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There's nothing fun about predators ambushing pawns.  So I'm going to devmode/destroy any I see from now on.  Should the developers decide they would like to save me the trouble by removing them from the game, or by permitting a "no predator" setting in the game options, I will be duly thankful.  But in the meanwhile I will take care of the matter myself.

I think the thing that is really annoying is that these predators obviously take some time to grow up, but even after you've killed a fair few of them it has no noticeable impact on the nearby population.

There is one mod that make Predators more like you want them :

Hunting Alert .. which gives a warning when Predators attack and turns hunting Predators into enemies.
You know an animal is attacking and your pawns will defend themselves automatically.

That would help, but it's not enough.  It's hard for pawns to shoot a fox because they're small and fast.  A brawler with a club is put down more easily.  The fox will jump on the pawn and start chewing on him, and then all your other pawns will shoot that pawn to death.

Maybe if I get tired of devmode zapping them I'll look it up... but for now, this is the more entertaining solution.

My strategy for dealing with foxes has been to just melee them with whatever you have. Predator Hunt Alert can give you enough advance notice to move the hunted guy towards his friends.

yes, predators are annoying, which is why i hunt them down as soon as they dare enter my area.
i play on small maps and with the wildlife tab mod on, obviously.
they turn manhunter, but at least i have a fair chance like this.

all this said, i do believe it is a good way the way it is currently implemented. ever been attacked by an animal? if it's not you sticking your nose into their business (like young ones) and they only defend their place, then most likely you wouldnt notice that you're being hunted either. that is why animals do what they do when they hunt. hunters usually cant hunt an animal down that knows that it is being hunted, humans are one of the very few species that can pull that off with their almost superhuman endurance and weapons.

It is annoying when they hunt your baby animal in the farm too. Since the game only told you when the predator hit your animal, it's always too late for you to react.

Quote from: SpaceDorf on December 21, 2017, 02:57:14 AM
There is one mod that make Predators more like you want them :

Hunting Alert .. which gives a warning when Predators attack and turns hunting Predators into enemies.
You know an animal is attacking and your pawns will defend themselves automatically.

I love this mod. it save my life a lot.

I suggest the Fluffly's colony management mod. They can auto set your specify entire specie for your colonist to tame or hunt them to extinction when they step onto your map border (lol)

Still, I'm against remove the predator altogether. We can use the predator to hunt animal around the map automatically by taming and let them roam the map freely. Tamed animal kill outside of your home zone somehow not forbid its corpse (if they're leftover), so you can freely butcher it.

I'm fine with the option to select which wild animal are allow to enter the map too. I also hate Elephant horde a lot :).

I play on very large maps, so finding, let alone hunting down, predators before they attack my pawns is not a very realistic option.  But I did download the Hunting Alert mod, maybe it will give my pawns some time to run and hide before they are attacked.

As for being attacked by wild animals, no, I've never been attacked in real life, and that's exactly the point.  The timber rattlesnake I met one day while hiking in the woods didn't want a fight, because he knew I'd kill him.  He rattled his tail to tell me to stay away, and I did, because I didn't want to hobble home after a fight and have my leg fall off either.  It was a good day for both of us.

Wild animals aren't suicidal.  And in nearly all cases, trying to eat a human is suicide.  Grizzlies and wolf *packs* are about the only exceptions in cold climates.

Quote from: Shurp on December 22, 2017, 02:05:28 AM
Wild animals aren't suicidal.  And in nearly all cases, trying to eat a human is suicide.  Grizzlies and wolf *packs* are about the only exceptions in cold climates.

And that is already reflected in the game. There are multiple checks when a predator selects its prey (in BestPawnToHuntForPredator() in FoodUtility.cs), some of those are:

• Is the target made of flesh?
• Does the target have a smaller or equal bodysize than defined in the predator's maxPreyBodySize?
• Is the prey downed? If yes, go for it. If not, check next point.
  
• Is the target's combatPower smaller than twice the predator's combat power? If yes, check a combination of relative combatPower, health and bodysize to determine if the target is acceptable prey.

And only if all those checks (and a bit more) pass a pawn makes it on the list of acceptablePrey. This list is then searched for the best prey by calculating a number based on:

• Relation of combatPower of prey and predator
• Currect health of prey (or 0.2 if prey is downed)
• Bodysize of prey
• Distance between prey and predator
• If prey is humanlike it gets an additional malus and is thus a generally less desirable prey.

So generally humans are on the food list for some predators but not all and there must be an absence of more suitable prey like hares and co. (And I think I remember a bug report about foxes that hunt things they shouldn't.)

The only flaw I could find is with combatPower but I'm likely overlooking something. For animals combatPower is part of their XML definition (a muffalo has a combatPower of 90 for example). In Races_Humanlike.xml (and its parent BasePawn) this attribute is missing and I couldn't find anything in the code where combatPower of pawns is set/calculated which means it defaults to -1. If that is indeed the case (which I still doubt) it would mean a hare (combatPower 33) is considered a more dangerous fighter than a human colonists. This would be mitigated in praxis by the lower bodysize and the reduced preyScore for humans but it would still be strange.

Quote from: Shurp on December 22, 2017, 02:05:28 AM
As for being attacked by wild animals, no, I've never been attacked in real life, and that's exactly the point.  The timber rattlesnake I met one day while hiking in the woods didn't want a fight, because he knew I'd kill him.  He rattled his tail to tell me to stay away, and I did, because I didn't want to hobble home after a fight and have my leg fall off either.  It was a good day for both of us.

Predators consider smaller animals prey while fleeing from larger ones unless they know they're docile. Encountering other unknown/predatory animals of roughly equal size usually leads to them emitting noises and/or moving in a way to try intimidating the other to leave them alone, not to start a fight.

Starving predators will try hunting prey they normally wouldn't. Pack animals also gain more confidence than if they were hunting alone.

RimWorld doesn't have either of those mechanics and should benefit from them. Limiting predators to hunting prey smaller than them unless starving would get rid of fox and lone wolf attacks. Introducing packs would provide a new challenge in the form of wolf/warg packs wandering into the map. Making small predators like foxes flee from the map when they can't find adequate prey would also be logical. Bears would be unchanged but that is fine. They tend to prioritize small prey if available anyway.

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 05:29:03 AM
And that is already reflected in the game. There are multiple checks when a predator selects its prey (in BestPawnToHuntForPredator() in FoodUtility.cs), some of those are:

• Is the target made of flesh?
• Does the target have a smaller or equal bodysize than defined in the predator's maxPreyBodySize?
• Is the prey downed? If yes, go for it. If not, check next point.
  
• Is the target's combatPower smaller than twice the predator's combat power? If yes, check a combination of relative combatPower, health and bodysize to determine if the target is acceptable prey.

And only if all those checks (and a bit more) pass a pawn makes it on the list of acceptablePrey. This list is then searched for the best prey by calculating a number based on:

• Relation of combatPower of prey and predator
• Currect health of prey (or 0.2 if prey is downed)
• Bodysize of prey
• Distance between prey and predator
• If prey is humanlike it gets an additional malus and is thus a generally less desirable prey.

So generally humans are on the food list for some predators but not all and there must be an absence of more suitable prey like hares and co. (And I think I remember a bug report about foxes that hunt things they shouldn't.)

The problem with that is that it's not a cap, it's just a priority list. No sane fox would try hunting an elk; it'd be a lot more realistical for them to wander off the map instead to find more suitable prey.

Another thing you forget is that animals fear humans. A bear's first thoughts after encountering a human is to get the hell out of there. They'll try intimidating you like they'd usually do with other animals they don't want to fight but feel threatened by them. Avoiding eye contact and acting calmly in this situation tends to work. The only real concern is when said bear protects her cubs.

Animals fear humans simply because that was the best strategy for survival. Bears or wolves trying to hunt humans will be hunted down themselves, unable to produce offsprings and thus are not that good at sustaining the species.

This was the case even back in the medieval times. The game doesn't represent this fact well. Adding wolf packs could be a way to attack colonists occasionally, as well as a starving bear/wolf but nothing else.

Humanity has been inhabiting the planet the player's colony is located on for hundreds of years, possibly thousands (proof: ruins, ancient dangers with thousands of years old mechanoids, tribal and outlander tech groups coexisting). Animals should already fear humans there.

Good point, humans are hardly new to Rimworld, and considering all the other scary stuff that tends to turn up wherever humans are (mechanoids, pirates, toxic waste, etc) animals should bug out as soon as they find a human settlement -- the only exception being settlements that don't bury all the dead tribals and instead leave them rotting outside the gate for scavangers to feast on.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 22, 2017, 05:48:21 AM
The problem with that is that it's not a cap, it's just a priority list. No sane fox would try hunting an elk; it'd be a lot more realistical for them to wander off the map instead to find more suitable prey.

The first list is a cap (determining preyAcceptability) and only the second list is a priority list (determining preyScore).
But let's look at the fox and the elk: The fox has bodySize 0.55 and combatPower 45. The elk has bodysize 2.1 and combatPower 75. The attribute <maxPreyBodySize> is absent for fox as it is for all other animals in Races_Animal_WildCanines.xml so it defaults 99999 (and there goes part of my argument from above ...). So when checking the first list the elk is suprisingly acceptable with regards to bodySize. Next check combatPower: 75 <= 2 * 45? Yes, still acceptable. Assuming both are at full health and adults: 75 (* healthPercentage * lifeStageBodySizeFactor) <= 0.85 * (45 (* healthPercentage * lifeStageBodySizeFactor) <=> 75*1*1 <= 0.85*45*1*1 <=> 75 <= 38.25? No, not acceptable as prey.
To be acceptable the elk either has to be severely injured (about 50% of max health) or not an adult (lifeStageBodySizeFactor is 0.5 for juvenile animals and 0.2 for animal babies.)

I might have made a mistake or overlooked something, but if I follow the code step by step and put in the numbers from the xml files, this is what should happen or in this case should not happen. What is indeed surprising is that <maxPreyBodySize> is only used for two animals: Cobra (0.35) and Cat (0.25).

Quote
Animals fear humans simply because that was the best strategy for survival. Bears or wolves trying to hunt humans will be hunted down themselves, unable to produce offsprings and thus are not that good at sustaining the species.
...
Humanity has been inhabiting the planet the player's colony is located on for hundreds of years, possibly thousands (proof: ruins, ancient dangers with thousands of years old mechanoids, tribal and outlander tech groups coexisting). Animals should already fear humans there.

If we go for realism there are distinct differences between Rimworld and the real world. A Rimworld settlement consists of 10 - 30 humans that usually have manmade structures at max a quarter of any given map. Of all map tiles only 10% or so are even setlled at all. Even a small medieval settlement is magnitudes larger than this. And those ancient dangers are ancient. So even if they mean it was a heavily populated planet once and animals feared humans back then this fear might have been bred-out again over the countless generations in between then and now. So I have no problem at all in rationalising a relationship between man and nature that differs from our reality.

And I would really appreciate it if we'd use the realism argument less. Events and mechanics need to feel plausible within the game and its established rules and not adhere to some notion of realism. The real world is of course a frame of reference and should be used as that but nothing more. In a world where manhunting capybaras are a thing and psychic devices can drive humans and animals into rages I have no difficulty at all in accepting predator behaviour different from reality.

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 07:30:52 AM
The first list is a cap (determining preyAcceptability) and only the second list is a priority list (determining preyScore).

...

What is indeed surprising is that <maxPreyBodySize> is only used for two animals: Cobra (0.35) and Cat (0.25).

That's nice to know, thanks for clarifying it. I hope you're right regarding the fox's case.

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 07:30:52 AM
If we go for realism there are distinct differences between Rimworld and the real world. A Rimworld settlement consists of 10 - 30 humans that usually have manmade structures at max a quarter of any given map.

You forgot something that completely invalidates this. Enemy settlements casually send 15-20 of their people on a deathmarch to die at your front doors every season. Therefore their settlements have to support at least this amount of growth. That would set the NPC colonies' population to 90 at minimum when only accounting for parents constantly making babies as fast as they can. Obviously this value would be at least double of that. And then we have different factions at war with each others, etc. Conflict doesn't happen only where your pawns are, although those are the only ones the game actually presents to you. Those human settlements and tribal camps should have hundreds of humans at the least. And let's not forget the minimum viable population (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population) either, which is around 4169 humans for our race. And then we have all the other smaller outposts like the ones revealed by events. You simply can't state there isn't enough human presence on the planet, especially considering RimWorld takes place on a post-apocalyptic planet. The game's lore specifically states no aliens were found, therefore all the ruins you see were made by humans at one point. Ancient dangers and their contents highly suggest we're playing on top of the ruins of a glitterworld. "Ancient" highways, thousands of years old mechanoids inside the ancient dangers along with psychic loot and luciferium, tribal and outlander tech groups coexisting; what other proof do you need?

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 07:30:52 AM
And I would really appreciate it if we'd use the realism argument less. Events and mechanics need to feel plausible within the game and its established rules and not adhere to some notion of realism.

Approaching from a gameplay perspective, carnivores hunting colonists without warning is almost as bullshit as meteorites instakilling colonists or hurricanes spawning on top of a colonist. It's not fun. The reason I say "almost" is only because players can check every inch of their map for predators and hunt them down. Does it solve the problem? Yes. Is it extremely micromanagement-heavy? Yes. Is it fun? No.

Comparing manhunting animals to this is pointless because the game gives a warning about manhunters. Make it give a warning about predators hunting colonists and then you can compare them.

Do we get a warning IRL about animals hunting us? No. Do we get a warning IRL about a manhunting yorkshire coming for us? No. The point of the game never was to achieve realism. It was to generate stories and be fun while doing so. Events that have catastrophical consequences without direct player agency are not fun.

I'm always using the Wildlife Tab mod to keep a check on the predators. Why? Because I could do the exact same thing by just looking around all over the map. But I don't have the 15 minutes to do that every in-game days. Either predators need a change or the Wildlife Tab mod needs to be in vanilla. I'm fine with either of those options.

"The Gene Wars in 2057 were rife with mechanites that changed animal behavior, turning ordinary fauna against humans as a matter of course. Why and how these mechanites made their way to some Rim settlement planets has not yet been determined, but alas for our unfortunate refugees, the Rim World is one of those planets. Looking back in history, there are many lessons to be learned about meddling with animal biology."

I don't understand the problem with predators.
As soon I have a Shotgun and one animal, I Mark all predators for hunting, and they go hunt them with easiness. As it takes 1-2 shots until they revenge they can attack predators when they are not moving or brawling something fragile, so it's a very safeish thing in my opinion.

Currently I have 2 hunter,  both wielding shotguns, with 2 battle wolves and the other one with 6 battle cats, because he is a bad handler and they're breeding..

As I use colony manager animals get automaticly marked for hunting, so no more need for micro and with animals even a grizzly ain't a problem.

Quote from: CannibarRechter on December 22, 2017, 08:23:05 AM
"The Gene Wars in 2057 were rife with mechanites that changed animal behavior, turning ordinary fauna against humans as a matter of course. Why and how these mechanites made their way to some Rim settlement planets has not yet been determined, but alas for our unfortunate refugees, the Rim World is one of those planets. Looking back in history, there are many lessons to be learned about meddling with animal biology."

Link to source or it's not canon.

Quote from: Bolgfred on December 22, 2017, 08:58:49 AM
I don't understand the problem with predators.

...

As I use colony manager animals get automaticly marked for hunting, so no more need for micro and with animals even a grizzly ain't a problem.

We're talking about vanilla. No mods.

> Link to source or it's not canon (sic).

So a quick update to the game encyclopedia with this bit of text would close this issue for you, then? RIGHT?

The point I am making here is that "suspension of disbelief" arguments are frequently disingenuous. They are used as leverage to lobby in favor of the user's personal preference. As soon as we admit the truth: that this merely a personal preference--and not one shared by many posters at all--it becomes quickly evident that what one should do is use the tools made available to you: make a mod or get a mod. But let's stop insisting that it's some kid of game flaw. That's just silly.

Quote from: CannibarRechter on December 22, 2017, 10:34:09 AM
So a quick update to the game encyclopedia with this bit of text would close this issue for you, then?

Anything that isn't in here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fUO3KKbAbTxMP1lqphnnodY0NPoOVblCUkDw-54MDUc/pub) is not canon. That document is made by the devs themselves and is pretty much the lore of the RimWorld universe. Anything else, like your lore snippet, can be made up by anyone. Hell, I could just make a small lore snippet myself, canceling yours out entirely. By definition it would be as valid as yours.

Quote from: CannibarRechter on December 22, 2017, 10:34:09 AM
But let's stop insisting that it's some kid of game flaw.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 22, 2017, 08:10:42 AM
Approaching from a gameplay perspective, carnivores hunting colonists without warning is almost as bullshit as meteorites instakilling colonists or hurricanes spawning on top of a colonist. It's not fun. The reason I say "almost" is only because players can check every inch of their map for predators and hunt them down. Does it solve the problem? Yes. Is it extremely micromanagement-heavy? Yes. Is it fun? No.

...

Events that have catastrophical consequences without direct player agency are not fun.

I'd say having a wolf attacking and killing your colonist out of the blue is a game flaw exactly because it could be avoided by forcing the player to check the whole map every in-game day for predators then hunting them to extinction. Forcing players to either do extremely tedious and unfun manual map checks or shaft them via carnivores hunting their colonists without warning is a game flaw.

Want a good example that is pretty much the same thing but with a proper warning? The "mad animal" event. When a squirrel or hare or an elephant (or any animal, really) turns manhunter. It's one animal, just like a carnivore hunting. It attacks a colonist, just like a carnivore hunting. The only difference is that the manhunter will only down the colonist while a hunting animal actively seeks to kill and consume. Why do we have an alert for this before the animal is even in sight range of a colonist but not for colonists being hunted? Answer that.

The suggestion in this thread was "Eliminate predators" respectively "Add a game option to eliminate predators". It was not "There should be a warning if a colonist is hunted by a predator".

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 12:06:07 PM
The suggestion in this thread was "Eliminate predators" respectively "Add a game option to eliminate predators". It was not "There should be a warning if a colonist is hunted by a predator".

OP's problem is:

Quote from: Shurp on December 20, 2017, 08:10:18 PM
There's nothing fun about predators ambushing pawns.

The reason this is true is because no warning is given. If manhunter packs weren't declared to the player via a warning, OP would have a problem with that too. It's the same thing.

OP has no problem with the "maddened animal" event because the game warns him beforehand. Predators choose their prey when their hunger meter is low enough; it doesn't matter whether the prey is on the other side of the map or not. For this aspect it's literally the same as predators hunting; one animal, chosen from the ones already on the map, decides to attack a colonist. Yet OP has no problem with that. The only difference is the warning. Logic dictates a warning for OP when predators want to hunt his pawns would solve his problem.

Therefore my posts contribute to the conversation and your aforementioned point is moot.

The OP stated his suggestion pretty clearly. If you think is problem is better solved another way (which I completely agree with) you might state that instead of arguing why predators attacking humans is wrong in general under the assumption that everyone knows that you are NOT proposing to eliminate predators / forbid them to hunt humans.

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 12:46:36 PM
If you think is problem is better solved another way (which I completely agree with) you might state that...

My second post in this thread already did this by describing the main problem being the lack of a warning.

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 12:46:36 PM
...instead of arguing why predators attacking humans is wrong in general

My first post was aimed at telling you about you forgetting something about that topic you yourself have brought up. My second post's first half was about yet another thing you forgot when you made your point, but that was about estimated NPC colony sizes. My third and the first half of my fourth post was about telling you that you cannot just add lore and declare it as the truth when official lore exists. Other than my first post, no other posts of mine in this thread discussed the topic you mention. It's you who tries to mention it yet again when I cleary have dropped it since it has no more to do with the problem at hand.

Right now all I'm saying is the game would benefit from providing a warning to the player whenever one of their colonists is a target for a predator. Do we agree on this or do we not? And no more derailing, please.

Yes this would be my favorite  solution.
Because at the moment a hunting predator is a silent death sentence for its prey.

Treat it like another manhunter event but don't turn the animal into a suicidal berserker.

Let the poor animal break of its attack when its hurting to much

Another way of getting rid of foxes is, surprisingly, get your own predator. I got lucky with a self-taming event and a grizzly bear joined. Every now and then he will venture out and hunt down foxes. I guess he really doesn't like rice.

Quote from: Scrabbling on December 22, 2017, 12:46:36 PM
The OP stated his suggestion pretty clearly. If you think is problem is better solved another way (which I completely agree with) you might state that instead of arguing why predators attacking humans is wrong in general under the assumption that everyone knows that you are NOT proposing to eliminate predators / forbid them to hunt humans.

Speaking as the OP... I've come to recognize that getting a warning about a predator coming for my pawns may also be acceptable.  I've downloaded Hunting Alert and I'm waiting to see if it works for me. 

And I concede that the lack of realism of a fox attacking my pawn is not a good argument against it... maybe all the animals on Rimworld are rabid, who knows.  But it not being *fun* because once he gets jumped there's not a lot I can do, and there's no (vanilla) appropriate way to prepare in advance, unless I start building forts around all my mining sites and forbidding colonists from leaving until I can check if the coast is clear...

...maybe taming a predator is an option though, I'll also keep that in mind.  But first I'll see if the warning mod does the trick.

Quote from: Bolgfred on December 22, 2017, 08:58:49 AM
As it takes 1-2 shots until they revenge

Is this influenced by difficulty setting? I've never seen it take more than 1 shot before a predator declares revenge.

Quote from: Songleaves on December 23, 2017, 03:29:47 AM

Quote from: Bolgfred on December 22, 2017, 08:58:49 AM
As it takes 1-2 shots until they revenge

Is this influenced by difficulty setting? I've never seen it take more than 1 shot before a predator declares revenge.

here, too. a single shot or hit of any weapon is enough for revenge by predators.

my two cents: i like the hunting alert solution, it should be in vanilla
but i also like the wildlife tab. it should also be in vanilla

In my opinion, if you get one of your colonists attacked by a predator, it means that you are a BAD PLAYER. Any decent person should always keep check of their perimeters, or build a wall.

Ooh, bold. And red. And all caps. A bid confrontational, wouldn't you say?

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 10:42:57 AM
In my opinion, if you get one of your colonists attacked by a predator, it means that you are a BAD PLAYER. Any decent person should always keep check of their perimeters, or build a wall.

Players could indeed just keep track of their colonists all the time. But that'd mean cycling through all the colonists every 5 minutes. Now imagine a colony with 15 people. Ckecking on every one of them , making sure no predators are near them. It's not fun, it's tedious.

So people just exterminate every predator instead. But when you're playing on bigger maps, this means thoroughly searching through the mapevery in-game day. Which is again not fun but tedious.

So people just download mods to fix it by either making the game give them a warning wteh it happens or making the game output a list of every animal on the map for easier predator extermination. It's not about skill, it's about most people not having that extra 1 hour they could spare from their daily freetime just to avoid it. The countermeasure isn't even skill-dependent, it's just a time-hog. And people don't like that.

Quote from: CannibarRechter on December 25, 2017, 11:46:14 AM
Ooh, bold. And red. And all caps. A bid confrontational, wouldn't you say?

And you've managed to contribute nothing to the thread with this comment. By the way, it isn't bold.

Quote from: CannibarRechter on December 25, 2017, 11:46:14 AM
Ooh, bold. And red. And all caps. A bid confrontational, wouldn't you say?

Yes, I'm salty. This is because removal of predator "surprise" attack, means = One less fun feature for skillful players. So basically, my game will suck more because of BAD PLAYERS. I will start a serial sexual predation once the Tornado stops being a natural disaster too.

In a decent gaming skill scenario, people shouldn't have pawns wandering around to map borders.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 25, 2017, 01:20:01 PM

Players could indeed just keep track of their colonists all the time.

[...]

So people just exterminate every predator instead. But when you're playing on bigger maps, this means thoroughly searching through the mapevery in-game day.

[...]

It's not about skill, it's about most people not having that extra 1 hour they could spare from their daily freetime just to avoid it. The countermeasure isn't even skill-dependent, it's just a time-hog. And people don't like that.

If you are a decent gamer, you could at least, change your colonists "zones" to HOME, so that at least, they are not too far away...


Now again....why is it that other players "lack" of thinking, shall affect decent player's games???

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 02:05:11 PM
If you are a decent gamer, you could at least, change your colonists "zones" to HOME, so that at least, they are not too far away...

You don't even have to do that most of the time. The only reason for colonists to not be near the base in the first place is when they're off mining, hunting or woodcutting with the occasional hauling of stone chunks or resource drop-pod loot.

And for a few colonists, this can be perfectly supervised by the player.

But when you have 15 or more colonists and you're assigning a lot of these jobs it can get problematic. People never have problems with predators hunting their pawns near their bases because they can react quickly and efficiently. The problem is when they send out a hauler to collect that medicine from a resource drop-pod and the hauler gets attacked on the far end of the map which means reinforcements won't get there in time. And then you have total bullshit moments like when a fennec fox stunning a colonist for several seconds (the fennec fox is about as large as a domestic cat).

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 02:05:11 PM
Now again....why is it that other players "lack" of thinking, shall affect decent player's games???

They don't lack "thinking", they lack the extra 10 minutes it takes them to search through the map every in-game day for any predators. Most people have 3-4 hours of daily free time. It's completely understandable that they'd rather play the game than check the map over and over during that time.

Looking at your map is not "skill". I could play on the smallest map setting and easily check the map every day. But when I play on the largest setting that option equals to boredom so I just check roughly the same area I'd do if I played on the smallest setting. By your definition of "skill", I'd be considered more skilled by changing one in-game setting while doing nothing else differently. Do you know what else equals to positive change of outcome just by changing one in-game setting but not the way you play? Lowering the difficulty setting.

That's not how "skill" works.

You're just saying "git gud". But the reality is, getting good doesn't change the fact that the solution to this problem right now is extremely tedious micromanagement over and over. If that's what you want, so be it. I'd rather use a mod and check the animal list (something I could do anyway if I wanted to sacrifice hours of my time to check the map over and over) and see if there's a new predator on the map or not. This is the problem. All that mod does is save my time and my sanity from looking at every corner of the map all the time.

Meanwhile the "mad animal" event works basically the same way. One animal decides to target one of the colonists (just like a hunting predator). Then it goes there and attacks the colonist (just like a hunting predator). This part is the only problem the players have with hunting predators because they get no warning. But for the "mad animal" they do get a warning. Why does that one work this way then? According to your logic, that one also makes your game "suck because of bad players".

I remember someone asking for the creation of a mod that removed all warnings several versions ago. Someone made it for them and posted it in the mod release section. Let me tell you, it wasn't popular. Not everyone is a masochist. And most players agree that events need fair counterplay or at least some kind of decent reward to balance out the lack of counterplay. While the game is all about occasional gains and occasional losses, noone likes pointless out-of-the-blue losses without no counterplay other than spending hours looking at the map. And yes, tornados spawning on top of colonists is another good example of this.

Predator attacks are inexcusable for many reasons, and the lamer it gets with more pawns and larger maps. I play with 400x400, so don't try to argue with me. "It's difficult because it's too large", sounds like my last girlfriend. Let's see:

* Predators, show up on map from the START!
* You will always know where they are.
* Predators hunt from smaller as possible and scale up based on available prays.
* Predators pray make wound and death cries (like noob players), whenever attacked, so anyone can hear "Predator's Presence".
* Predators, may NOT always consume the whole corpse. So whenever patrolling your surroundings, leftovers easily signal their presence.
* Predators do NOT "freshly" spawn on map with their food bar empty, so there's enough time to spot them.
* ALL animals have the ZZZ sleeping animation, so it's SUPER easy to spot them at night, even in speed x3.

The more pawns you have the easier to fight off a predator attack, you just need to be clever. Either you are mining, chopping wood or hauling drop pod items, you shouldn't be performing any of these actions in different random locations all scattered across the map. If you assign mining, chopping or hauling... Do it by sectors, and NOT throughout the whole map! Want wood? How many did you send to chop down trees out of 15? 15!!!. Are you mining? How many are mining out of 15? From a same mountain??? 5? 4? 3? And you can't fend off a predator attack with 5? 4? 3?

You just can't excuse yourself from a predator attack. Means you are a BAD PLAYER.

> Ooh, bold. And red. And all caps. A bid confrontational, wouldn't you say?

You should take the hint, not increase font size. Some of us just want the forums to be chill, and friendly. Kindly, will you please accommodate that?

Nope, sorry. I ain't babysitter

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 08:09:58 PM
Nope, sorry. I ain't babysitter

Well hey funny thing about that, I am the babysitter... and I've steadily watched as you've been overtly aggressive in multiple posts but this one is kinda just rude for the sake of being rude. So consider this your warning buckaroo, either chill out or I'm giving you a two week vacation. Not hard to get along with folks in this community but you just keep trying to stomp all over people you don't agree with and I don't care for it one bit.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
"It's difficult because it's too large", sounds like my last girlfriend.

Wow, dude. Learn to read.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 25, 2017, 02:53:00 PM
They don't lack "thinking", they lack the extra 10 minutes it takes them to search through the map every in-game day for any predators. Most people have 3-4 hours of daily free time. It's completely understandable that they'd rather play the game than check the map over and over during that time.

Looking at your map is not "skill".

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 25, 2017, 01:20:01 PM
Players could indeed just keep track of their colonists all the time. But that'd mean cycling through all the colonists every 5 minutes.

So people just exterminate every predator instead. But when you're playing on bigger maps, this means thoroughly searching through the mapevery in-game day. Which is again not fun but tedious.

It's not about skill, it's about most people not having that extra 1 hour they could spare from their daily freetime just to avoid it. The countermeasure isn't even skill-dependent, it's just a time-hog. And people don't like that.

It's not hard. It's not skill-dependant. It just takes away my free time. I'd rather play the game than scan the map every 15 minutes.

If it gave a warning when a predator chose a colonist as their target it would be completely fine. And you failed to adress my point regarding the "mad animal" event.

See, the problem is not predators having the ability to hunt humans. It's about most people having a life; they don't want to spend their precious free time staring at every inch of the game map just to avoid a predator attack. And right now that is the only proper counterplay in vanilla. The Wildlife Tab mod is popular for a reason.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
* You will always know where they are.

You don't. And this is why the Wildlife Tab mod solves this problem; it lists all the animals for you that are on the map and with one click you can jump to them. This way you do always know where they are without having to search through half the map.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
* Predators pray make wound and death cries (like noob players), whenever attacked, so anyone can hear "Predator's Presence".

Not when this happens on a larger map and the predator is doing it further away from the base. The sound clue has a maximum range so this is not reliable.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
* Predators, may NOT always consume the whole corpse. So whenever patrolling your surroundings, leftovers easily signal their presence.

People check their surroundings when they either want to get something they know is there, or are being warned about something. I wouldn't check my whole map for no reason because that's a waste of time. On the other hand, if I get a message about drop-pods landing I'll sure as hell check out what's there and maybe even the most optimal route to send my pawns as well.

Players don't get such notifications about predators leaving corpses and on larger maps these won't necessarily happen close enough for people to notice. So yet again, not reliable, especially since animals can die naturally too (heart attack, for example).

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
* ALL animals have the ZZZ sleeping animation, so it's SUPER easy to spot them at night, even in speed x3.

Except when you're zoomed out so you can actually see enough of the map to not make it take 15 minutes every time you do so. And night means dark which means harder to spot this small detail. Furthermore, most people puase their game when they search through the map so it being animated doesn't necessarily help either.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
Want wood? How many did you send to chop down trees out of 15? 15!!!. Are you mining? How many are mining out of 15? From a same mountain??? 5? 4? 3? And you can't fend off a predator attack with 5? 4? 3?

You forget about hauling which easily has the potential to generate a few far-away jobs. And this is when people lose their pawns; because you've sent all those woodcutters out and after that half your colonists are incapable of hauling and half of those who are capable have higher-priority things to do at the moment (like planting/harvesting, for example). Eventually 1-2 stacks remain and those 1-2 colonists go out to grab them. And then a wild, hungry bear appears.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 25, 2017, 05:33:21 PM
You just can't excuse yourself from a predator attack. Means you are a BAD PLAYER.

I'd be perfectly fine with predator attacks if keeping track of predators wasn't as time-intensive to do.
It's not hard. But it takes too damn long. And the moment it doesn't take too damn long (a.k.a. using Wildlife Tab mod), it stops being a problem. This is my point.

I started playing this game since A16 and I'm still playing in Rough level. Until today, I used to look up on this community. Trying to learn as much as I can from those who are here from before A16 and all those who play in higher levels Intense and Extreme. But where are them?

---

I can't believe how dramatic people are for such a minuscule to insignificant game problem.




Because it has the simplest and most easiest counterplea, which is: Build a Wall. Now if you don't build a Wall, don't complain. It was your fault.

Additional secondary counterplay: Scan the map. I do that on 400x400 at night and it doesn't take longer than a single minute. And I do that in speed x3.

Basically if you are playing a video game, you are already wasting your time anyways. So coming up with wasting your time - while wasting your time is an: auto-self-defeating argument. Don't want to waste time? Then go read a book, and stay away from any video game.

I challenge every single person reading this thread and let's laugh our asses off in a year from now, once you are so used to scan the map, that then you will reach the point in which you will look back in time and "realize" how unnecessarily exaggerated was all this matter. I hope we laugh together about this.

Think for a minute, how long does it take you make a clockwise scan of the whole map while zoomed out? HA!!! I got you!!! It probably took you longer to find an answer to the question than actually doing the scan! HA! Yes, it is THAT fast! I can't believe people make so much scandal for something that has a 1 minute solution.

Not to mention a third counter play: Go night shift while all predators sleep!


So...now you have 3 options. Walls. Scans. Night shift.

Not enough???? Okay... I give you a FOURTH counter play: Tame rodents so that predators target your small animals over your Colonists!


Basically, it's all a matter of paying attention on what you do.

Having all your colonists at all four corners and all four sides of the map wide and stretched thin means, you are doing it wrong. So this is more a player problem than a game design problem.

* Instead of selecting all sides wood chopping, select one side only that you can easily watch over, and once they are done there, repeat again in another side.

* Instead of selecting all sides to mine mountains, select one side only that you can easily watch over, and once they are done there, repeat again in another mountain.


YOU, the player, are the one who is assigning specific tasks to specific pawns. It's a matter of active memory. You sent them to a specific direction, so watch where you send them first. It is your fault if they get killed.

And this is for those who go "outside" your walls, because the ones who remain inside don't need overlooking.

This advice comes from a player who can runs three (3) simultaneous colonies at the same time.


I refuse to believe I'm the only one doing this.

> I can't believe how dramatic people are...

And yet the drama continues, eh, almost like someone is seeking it out.

Look, the solution was already posted. People can get mods, if they don't like the ambush. There is specifically a mod that will alert the player.  This thread is not going anywhere. It should be locked.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 26, 2017, 06:50:19 AM
Basically if you are playing a video game, you are already wasting your time anyways. So coming up with wasting your time - while wasting your time is an: auto-self-defeating argument. Don't want to waste time? Then go read a book, and stay away from any video game.

Why does someone read a book? Because they find it fun and/or interesting. Wy does someone play a videogame? Because they find it fun and/or interesting. Saying it's a waste of time is like saying doing anything for your own enjoyment is a waste of time. Which is bullshit.

And most people don't find it fun and/or interesting to check the map for potential new predators every five minutes.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 26, 2017, 06:50:19 AM
I do that on 400x400 at night and it doesn't take longer than a single minute.

One day cycle takes 3 minutes on 3x speed. Don't believe me? Feel free to test it. Now, let's say the player pauses the game sometimes to do actions. So let's say it takes double of that, 6 minutes.

So, for every 6 minutes you'll use one minute for micromanaging predator presence intel. True, it won't be so bad for the first few times. But let's say you play the game for 2 hours. That's 20 minutes of your time. That's not insignificant at all. Meanwhile others use the Wildlife Tab mod and do that in 20 seconds, reducing their wasted time to 6-7 minutes for that 2 hours long session. And that's all the difference, since you'll stilll have to remember where the predators are and how hungry they are.

Remember, the Wildlife Tab mod doesn't change the predators' hunting mechanic. You still get no warning. All it does is save your time and that's why it's so popular.

Quote from: Yoshida Keiji on December 26, 2017, 06:50:19 AM
Now if you don't build a Wall, don't complain. It was your fault.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 25, 2017, 08:47:09 PM
You forget about hauling which easily has the potential to generate a few far-away jobs. And this is when people lose their pawns; because you've sent all those woodcutters out and after that half your colonists are incapable of hauling and half of those who are capable have higher-priority things to do at the moment (like planting/harvesting, for example). Eventually 1-2 stacks remain and those 1-2 colonists go out to grab them. And then a wild, hungry bear appears.

I'll keep quoting that until you show me how to counteract that without even more micromanagement.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 25, 2017, 08:47:09 PM
Go night shift while all predators sleep!

This is your first valid counterplay without micromanagement but keep in mind that night means dark. Some players might have bad sight which makes it hard to see the screen and the game doesn't have a gamma slider.

Quote from: Granitecosmos on December 25, 2017, 08:47:09 PM
Tame rodents so that predators target your small animals over your Colonists!

This also works but requires a colonist with good handling skill. So it's situational but also a valid choice. On most maps that can't support grazers for most time of the year you won't find many predators either. But then we have the tundras and boreal forests which turn into barren wastelands after 1-2 in-game years but don't drop the predator presence. So this only works where the growing season lasts for at least half a year, unless you actually want to feed those rodents with food your colonists could use instead.

But let's be honest, would the game really suffer that much just because we'd have a wild animal list? Even though I'm fine with it being a mod, it's purely QoL so I can see it being merged with vanilla at one point or another.

Quote from: CannibarRechter on December 26, 2017, 07:16:00 AM
This thread is not going anywhere. It should be locked.

Agreed.

ugh
damn

i really didnt wanna answer you anymore because you are too annoying
but here i am again. i'm not only gonna answer you, though.

1. your calculations are only valid for fast enough computers compared to the current game state. i play on a two year old low end laptop that wasnt made for gaming. while it almost never lags (like once an hour for a split second) it does pla the game significantly slower if the maps are large enough. one save game i have in particular is year 6 now (my first game) in base builder. i just started a fourth base after having played with three (normal and boreal forest and tundra, newest is shrublands) and i am quite a hoarder. i have over 40 pawns by now scattered all over the bases with a multitude of pets. i never got my hands on a chicken, only cock, so it isnt too bad. still, dozens of pets. anyway, you get the point. i constantly play on triple speed or i wouldnt get anywhere. i used to play with pausing the game a lot, but that isnt needed anymore. i do lots of micro and stuff, but in this save game i use the wildlife tab much less than in other savegames because i have enough time on my hands anyway. i even purposely turned on saving every half a day which kinda leads me to save scum at times, but whatcha gonna do if a sudden restart of your laptop could mean an hour of gameplay being lost if you only saved every day or even less? another example of mine would be a recently started save game of mine where i play on the tiniest map (and only have one base). on normal speed it is way faster than triple speed on my oldest map. it was really hard getting used to it again to be honest which is why i started pausing a lot. on the other hand a small map has fewer animals and aside from one guy with a club every pawn is a good shot so they all hunt. that combined with me putting them on a meat-only diet really makes it simple. just always mark all animals to be hunted, with or without the wildlife tab. if with it, you'll immediately see the dangerous animals. if not, you'll get notifications that those animals can and will turn manhunter.

2. damn i thought i had like three points to make...did i summarize everything already? umm...i guess not having the wildlife tab in my first run for so long didnt disturb me at all for the reasons stated. not having it in my newest run wouldnt disturb me either. BUT if i had a good ass computer and played on large maps i would definitely want to use it.

3. all in all, while i do see how the wildlife tab kinda takes you out of the game, it is just way too practical as it also immediately shows you what wild animals are starving, which ones are sick or debilitated or may even have suffered a few shots from my hunters but didnt get finished off because my hunter chose to rather smoke a blunt

4. personally i wouldnt measure the quality of players by checking if they use the wildlife tab or how often they check the map or how fast they play. if it was about that, seeing how fast they can build a thriving and stable colony with strong and healthy pawns, good job distribution and not hoarding but using the owned and given resources to their fullest extent is much better. another way of seeing if someone is a good player is when you look at how they cope with raids and i guess with other occurences aswell, but those are a bit different. in raids you can see if a player is able to distinguish between important friendly pawns and less important ones. equipping the right ones with the according arms and armor while giving your cannon fodder the armor that they can risk tearing up. also distinguishing between strong or dangerous enemy pawns and weaker and less dangerous pawns is important. where do you put your pawns to meet the raiding force, or do you want to ambush them or maybe even flank them? do you have a plan on how to spread them thin so that your warbeasts can tear them apart? do you have traps set (not counting kill boxes, those suck), do you maybe immediately see the need to call in for reinforcements from friendly factions an if you do so, was it maybe overkill anyway, or could you have used even more? does a player know how many pawns they need to kill in order to make the enemy flee and are they capable of determining which ones they should avoid, which ones to kill and which ones to shoot at while they are retreating, if any and maybe which ones to run after with warbeasts and melee fighters? mid fight it is important to micro most if not all of your shots so that not too many pawns shoot the same one, on the other hand it is also important to take down key enemies before less important ones. does their speed have an effect on the battle? can you flank the enemy well in a certain rock formation? can you distract key enemy fighters with your cannon fodder infantery so that they can be shot from afar? once the battle is over it is also important to consider which pawns to save and which not. is there maybe an enemy pawn which is more important to capture and to patch up than to save and heal your own? seeing how efficiently one can clean up a battlefield, capture enemy units, save knockes out pawns and tend to the wounded while mitigating the probability of infections is just as important. and let's not forget the spoils of war: what do you do with the dead bodies? eat them? skin them? throw them to your pets as additional food? bury them? burn them? put them in sarcophagi? and what do you do with your newly captured prisoners? will you set them free for good will? will you harvest their organs and then do with their bodies the same as you did with their fallen comrades? will you disfigure them and send them on their way in hopes of meeting them again on the battlefield and having weaker enemies? all these are questions an actually bad player wouldnt be able to answer correctly, while a good and experienced player would and therefore would also fare better in the same raid.

not that my answer added so much insight to this topic that we dont have anything else to talk about, but i, too, believe it is alright if we closed this thread.

Quote from: patoka on December 26, 2017, 11:48:13 AM
your calculations are only valid for fast enough computers compared to the current game state.

This is true. But the fact that scrolling through the tab takes 10 seconds while checking the map manually takes at least 1 minute doesn't change. The frequency changes but the ratio stays the same.

A RimWorld player who enjoys the game will easily play 1000 hours total. Let's say their PC is so bad, every in-game day takes 30 minutes. During that 1000 hours the player wasted 33.3333... hours by looking at the map to keep track of predators. If they would've used the Wildlife Tab mod, that would be only 2.7777... hours.

The amount of wasted time adds up over time. And that's important.

Quote from: patoka on December 26, 2017, 11:48:13 AM
it also immediately shows you what wild animals are starving, which ones are sick or debilitated or may even have suffered a few shots from my hunters but didnt get finished off because my hunter chose to rather smoke a blunt

Wild animals never really starve. They just leave the map when their hunger bar is empty and can't path to a valid food source. And the mod never actively warns the player about sick/debilitated wild animals either, not to mention how rare those occurrences are anyway. And I'd say hunters not finishing their jobs properly is a priority flaw in the first place.

Is predators attacking pawns even happening that often?
I have pretty much only seen that occur during harsh winters or toxic fallouts when all game animals have starved/died/stopped migrating or when a wolf/bear/cougar wandered into the middle of my base, where it couldn't reach any wild animals.
One is resolved by a single extended hunting expedition one or two days after the onset of winter or early during whatever Event makes new animals stop appearing on the map, the other is IMO a non-issue since you look at your colony all the time anyways, and when you see a wolf/bear/cougar there you round up 2 or 3 guys and shoot it.

I don't know if that is because I usually play on maps using the largest 2 settings, so there are plenty of game animals around unless something unusual happens. Maybe ist different on smaller Settings where there is not so much choice of Prey for predators.

Quote from: DFDelta on December 26, 2017, 11:15:30 PM
[...]
IMO a non-issue since you look at your colony all the time anyways, and when you see a wolf/bear/cougar there you round up 2 or 3 guys and shoot it.
[...]

Thank you very much for this, I really needed somebody else to say it for me. If you have all pawns sleeping due to no night-owls, there's really no reason as to why not look elsewhere in the meantime. Since night-owls are few, I'm pretty sure most people know where they are anyways...and of course....predators sleep at night too...

So, it seems I started a bit of a flamewar... sorry about that.

That said, I just came back to this thread because I wanted to report that the Hunting Alert mod does work beautifully.  Predators spawn on my map edge, immediately charge my base to eat my pawns (since there's nothing else to eat on a tundra map), I get a nice little warning alert, and I send my pawns out to shoot them.

In other words, it saves me the micromanagement of scouring the map looking for predators, allowing me to respond the same way as anyone who cares to look for them can do.

So, in lieu of an option to turn predators off altogether, this will do. 

For those who would find this useful: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=17094.0

I know it's kind of out of place at this point but my personal recommendation when it comes to dealing with animals is keep your best sniper on random slaughter duty.

ONLY USE HUNTING ON PASSIVE ANIMALS. OTHERWISE MICRO.

In fall set your long range with highest shooting skill on a killing spree with you microing attacks against all hunt-capable predators (usually only 10-15 on a map at a time unless you're greatly unlucky) and keep your Pistolero within short distance of your sniper for backup when they seek revenge. As people say you can attack during the night when a pred is sleeping but honestly that just means they are sitting still for the first shot then they move to kill you, not really that worth it in my opinion.

Just my two cents of advice for slaughter. Your map will replenish hunters in a few seasons as Cass, Randy, or even good ol' Basebuilder usually fix the population on their own.

It never hurts to mass slaughter predators as soon as you can, they do nothing of value on the map outside of slaughter the lesser animals that you generally won't even touch.

Quote from: Ramsis on December 28, 2017, 07:47:46 PM
As people say you can attack during the night when a pred is sleeping but honestly that just means they are sitting still for the first shot then they move to kill you, not really that worth it in my opinion.

You got it wrong. The advice of nightshift is to present the advantage of letting pawns go outside the walls danger free. Any colonists hauling, mining or chopping at night will face no predator danger, unless sunrise takes place while the pawn is far away and a predator wakes up with empty stomach, but even then that would probably be the worst case scenario.

As for predator clearing, best to do it with group hunt and most people will be awake during daytime.

It'd be really swell to see even a little more basic AI given to animals.

Wild animals shying away from colonists, keeping away from areas with lots of people and relevant predators running away when their prey fights back. Also nocturnal activity for the relevant animals..

Not a programmer, but it seems some very basic behaviour (IF human/predator is withing X distance give-or-take-random-modifier and animals-awareness THEN get away) could add a lot more meaningful and interesting animal activity. For example you could end up with a wounded colonist being attacked and overpowered by normally skittish and cowardly predator types.

A pass over on hunting balance to go with this would also be nice, having a hunter having to rain a hail of bullets at an animal for hours on end is just comical. Pawns taking longer aim time but being surer to hit or more likely to heavily wound, followed by having to follow the animal a fair distance when it gets scared or hurt and runs off, would be much more immersive than the current Stormtrooper Best Shot Competition...

Options. That's one thing you can never have enough of in these types of games. Options should have default settings that accord to how Tynan wants his game to be played, so that he has no reason to not include any miscellaneous options.

For example, where's the button to stop day and night? It would break the storytelling, but why not have it in some advanced settings section?

Toggle buttons, sliders, mmm. Delicious sandboxing, to allow you to play the way you want it, without first having to suggest or having to get a mod done.