Critter Hibernation? And starvation mechanics are a bit off.

[The Plum Gate]

It seems reasonable to have critter a go dormant rather than starve to death when wild. This would entail tame creatures going wild when not being fed.

It's kind of shocking when a great deal of once tamed animals die off due to starvation when they would otherwise survive wild just fine.

I'm also having hard time figuring out why eggs laid by tame critters hatch tamed, the 4 or 5 cycles it takes for them to mature would normally be enough for them to have reverted to a wild state.

If the defining characteristics of being born wild are not being born in captivity then I assume captivity to be rooms less than 129 tiles? However this doesn't explain how critters manage to stay wild when they're otherwise undisturbed in their natural habitat rather than hatching on the floor in the storage room or kitchen, etc.

So, my curiosity then is what happened to wildness going back up?

And if there's a possibility of critters simply going into hibernation rather than dieing when short of food - this could be a successful workaround for fixed length lives in critters.

Those well taken care of should live longer to begin with, but I suppose that's a side trek from hibernation or suspended animation ( something that's been acknowledged by the presence of cryogenics and frozen duplicants ).

Has anyone else noticed the tame / wild mechanics are a bit off when it comes to starvation? 

[AndreyKl]

14 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

Has anyone else noticed the tame / wild mechanics are a bit off when it comes to starvation? 

It has been like this forever.

I suspect that critters don't go wild to not provide player with infinite amount of meat: wild critters do not starve yet breed and provide meat when they die (it's still somewhat possible to breed wild critters). And wild critters provide meat as an early source of food and because non-wild ones do. They do not starve to not die off, while domestic ones need to eventually die off.

I would like to see some improvements and more consistency as well, but so far it works. 

  

14 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

And if there's a possibility of critters simply going into hibernation rather than dieing when short of food - this could be a successful workaround for fixed length lives in critters.

I can see that working for some of the critters, but not all.

Example:

Hibernation for shine-bugs doesn't sound like an option - their natural environment relies onto critter's light, without light there won't be food for them. And if they hibernate while providing light, it will be a cheat.

Pacus - sustainable by default yet naturally dies off either way (bugs?). Hibernation for pacus will remove them as an early food source and their 'domesticated' variant is a bit too gluttonous. Since they are sustainable by default (or were?) they do not win from the change, only lose.

Critters like Drekos and Pips are parts of stable environments so they won't win nor will they lose anything from hibernation. At most they require some adjusting to make sure they will spawn in pockets that can sustain them and that they won't die off due to temperature difference. Pips also don't provide any meat, so they aren't as easy to exploit for meat as pacus or hatches (they are overpowered as is) and don't need the normal 'die off' mechanics (instead it can be something along the lines: not laying eggs when hungry, for both wild and domesticated)

Pockeshells can be an ecosystem of their own, but they can also survive from any plant. Again, no win.

The ones that win from hibernation are Slicksters and Hatches since they do not come with ready mini-environments.

 

P.S. While I like the idea of hibernation for some of the critters, I think we need more variety of 'hungry' behaviors instead. Pips not laying eggs when hungry, some critters having separate domesticated and non domesticated branches with different food needs (normal shine bug survives by itself and domesticated shine bug 'dies off', only hatches from an egg by wild shine bug that was happy and groomed), hatches to have something to munch at (more stable mini-ecosystems).

[kisukin]

if domesticated critters lay wild eggs and only the incubated receive the tamed characteristic, this could change. Now the main question : What is fun to solve this ? in my POV, wild critters need lay 1 egg in all cycle of life to avoid extinction ( and a very slow metabolism - hibernation could enter here ); Maybe ( and a very far maybe ) if domesticated animals survive enough time in contact with other wild critters, revert to wildness. The main point about domesticated critters are the benefit/cost relation : Eggs , meat more frequently and a LOT of material output from tamed ones VS duplicant time and extra resources ( to feed, control environment).Considering critters don´t contract diseases or loss naturaly health, don´t die by overcrowding and they don´t fight eachother for space , feed and birthcontrol sounds a razoable mechanic. Thus, if you just leave them live without feed them, you could create a meat factory without worry about ( if domestic critters hibernates).

"Those well taken care of should live longer to begin with, but I suppose that's a side trek from hibernation or suspended animation ( something that's been acknowledged by the presence of cryogenics and frozen duplicants )". i like that.