Better critter population handling

[Coolthulhu]

At the moment all critters have to be handled manually at least twice in their lifetime. Hatching, relocating to stables, replacing dead ones - those can't be automatized well, instead forcing the player to micromanage.

Some suggestions:

• Have critter un-bagger detect when it is in a stable and prevent unloading too many critters
• Instead of "expecting" debuff, make critters not hatch when it would overpopulate the stable
• Allow critter eggs to hatch when contained in a food container in a stable, as long as it would not overpopulate the stable

 

[crypticorb]

You're missing something. When ranching for meat, overpopulation is a benefit, not a drawback. This adds another time all critters must be manually handled, harvest time.

Doing this with hatches is somewhat hazardous, as the hatches can hurt the dupes while attacking them. Harvesting overpopulated stone or smooth hatches can nearly kill a dupe, as they have 200HP to burn through, each.

There previously wasn't much reason or use for the combat/attack mechanic, but I think it should be re-balanced a bit.

[blash365]

I guess it wouldnt hurt to have a quantity slider on critter drop-offs.

One slider of critters of type in room, another of total critters in room.

Both must not be exceeded for a dupe to be allowed to drop a bagged critter.

[Coolthulhu]

32 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

You're missing something. When ranching for meat, overpopulation is a benefit, not a drawback.

It isn't. You never want to have an overpopulation in any stable - it prevents egg laying. It's optimal to have stables filled exactly to full.

You also have an inefficient butchery process. Drown hatches, don't attack them. The optimal way to ranch hatches for meat is moving eggs out of stable and into storage as soon as possible, then hatching them in or over water.

My suggestions would allow engineering killing chambers too - a killing chamber never overfills because the critters keep dying. So a refrigerator with eggs that hatch as soon as the chamber is empty would work perfectly fine.

Note that this isn't possible in current version of the game. An "egg dropper" can be engineered to allow eggs to hatch with no micromanagement, but it won't replace critters that die of old age. Anyone who tried farming pacus knows how annoying is it to try to balance their numbers without wasting lifecycles and algae on overpopulation.

[vovik]

I would propose giving folllowing settings to stable buildings to reduce micromanagement: 

• "kill critter when age above x" or "kill critter when population above x" for grooming/feeding station
• "hatch critter if popilation below x" type for incubator?
• Egg type selection for incubator - same as for compactor but eggs only.

I will leave this suggestion in another thread so it gets read.

 

About attacking hatches - dupes can safely attack hatch whilestanding on a ladder 1 tile above floor. In case attack range is unchanged between patches.

 

[scientas]

2 hours ago, crypticorb said:

There previously wasn't much reason or use for the combat/attack mechanic, but I think it should be re-balanced a bit.

Addition of a combat job tree maybe with army helmets? Each level gives +2 to combat.

Private > Combat > Lieutenant

[Townkill]

All they really need is a critter population sensor and maybe a killbot, then you can just use existing automation tools

[Coolthulhu]

16 hours ago, Townkill said:

All they really need is a critter population sensor and maybe a killbot, then you can just use existing automation tools

Killbot would be redundant - killing critters can be automatized already.

To actually control population, the population sensor would require utilizing the "dropper" design, which is rather hacky and undocumented. It's half a step above an exploit and may one day go away without warning.

[vovik]

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

Killbot would be redundant - killing critters can be automatized already.

But refilling breeder critters is not an automated task.

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

To actually control population, the population sensor would require utilizing the "dropper" design, which is rather hacky and undocumented. It's half a step above an exploit and may one day go away without warning.

Well, i proposed exact automated population handler with all options included. This may vary in implementation, but most options needed are to auto-slaughter when age is too high and when above certain population to avoid overcrowding, also auto-incubating when population is too low. Those suggestions are not hard to implement.

[Dukeofdummies]

 

On 5/5/2018 at 4:12 PM, Townkill said:

All they really need is a critter population sensor

I feel like this is an elegant solution. It uses a lot of what already exists. The code exists to count critters in a room, stables already do it. It causes a limitation that you can only count in a room, but that's perfectly acceptable. If you combined this with an incubator THAT COULD QUEUE CONTINUOUS EGGS then you could activate it when you have < x critters.

Throw that into your ranch and Boom, simple population control. You will not run out of critters anymore and you can do whatever you want with the eggs to your hearts content. (slaughter them by drowning, combat, or just make omelettes)

[Townkill]

On 5/6/2018 at 9:30 AM, Coolthulhu said:

Killbot would be redundant - killing critters can be automatized already..

How do I automate killing a slickster?   How do I automate killing a drecko?  how do I automate killing a Puft?  how do I automate killing a pacu?

"automating killing" is only easy if you only ever deal with hatches. anything else requires extremely convoluted designs

[Coolthulhu]

1 hour ago, Townkill said:

How do I automate killing a slickster?   How do I automate killing a drecko?  how do I automate killing a Puft?  how do I automate killing a pacu?

"automating killing" is only easy if you only ever deal with hatches. anything else requires extremely convoluted designs

Dreckos and pufts both drown, so a drowning chamber with eggs in it is all you need. In fact, pufts easily kill themselves in the wild by laying eggs int water. Pacus (and pufts) are better eaten as omelettes, due to their halved meat drops.

Slicksters are the only ones that require temperature control to eat optimally, but they would require it even with killbot because otherwise it would eventually overheat from the heat of new molten slicksters (they spawn at ~160C).

So no, not really. Only slicksters require anything more than a bit of creativity. And not one of those is an "extremely convoluted design".

[Townkill]

1 minute ago, Coolthulhu said:

Dreckos and pufts both drown, so a drowning chamber with eggs in it is all you need. In fact, pufts easily kill themselves in the wild by laying eggs int water. Pacus (and pufts) are better eaten as omelettes, due to their halved meat drops.

Slicksters are the only ones that require temperature control to eat optimally, but they would require it even with killbot because otherwise it would eventually overheat from the heat of new molten slicksters (they spawn at ~160C).

So no, not really. Only slicksters require anything more than a bit of creativity. And not one of those is an "extremely convoluted design".

Did it perhaps not occur to you that you want to kill grown animals that are about to die from old age, and not newborns hatched from eggs?

[Coolthulhu]

Just now, Townkill said:

Did it perhaps not occur to you that you want to kill grown animals that are about to die from old age, and not newborns hatched from eggs?

It did, so I tested it. You should try that too and compare the numbers.

Then you could be passively-aggressively smug without it backfiring.

[Townkill]

6 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

It did, so I tested it. You should try that too and compare the numbers.

Then you could be passively-aggressively smug without it backfiring.

I'm 'passive aggressive' as you put it  because you seem to assume that things are unneccessary because you only play the game a certain way.  Your argument that pacus should just be made into omelettes for instance.  I could easily take the same stance and say that you should never even raise pacus because mushrooms are much more efficient use of slime. 

Maybe offer solutions instead of just ****ting on other peoples ideas, if you dont like people being passive aggressive towards you..

[Gurgel]

On 5/6/2018 at 5:00 PM, vovik said:

Well, i proposed exact automated population handler with all options included. This may vary in implementation, but most options needed are to auto-slaughter when age is too high and when above certain population to avoid overcrowding, also auto-incubating when population is too low. Those suggestions are not hard to implement.

I agree on that. As implemented at the moment, this is a tedious, repetitive, manual task. That is not good and makes the game worse than it has to be. One option would also be to reduce fertility before overcrowding happens so that it becomes self-regulating without the long overcrowded periods it has now.

It would also be nice if eggs could be conserved, for example to keep a reserve in case of disaster.

[Garry24]

The main problem is the inability to control the population of critters in the room.
The critters live a finite number of cycles. How to do without manual control to maintain a stable number of critters in the room always?

We have eggs, baby critters, adults critters.
Eggs can be fried. Eggs can be incubated in the critter.
A baby critter can only grow into an adult critter.
The adult critter can be killed. An adult critter can be left to live to receive resources from him.

There is no way to leave some eggs in reserve.
There is no way to control the number of adult critters in the room so that there is no overpopulation.
There is no way to grow children in separate rooms and then, when they become adults, move them to adults critters to get resources from them.

 

[Coolthulhu]

On 5/10/2018 at 12:03 AM, Gurgel said:

One option would also be to reduce fertility before overcrowding happens so that it becomes self-regulating without the long overcrowded periods it has now.

The whole deal is avoiding any penalties while breeding as many critters as possible. Slowing down production of meat and eggs is the opposite of that.

3 hours ago, Garry24 said:

A baby critter can only grow into an adult critter.

The adult critter can be killed. An adult critter can be left to live to receive resources from him.

Correction: a baby critter can be killed or left to grow. There is no benefit to waiting for meat-critters to mature, it only makes slaughter harder to set up.