Crystal Crested Buzzards are conquering the Constant.

[yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

There is another severe problem caused by Buzzards, they eat mobs' loot, any loot! 

When the Buzzards exist, mobs spawn their corpse after being killed and don't drop their loot immediately, they drop after their corpses disappear. Now if Buzzards eat their corpse, their loot's amount, perish time and durability will all decrease! They eat more, you get less. Let's take Queenbee for a example as its loot contains a helmet and plural foods.

They eat every loot, not just food and equipment, they even eat Antlion's Desert Stone and rocks(I really can't figure out how Buzzards digest these), Moose's feathers, everything! Leave players just one item of a kind.

If a mob drops only one item, like pigman, it drops a pigskin or a meat, then it probably drops nothing after Buzzards have a big meal.

Can't figure out why Buzzards become even way more OP.

I have to say, the new lunar hail really doesn't develop in at an interesting direction.

Edited December 6, 2025 by yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Bumber64]

Should probably only affect meat items? Just prevent those from dropping.

This would likely include pig skin and deerclops eyeball, however. (Actually, how do they react to deerclops? Can they target it during revival, and do you lose the loot if you burn the corpse?)

Edited December 6, 2025 by Bumber64

[yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

14 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

This would likely include pig skin and deerclops eyeball, however.

Sorry I forgot to mention this at first. If a mob drop more than one kind of items, then Buzzards will leave at least one item of each kind. Just edited.

14 minutes ago, Bumber64 said:

Actually, how do they react to deerclops? Can they target it during revival, and do you lose the loot if you burn the corpse?

Buzzards won't land if a Incursive Gestalt can spawn to mutate deerclops. Its loot will drop after mutation completes. If you burn it, Gestalt still won't mutate it and Buzzards will land to enjoy the corpse instead.

Edited December 6, 2025 by yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Cassielu]

Such many mechanisms, they could have become interesting gameplay. All of it is wasted on forcing players to do a extremely boring, highly repetitive, and unstrategic brain-dead move combat, nothing else.

This is dumb.

[yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

Edit: I just found that the situation in my picture is not the worst one! The durability can be reduced to even less than1%!

[mima_]

oh i was like fine with the old chaotic buzzard but not this. 
this totally turn off.

[Adgycarp]

59 minutes ago, Cassielu said:

Such many mechanisms, they could have become interesting gameplay. All of it is wasted on forcing players to do a extremely boring, highly repetitive, and unstrategic brain-dead move combat, nothing else.

This is dumb.

Aggreed. To me it seems like nothing but a nuisance that kills the joy of the game.

A challenging game mechanic is great IMHO, but seems like this has no merit at all, and only adds negative value to the world.

To me it was obvious they had to be disabled in world settings to keep the world playable, and not redesign each and every pre-existing build, strategies, etc etc
It's rather useless to design something that players need to turn off in the world? And it's not optional in public servers 😕

[Waywarbler]

Seems a little backwards. I figured you were supposed to just avoid lunar buzzards as to not aggro them, but then this mechanic forces you to engage them?

And if it's a bigger mob like a beefalo or a boss, multiple lunar buzzards will come down to eat it, and you have to choose between fighting the pack or just letting them eat all the loot.

[landromat]

that's actually cool

[hoxi]

So, to give some context, the way this works is that all corpses have 3 "meat levels" (and a 4th one that's basically "none left" or empty).

local NUM_MEAT_LEVELS = 3 -- NOTE: level 4 is "empty"

The way this works might be a bit contradictory, but a higher level means less meat on the corpse, that it has been chomped on more. The starting level is 1.

 

Each meat level, however, can have a different amount of "meat", scaling based on the size of the creature (it's pretty specific how this is determined, but it's mostly intuitive).

CREATURE_CARCASS_MEAT_PER_LEVEL = 
{
	["tiny"] = 2, -- 6 total
	["small"] = 6, -- 18 total
	["med"] = 14, -- 42 total
	["large"] = 33, -- 99 total
},

 

Lastly, one other factor is the "chomp amount", which can differ for different creatures. Currently it's like this:

• Default (if not defined): 1
• Hounds: 1
• Varglet: 1.5
• Crystal-Crested Buzzard: 1.5
• Varg: 2

This is the amount of meat they subtract from a corpse per chomp. Also yes, funnily enough normal Buzzards aren't set up for chomping and feeding on corpses, but they do support the system. I do hope this changes because it's just weird to not allow them to do so, since they just stick to specific spots in one of the deserts (and they could also be less aggressive, until they start chomping on the corpse, similar to how they do with meat left on the ground).

 

Anyhow, regarding durability/spoilage/fuel/usage loss, this applies by any bite that the corpse received, scaling from the total amount of meat (so 99 on a boss enemy, to 1).

When it comes to lowering amount of loot, or overriding loot (currently only the case for Bearger right now, dropping up to 90 Fur Tufts instead of the Thick Fur), the meat level has to be 2 or higher.

Lowering amount of loot is capped at one. If the creature has one singular loot drop, it rolls a 50/50 to remove it or drop it.

 

On a boss creature, that means losing 33 meat to start getting less and less drops.

 

However, as I said earlier, durability and so are affected by any bite. I think this is something they should change, and make it so it also requires the meat level to be 2 or higher.

Or, as Bumber64 suggested here, it could just only affect meat items:

11 hours ago, Bumber64 said:

Should probably only affect meat items? Just prevent those from dropping.

 

So basically, I feel like increasing the minimum meat level to start losing durability/spoilage/fuel/usage on loot should be increased to 2, so if they do get a few chomps off on bigger creatures, you aren't punished immediately.

Or at least, restrict it to meat drops. They could just leave non-meat drops completely unaffected even, if that's the whole point of what they're feeding on in the first place, they shouldn't be eating things that aren't meat..?

 

I do feel like there also needs to be more conditions than mutations and Crystal-Crested Buzzards being nearby to trigger the corpse mechanic. Any creature that can feed on a corpse should probably be able to trigger it by being near (or at most, if they're the ones killing the creature, though Buzzards should trigger it by being near), so the mechanic gets more use prior to opening the lunar rifts.

As an example, this would make it so when a Varg kills a creature, nearby hounds will get distracted trying to chomp the corpse, allowing you to focus the Varg, just like how they do with Koalefant carcasses. This would also encourage bringing certain allies like Pigmen and Bunnymen (and Merms, but that's mostly Wurt and that's what you wanna do anyway) so that if they fall in battle, they'll still "help" by distracting the hounds.

[Pruinae]

12 minutes ago, hoxi said:

Or at least, restrict it to meat drops. They could just leave non-meat drops completely unaffected even, if that's the whole point of what they're feeding on in the first place, they shouldn't be eating things that aren't meat..?

I think them eating everything is due to their mutation, lore-wise it makes sense. Like Bright-Beaked Birds being able to eat infused shards and glass.

That said, I was fine (albeit annoyed) when they only affected spiders and hounds, but this is going waaaaaaay overboard. Either give us something to scare/despawn them and/or make them drastically less frequent (they only appear when the rift is full, for like 2~3 days then go away, as an example) please.

[hoxi]

1 hour ago, Pruinae said:

I think them eating everything is due to their mutation, lore-wise it makes sense. Like Bright-Beaked Birds being able to eat infused shards and glass.

Maybe, but any creature besides those buzzards, that chomps on carcasses (Hounds, Varglets and Vargs), is capable of doing the same thing and mess with the loot drops. I do think there should be some considerations in that regard.