Do monsters fight off screen?

[ChiefCommandeur]

So I found 3 Walrus Camps in the summer and planted 2 spider nests at each camp. Giggling through the whole winter like a little girl I envisioned the hellish welcoming party McTusk awaited every time. At last it was summer again and I went to check on the nests/camps awaiting more loot than I could carry, but there was...nothing! Only when I could see them, they started fighting and to my dissapointment there was no loot to be had

 

So my question is: is this normal? Do the mobs only get "active" when I am near them?

 

First time posting here, be gentle

[Silentdarkness1]

I think they fight off-screen.

[938]

yes, mobs can fight off screen.

[ChiefCommandeur]

But how come it didnt work for me? Was I too far away? (The camps were at the end of the map and I was almost at another end)

[TeoSS69]

They only do so when you're near.

[ChiefCommandeur]

Aw too bad I thought it would work regardless of my location. Thanks for clearing that up.

[lupadim]

But that is a bit obvious, I mean, can you imagine how much RAM it would require if they fought offscreen?

[simplex]

But that is a bit obvious, I mean, can you imagine how much RAM it would require if they fought offscreen?

Roughly the same as it is now. CPU usage would be another story, though. ;P

[lupadim]

Roughly the same as it is now. CPU usage would be another story, though. ;P

Thanks for the correction, everyone likes to be corrected for silly typos.

[jbeetle]

Thanks for the correction, everyone likes to be corrected for silly typos.

That wasn't a typo, that was just wrong. But don't worry, I didn't know either.

[zacoya]

The world isn't that big. I bet a lot of computers would have no trouble with CPU usage.

[lupadim]

The world isn't that big. I bet a lot of computers would have no trouble with CPU usage.

They already have with a onscreen simulation, just imagine something 500x larger than that.

[simplex]

The world isn't that big. I bet a lot of computers would have no trouble with CPU usage.

Some computers might. But, if any, only very few could really run it smoothly, since Don't Starve uses a single CPU core.

Performance aside, the game was developed having in mind that only what's nearby would be active. I just decided to try the alternative out (by writing a simple mod which keeps the whole world active), and even ignoring the lag the game felt much more boring. By the end of day 1, most tentacles were already dead, for instance.