koalefant Figured Out Koalefant (Whale) Mechanic (tracks)

[Zackman777]

Warning: If you're a new player, turn back now and go explore and enjoy the game a lot before reading this! 

Koalefant Mechanic (experimenting)

So I think I just figured out something about the mechanic involving Koalefants (might relate to the Blue/White Whale in Shipwrecked also) and how their tracks are placed. I made a previous thread a pretty long time ago asking about this and had some really great responses to it. If you would like to read that, check it out here: 

I'm hoping this could be a thread where people can share what they've noticed and what they think about the mechanics of Koalefant (or Whale) track placements. 

What I have figured out recently (RoG)

On top of all the info, theories, and thoughts of the previous thread I've made about Koalefants, I've recently tried something with the log up in game (Control+L) to see if a certain theory would prove true. After several attempts to try it out, it definitely was correct 100% of the time. So here's what happened: I was at my camp farming and creating more farms - I got up to nine improved farms around day five or six- and noticed there was a track nearby. I just ignored it for about four or five days only to find that it never disappeared. Note that I was always around this area and never left for the four or five days I ignored it. This was because I was only collecting manure, seeds, and grass for creating more improved farms and growing crops, which we all know are items we can acquire in a plains biome with beefalo. After the four or five days of noticing this track staying in place, I ended up having to leave and go pretty far to get some logs and flowers in a different biome. After travelling this distance, I checked the log (again Control+L) to see that another track was placed. When I decided to get back to base and checked the log, I saw that another one was placed immediately. As a result, I decided to try something out. I would travel left and head quite a distance away with the log up until I saw the game place another track. When it did, I would stop and travel back to my base, which apparently caused the game to place another track right when I got there. I went back and forth several times between these two exact points to see if it would just keep relocating the tracks over and over again really quickly. Here's a screenshot of the results from doing this within the same day in only a short time:

(The "Failed to find suitable dirt placement point" message occurred because I traveled a little too close to the edge of land at the second point once) This means that the way the game decides to relocate the tracks isn't based on any given interval of time. Instead, it's based on distance traveled away from a track by the player. I'm not entirely sure of the details of this. For example, if this range varies every time, or after finding and killing a Koalefant if there is a cooldown time before another track is placed. I'm going to definitely do some more testing in the original DS and DST, but I think I'm on to something here. Another thought I had was what if the distance was shortened in DST compared to DS, and that's the reason why these tracks appear to show up so much more often in DST (to have a higher chance of players finding them since there are more mouths to feed). The wiki article for the Koalefant and Blue/White Whale state somewhere along the lines of  "These can be found randomly in the world (or in the deep ocean) and will change locations if ignored for a period of time". I think these statements could be changed if what I'm seeing here is correct, but what do you guys think?

Anyways, I was wondering what everyone might think of this overall and if they've experienced anything that might relate to this. I will definitely be trying this out with the regular version of the game, DST, and possibly Shipwrecked if I purchase it. Whatever else I find, I'll post it here. If anyone else want to help out with this, I'd appreciate it. 

[Zackman777]

Okay, I tested it out on the original DS (without RoG) and it worked. Around day four a track appeared. I found it, ran straight right for a good distance, it placed a new track, I dropped an item there, ran straight back left, it placed a new one when I got around the original point I was at, dropped another item, then just ran back and forth between these two items. The distance would vary a little, but I think that's just because the track can be placed in a circle around the player, meaning that it would vary in distance to the other item I would have to walk back to.

[RalphKastro]

That explains why I find so many tracks when I'm walking around on my scavenging trips.

[TemporaryMan]

DST actually creates one hunt (set of tracks) for each player, which is why you see so many more.