[gameplay] Reworking Manhunter pack

[Kegereneku]

Another attempt to answer the question "how to bring player in the open ?"

Why this idea :
Because the current event is redundant, not very interesting and discourage anybody from building anything but fortress, bunker or killbox at worse (but please don't add sapper-animals !).
"Waiting" though the manhunter pack is no different from a Fallout.
"Fighting" against the manhunter pack was a shot&hide exploit, now it evolved into shot&hide&repairdoor exploit.
Assuming of course you didn't get explosive manhunter destroying the "n00bs" who believed wooden house were legitimate and reasonable solution.

Lastly, it look frigging ridiculous. Predator who only hate human and will fight to the die against turret without any hope for food ? What are they ? Terminator disguised as animals ?


The suggestion :
/!\ don't hesitate to participate, I'm not here to force my playstyle unto others, the goal is to all have fun

- The non-manhunter approach :
The event become just a pack of very hungry animals, more hostiles then usual.
Carnivore will eat anything that live, depriving the player of wildlife and potentially killing traders.
Herbivore will eat any plants up to tree, depriving the players of free pasture.
They leave once they can't access food easily (maybe if their path-finding get them through doors and wall ?)

- Keeping them dangerous :
They move in number, will attack anything getting too close of their food, and they'll flee turret if they can't get food that way. So the only way to get rid of them is to get out and far away from all your turrets and maybe traps. And since most beast will be faster than you, baiting them will be hard.

- Making them exotic :
Pack animals (WARG) would move in separate pack, covering a lot of terrain, attacking one pack don't make the other packs converge (it give you a chance).
Herd animals move in huge herd, never spreading all around your base for easy picking so you'd have an hard time getting surviving it without explosive.
Explosive animals move in spreaded packs, they are easier to kill but you can't get a lot of them at once.
- They avoid FIRE, finally an use for all those cocktail ! Voluntary wall of fire

Expected result :
/!\ the Devs can have less animals since they don't have to match a fortress, only your weapons.
The idea is that if you leave them alone, someone can survive a manhunter without a bunker or a fortress.
In fact you can actually hope to survive if you are caught "in the open", and in fact that's the point. You CAN fight them, but you'll have to do so without your killbox.
You could snipe some beast to bait them to your turrets but the pack/herd will have to be close and not easily predictable.
That's all from me.

Yet you are encouraged to do so as they'll stay very problematic for your survivals.
- If you had lot of crops, say goodbye to them.
- If you needed to hunt, you'll have to hunt the predator first.
- If you used to let your animals eat outside, I hope you stored food inside.
- Traders may survive if they don't get close, but so might Raiders, appreciate two threat at once.
What doesn't change is Hydroponic as a solace, that's high-tech & costly enough.
- Finally, if you know you can hunt them, it might be a race before they make damage.

And hopefully it will become easier to build open colony with distinct building.

[LordMunchkin]

Animal behavior in general need to be reworked. IRL, most animals flee if attacked and only fight if cornered. Hunting should be about one-shot, one-killing animals before they run off the map not "I better kill them at night so the deer don't slaughter my entire colony." As for manhunter packs, I think it'd be more interesting if it was replaced by an event saying this.

"A virus is spreading through the population of this animal type. These animals are now more intelligent and will organize a defense against any would be hunters. As a side effect they are also somewhat less wild and thus are easier to tame."

In addition, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but predators should really only target colonists if there is no other food on the map. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing lazy ass wolves trying to kill my colonist when there's tons of other prey on the map. I feel kind of bad killing every predator I can find on the map because they're so dangerous.

[blub01]

Hunting should be about one-shot, one-killing animals before they run off the map not "I better kill them at night so the deer don't slaughter my entire colony."

that's actually an idea - the hit chances with weapons are only this low because enemies are usually trying to actively dodge, right? so when hunting, hit chances should be way higher because the animal usually doesn't see you coming. thinking about it, how about adding a "dodge" skill that reduces enemy hit chances?