Moose

[quote=“botherations, post:16, topic:9321”][quote=“Pandromidal, post:13, topic:9321”]I did some testing. The response of the moose can vary. They will ignore you as long as you stay far enough away. However if you get too close they might track you or turn hostile. Once they get into melee with you on a default character (8 in stats, no skill, no traits) you aren’t going to win by melee combat. Not even close. However you can win. You can consistently win. You just have to be creative.

The trick to them early game is:

Moose are afraid of fire. They will run from it. They fear it. So, light a fire under their ass. Light a fire between you and them and walk away. Fire is humanities’s weapon against the wild*.

If you stick with the game long enough you will learn strategies that will allow you to defeat even some of the most powerful enemies. Get creative. Have fun.[/quote]

I’ve done all that! I light fires underneath them, they just move out of the way and keep attacking me. They hardly run from it. I’ve been playing for about a year now, I don’t think this is a ‘I’m a noob’ problem.[/quote]

If your pain level goes high enough you are dead meat no matter what you do. Other than that, is seams like you should in theory always be able to defend yourself against a moose using some basic supplies like (e.g. skewers and a lighter), at least that’s been my experience. RNG can be cruel, but if it’s systematic maybe there’s something you can tweak about your character stats or early game ritual that will make the difference.

If it’s really bothering you, I’ve been playing a lot of lab challenge characters. I assure you that there is no moose underground in labs. … If you dont’ like that option you could hack the json file … you could even try to submit a PR (democracy hell yea!).

Thanks for all the useful advice. I’ll give it another go, seeing as I love this game way too much to stop playing. Guess I have to dump at least a few skill points into a combat skill if I’m going to have a chance.

It’s just strange, I never aggro wolves or bears, but I swear the moose is like a survivor-seeking death missile. And it’s not like I’m even coming that close to the thing, it usually aggro’s me from off screen. (my tile view is about twice as big as an evac shelter)

I kill moose easily enough with my longbow and regular arrows.

[quote=“botherations, post:22, topic:9321”]Thanks for all the useful advice. I’ll give it another go, seeing as I love this game way too much to stop playing. Guess I have to dump at least a few skill points into a combat skill if I’m going to have a chance.

It’s just strange, I never aggro wolves or bears, but I swear the moose is like a survivor-seeking death missile. And it’s not like I’m even coming that close to the thing, it usually aggro’s me from off screen. (my tile view is about twice as big as an evac shelter)[/quote]

Moose aggroing you from far away might be a result of the monster infighting system. Angry animals don’t really care who you are.

Actually in a way, as unrealistic as the moose might seam, part of makes it awesome is you. You make it awesome. Some developer coded Mr death missile so as to give players an early game challenge and your play style whatever the details of it has made the moose a formidable adversary that you have had to work hard (some times annoyingly so) to overcome. That means it’s not just another bland extraneous detail, but actually stands on it’s own as a functional part of the world. It’s kind of like how skeletons are no big deal for some strategies (i.e. melee heavy characters) but can be quite a nuisance/danger to others (i.e. archer or gun based characters).

Have you checked out my thread here about start of the game rituals:
http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=9594.0

If you take the time, the first day you can make your character significantly better without hardly leaving the shelter. The only thing I usually need to leave for the first day is food/survival grinding on the undergrowth in forests. Keep a close eye on your hud for moose. You can also use shift+v and then “>” to see where all the creatures are even if they don’t fit on your monitor (took me a long time to find this). If a few skill points does the trick that’s awesome but you might get even more actually from just grinding up your archer or throwing skills and having the extra points for stats before setting out on your adventure from the evac shelter.

P.S. I love how you call moose, death missiles. This needs a bad ideas thread post.