Edited: Oops I realized what I did this time. My colonists were in a fowl mood so I tried to activate the pulse soother device. I didn't realize until this later when I saw all the manhunter animals just lurking outside my doors that I accidently activated the device that turns all animals manhunter. So this was my mistake.
Interesting tactics. I'm starting to wonder if you should even fight certain manhunters. For example when killing boomrats, boomalopes they may burn before you take them out, depending how competent your shooters are. Then no meat and no leather for you. Also boom-animals blow away snow, which is important for defense in cold biomes. I could easily hide inside because there was nothing really to do outside except hauling rocks. I considered pros and cons. Then decided to go for it and kill them. To my surprise, I recovered nearly ten boomrat corpses. They don't burn all that fast. But when only several were left, a trading caravan arrived and I knew I made the right decision.
This may need clarification. I think people coming to my colony and trading safely is a good thing. This is in contrast to most other players who would be delighted to loot items from caravan's corpses. There was no gameplay reason really, but more a roleplaying one. So if you're a ruthless player, there are actually *no* downsides to letting manhunters guard you for a time. They're too stupid to eat corpses, they get hungry and leave.
The manhunter animal pulser device is incredibly useful for sieges (if you're playing petless).
Get a siege, go inside, restrict zones, then hit it.
works on caravans too.
Quote from: b0rsuk on February 07, 2017, 01:56:50 AM
For example when killing boomrats, boomalopes they may burn before you take them out,
Hunt them when it's raining/snowing...
Quote from: Limdood on February 07, 2017, 12:40:00 PM
The manhunter animal pulser device is incredibly useful for sieges (if you're playing petless).
Get a siege, go inside, restrict zones, then hit it.
works on caravans too.
I usually use the insanity lance to target the best geared person, especially if they have a rocket launcher of some type.