Too many animals/corpses around

Game Talk The Bunker
1

Hi all! New guy here with kinda long rant and a shorter question. Also my english is far from perfect so my apologies in advance (grammar nazis consider yourselves warned).

Last time I played Cataclysm DDA was a while ago (can’t remember which version it was). Anyway I remember that during that playthrough getting enough food was, at least in start of the game, a bit of a challenge. I settled in the starting shelter which was conveniently placed on the edge of a forest so there was enough animals to hunt/butcher and get some food. But I did need to hunt to get food, and search around to find some animals. Ok there was always a squirrel or two by the shelter but you wouldn’t get much meat from them so occasional search for a deer or even a bear was necessary.

Now lets jump to present day and the latest version (By latest I mean latest stable since that is what I am playing and not experimental). Similar situation like in the last example. Living in the starting shelter on the edge of the forest far enough from nearest town. However this time when I run out of food things are quite different. I need to get some food so I open the door of shelter, step outside on the first tile, press “Shift+v” to get list of monsters and this is what I get. 3 rattlesnakes, 2 dogs, coyote, opossum, moose and a jumping spider. While its not always that “bad” I would still say that number of spawning animals is way too high and getting enough food is not a challenge at all, even at the start with survival skill at low levels.

Another thing that bugs me is animals killing each other. This sounds good at first glance since it adds to immersion but now there is always few corpses around the shelter. There is no need to attack animals for food now since you can simply circle around the shelter and butcher corpses just lying around. This also affects fishing and farming. Why should I fish or farm when I can just scavenge meat from corpses littered everywhere.

So here’s few thoughts

  1. Number of peaceful animals (or semi peaceful since average moose is an ass) should be reduced
  2. Could devs implement that predators actually eat their pray? That coyote killed that squirrel because it is hungry, not because he wanted vengeance on squirrel for killing his family. I feel this would add to immersion and more importantly make game a little harder since you couldn’t just run around and grab meat from dead animals.

Anyway here’s a few questions

  1. When playing on static spawn mode. Does spawn rate scaling factor affect both monsters spawned at the start of the game (e.g. zombies in towns) and monsters/animals spawned later in the game or only those spawned later? I want to reduce number of forest animals but I feel like number of zombies in town is about right and wouldn’t really want to reduce zombie numbers.
  2. Whats a good number of spawn rate scaling? I was thinking about setting it to 0.5.
  3. Is any of this changed in experimental version? Also how stable is latest experimental and would you guys recommend switching from stable to experimental.

TLDNR: Too many forest animals, getting food is too easy.

2

I find it hilarious that you have too much food while our resident noob Pingpong (You’ll get there one day, buddy!) can’t fond food for the life of him.

Welcome to the fourms, Mr. Dando. Don’t ever go into general discussion if you want to keep your sanity.

3

AFAIK this isn’t changed in the experimental, but it seems very stable to me and I greatly prefer it to the last stable, lots of other changes.
Also, the survival aspect of this game isn’t really about food to be honest, food is just one of the motivators to get you out of the base. Move into town if you want less forest animals camping on your doorstep.

4

Funsize you asshat, it’s a bug. There is a bug with Animal Discord that is making nearly all the animals run away from me, and is likely interfering with the spawn of new ones (since outside my house it is always empty).

5

Break it up, both of you.

Ninja, ease up on pingpong.

Pingpong, we know, we’ll look into it.

6

It may quite possible be correct that Animal Discord affects animal spawn rates. I am playing an archer who made it to summer now, living in the starting shelter, surrounded on forest on three sides. As far as I can tell, no animals spawn at all. I killed the original wildlife, and for a very long time now, I have had to live off foraging. Zero animals left in the area (except maybe 1 racoon hiding in a tree that I may have missed, but you get the idea…).

7

Wished I had taken the animal discord with my last character. Going outside my fire station and wading through the three zoo’s worth of wildlife outside my door every morning is a little crazy.
I know there are zombies, giant flies and zombears roaming the world now but honestly. Raccoons, moose, dogs, coyotes and wolfs all in one area without running off in all directions when I step outside, never mind the zombie dogs and zougars hopping around, is pretty far fetched.
Normal wildlife should spawn at current rate but be far more likely to run off and as OP said, it would be awesome if the predators actually ate what they killed, putting the character in direct competition for food.

8
it would be awesome if the predators actually ate what they killed

This is a really good idea. I am not sure how easily this could be implemented, though. Still, reducing spawn of wild animals a little and not letting them feed you in your evac shelter (via leaving corpses outside) is a good idea.

Similar issue with the NPCs, who decide to kill every living thing (except me) within their reach, but then deciding to leave the precious meat and bones and fur just there.