Eliminate predators

Started by Shurp, December 20, 2017, 08:10:18 PM

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Shurp

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.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

RemingtonRyder

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.

SpaceDorf

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.
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Shurp

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.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

RemingtonRyder

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.

patoka

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.
surely you dont need to rebutcher corpses that you already half butchered if you leave the table to smoke a joint real quick?

khun_poo

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 :).

Shurp

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.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

Scrabbling

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.

Granitecosmos

#9
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.

Shurp

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.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

Scrabbling

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.

Granitecosmos

#12
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 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.

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Bolgfred

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.
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