Wild Overcrowded Hatches Dying Off

[TheScaryOne]

I've been feeding them dirt, hoping to get sage hatches, but they've started dying off from old age without laying eggs. The room I've kept them in hasn't had anywhere for them to burrow, is this causing them to not lay eggs while wild?

Not a huge loss, but I liked the renewable source of coal.

[Mullematsch]

My understanding is that wild hatches should not die unless they are confined or cramped. Basically take the eggs out of the room.

Overcrowded will not result in them not laying eggs, neither could they starve. 

[TheScaryOne]

Just lost the last of them. Your understanding matches my understanding, so I dunno why they all died without laying eggs. :/

[storm6436]

I don't remember off the top of my head if you can see all the attributes applied to wild critters or not... but it would make sense to me that if they were overpopulated for the space they were in, it would count as confined/cramped, thus pausing egg generation.  *shrug* It's 3AM here so take this comment with a salt lick or three.

[Coolthulhu]

5 hours ago, TheScaryOne said:

Just lost the last of them. Your understanding matches my understanding, so I dunno why they all died without laying eggs. :/

Overcrowding prevents egg counter from increasing. If you have a lot of similarly-aged critters, they may not die out quickly enough for the youngest ones to lay eggs.

It takes up to 63 cycles of uncrowded adulthood for a wild hatch to lie an egg.

[zOldBulldog]

The cramped mechanic is very annoying. 

I suspect that the only way to keep wild critters in a tight space is by making the room tall enough to prevent them from escaping but with an opening up top so that the room "is not closed" and is really sharing space with the whole explored space of your world.

Of course, such an approach might work for "unlimited wild critter" rooms only for non-flying critters, as fliers might escape.

Mmm... I wonder if a water lock might stop fliers from escaping without closing the room?

[Corpserule]

tldr: As far as the original statement is concerned, im pretty sure it's correct, overcrowded hatches do die off

 

For wild hatches, i tend to make holes in their rooms to connect them to the main area of your base (top right corner)

otherwise they get cramped too easily. Cramping "adds space" onto overcroweding.. i.e. if +1 hatch would make you overcrowded, and you add an egg, you get cramped, as such wild hatch farms need obnoxious amounts of space to "guarentee" no problems, each hatch needs the space of 2 hatches (itself plus the eggs it lays). If you carefully space out the egg lay times, you can get away with 1.25 hatch space per hatch.

Actually wild critters affected by ANY problem, will not "tick up" their reproduction. It should be noted that "Hungry" is not viewed as a problem, hence their resilience in the wild

Wild critters lay eggs when they've reached 50% of their lifespan as an adult, assuming no problems, you can never lay 2 because of their 5year lifespan as a child will always make this impossible. But it does mean you can get away with SOME cramping, if you want to go for the ~1.25 hatch space

Tame Hatches will actually die of old age before starving. Sinve their metabolism will slow by 80% if you leave them unfed, and will still lay a single egg, in that sense, tame hatches are superior to wild hatches, so don't worry about all your wild hatches dying as you can always make a pseudo wild hatch farm later. Note: This is not true of all animals, (Dreckos will die of starvation first, fish won't die of starvation, idk for others)

 

The eggs themselves dont get cramped as easily, so if you make a "hatchery" stable to support other stables, you can get away with making them very small. I'm not certain, but it's something like "eggs don't check for duplicant eggs", allowing you to incubate like unlimited eggs in a very small amount of space.

[fishoutofwater]

3 hours ago, zOldBulldog said:

The cramped mechanic is very annoying. 

I suspect that the only way to keep wild critters in a tight space is by making the room tall enough to prevent them from escaping but with an opening up top so that the room "is not closed" and is really sharing space with the whole explored space of your world.

Of course, such an approach might work for "unlimited wild critter" rooms only for non-flying critters, as fliers might escape.

Mmm... I wonder if a water lock might stop fliers from escaping without closing the room?

2 tiles deep water lock

[Grimgaw]

 

4 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

Overcrowding prevents egg counter from increasing.

Let's not muddle overcrowded with cramped debuff.

 

Spoiler

 

This drecko just laid an egg in this room. 

 

[Corpserule]

Tame critters ignore OC, wild do not.

 

Oh the overcroweded wild one did, idk then. *shruggs*.

I've seen OC wild critters die off due to spawning in 6 square rooms.

I admit, im not as confident in wild OC effects due to the long test period. I'm fairly confident in cramped being "enabled" by overcrowding. i.e. both count towards "space occupied", if you take the eggs away, you avoid cramped which is great for overcrowded critter farming

[chemie]

I have never understood difference between cramped and overcrowded and this thread is a good example of why

[Grimgaw]

1 hour ago, chemie said:

I have never understood difference between cramped and overcrowded and this thread is a good example of why

Each critter requires certain space (for a hatch it's 8 tiles).

If the room they're in is smaller than that, then they're confined (hatch in a 6 tile room).

If they are sharing a room with another critter(s) and room space is less than number of critters time their requirements then they're overcrowded (2 hatches in 15 tile room).

If there are eggs in the room, and once they hatched there wouldn't be enough space in the room for all of the critters, the critters in the room with eggs will be cramped (2 hatches and an egg in 23 tile room).

EDIT: Just to add; only confined and cramped stop reproduction timer. Overcrowded slows it down to wild levels ie one egg in life time.